Disappointing new games

Anything you want to discuss about games besides MoM
Post Reply
User avatar
Implode
Site Admin
Posts: 433
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:35 am
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Contact:

Disappointing new games

Post by Implode »

Normally I try to keep on topic... but I just had to have a bitch about 2 games I was really looking forward to.

I'd been eagerly awaiting the demo for C&C3 to be released, since I am a big fan of the C&C series. Downloaded it yesterday, played the demo mission and a few skirmishes and... ok it doesn't play too bad, the framerate is just about acceptable (on a small 2 player map) and the movie clips look great, but the control system is awkward, half the screen is taken up with pointless HUD displays, it is THE worst game I've seen for the camera being stuck too low so you can't see enough of the battlefield, but worst of all after playing it for less than 24 hours I feel I've already seen most of what the game has to offer. Sure the full game has another race... but if it only took me a few hours playing with the GDI and NOD structures, I don't see the Scrin are going to be much more exciting. So, this will be the first C&C game I'm not buying. I'll go back to playing C&C Generals which I still play almost daily, looks beautiful and runs at a really nice frame rate even in 1920x1200 at the highest detail level on the big 8 player maps.

So I also checked out the Supreme Commander demo, since I was also a big fan of Total Annihilation. I even still install and play it sometimes. The most amazing defining feature of the original TA was that it featured fully rendered 3D units years before other games were including any 3D at all, and it still ran at a really nice frame rate on PCs of the day. So upon trying out Supreme Commander, I was starting to be filled with nostalgia that they'd kept the same control system, same build system, same buildings (roughly), you can zoom the map to any level you want. I did find it really hard to find a zoom level which was far enough out to be able to see your entire attack force, but close enough in to be able to tell what's going on... but ignoring that... as I started to build more and more units, the frame rate dropped and dropped, until by the end of the mission it was crawling at barely over 1 fps! And I might not have THE most expensive graphics card available, but its still pretty darn good! Turned detail levels right down, turned resolution down a bit, no joy at all. Seriously, WTF?

So the only game I'm even considering buying now is Baldur's Gate II. I know its a bit old, but I enjoyed the original (much more than Pools of Radiance... despite being a huge fan of all the SSI gold box games). So forget games, at least there's still the new Transformers movie to look forward to this summer :)

Implode.
Lupinedreams
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Jul 25, 2006 6:40 pm

Post by Lupinedreams »

You're going to be very, VERY happy with BG2 if you enjoy RPGs in general and especially black isle games. To this day I think it's one of the best RPGs made in general - interesting characters, good story, lots of options on how you want to go through the game, and consequences for your actions - That, and it has Viconia.

edit: Actually, picking up BG2 will probably mean MOMIME going on hold for a while - it's an engrossing game, definitely fun. Do make sure you patch it, though.

Also, it uses the old (second edition? I'm still used to the first, heh) ruleset, if you're used to later sets, that can be a bit confusing to some people at first.

Edit2: The newer pool of radiance with coop multiplayer options? Sucked. So. Bad.
Tekee
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 6:53 pm
Location: Russia

Post by Tekee »

Damn right Baldurs Gate will be very very good!
Though I really had a difficlut time finding it , I bought it once in 2003, then again this time with it's expansion at Jan 2005 :)
I boguth the Collecters Set becuase on the box it said that it would include a bonus disck that includes the soundtrack, unfortueately it dosen't and it was actually a Misprint on the box, but i didn't figure thios out till spending hours trying to find out what happened to my soundtracks!

You liked Comand and Conquer Generals?
I thought it was horrible, at I don't know how you would be able to play it almost daily, ah well there is a good review on Eurogamer that explains perfectly how I feel
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=4358

All in all, C&C Generals is a hugely disappointing game; but there's one further element of it, which represents the final nail in the coffin for many, and that is the fact that the game is pretty offensive in places. The first American mission is the liberation of Baghdad, featuring Arabic enemies who drop anthrax-filled Scud missiles on busy market squares in the city to keep you out; early GLA missions include one in which you must destroy UN humanitarian aid convoys in order to steal their supplies, and then destroy villages where people take the aid for themselves, followed by a mission in which you must kill at least 300 civilians with chemical and biological weapons. Oh, and your weapons of choice include suicide bombers, tractors loaded up with evil chemical sprays and anthrax bombs.

Yes, we know that this isn't much worse than what the forces of NOD used to get up to in Command & Conquer - but this time it's not the forces of NOD we're talking about. C&C's new real-world setting should bring with it a slightly more responsible attitude, but it doesn't - instead we get propaganda by medium of videogames. Perhaps this will go down well in the USA, but for us, it's left a bitter taste in our mouths. Videogames are no place for political statements.

