What Games Should I Buy?

Seeker · March 2, 2003, 01:26

In 3 months my contract is up and I return to the Land of Maple Syrup with $24 000 burning a hole in my pocket....

I'm hoping that the bank will let me get a mortgage even though I won't be technically employed at the time. I can do another contract for more money whenever I want.

But the important question is.....WHAT TO BUY??

I'd like to finally get a new computer....but new computers have this strange new OS which will hurt all my old games....and I still play DOS games under Win98...

So....what can I do? Is there something that will emulate 'pure' old DOS or Win95 for these strange, pagan OSs ?

And what games to get?

MOO 3 seems like a good game. HoI. Neverwinter Nights. Morrowind. Battlefield: 1942.

Any advice on games, new comps, and staying 'backwards compatible'?

Urban Ranger · March 2, 2003, 01:35

You can always dual boot DOS and whatever other OS you have in mind. I think Galatic Civilization is a better game than MoO 3 (check the GC forum on Poly for details). Morrow Wind is better than Neverwinter Nights, particularly if you play solo.

Oh, and SimCity 4.

Asher · March 2, 2003, 01:39

MOO3 is utter ****.

Don't waste your time.

If I began writing a list of annoyances and things that piss me off, I'd need to replace my keyboard.

Urban Ranger · March 2, 2003, 01:44

A lot of would-be MoO 3 fans didn't believe me when I told them Sid knew what he was doing.

Asher · March 2, 2003, 01:45

Civ3 looks like work of art in comparison to MOO3, and I thought Firaxis dropped the ball on Civ3.

Quicksilver.

monkspider · March 2, 2003, 01:52

Hearts of Iron far and away. Not even close.

DinoDoc · March 2, 2003, 01:54

Freedom Force!

St Leo · March 2, 2003, 01:56

Serious Sam

Urban Ranger · March 2, 2003, 02:05

Seeker doesn't look like a RTS or FPS kind of guy to me

Seeker,

Question for you. How will your one year of work in South Korea help with your career, other than you got to save up a pretty penny?

Jon Miller · March 2, 2003, 02:06

do you like RTSs?

TBSs?

FPSs?

CRPGs?

Sims?

list old games you liked

Jon Miller

Andemagne · March 2, 2003, 02:28

Don't Play Games, Live The Real Life.

Seeker · March 2, 2003, 04:34

UR:
Probably not at all, but I couldn't stand another 4 years of school straight across.

Andemagne: Yeah, I'm recovering from that real life **** today...

Skanky Burns · March 2, 2003, 06:38

Seeker: If your old games work fine on your old computer - then keep your old computer!

Sure, buy a new computer for your new games, but keep the old beast too. You will have far less headaches that way.

DeathByTheSword · March 2, 2003, 07:21

Shogun: total War
medievel: total War
Rome: total War

and YES i am a Total war fan.....how did you guess?

monolith94 · March 2, 2003, 07:26

just download prince of persia FOR FREE!
from an abandonware site....

DeathByTheSword · March 2, 2003, 07:29

prince of persia.....

/me goes and dreams of the magical time a long time ago

Rogan Josh · March 2, 2003, 07:57

The two games I have spent most time playing in the last year are Europa Universalis II and Morrowind, both of which are excellent.

Neverwinter Nights was absolute crap, and I don't have any of the others.

Skanky Burns · March 2, 2003, 07:58

Hardwar is a good game that didn't really achieve commercial success. So much so that the company that wrote it now no longer exists.

EDIT: Finally found the old thread (that doesn't appear in a search) with links.
http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=52788 is the thread in question.

For the terminally lazy, the demo version is here:
http://david.hedbor.org/hardwar/files/harddemo.zip

A patch is available here:
http://zedo.hardwar.org.uk/
somewhere, which will render the game similar to the full version, only without movies or music.

The softwarerefinery links are dead - no surprise there.

monolith94 · March 2, 2003, 11:46

"So much so that the company that wrote it now no longer exists."

That's not really surprising... After all - look what happened to micropose...

Guynemer · March 2, 2003, 12:06

Quote:

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Freedom Force!

You could probably find it for $10 now. As bargains go, that's Hall of Fame material.

General Ludd · March 2, 2003, 12:39

Wrong forum...

But by the time you get back Hearts of Iron should be patched up enough to be really great. Neverwinter Nights is only good for multiplayer (not that I've played it) and Morrowind for singleplayer. Sim City 4 might be alright, too. And Master of Orion 3 is good - just don't expect a simple clone of MOO2, it's very different and unlike any other game you've played.

Asher · March 2, 2003, 14:41

MOO3 is not good.

