Thanks again all for convincing me. This game is a real blast to play, the adrenaline just soars through my body, and most games so far have had several moments that could have been taken straight out of an episode of Band of Brothers!
Playing a medic is really giving me a chance to learn the ropes of this game. Like I said in my original post, I don't have the twitch-skills for ranking up kills, but I do like the tactical gameplay of the medic. Stay in cover, lay down heavy fire (with a very low hit percentage I admit), and just run through barrages to revive my team members: pure awesomeness 

Another fact I love the way it's modeled, is the way vehicles are handled. When one of those tanks show up, as a defender you know the shit is gonna hit the fan! Last game I was in one of the winter maps, defending M-COM stations. The first 2 stations had been taken out, but about 6 of us still remained in this zone to keep the pressure on the enemy (so behind enemy lines). Me and another medic were reviving our team members constantly, while our snipers and assaulters were taking out a large force of enemy infantry. Then all of a sudden a tank appears, and the walls around us start coming down. A moment like that, where everyone just grabs his gear, turns around and flees to cover is just too cool. Of course we got all cut down.

And the strange thing is, my score is often quite high, I've even finished as first in this game. I guess this is due to the high amount of points you get just by spamming health kits and reviving everyone you see. I think a revive nets as many points as a kill, so that really helps out.
I can also see why this game clicks for instance, and a game like Team Fortress 2 did not. There is very little memorization needed in this game. The maps are constructed organically and feel like a big sandbox, so there's no need to learn where the best spots or routes are. And the pace is slow enough for me, giving it a bonus to thinking tactically and making it easier to kill. I just remember now that about 10 years ago, I played a lot of on-line Rogue Spear (Rainbow 6 sequel). I realise now that this game clicked for me, because of mostly the same reasons.

So, it's official: I suck



But I did have a great time so far. I just tried to be a medic, but I don't have any healing stuff whatsoever, and start with some big and cumbersome machinegun... Which I feel is rather odd. I'd expect they would at least give me something to actually, you know, heal people with  

I like the relative slow movement speed, and the chaos of a firefight. All the smoke and debris really makes it hard (and realistic, I'd imagine) to kill someone. Although others didn't seem to have that problem with me...

But as I said, I just goofed around mostly, getting a feel of the thing. Staying on the outsides, and spotting people mostly. Shooting frantically at little dots far away, and then hide behind some palm tree or such. Good stuff! 

If you're talking about Bad Company I think the PC version just got a patch which is having some bumps.  Be sure to post in the thread for the game so you can add some GTers as friends. The nature of the squad system makes it so that even just one or two friends to play with can make things a ton more fun.

Yeah, trouble is I'm from Belgium, so the gaming hours are quite incompatible with you Americans, since you're all sleeping when I'm gaming (you pansies!). Or, probably working actually...
But I'll post here once I've actually played a game on-line.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm always grateful for the polite and well-thought ideas I often read here.

I'm convinced by the camp that said: just try it to have fun, and try to find a good server. So yesterday I bought it, got home, and couldn't log in all night because of some server problems.
Aah, pc gaming at it's best

Still, got a chance to try the singleplayer, and that was a lot of fun so far.

I don't play games to be challenged or for competitive reasons.

This makes no sense to me whatsoever. If there's no challenge, what's the point?

Makes perfect sense to me. I play many games for their story, for the escapism into another world or character. I often can't care less for the 'mechanics' behind the games, or how to beat them.


The answers here mostly seem to refer to playing with friends. I don't have many pc-playing friends though, my friends like boardgames more (and have Apple iBooks and such, damn them!) But I think I will sooner or later end up with Battlefield 2, and try to find a good server with old, rusty, polite gentlemen and women

It’s safe to say that I’m a pansy if it comes to playing games on-line. I’ve only seldom tried it, and almost never enjoyed it much. The reasons I don’t enjoy going on-line are simple:
1) I lack the skills my competitors have;
2) I cannot stand rudeness;
3) I get bored quickly with multiplayer games. They offer no incentive for me to keep playing.

However, the forum activity concerning the recent releases of Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Left 4 Dead 2 tempts me. I’ve always enjoyed a good fps, and even more a good cooperative game. Cooperative games of Doom or Halo are among my best gaming memories, so I’m thinking I ought to give them another chance perhaps?

