Nice one Ensigh Steve. You should look up Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords. If you are at all fond of RPGs, and like the way Bejewled works, you'll love it (unfortunately, I could only get it on Steam - the sequal is on Impulse, but I heard not-so-good reviews).
__________________ The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. -Eugene Wigner
Yeah I know it's Westwood, but they changed their name after getting bought, to something really generic sounding, so I forget.
I don't feel cynical about Bioware, since Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic (I believe that one was published by EA...) are both great games, at least if you can look past the technical problems. Mass Effect just a week or two ago received some long-promised downloadable content, by the way.
If it turns out that Mass Effect 2 is a phoned-in, shitty sequel, a proposition that seems almost impossible for me to contemplate at this point, I'll have to give up and join you, but I'm holding out some hope. I just wish it wasn't going to profit such a disreputable company. I'd probably pay extra to buy a second hand copy, just to eat into their wallets.
Compare the support Knights of the Old Republic (published by LucasArts, who have also fallen from grace a long time ago) and Mass Effect received, to the support Neverwinter Nights got (before they were bought by EA). Jade Empire was also badly supported and pre-buyout, but was remarkably free of bugs anyway (being a console-to-PC port, this was truly exceptional).
Edit: I suppose you could say Mass Effect was also a console-PC port, but my understanding was it was in no way as technically robust as Jade Empire...then again, Jade Empire was published by Microsoft!
__________________ The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. -Eugene Wigner
Jade Empire, huh? I should download that, it's on Xbox Originals for $15.
I don't know anything about Neverwinter Nights' ongoing support, and I'll concede they should have released patches for Mass Effect (I don't know if they did or not for Kotor, because I've never owned it). I have it for 360, and supposedly the PC version, released later, was improved in various ways in response to gamer complaints.
I think they'll probably keep making good games. Or my fingers are crossed, anyway. The good name of Bioware is probably one of EA's crown jewels, so I can only hope they stay the hell out of the way and let them make their games.
Neverwinter Nights had its final expansion released in 2005. The last patch was released July 9, 2008. That's really great support.
Knights of the Old Republic had like, one patch, to sort out some movie issues, about six months from release. I think that's all.
__________________ The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. -Eugene Wigner
Jade Empire, huh? I should download that, it's on Xbox Originals for $15.
Ah, I bought the PC version instead. $7 on Amazon for the special edition atm (it seems like there's an even specialer edition which costs more, but screw it).
My computer's probably lonely anyways, I don't think I've turned it on more than once or twice since I'm out of school.
Edit:
Love a game with playful item descriptions, last time I laughed at one was probably Disgaea. Samples from Fable II hair stylist:
Shoulder-length Hair
"So called because it has the precise length to reach your shoulders. And it is made of hair."
Diver's Dye
"A tactical coloration, this aquatic camouflage makes the wearer virtually invisible to most freshwater fish. Essential for those who've made powerful enemies in the deep."
The Chops
"Muttony."
Last edited by Joshua Adams; 08-31-2009 at 11:42 PM.
OK, having played a few more games of Civ Rev, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that there are at least even odds that the next iteration of the core Civ game does away with worker units. I've always hated micromanaging them, automating them is a crapshoot (besides which, if you have to automate some feature of your game, it isn't a fun feature worth keeping), and the Civ IV design team has publicly stated that they were more than happy to get rid of late game pollution whack-a-mole. I wouldn't mind seeing something like Rev's model, where certain buildings improve all terrain of a certain type inside the city radius (i.e. building a Granary is like putting farms on all the plains in your city's radius, building a Workshop is like putting mines on all the hills in your city's radius, etc.), make it into the core game.
__________________
"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
Yah, I bought it even though I don't have the first one. $20 is ridiculous for an arcade game. I make a point of paying less than that for retail games.
I guess I'll hold off on playing since it's a direct continuation and your level carries over, and stuff.
So yeah, there's an achievement in Fable II called "The Swinger" which is unlocked by having sex with multiple people simultaneously. So I brought two womens back to a house and went to the bed. Basically what happens when you have sex is there's just a black screen and you hear some moaning or whatever, but interspersed this time with the sounds of their pleasure was....
