5punk

A windowlickingly slow day at work today, so I watched all the RTS demo movies XFire had downloaded (without sound).

Star Wars
Already discussed here. Looking good, inclusion of space battles a plus, just all the beautifully recreated planets with AT-ATs and speeders tying up their legs, those flying bikes like on Endor and rebel tanks all seem a bit pointless when the Death Star turns up and just obliterates the entire planet. Presumably the "not a moon" vs. "jedi in an X-Wing" bit is a separate thing at the end of the game, it was just the flow of the video that was a bit jarring.

Lord of the Rings 2
Looks remarkably similar to the previous version, which I haven't tried, but some people had said was cack. In a similar vein to Dragonshard it seems to be doing what a modern Warcraft-like RTS does but with a slightly more distinguished heritage.

Shadow-something 2 by Jowood Studios
Jowood have been making pretty worlds for ages now, with (the last time I tried, admittedly several years ago, and an alpha release) the merest hint of a game on top. The video has some cut scenes more like HL:S than WoW, the landscapes look like Tribes II and the characters are outfitted in glowing red and blue piping like some unholy alliance of UT and Tron.

Empire Earth II
This has been out for a while, but I bought it today, partly because there isn't actually anything else to buy and I was getting withdrawals. The video I watched today was not that impressive graphically, but got me thinking (always a bad sign). It showed some British redcoats fighting some Zulus - straight out of an obviously-named film.
That, coupled with the WW2 bomber on the back of the box got me thinking of all sorts of impossible match-ups. Ancient Romans vs. Blitzkrieg, Stone-Age Gauls vs. Operation Overlord, the Carthagian Hannibal vs. The A-Team. I've no idea if this sort of stuff is actually possible in the game as I suspect it would be ludicrously one-sided, it's just that it got my imagination going.
12,000 years of war in one game.

what is empire earthII like i was wondering if u should get it

The RTS I wouldnt mind giving a go multiplayer is the wonderfully wierd Sacrifice. Totally hatstand, but most entertaining, and old as the hills, so probably quite cheap. Its also the only RTS game ive ever played where the ultimate super power type efforts actually felt quite cataclysmic.

Anyone fancy giving it a go?

I don't know about those, I'm about to try the StarWars games demo, but Empire Earth II is way too complicated to be fun. Too many "This is good against that, and that, but not against that, which is good against something else, etc". I uninstalled it after a day.

Sticky Label wrote:"This is good against that, and that, but not against that, which is good against something else, etc"

Most RTS's are like that now. It's rare you'll see gunmen taking out a tank, or cavalry doing much damage to heavy infantry.

Joose wrote:The RTS I wouldnt mind giving a go multiplayer is the wonderfully wierd Sacrifice. Totally hatstand, but most entertaining, and old as the hills, so probably quite cheap. Its also the only RTS game ive ever played where the ultimate super power type efforts actually felt quite cataclysmic.

Anyone fancy giving it a go?

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/014/014060/imgs_1.html
BAD JOOSE. MAKE GRIMMIE'S EYES BLEED. >:(

Grimmie wrote:

Sticky Label wrote:"This is good against that, and that, but not against that, which is good against something else, etc"

Most RTS's are like that now. It's rare you'll see gunmen taking out a tank, or cavalry doing much damage to heavy infantry.

Well yeah, gunmen V tank is reasonable, but In EEII, and EE for that matter, it's stupidly complicated. Not to mention that the closest things they have to superweapons have limited range. LIMITED RANGE!

The reason why the C&C series has been successful is that you just need to know that three tanks will probably beat one tank. More complicated works, but reasons are pretty self-explantatory. Apart from the rocket launchers not being able to blow holes in people. EE is a bit better, but I think they just sucked all the fun out of it and gave it (marginally) better graphics.

http://riseoflegends.com/ Looks good for an upcoming game, however.


edit/ Also, Sacrifice is awesome. Totally unique, but carries it off well.

Grimmie wrote:http://media.pc.ign.com/media/014/014060/imgs_1.html
BAD JOOSE. MAKE GRIMMIE'S EYES BLEED. >:(

you know nothing. Sacrifice FTW. Madness. Like a chimp full of hats. or something.


this post was brought to you by the green fairy. all praise the sillies.

FatherJack wrote:Empire Earth II
This has been out for a while, but I bought it today, partly because there isn't actually anything else to buy and I was getting withdrawals. The video I watched today was not that impressive graphically, but got me thinking (always a bad sign). It showed some British redcoats fighting some Zulus - straight out of an obviously-named film.
That, coupled with the WW2 bomber on the back of the box got me thinking of all sorts of impossible match-ups. Ancient Romans vs. Blitzkrieg, Stone-Age Gauls vs. Operation Overlord, the Carthagian Hannibal vs. The A-Team. I've no idea if this sort of stuff is actually possible in the game as I suspect it would be ludicrously one-sided, it's just that it got my imagination going.
12,000 years of war in one game.

Empire Earth III is out now - I grabbed it today. Here's vid of the titles, which kind of shows that it's still about the eon-spanning, absurd match-ups of the original: http://files.fatherjack.net/5punk/ee3.avi

I'll post more when I've played it a bit, in the last version there was a sandbox mode, where you could easily dominate cavemen with stompy robots, should you want to.

I obviously wanted to.

Woah, major necromancy going on here.

Blimey FJ, you must be bored digging away at old threads like this.

Just searched for a mention of the old one, since I got the new game today. First impressions are it's okay - but the skirmishes don't seem to give me the option to set starting technologies, which was where I derived most fun from the previous version.