These games, are they accessible for a non-hardcore casual gamer? Are there servers or sites dedicated to players who want a good time with civil players? Or am I really kidding myself here, and does it remain a hardcore niche of gaming?

Al right, it IS more an arcade game than a sim. Mission 2 of the campaign pits you against enemy bombers, and when they're destroyed, you're ordered to fly towards a ship and defend it. THe moment you arrive at the waypoint, 6 bombers *spawn* 2 clicks away from you, and start bombing the ship.

So consider this a word of warning to those expecting sim-like missions 

Well, I got it anyways. I understand both sides of the copy-protection argument, but in the end I just don't care enough to not buy a game for those reasons alone.

Only had a chance to play the first mission, which had me and my copilot flying hurricanes, and taking out 2 blenheim (spelling?) bombers, and another 4 bombers optionally. I took out 5 on the 'realistic' setting which greatly lifted my spirits because I had been shot to hell just trying to line up a shot at the first bomber. And I never was much good at Il-2. It seems a lot easier to hit stuff in any case, I think the bullets fly 'faster' or something...

It feels a bit like a modern version of Aces over Europe, or a game like that. I mean it's probably a lot more forgiving than Il-2, but still realistic enough for me to enjoy. Those sims from the 90's (Red baron, Aces over Pacific / Europe, Strike Commander etc) were often not that complex. They were games first and foremost, and simulations second, and I enjoyed them more than I do Il-2. Best of all, noone cared back in those days, because that was the best there was!

Apparantly it's at half-price right now, don't know for how long though.
I'm sure gonna get this when I get home, can't go wrong for that money!

Anyone got impressions? The demo's out now, with a couple of tutorial missions and 2 campaign missions.

The overall feel of the demo(menu, font size, briefings...) make it seem real arcady, but if I set the flight model to realistic it feels pretty much like Il-2 so far. And the graphics are simply amazing... And with simulations being so sparse, I almost feel I have to buy every half-decent attempt, just to support the devs...

These are all great ideas.  I think the problem was in trying to make additional classes worthwhile (such as the rogue melee dps classes).  In reality, the brawny tanks are likely going to be capable of doing tremendous damage to you if you just turn your back on them and attack the healer or mage.  One could argue that it should be the most damage of any "class."  This is why, in reality, I would be forced to focus on the tank, because I need to defend myself.  However, because utility skills are so under-utilized in most MMORPGS (DDO is a bit of an exception here), rogues and similar classes have generally all taken the mantle as superior melee dps classes.  Doesn't make much sense to me, in all honesty, but the tank's taunt has effectively allowed it to function similarly without being the big dpser it should be.  It's just difficult to fathom how to balance the classes effectively without the "taunt."  Interesting topic.

If MMO's could support lots of creatures, you could look at the way Diablo II handles classes. They're all effective, yet there isn't one better than the other. Just depends on playing style.

An important distinction between Diablo and a regular MMO, is the fact that there are no support classes in Diablo. They're all viable, and every class has a way of dealing damage and how to survive best. I think AoC actually comes close with its classes in this respect.

There's a simple mod for Twilight Imperium 3rd Edition, which removes the victory conditions, and replaces it with a progress chart. The conditions on this chart are related to the amount of systems you have under your control, so it encourages fighting. Look on boardgamegeek.com for this variant.

Hey Rocketman, we were all doing our best in that thread to help you out!  If you were still having problems you should've just asked.  The offer's still open if you need it.

For what it's worth, learning to fly the jet is the hardest part (along with using the radar).

Thanks, I had a great time learning this sim, and I don't regret it. I just got distracted with another game at the time (x-wing alliance I think...), and didn't touch it again.
Someday I'll try it again I would love to fly on-line, but I just don't have that much spare time. Besides, the time zones might be a bit of a hurdle

Last year I spent several months learning f4:af. In the end I completed all the training missions, could fly a bit, navigate and land and maybe even shoot down someone. But then I started on the campaign, and I just couldn't get into it. All the chatter, the cluttered radar, having no idea how to stay in formation, what the hell my squadron was doing, who were they shooting, was something shooting me? I had learned for months to fly this airplane, but someone had forgot to tell me how I had to cope with the incredibly difficult real world campaign.

it's like learning to drive a stick-shift car, and then you're thrown into Paris and have to navigate to Brussels with your compass and a screaming foreign passenger telling you where to go.