Ah, shit. My 360 seems to have bitten the dust. I don't get any error lights, but now it freezes after being on for a few minutes.
The actual symptoms vary slightly; at first I was getting these... columns of transparent blocks (as best as I can describe it) across the screen, with a shrill noise coming out of my speakers. It happened at first while playing Fable, but after I turned it off and back on it happened while trying to load the dashboard. I took it to the big TV and used the standard AV cables and it did the same thing. Then it started working again but only for a short while. It froze again while playing Fable, even sooner than before; and then it froze just while I was screwing around in the dashboard.
Sigh... now what do I do? Jerk off all day? At least I had the foresight to buy a PC game a few posts ago.
There are very strong rumours of a new TIE fighter game on the horizon.
Please let that be true! TIE Fighter is/was terrific fun! Heck, I've hung onto my relatively ancient G3 Mac for no other reason than that I can occasionally fire it up and play X-Wing and TIE Fighter on it.
I'd be thrilled if all they did was take the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter games and re-release them with updated AI, graphics and sound.
A couple of years ago, I ran across the website for the developers of X-Wing and TIE Fighter, Lawrence Holland and Edward Kilham. Holland and Kilham said that they've been receiving tons of requests for updated versions of the games, but LucasArts wasn't interested. LucasArts' reasoning was that there was no market for Space-Combat Flight Sims, as evidenced by the fact that none were being sold. Holland and Kilham replied that no one was making any such games at the moment, so of course none were being sold. "See?" LucasArts replied, "That proves there's no market for them."
I mean, I kind of enjoyed The Force Unleashed, but what I really want is to strap myself into an X-Wing or a TIE Fighter and bring justice/order to the galaxy!
Cheers,
Michael
__________________
“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
One of the best parts of TIE Fighter was the spin every briefing would put on each mission. You knew you were on the Dark Side. That made the justifications, loaded terms and outright lies your officers told to make you think you were on the side of Peace, Law and Order even more entertaining.
__________________ The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. -Eugene Wigner
The Dark Side? What nonsense are you spouting? Obviously the Empire is beleaguered by traitors and cowards on all sides, the Rebellion trying its hardest to destroy the balance and peace that the Empire has brought to the galaxy, probably for very sinister reasons.
What? No, I don't think I've played TIE Fighter too much, why do you ask?
Ok, so I didn't even know this but apparently Mother 3 actually came out a few years ago. I guess people who played Super Smash Bros. Brawl must have known this cause there's a character from it in that game...
For those who don't know, Mother 3 is the sequel to Earthbound, a fun and quirky RPG for the SNES. Fans had been waiting for a sequel for thirteen years before it finaly materialized. The project was originally supposed to be for SNES, then got moved to N64DD (a Japan-only addon for the N64), and then to the N64, before finally being cancelled altogether. I can vaguely remember reading about the ongoing saga of its development in Nintendo Power magazine a million years ago, and always thought it would be awesome. So I was glad when I found out like three days ago, by chance, that they had finally released it for the Game Boy Advance. Okay, it's been out since 2006, but it was never localized until a fan translation appeared within the past year or two.
I finally got it tonight, and I'm happy to say it seems like a worthy successor. If you've played Earthbound you'll feel right at home, as the gameplay, presentation, sense of humor, and graphics are very similar. But there are some departures, like a battle system that incorporates timed button attacks. You do extra damage by hitting the button at the right time, except you can supposedly do it up to 16 times (according to the game... an ant accosts you randomly and starts explaining all this, which is just the kind of thing Earthbound would do). I've only gotten above 2 one time, apparently the rhythm depends on the monster.
The only frustrating thing is that your party seems to change a lot, so you keep losing people's inventories. Unlike Earthbound, rather than having a few one-off helpers at the beginning but for most of the game using the same four people, Mother 3 has a larger cast and a chapter system, so when a new chapter begins you may have different people. I'm not sure if it'll eventually settle down and just have four, since I'm only in chapter 2. The "main character" hasn't even been with me except for the first battle of the game, so far.
Anyway, I think fans of the SNES RPGs should check it out. If you haven't played Earthbound, play that first, as it's one of the best RPGs for the system, and then get this.