To quote some of my adventures from another forum:

Quote:

I gave it a second shot today. I was incredibly impressed by how stupid the AI is.

The diplomatic AI is best. I was doing absolutely nothing but developing infrastructure: The same guy kept sending me messages telling me "Cease your actions!" constantly. Then he randomly declared war on me. Two turns later, war ends. Couple turns later, war again! Repeat throughout the ENTIRE game, along with the random "Cease your actions!" messages.

Then I tried turning on the auto-colonize thing since it's so tedious. I figured it'd be easy, right? Turn it on, flag planets you want a colony, it'd colonize the closest ones first. No, it doesn't. It colonizes the ones as FAR AWAY as possible first. Some 30 turns to move a ship.

What's more, it doesn't seem to remember it sent a colony ship there. So while there's already a colony ship there, it sends six more colony ships to the SAME PLANET. The first one colonizes it, then eventually the others get there and ***** "There's already a colony here!". So naturally, instead of going to one of the nearby flagged "Green 2" planets, it colonizes a ****ing "Red 2" planet in the SAME SYSTEM. Eventually they colonized all the planets (most of them worthless), and I still had 1 colony ship left. Naturally, it wanted to spend *40* turns to go across my galaxy and colonize a planet on the other side, rather than a nearby sector.

Quote:

Oh, and I forgot to mention that for some reason the viceroys built me about 25 troop transports in 200 turns, even though I had only a couple of frigates for a Navy.

Quote:

Also, is it too much to ask for it not to **** with my sliders?

About the ONLY thing you can really control in the game is the sliders for funding. But it ****s with them constantly! Not just a bit, but a LOT. Funding for military construction on a planet for example: I'll set it at 25%, the next turn it's at 2%!

It's so frustrating.

Quote:

Also:
Like 3 destroyers camped out over one of my brand new colonies.
*EVERY* turn, they'd attack the colony, it'd tell me "DEFEATED", but they wouldn't invade or anything.

So every turn, for about 50 turns, they'd attack and do nothing. I had no building damage, no casualties, I had no one defending my planet -- but they'd still attack it EVERY turn, never invading and finally taking it over.

not to mention that the AI can't seem to be able to invade planets...which kinda makes the game un-losable.

General Ludd · March 2, 2003, 14:57

I think it's good, despite some of the flaws it has. Many of the things you are complaining about I have not experienced, or are not actual problems. (if you don't want them colonizing planets 30 turns away, why did you tag it? Turning on the auto colonize AI lets them colonize any planet they want, not just the ones you classify)

The biggest problem I see with it is not saving the sitrep or actions made during a turn.

Still, MOO3 has very little problems if you compair it to some of the other games being mentioned (when they where first released). Take HoI for example, now that was a shameful release.

DinoDoc · March 2, 2003, 15:05

Anyway, here's my complete list of recommendations:

Battlefield 1942
Freedom Force
GTA III
Medieval: Total War
Warcraft III
Arx Fatalis
Age of Mythology

August Borms · March 2, 2003, 15:12

MOO3 is the most boring "strategy" game I have ever played.
The first few hours were almost fun (probably because I was clueless), but after playing it for a day I figured out how the game works and then I uninstalled it.

Alex · March 2, 2003, 17:06

Quote:

Originally posted by August Borms
after playing it for a day I figured out how the game works and then I uninstalled it.

Indeed? Only one day? Wow, impressive, considering that lots of people are saying that they need to play it for as long as a week only to feel comfortable with the interface, and they're not even mentioning gameplay yet...

asleepathewheel · March 2, 2003, 17:19

Indeed. Please August, come share your secrets with the MoO3 forum, as we are still figuring out many aspects of the game.

for example: I'm still working out how Dev plans work. can you give me some tips?

Asher · March 2, 2003, 19:38

Quote:

Originally posted by Osweld
I think it's good, despite some of the flaws it has. Many of the things you are complaining about I have not experienced, or are not actual problems. (if you don't want them colonizing planets 30 turns away, why did you tag it? Turning on the auto colonize AI lets them colonize any planet they want, not just the ones you classify)

Eventually I do want to colonize those planets, I'd think it'd give priority to the "Sweet Spot" planet 2 turns away rather than a "Yellow 1" planet 30 turns away.

The AI is inept, plain and simple. Which is a damn shame, since the AI controls everything for you.

The game is unplayable unless you're a masochist who has nothing better to do.

Asher · March 2, 2003, 19:39

(Space Empires IV Gold just finished installing, going to get back into a real game

)

Sandman · March 2, 2003, 20:21

Get Max Payne.