Difficult, to say the least.

Gotta agree with Sarkus here. Morrigan is fine the way she is, because they captured the mysterious, sort-of-evil, witch appearance perfectly. Part of the adult theme of Dragon Age lies in its characters I think. If you start changing them into pretty dolls, it's just another generic rpg.

Well, off course it's not, but it would detract a bit from the global experience I think. But hey, that's why they're mods, to change a game into something you like more.

It is too bad there is no camera option. Dragon Age proved you can make an excellent game with a rotating camera that can move between isometric and 3rd person.   That said I agree that I'd rather see fixed isometric done well over the standard crap we get.

Yeah, but most of the time you're playing the game in third person view, and when the action starts you get to pause a lot. In Diablo everything happens much quicker, so it really doesn't need another layer of complexity with movable cameras.

You're talking Quake 2 360 right? Because co-op on PC was great fun. Played it to death wiith my friends many many times back in the day.

Actually, I meant the pc version. I played it on both, and the streamlined coop fun of Halo spoiled me I guess.
Actually, it's not bad, it's just like Doom back in the day. The levels don't change, and if you die you have to run all the way back from the start. But Quake 2 is pretty fun, just much simpler that nowadays.

As for the clunkyness on xbox, that's because you have like 10 weapons and have to switch between them one at a time. But if you can get past the interface, there sure is a lot of old school fun to be had.

Not to continue the derail of this thread - I'd really like to play Quake 2 again, but I've misplaced my disks. I've read that a split-screen co-op version of it was included with Quake 4 360.
Does anyone here know if that's correct?

Yes, that's true. A couple of years ago there was also a PC mod to enable coop. But to be honest, it's not much fun. If you die, you warp back to the beginning of the level, and the item pick-ups haven't doubled or anything. Also, on xbox the interface was clunky and the split-screen quite small.

You're really better of playing Halo coop, it's build for coop, unlike quake.

In the original Baldur's Gate you want to use ranged weapons a lot.  You're low-level so it won't take much to kill you.  Damage from a distance will be your best friend.

Also send Khalid off by himself to die so you can keep Jaheira.  She's great, he's not.

Always have Minsc in your party.  Always.  Minsc is Bioware's single greatest accomplishment.

See, I can't do that. It's good advice, but you should be playing BG for the story and characters, not the number-crunching. So don't kill Khalid, unless you're a chaotic evil guy off course

As for a good pc manual, the biggest ones these days are for MMORPG's I think, but other than that there aren't any good ones anymore. The blizzard games were indeed exceptional, I must have read the Diablo II manual a dozen times...

On console, I think the Halo-games always have a nice manual. Some background, some info about weapons and guns, etc. Basic stuff, but nicely colored with lots of pics

I still remember days I'd go out with an axe and chop wood. Make me a house of furniture then kill some chickens and make me a shit ton of arrows and a new bow and kill my neighbors. Very fun and satisfying.

Quote of the Year!

Your math is off; if you spend 30 hours a month you're paying 0.5 euros per hour, not 2. 

Whoops, I was thinking backwards again 

(Kinda funny, we just had our minister of budget say that "for anyone who can count, 35 and 72 still makes 117" when replying to some mistake his department had made. Guess noone in our country actually learned to count  )

In any case, the monthly cost may not be that much, but the feeling you get that "you have to play it, since you're paying for it" is what always drives me away. And if it would be pay-by-the-hour, I'd be much more relaxed about it I think.

Well, I'd love that. I don't have enough time to warrant € 15 per month. At the most I would be able to squeeze in about 20 - 30 hours per month, and that's sacrificing a lot!
So I'd be paying more than € 2 per hour, which is really too much.
Then again, the one thing I really hate are the time-sinks in MMO's. Getting a horse in LOTRO involves riding a horse around for about an hour - to various preset places - , which would really suck if I had to pay for that hour... Shortly thereafter I quit LOTRO, because that blatant use of a timesink really snuck up on me, and caused me to realise that it is, after all, really all about stealing my money every month.

Does firefight ever end? Or is it more to see how long you can survive the endless waves?