Yup, Red Alert 2 was wayyyy better then Comand and Conquer in my opinion, but if you look at the user reviews you can see that the average score was 8/10, so I guess that I am in the minority but the haters of C&C3 are heard! 8)
User avatar
Implode
Site Admin
Posts: 433
Joined: Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:35 am
Location: Newfoundland, Canada
Contact:

Post by Implode »

Well, BG2 sucked... I couldn't even play it past the start, it being locked in 640x480 was bad enough, but even with that I couldn't believe how dated the interface felt.

(Looking back at my original post) I've even now decided I hate the new Transformers Movie... not that it was altogether bad, but because of the direction its pushed Transformers into for future TV series (no point explaining myself on this one any further unless anyone else has seen how awesome the latest Japanese series Transformers Galaxy Force was before they ruined it with bad editing, dubbing and (worst of all) the most atrocious music imaginable turning it into Transformers Cybertron).

I have however dug Starcraft out again, seeing how far they've got with Starcraft II has got my interest in this going again, and it looks like they're doing everything right - its beautiful full 3D but all the units are instantly recognizable and I'm hoping it will feel just like the original, just with more awesome graphics and a few new units.
Tekee wrote:You liked Comand and Conquer Generals?
I thought it was horrible, at I don't know how you would be able to play it almost daily, ah well there is a good review on Eurogamer that explains perfectly how I feel... All in all, C&C Generals is a hugely disappointing game
Playing Starcraft again has made me realise one of the other things I really like about C&C Generals... there's no "funky weapons" (for want of a better name). I love Starcraft, but I do feel its somewhat ruined by all the special units with weird attacks, I mean come on, my fleet of Protoss Air Carriers wipes out lines of defences and units without taking a hit but the suddenly because a Defiler spits some red goop on them, their health drops down to 1, completely bypassing their shields? And the funky dark cloud? Acid spores? The green goop the Queen spits out? Science vessels making units invulnerable? The game is stocked full of funky weirdness that in many ways ruins it for me. C&C Generals has none of that... the closest I can think of is the China generals power which increases your units firepower for I think 30 seconds at the 3rd power level, but at least it doesn't make them invulnerable. All the Generals powers & superweapons are I think very well balanced, even things like A10 strikes and nukes do enough damage to knock out a building or tank formation or two, but they don't just wipe out an enemy base to the point that you can win the game from it. C&C Generals is in the most part just a straight out fight which is how I like it to be :) Until Starcraft II comes out, C&C Generals is definitely my favourite RTS.

Implode.
Magnate
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:24 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Post by Magnate »

Implode wrote:Well, BG2 sucked... I couldn't even play it past the start, it being locked in 640x480 was bad enough, but even with that I couldn't believe how dated the interface felt.
Er, you can play BG2 at higher resolutions (hmm, not sure if you need the Throne of Bhaal expansion for that). It's a pity you didn't like it, but I guess that bodes well for the MoM-IME project! (Hi btw, this is my first post - came across your site today and saw a ton of progress since I looked a year or two ago - congrats.)
Tekee wrote:You liked Comand and Conquer Generals?
I thought it was horrible, at I don't know how you would be able to play it almost daily, ah well there is a good review on Eurogamer that explains perfectly how I feel... All in all, C&C Generals is a hugely disappointing game
Playing Starcraft again has made me realise one of the other things I really like about C&C Generals... there's no "funky weapons" (for want of a better name). I love Starcraft, but I do feel its somewhat ruined by all the special units with weird attacks, I mean come on, my fleet of Protoss Air Carriers wipes out lines of defences and units without taking a hit but the suddenly because a Defiler spits some red goop on them, their health drops down to 1, completely bypassing their shields? And the funky dark cloud? Acid spores? The green goop the Queen spits out? Science vessels making units invulnerable? The game is stocked full of funky weirdness that in many ways ruins it for me. C&C Generals has none of that...
... which is exactly why I think SC is the best RTS ever and Generals is ... meh. To each their own, I guess. To me the "funky weirdness" is what makes the game great - everything is vulnerable to something, and nobody can be certain of victory until the very end. Too many strategy games are decided well before halfway, with the rest of the game a tedious wait for the inevitable outcome.

So here's hoping for optional funky weirdness in SC2!

Cheers,

CC
elliott20
Posts: 108
Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:56 pm

Re: Disappointing new games

Post by elliott20 »

the thing is though, for a game with wildly divergent game play styles, Starcraft is amazingly well balanced.

