The future of PC gaming - 2009 edition

[lord of the mark]

Maybe if he spent more time making a reasonable service instead of posting at pompous websites, Impulse would be better.

pompous? ha. Come on over, show people there how smart you are.

Any way, Wardell seems to be doing pretty well, I don't think he really needs your free consulting advice.

[Wiglaf]

Is Sins good or just decent? I seem to remember the demo being real crotch because of the micromanagement and I was misdiagnosed with hepatitis

[DrSpike]

I think you should stay away.

[lord of the mark]

If quartertothree is as nice as you say it is, why the hell do you keep spamming this site?

Doc Spike and some other folks I like are here.

Why are you here?

And I can say this because I've probably been playing Stardock games since before you knew PCs existed. I played Entrepreneur on OS/2.

I remember a grad student who had an Apple she used for lab work when I was in college. I remember the hoopla in the business press when the IBM PC was in development. It was clear that IBM was gonna rule the growing business market for personnel computers, cause corp IT managers were so used to dealing with IBM.


Have a nice day.

[El_Cid]

Sad news for PC game fans; Big Huge Games in trouble:

http://www.crispygamer.com/news/index.php/2009-03-17/big-huge-games-for-sale/

http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22777

They were working on a Ken Rolston(Morrowind and Oblivion) rpg as well - sh*t b*lls

[Jon Miller]

I liked RON.

And the guys of BHG seemed pretty cool.

It did seem like they didn't do anything new...

JM

[snoopy369]

RoN was popular, and good. Settlers of Cataan for XBLA was also supposedly fairly good also, which reminds me I should go find it now that I have an X360

[Asmodean]

Sad news for PC game fans; Big Huge Games in trouble:

http://www.crispygamer.com/news/index.php/2009-03-17/big-huge-games-for-sale/

http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22777

They were working on a Ken Rolston(Morrowind and Oblivion) rpg as well - sh*t b*lls

I fail to see how that can be sad news. The founders of BHG went from a company (Firaxis) that was making cutting edge games for it's genre, to making mediocre, mainstream, 14 to the dozen games.

Asmodean

[Sharpe]

Define "popular" -- how many copies did it sell?

According to this - Rise of Nations and its expansion sold more than 1 million copies (probably sold some more in the past 4 years since that announcement).

http://www.bighugegames.com/press_rongoldships.shtml

RON was pretty good in my opinion - it was nice to bring some of the Civilization TBS stuff into a RTS. Most of the founders of BHG worked heavily on Civ 2 and SMAC, which most people would admit were terrific games.

Granted their followup, Rise of Legends probably didn't sell well.

Their work on the AOE 3 Asian Dynasties was ok, but look what just happened to Ensemble Studios as well.

This is probably more of a commentary of the poor state of THQ than it is about BHG.

[El_Cid]

I fail to see how that can be sad news......

Asmodean

Sad for PC game players, in that another PC supporting dev gets the bullet(or may get the bullet). Ok Catan was XBLA(and very good by all accounts - i like the board game very much).

I wasn't into RoN myself("a whole game of civ in 30mins" kind of thing was almost the oppostie of why i game) but i was quite interested that after Ken Rolston had left Bethesda, in part due to what happened with the making of Oblivion, he was working with Big Huge Games on an rpg title.

We're kind of thin on the ground with those, atleast of the thoughtfull deep(detailed) type(which i'm speculating this was going to be - going by his work with morrowind and his missgivings over Oblivion and the direction Elderscrolls was heading).

So yeah i think it IS sad for PC gaming. And more importantly the guy who gave us Civ2 & Alpha Centuri possibly getting the can? not good imho.

[lord of the mark]

Sad for PC game players, in that another PC supporting dev gets the bullet(or may get the bullet). Ok Catan was XBLA(and very good by all accounts - i like the board game very much).

I wasn't into RoN myself("a whole game of civ in 30mins" kind of thing was almost the oppostie of why i game) but i was quite interested that after Ken Rolston had left Bethesda, in part due to what happened with the making of Oblivion, he was working with Big Huge Games on an rpg title.

We're kind of thin on the ground with those, atleast of the thoughtfull deep(detailed) type(which i'm speculating this was going to be - going by his work with morrowind and his missgivings over Oblivion and the direction Elderscrolls was heading).

So yeah i think it IS sad for PC gaming. And more importantly the guy who gave us Civ2 & Alpha Centuri possibly getting the can? not good imho.

apparently there are at least 3 would be successors to Ensemble, and I am sure there will be successors to BHG, and certainly where ever Reynolds goes will be important.

In other news, El Cid, I have signed up for Gamersgate. I will probably get X Com there in the next couple of days.

[lord of the mark]

and BTW, RON wasn't really a game of Civ in 30 minutes, it was a very good RTS game covering the same material as Civ (world history, loosely treated)

[lord of the mark]

Once again, your insight is astounding and valuable.

Its hard to be insightful when I'm responding to your trolls.

[El_Cid]

and BTW, RON wasn't really a game of Civ in 30 minutes, it was a very good RTS game covering the same material as Civ (world history, loosely treated)

Granted, but considering i always found a game of Civ(original) finished too quickly, you can see what i mean, and it was kind of marketed as 'quick civ' so it never got my attention.

Xcom - now that i'm sure is going to float your boat. Can be tricky, and brutal when a favourite trooper dies(and they die alot!), but there are plenty more troopers available for the cause, so dont get too fixated on the constant death - they are all expendable for the greater good ok. It is my favourite game of all time, even beating Elite and AR(atari800 version).

1 tip: give each of your troops a code name that reflects their skills. In the tactical battle map it really saves time if you know at a glance who the good sniper is. e.g. mine all look like this:

Before(when recruited) : Blake Steadman
After(my 'special' induction to Xcom): F30B20T50U24

that kind of thing. In that example F = fireing score(30) B = Bravery(20) T = Throwing((50)for grenades) U = time Units((24)how many actions they can do in a turn) etc

Just pick some stats that fit in the name space and you find good to know in the battle maps, going into each chars character screen to work who is good at what makes a slow tactical section even slower!! Dehumanize them now!

Base management, equipement organisation, research planning, personel hireing(and fireing!), and fighting a growing alien menace to the world

man we shouldn't see you for weeks once you get going - best game ever

[lord of the mark]

It definitely looks fun, I fooled around a bit, sent off an interceptor to fight a UFO, the UFO kept escaping and left, I think. I tried to build a second base, not knowing what I was doing.

There is no tutorial or manual of course. I trust there is some website somewhere that has info on it, if not I will ask here and at Qto3.