Edit to add:

I hope there will be some Elites to fight, I like those a bit more than the Brutes. And story-wise it would fit I guess, if this game continues right after the New Mombasa-levels from Halo 2.

To quote myself: there don't seem to be any Elites... How come? I mean, storywise it should be Elites we're fighting, rather than Brutes. Where did they all suddenly go? Or am I mistaken, and is this fighting taking place around the start of Halo 3, where the Elites have already switched sides? Bummer though, fighting those guys on Legendary is a lot more tense than those just-give-em-lots-of health-and-explosives Brutes

Edited again to add:
Apparantly Bungie made an entire explanation about why there aren't any Elites now, because of their heresy and blablabla. Guess they couldn't be bothered to program the guys to switch sides again. Read the entire explanation here:
http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=16989

I hope there will be some Elites to fight, I like those a bit more than the Brutes. And story-wise it would fit I guess, if this game continues right after the New Mombasa-levels from Halo 2.

I hate to be the one that says this, but here we go:

The front page is a mess. It's a wall of text and even if I could find an article I wanted to read, the layout is far too cluttered. I appreciate all the work you guys put into the site, but without the proper foundation, it is all lost IMO.

Sorry, but I just couldn't keep reading these threads without pointing out the elephant in the room.

I concur. I don't even bother read it I'm sorry to say (although I'm glad to say I do find the articles well written).

I think, what draws ME in, are those big screenshots of an article, that rotate every couple of seconds. Sort of like 'these are our 5 new articles', with a nice big screenshot. I think gamespot does that... Or Bungie's site for instance.

Gametrailers has some videos of the wizard in action 

For a minute I thought they were showing a new paladin-class in action, but alas, it wasn't
Although, the wizard does seem awesome I must say.

It seems we have a winner But has noone played Anno 1404 or Overlord II? I haven't seen any impressions around here for these games I think.

Oh, and I just saw the topic in General Gaming that Space Hulk is being re-released. Dang, this is really gonna hurt the wallet...

Last relatively new game I bought was LOTRO half a year ago. Played it 3 months, and for no apparent reason just sort of... you know, stopped.
Bought Duke3D on GOG.com, and was blown away by the sheer mad fun. Bought Shadow Warrior from 3D Realms, and was... less impressed.
Started replaying Crysis, with some mods. Fun, but already completed it twice. Started learning Il-2 Sturmovik again, for the umpteenth time. This time I WILL succeed

But, still, I've got that craving for something new... And out-of-the-blue, several games have been released that seem to hit the spot. But which one to buy?

1) Anno 1404: Never played an Anno-game, and have only played a bit of Simcity3000 as far as city-building games go. But it seems to leak atmosphere, and I've read some amazing reviews of it. And I must admit, I am a sucker for theme, medieval sounding music (LOVED Medieval: Total War for that reason! And Daggerfall), and it seems to be pretty laid back and, somewhat cheery even. I think this would be a great new gametype for me to try...

2) Overlord II: Never played the first one, but again, a certain review I read really made this one sound fun, tactical and evil. Reminded me of Dungeon Keeper, mixed with some 3d action adventuring combat stuff. And it also seems to be quite a new kind of genre-blending that I haven't tried yet.

3) Batman: Well, it seems just about everyone loves this one. I like my Batman about as much as any ordinary Joe (by which I mean, I like the new movies, and that's about all I know about the guy), but apparantly this one has the words 'classic' written all over it... And I wouldn't want to miss a classic


So, anyone got any tips or suggestions? Wait for Overlord to hit the Bargain bin? Is Batman too short? Will Anno 1404's charm wear off quickly and start become frustratingly hard?

Great!!

What's up these days, with all these releases of old games? Have the big publishers just found out about releasing stuff on The Internet?
But it's a great trend I hope they'll continue, what with Gog.com and the Monkey Island games... Coupled with the increasing quality of Indy games, I have a feeling a new 'golden age' may be coming for the pc

If I would have an award for Most Played Game Ever, it would go to Duke Nukem 3D.

Me and my nephews played it for about a year straight, and we made maps for each other to play. The Editor really gave this game a longer life, because of it's ease of use. (I tried some Half-life and Unreal levelbuilding later, but never got far due to the increasing difficulty in building 'true' 3D maps). Also, the fact that we could put strippers into every one of our user made maps drove our teen hormones to somewhat extreme levels

But the reason for this post, is that I redownloaded it a couple of weeks ago on Good Old Games, and I've been playing ever since! I have now finished all campaigns (including the one from the expansion set), and coupled with a mod (DukePlus + Duke Hires) that gives it modern controls (mouselook) and cleaner graphics, it's just as fun as before!

