NelsMonsterX

I use a notebook and it works great! Just be sure you get a nice GeForce Go Mobile card like the 8600GT that I have. I would order from a company like Dell that allows you to "build your own," that way you can design it for gaming. I got their cheapest model that allowed me to use the 8600GT and I elected to stick with XP since it was going to be a gaming machine. I don't think they offer XP anymore, but I think Vista is finally nearing getting the kinks worked out in

[quote]They need a better defined standard for this sort of thing. Like 'minimum' means, "This game will run smoothly on low settings with this hardware, even in multiplayer." Recommended, to me at least, should mean, "This game will run smoothly on mostly high settings with this hardware, even in multiplayer." [/quote] That's a great idea. In fact, I'll go one further and suggest that all games (especially those under the Games for Windows banner) should have three</em

Hey, at least your wife's a gamer! I gotta sneak my computer like I was going to a speakeasy or something because she hates videogames. You should definitely get her her own computer, she deserves it! p.s. I'm also nearing the necessity for an intervention over KB:TL. ;)

[quote who="RandallFlagg" reply="13" id="2010571"]Hmmm, you know what would be sweet? A space-based MMORPG. Instead of a character, you could have a ship. Group with other players to form fleets, fly through space, terrorize other ships. Or stay lone, become a space pirate. Level up and acquire upgrades for your ship. Could be cool... I see the potential. [/quote] Star Trek Online should launch this year and it sounds exa

Has anyone noticed how many new games are advertising the minimum system requirements only? This is really starting to bother me, because a game is typically unplayable (for me anyway) at the bare minimum settings. Many games don't even look nearly as good as they could when running at the recommended requirements. It bothers me to see a new game that the company tells me is playable on my system, but just because you can actually make it run doesn't mean it will be

[quote]There is still "quick build" but that simply, at a cost, gets supplies to that town a lot quicker.[/quote] Will this be like in GalCiv2 where the default ships are really pathetic compared to what the player can build? Or will the default ships be able to hold their own?

I am 100% behind the future of TV migrating to the internet. I'm more than happy to watch the random ad here or there as long as certain "legacy" and current TV shows are available to me at anytime. I think the internet is truly the future of television. However, many companies seem about as reluctant to do online TV justice as the auto industry was when building the electric car. Two of the worst offenses that need to be addressed before online TV is ba

Yes, please post some video soon! I'm all in for breathtaking battles, too! [quote who="lamperti" reply="13" id="1974666"]One of the issues I have with games where you design units (Usually space ships,) by putting together things you have researched and/or built is that you find yourself needing to create a new design everytime there is an incremental change in technology. I.e. I have just researched shields that are +5 instead of my shields that are +4, so I need to desi

I've been slowly moving from RTS/TBS/strategy hybrids like Total War with plenty of action to pure TBS/strategy games that aren't heavy in the action department. I'm finding that the more a video game simulates a board game feel, the more I like it. The Europa Universails series seems incredibly deep, but I was scared away by GalCiv2 for years and have finally begun to learn it and love it. So would anyone recommend the Europa Universalis for a player like me?

[quote who="Orodum" reply="3" id="1973503"]no, planning out the grand strategy for the entire armed forces for the course of a war is a job for utter morons who don't believe the time proven truth that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Thinking on your feet is what every true commander does. a grunt does no thinking at all - they only do what they are ordered to, no more, no less. TBS="lazy idiot who can't take the heat of a real game" that was for ca

Also, thinking on your feet is for grunts. Planning out the grand strategy for the entire armed forces for the course of a war and beyond is a job for commanders. So, RTS="armchair grunt" and TBS="armchair general" natch! ;)

[quote]RTS TBS --------------------------------------------------------------- LESS FILLING! TASTES GREAT![/quote] LOL! I don't wish the death of the RTS genre. I just feel it has more in common with a shooter or action game than a strategy game. I haven't tried SupCom, and I should. I understand Starcraft to be a classic of the genre with meaningful differences between factions as well. But none of the dozen or so RTSes that

[quote who="The Wicked Flea" reply="6" id="1973024"]Can we avoid these silly topics? Subjectivity is just a clash of opinions, and no amount of agreement or disagreement can make either position right. In the end it all comes down to taste, nothing more. TBS is little more than Risk with 1,000 variables you must track, yet no pressure nor micromanagement. Maybe that's why I struggle to like the TBS, because it's more like work. A lack of pr

I've been thinking lately about how turned off I am by RTS games, and why I love TBS games much more, and I made a rather stunning observation about the nature of the average RTS game: they're nothing more than glorified games of Tetris! Think of how the simple gameplay of Tetris begins with a slow pace, allowing for more careful decisions and placement of tiles, and also how it progress in speed and requires less and less thought and more reaction or reflex based actions. This is

Found this new interview from the VP of Paradox about Majesty II: http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/majesty2thefantasykingdomsim/interview.html

[quote]But it would be nice to have, together with changeable difficulty settings during the game.[/quote] Now that would be nice. I've often wished I could tweak the AI difficulty in-game while playing GalCiv2, to find my perfect setting quickly and easily. I also forget what difficulty I'm even playing on in the first place anyway! :P

Will Elemental be multi-threaded to let the AI take advantage of multi-core cpu's? I've heard that the more cores, the more human-like AI can get. So, in the near future, we'll see 100 or even 1000 core CPUs that will be able to mimic human behavior completely.

[quote]I think if such a mode was used, I would probably play it often. Gives you a really good opportunity to utilize end game techs. [/quote] Why not just use the "all techs available" option when you start though? The only way I can see a use for keeping the game going after a victory is to completely influence the whole map 100%for the sake of vanity. The Total War games give you the option of trying to paint the map one solid color after completing your objective an

[quote]That made me think : will there be non-mount animals? If I remember correctly, Frogboy has written than non-sentient creatures couldn't be part of your troops by themselves. But will it be possible to have animals with handlers? And if yes, will the handlers be able to release the animals during the battle?[/quote] Has there been any mention yet of wild animals? Will it be like typical RPGs where as you roam the landscape and bump into wolves, bears, and such?&

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="10" id="1961620"]If you disconnect from a game, the robot would go find another game. These are virtual players so they're going to do what any normal player would do.[/quote] But if we continually abuse the bot-AI by bailing on games with them, won't they rise up and take revenge against us like Cylons and Terminators? ;)

I think adding crazy creatures like giant chickens would turn a lot of people off. Stardock would be wise to stick to classic fantasy rather than Final Fantasy.

@Solam I'm trying to encourage my kids to stick with PC gaming, too. They use an older computer of mine and get to play all the Lego games and movie/cartoon tie-ins, but they do come home from school asking about PSPs, Wiis, PS3s, etc. because their friends are starting to get them. So far so good though, they have plenty to do between their games and the tons of stuff they can do/watch online. I'll never buy a console again--I just hope I can instill that value

You guys better be careful or you'll blow his head up into EA CEO-sized proportions!

I really don't get the "demos suck" argument. Most demos give me a great sense of what the game is like and leave me either wanting more or caring less. Do people expect to be given half of the game or what? If the size of demos reached expansion pack proportions then they'd be giving away free content not free samples. Besides, who wants to download huge demo files? I have a hard time finding any need to pirate because the demo sucks.

Thumbs up on the art from me too! I can't recall anything else on the PC that looks like it, which is a very good thing. With a limited budget and a desire to go 3D, most TBS devs are satisfied with last-gen graphics. I'm glad to see Stardock thinking outside the box to make Elemental stylized and somehow modern.