To me, the issue here seems to be just a simple matter of taste for implode. I get the feeling that implode likes games that have something familiar conventions to relate to, and unfortunately most Sci-Fi genre stuff goes far into the realm of weird that it removes elements of immersion for him. On the flip side, C&C Generals is very much grounded in reality.

you know what game I think you oughta try out, implode? Rise of Nations.
Korenn
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 8:07 pm

Re: Disappointing new games

Post by Korenn »

The thing that made me stop playing baldur's gate 2 was the npc's that kept interrupting the game with their own inane stories. I'd be halfway into some dungeon with still quite some things to do, and suddenly my healer walks up, blabs out some nonsense story and walks off, leaving me stuck out there. stupid system.
User avatar
Lucern
Posts: 113
Joined: Sat Jun 02, 2007 9:13 am

Re: Disappointing new games

Post by Lucern »

lol Korenn, I know exactly what you mean - I always started multiplayer games of BG 2 and transferred the party over to a single player game so that I wouldn't have to deal with the NPCs in the game. The thing is, though, that all of the Infinity games succeeded on their offering of a deep and old school D&D RPG. Icewind Dale succeeded by being particularly brutal in the area of party strategy. BG2, however, seemed to be most popular because people liked the party interactions. I didn't care about that. I was all about the rest of the game - in fact, I'm playing a modded version that lets you set whatever resolution you want, not to mention it being jam-packed with new quests, areas, and monsters.

As for RTS...I liked Starcraft...played it for more than a year. Nowadays though, I can't accept anything less than an AI-modded Dawn of War, with its 9 factions, gratuitous violence and pulse-pounding constant combat. Starcraft 2 will be probably be good and much better balanced, I'm sure, but in terms of sheer Let's-get-together-and-destroy-the-AI multiplayer fun...Dawn of War 2 is more likely to have my lasting attention.

As for our nearly deceased and dearly beloved genre of the strategy game with tactical combat...I lament that more than developments in any of these other genres.
McTaff
Posts: 7
Joined: Sat May 03, 2008 12:38 am

Re:

Post by McTaff »

Magnate wrote:
Implode wrote:Well, BG2 sucked... I couldn't even play it past the start, it being locked in 640x480 was bad enough, but even with that I couldn't believe how dated the interface felt.
Er, you can play BG2 at higher resolutions (hmm, not sure if you need the Throne of Bhaal expansion for that).
Correct, you could play it in higher resolutions. Been a while since I have played though.
-

-
Reading this thread, I had the urge to dig out all the old D&D games. This is what I thought of them, after the Gold Box games:

BG 1 and 2 were great games. BG 1 was just great. I got it when it was still fairly new and I have five separate copies to date! The Tales Of The Sword Coast was kinda strange, seemed to have some odd rewards (like fighting your way through countless werewolves, all the way to the end only to find a werewolf slaying weapon - which would have been more useful at the START), but was a good addition. Dark Side Of The Sword Coast was a fan-developed addon and I've heard lots of good things about it, although I have not played.

In addition, there is a 'port' program that allows you to import all the BG 1 game into the BG 2 engine. It's called "Tutu". (A play on "To 2")

BG 2 was a blast at first. It kicked you in the nuts and fed you sugar, and somehow hooked you in big time. However I found that the real fun in BG 2 was mostly at the start and middle. I tended to play 'against type' by having strange dual- and multi-classes (like Kensai/wizard dual weilding hammers, or cleric/ranger, etc). On paper they look very powerful, almost unbalanced. However at the end of the game it tended to become a whitewash unless you had a standard party of three fighters, one mage, one thief and one cleric. The end battles tended to be over in about two seconds, with my character being a puddle of slish. So to be a fighter or paladin was the only choice to manage against that, or maybe I just sucked at the game. Anyway, I still enjoyed it, despite being splattered 9 times out of 10 in the endgame.

Icewind Dale 1 was a great game. I loved it to pieces. The "Choose your own party" meant that you could fill all the niches, and have at least one of all the four monster food groups in your party without having to find them. The whole thing worked so well. Icewind Dale 2 was a step in the right direction, incorprating the new ruleset (3rd edition). I loved it as well, can't say enough how great it was.

Temple of Elemental Evil was a disappointment - it was a complete debacle. There were bugs that made it a complete pain to play, and the patch simply rendered the game unplayable (which I suppose 'cures' the bugs!).

The 'new' Pool Of Radiance I found was exciting to play for about twenty minutes, then I found the whole thing unwieldy. It was buggy and slow - yeuch.

D&D Online (Stormreach) was great fun at first but as far as MMO's go it had a lackluster player base and although it had some really nice innovations (such as being able to jump and grab ledges, etc), it just became a click-fest and rogues (which I love playing) were nigh useless in combat at the maximum level at the time I played, unable to deal any damage.
-

-
Recently:

I've been playing Age Of Conan, which I do enjoy despite the countless bugs and imbalances that pop up. I recommend it to anyone who is patient, as there can be the occasional frustrating period, and there are some areas that need desperate improvement. But as far as MMO's go, for it's age it is doing quite well (WoW at this stage was a LOT worse).

Offline, I've played through Fallout 3 which I am absolutely stunned by, as it is an astoundingly awesome game. I have not felt so overpowered yet so feebly fragile since the Aliens Versus Predator 2 game. Creeping through subway tunnels armed to the teeth, yet terrified of what could be around the corner - priceless. Once I get back home I'll fire that game up again and play through it; and the downloadable content is looking to expand the game more, which makes me even happier.
Post Reply