You're constantly blowing shit up, and really doing kick-ass stuff all game long. It's such a contrast to most modern 'serious' shooters, that put emphasis on story elements and realistic settings, that I actually feel bad that Half-Life was so succesful. Don't get me wrong, that's a great game too, but the sheer 'fun factor' of Duke Nukem is in my opinion unsurpassed. I really was looking forward to Duke Nukem Forever, and it's such a shame that it went the way of the Dodo

In any case, I'm gonna start building some levels I think, and I may repost here in a month or so, and see if anyone wants to try them
In the meantime, if you've never played this game, really, try it!

A little off topic, but Blood Bowl PC inspired me to dig out my old Blood Bowl teams and I saw that this stuff is going for decent money on ebay.  So I photographed and listed my Undead team (I'll probably get seller's remorse later.)  

Me and my friends enjoy quite a few boardgames... Would the boardgame be a better choice than the pc game? I wasn't really interested in this game, but it seems to get massive praise here on the forums...

If you fail a mission and go to debriefing, there's a button next to the 'replay mission'- and the 'go to hangar'-buttons which says 'skip mission'. However, it may not always be available. For instance, I don't think the family missions have it, but most of the Alliance missions do.

I've heard that you can only skip 3 missions however.

Not a lot of help with your joystick problem (hehe ), but you know you can skip missions in x-wing alliance right?

I think AoC is more suited to a dedicated group with little time than Lotro. It's fast and fun, with short quest descriptions for instance. Lotro is a better game IMO, but it has big quest descriptions (worth reading, but not if you're in a group I feel), and it can feel a bit stale I guess.

I think with a group, AoC can feel a bit like a Diablo2-successor.

Without a group though, I'd pick Lotro I guess.

Contrary to those points however, I thought AoC was a bit easier to solo, whereas in Lotro there are quite a lot of fellowship-quests... So, I just made my reasons above somewhat... redundant

I ran it with a mod shortly after I installed Vista and it worked fine.  Don't recall the name of the mod but it was a single level that played Prodigy's 'Smack my Bitch up' while giving you wave after wave of evil force users to battle.  Was awesome, especially when bullettime triggered.

Oh yeah, I played that mod too for countless hours!

I also played through the full game with a mod that gave you full force powers, and a padawan to join you. This made the game feel a lot like the movies, and made the first couple of levels actually... fun

Just one gripe: I never truly understood the finer points of the lightsaber combat. It seemed somewhat random and hit-or-miss whether you would get past an oppenent's defense or not.

So, how does it play? I'm extremely interested in WW1 dogfighting (must have played the 2 first Red Baron games each for years), but it seems this will be a quite limited game. Just a couple of airplanes modelled, and a couple of canned missions... Is that all?

Or is it really a full-blown simulation with action happening everywhere?

Yeah, very nice interview, looking forward to the content!

I must say, it's the 3rd MMO I try (WoW in 2006, AoC last year), and thus far this one seems more my style.
I don't like the grinding (there are quite a couple of kill X bears/wolves/spiders etc quests), and the slow travelling, but it does create a nice, friendly atmosphere, with nice people. That's the most important part I think. AoC was much more direct 'fun' for me, but the fact that I solo'd all the time killed it for me.

In Lotro it's the same. If I've solo'd an evening, much of the fun of the game gets lost, and the drawbacks become noticable. But if you get a nice group together, with some friendly interaction, then it really shines! I only wish they'd come up with some better grouping options, rather than using the appropriate channels...

I'm gonna repeat my class suggestions from before, and try to make a guess as well:

Republic
-Jedi
-Trooper
-Smuggler
-Commander (buffer, pets)

Imperial
-Sith
-Bounty Hunter
-Agent (stealth based assasin class)
-Engineer (build turrets / droids)

Why don't you try the simulator mode? You don't start in a hangar there.

And here's a thread from a while back that states what you need to do to get it working:
http://www.gamingtrend.com/forums/index.php?topic=31796.0