louist

Keep in mind that progression will be slower on release unless you plan to pay for the premium account. It might take you quite some time to move up on tree, let alone three.

I'd argue against you, Charles. I found MW2 much more of a console experience than Bad Company 2, which offers large multiplayer maps and much larger teams. Not to mention dedicated servers! It's much more in the vein of PC multiplayer shooters than MW2.

I know, for a time at least, GamersGate couldn't sell some titles to NA customers. I'm not sure if that prohibition was dropped, or if my account was somehow grandfathered in when I complained that I couldn't purchase an expansion to a game I had already bought with GG...

I've been playing it since I got home from class this afternoon. It's OK, though I have some complaints: It's a definite console port, with all the pros and cons that entails. While the game tries to offer you "tactical options"--such as the direct assualt, a sneakier back alley, or a height advantage--at key points, the levels are generally short and uninspired. Enemies seem to swing back and forth between blind as a bat and eagle eyed, making it hard to get a rea

You can hate while still being a "loyal" customer. I bet most of us are still using windows.

[quote]I'd say Starcraft 2 is, more than any other Blizzard game, a sequel. Up until now, they've really been in the business of making successors. This is the first time I felt they stayed within the confines of the predecessor's territory, and felt they needlessly inherited many of its flaws as a result. Still a good game, but not the genre-defining products I usually expect from Blizzard.[/quote] Oh, I liked that bit, and the more I think about it, the more it rings true to me.

[quote who="CoBBQ" reply="2" id="2906038"]More like 75 years from 1485 to 1560.[/quote] It's actually 55 years for a long or domination campaign, from 1545 to 1600. Not sure where you were getting your numbers.

I didn't like Empire, at all. I'm very much enjoying Shogun 2.

Looks like BioWare employees have been posting perfect Metacritic reviews of Dragon Age 2. Not a huge thing, but given the unusually mixed responses the game's been getting from players... Well, something's not quite right at BioWare.

I usually go to The Escapist for my reviews. They've been a source of largely accurate and impartial purchasing advice in the past. So when the Escapist had this to say about DA2, I immediately decided to buy it: Bottom Line : A pinnacle of role-playing games with well-designed mechanics and excellent story-telling, Dragon Age II is what videogames are meant to be. <

I have to agree with Raven here. I've played about 6-7 hours so far, and saw my first copy/paste dungeon about 3 hours in. Wow. Slightly different lighting, otherwise IDENTICAL. That gave me a real bad vibe.

[quote who="SIN-Imperium" reply="12" id="2903571"]The perfect solution is to provide a troll/griefer sandbox where when you get banned you end up only being able to post on the banned players forums and allowed to play afterwards on dedicated servers where other rude and obnoxious banned people like yourself were exiled. I'd call it a near-perfect gamer's hell.[/quote] That's not really a gamer's hell. You're creating a private club for trolls, and they will thank

While reading through the mini-game or mission text, you will definitly realize it wasn't writen by native English speakers. That said, there was never an instance where I found it terribly distracting or where it interfered with the game itself. It's a solid throwback to older space-trader or Innerspace-like games, and I reccomend it for the price. Some of those text-based minigames are mind boggling. And those RTS-styled tactical games can be a nice diversion once in a while. They p

I enjoyed the demo campaign. While it was too brief to get a real picture for the game, it definitely had some retro/nostalgia vibe. which I ate up. Got all of 4 hours sleep before class today.

[quote who="OMG_pacov" reply="30" id="2894526"]heh... side note - pretty sure Brad will read any post with his name in it (at least skim it - wouldn't you?). No reply means... something. [/quote] Oh, you are a sly one. But I think Brad's too smart to raise to your bait!

Downloading now. Raven- I have given Empire a few plays with later patches, but overall I still wasn't that into it :( But, I will forgive them. Because of Shogun.

Hey, thanks for the head's up Raven. Shogun still stands as one of my favorite games, and I'd like to see if CA have worked out the bugs and just plain mechanical wonkiness that ruined, for me, Empire.

I'm wracking my memory here to try and recall which games have used a similar "shared unit" mechanic... Perhaps Warcraft 3 did, if Starcraft did. I can't recall, but it's possible the Earth: 2150 series of game did, as well. For dedicated co-op campaigns, you could check out Red Alert 3 (OK game, shitty DRM) or Starcraft 2 (Great campaign, toxic multiplayer). I don't think either has the unit sharing you're looking for, but it's something.

Tydorius: Shogun: Total War 2 Empire: Total War (various editions/expansion) Dawn of War II (various) Those titles require Steamworks to run, and all are for sale in the Gamers Gate catalog. The upcoming DoW II expansion and Shogun 2 certainly aren't past the initial profit period.

I tend towards the largest map sizes when I play strategy games. The more epic I can make a game, the better.

Lol, thanks for the info, Heavenfall. I tended to go the opposite and make elaborate mazes a la evil genius or dungeon keeper, which backfired every time :)

I've just finished the third or fourth campaign mission, and I'm not enjoying it. I'm just finding it too tedious; there's a definite feel that they threw in a lot of make-work, forcing you, especially early on, to spam the heck out of prestige items. It is, I've found, a fairly shallow game, built around three mechanics: resource conversion, matching appropriate monster spawns to appropriate hero spawns, and designing a path for the heroes to take. The wow-style talent tree didn't re

It is indeed. I've only read book one myself, but every time I see your avatar I get the urge to load up RotTK 11 :P

Not my kind of game, but I too give a +1 to Paradox. Also, since I'm barely on-topic as it is: are you a Three Kingdoms fan, Xia?

Eh, it is a flawed list. Tropico 3 is inferior, outside of visuals, to either of its predecessors. It was simultaneously dumbed-down and injected with game-lengthening tedium and busywork. The mere fact that it's on the list makes me rather suspicious.