goodgimp

Armored Princess is, indeed, a terrific game :) To answer your question, yes, I would imagine that complex, in depth strategy games are difficult to make. I think a great part of the difficulty comes from the design aspects, though. Buggy games can be patched, fixed, and tweaked, but gameplay and the "soul" of the game.. that's either there or it's not. The trouble is, what's "fun"? I don't know. Why do I like the Civ4 mod Fall From Heaven 2</e

Are you sure there's no LAN? The Beta schedule, the way I read it anyway, seems to point otherwise: Initial build provides basic multiplayer (player hosted – client/server) Beta 2A: Persistent stat tracking Beta 2B: Stardock hosted option. Notice #1 is "player hosted client/server". That says to me you're running your own show, not going through Stardock ala the Beta 2B option.

The reason I like having elemental damage types is that it's intuitive. If I'm fighting a Fire Elemental, I'm going to know that my flaming swords aren't doing a whole lot. But hey, if I'm fighting a giant tree creature I sure bet it'll be effective!

Here, here! I'm still rather annoyed that Microsoft even released a 32-bit version of Windows 7. I mean if they're after the Netbook market, then have 64-bit Windows and a special Windows Netbook SKU.

Bellack, I think it's safe to say that if you're a fan of AOW:SM you're going to like Elemental a lot. In the meantime, I might recommend the Fall From Heaven II mod for Civ4. While it does not have tactical combat, it might hold your interest for a while until Elemental is released. I've been playing it for a long while now and I'm still having a blast with it.

Given the GFWL "experience" thus far, I'd rather have a rabid badger shampoo my crotch than buy a game off of the service.

Mmmm, let me see if I can find the details for you.... here we go: - New Ogre playable faction - New Goblin playable faction - New Dragon playable faction - 24 new Hero avatars - Ships added for each race - New terrain mini pack - Four new Campaign locations on the world map - New Event conditions - New Hero classes: Tyrant, Horde Master, Dwarf Master, Wizard - New Magic Spheres: Time Magic, Goblin Magic, Light Magic, Dwarf M

I would agree with you, Rish, except that Gamestop's track record for breaking release dates on games [b]published[/b] by digital distributor's is shocking. The distribution deal with GameStop states that Matrix Games cannot release the game for digital sale until it is "widely available" in retail, so that digital sales don't hurt them too bad. Unfortunately, if Matrix wants to get their game carried in retail, that's the kind of crap they have to sign to. Then Gam

Oh no. Not here too... stop, evil threads, stop! Let me sum up the situation for you since I'm unfortunately far too familiar with it than is healthy for my mental well-being. (TLDR version: Customer was issued a refund before contacting Consumerist, Stardock has since fixed the problem.) 1. The developers of Warlords put in tricky code to make all random numbers result in 0 if the copy protection was removed from the game. 2. Enlight, the

YES Holy cow next week is going to be a strategy game orgy. Sins beta, Armada 2526, and Solium Infernum ! Gimme gimme gimme

nammafia: Originally it was "end of November" but I read a forum post from the Dev somewhere that it'd most likely be sometime in December, but he didn't have a precise date.

Battles in AoW are turn-based tactical. If you haven't tried the game before, I'd recommend trying to pick up Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic. It's an expandalone to AoW2. The game holds up very well even today, IMO.

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by "a threat". Neither are subscription based games, they were released a couple years apart... there's no reason not to buy both. Whoever wanted Sins more likely than not has it by now.

Yes, I'm quite interested in this title. I was watching the videos thinking that it looked similar to Sword of the Stars (which I love), but then I saw ground troops battling it out on a planet surface while suffering orbital bombardment. That pretty much moved it into "must buy" category.

Yes, there's typically only one way to get a "Gold" victory, but Gold victories are not required. It's more of a matter of pride and perfection than anything. Elven Legacy, for me, is an okay game. As others have said, it's more of a fantasy chess game than a real strategy game. You're presented with a scenario, and must develop a strategy to complete that scenario in the given number of turns. It's not an open-ended strategy game like Master of Magic or Age of

Given your karma value, I assume you've been around long enough to know that the real combat isn't even in the game yet, right? Like I said I assume so, but I find your comment odd.

Circumstantial, is picking up one of those pre-paid credit cards possible for you? You can "buy" a credit card with a certain dollar amount on it, then you could use that just like any other Visa / Mastercard etc.

Haha, what? Why would you ever imagine Borderlands was anything at all similar to Fallout 3? It's almost like saying "Hey, don't pick up Elemental if you ever liked World of Warcraft". I mean sure, they're both set in a fantasy setting, but other than that it's completely different, and I think that's understood. Borderlands was never trying to be in the vein of Fallout 3, it's trying to be a ARPG with FPS mechanics.

[quote who="Raven X" reply="2" id="2422241"]Dragon Age is a more fleshed out full fledged RPG while Torchlight is a Diablo clone. Go with Dragon Age.[/quote] Unless, of course, one is in the mood for an ARPG rather than yet another sad Bioware rehash.

I've never been a fan of random coop, for any game. I think MMOs (especially the earlier group-centric ones like EQ) killed any and all desire to play cooperatively with random idiots people. For me, I'm looking forward to play this with my friends.

My friend has played it on the Xbox and is enjoying it quite a bit. FPS with diablo loot system, he basically summed it up as "Hellgate, but actually really good this time!". I have it pre-downloaded from STEAM but will probably hold off on playing it until I can LAN it with my friends this weekend.

No capability to mod? No way to host/police my own server? No way to choose which server I end up playing on? Hey, Activision, thanks for helping me out so much with my game budget this Holiday season!

Interesting take on this, Brad. I've long wondered what the numbers (retail vs. digital) look like, as I've never had any data to look at. Anecdotally, I can't recall when the last time any of my friends bought an actual boxed game. I think every purchase we've made in the past 2 years has been digital, but I realize we're in the minority! Where do you see retail vs digital numbers going in the next 5 years? Do you think the ratio will stay somewhat the same, o

I'm a big fan of the Evade concept as it applies to Heroes, but not your Sovereign. Relying on a dice roll for such a critical event just sucks - I hate that much randomization in my games. I liked the original concept better, where if he's hidden in the city, he will flee. That way the choice of how much risk is entirely up to me. If you're worried about players/ai not using their Sovereign as a unit to lead armies, etc, then have a s

MP isn't in Beta yet I don't believe, Tasunke. Maybe I'm wrong, I'll have to go look :) Offtopic, but I assume with your name and avatar pic, you're named after the leader in Kael's wonderful Fall From Heaven 2 mod? :)