Empire At War -- the new SW RTS

[Mad78]

My turn:

Its good but could be better.

[Valorum_Kore]

Will you be able to recruit character in Empire at War (a la Rebellion) or do you just have them to begin with?

[Guest JediIgor]

*cough* you didn't say the magic sentence

The answer though, is "no," if you read closely you will see this game is developed by the people of Command & Conquer (think AoE/StarCraft,etc) so it will be a build-em-up-in-half-an-hour, .

[Stellar_Magic]

It's good, but could be better

 

In a perfect world Ubisoft and Lucasarts would get together for the next generation of starfighter sims.

 

Yes competition has died down and that kind of stinks, but hey there are still some Jems in the rough of computer gaming. Each group seems to have found something of a niche (With the exception of Totally Games and EA which seem to be trying to do everything). Also I'd like to note I'm only rating games that I've actually played.

 

Combat Flight Simulations:

Right now this genre seems to be ruled by two Giants. Ubisoft and Janes, not that much of a surprise with Janes but Ubisoft hit paydirt with IL-2 and its spin offs. (I'm a big fan of those games.)

 

Good Games:

Ubisoft's Il-2 Sturmovik

Ubisoft's Forgotten Battles

Ubisoft's Pacific Warriors

Jane's WWII fighters...

 

Classic Games:

Dynamix's Aces over Europe

Dynamix's Aces of the Pacific

Dynamix's Red Baron

Sierra's Red Baron II

 

Ultra Realistic Ground Combat:

Well unfortunately Star Wars has never even touched this genre. Of course what does realism mean when it comes to Star Wars? Though some of the games from the early start of this Genre are all but completely unknown the newer ones have created a ton of sequeals. This genre does create the most difficult type of game in most cases. The two contendors for this genre right now seem to be Ubisoft and Codemasters.

 

Good Games:

Microsoft's Close Combat IV

Codemaster's Operation Flashpoint

Ubisoft's Ghost Recon

 

Classic Games:

Atomstudio's Close Combat II

Talonsoft's Hidden and Dangerous

Red Storm's Rainbow 6

 

Turn Based Strategy:

Well two players once again, but both of these are relatively small SSI and Sid Meier, most of these games have all but dissappeared, an unfortunate turn of events in my opinion.

 

Good Games:

Sid Meier's Civilization III

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

SSI's Panzer General 3D

 

Classic Games:

Sid Meier's Civilization

Sid Meier's Gettysburg

SSI's Panzer General

SSI's Panzer General 2

 

Real Time Strategy:

This seems to be the most rapidly growing group of games except first person shooters. There are a number of people trying to get into this genre bu the all round ruler still seems to be Westwood, which is both good and bad.

 

Good Games:

Westwood's Red Alert II

SemiLogic's Real War: Land Sea Air

Activision's Rome: Total War

CDV's Blitzkrieg

American Conquest

 

Classic Games:

Westwood's Red Alert

Lucasarts: Star Wars Rebellion

 

First Person Shooter:

First there was Wolfenstein, then there was doom, now well... Everyone has at least tried this genre.

 

Good Games:

Activision's Call of Duty

Lucasarts' Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast

 

Classic Games:

Lucasart's Dark Forces

Doom

Wolfenstien 3d

 

Space Combat:

There's several branches of this genre, but they basically follow the two major branches of science fiction, Star Wars and Star Trek. You should know many of these titles.

 

Good Games:

Activision's Star Trek: Bridge Commander

Lucasarts' X-wing Alliance

 

Classic Games:

Activision's Star Trek

Lucasarts' X-wing

Lucasarts' Tie Fighter

 

I think its quite clear what games I like, and you could probably infer what games I own from the list of games I used.

[Mad78]

Alpha Centauri is an awesome game.

Managed to find it in a sale some time ago.

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

Well, you're right on most of those points, but there are a few little errors and ommissions (since you may not have played them, most likely ).

 

First, unfortunately due to a bad strategie (strange considering the main type of game they made) of producing stupid games outside of their experience, Westwood is no more, so they are no longer the fore-runner in the RTS genre. I'm not sure when they were taken over, but I think it was some time during Red Alert 2. EA is now in controle of everything wat was C&C, and while there are a good number of people who like what they've changed, there are also a good number who want their Westwood back. While I wouldn't put Battle for Middle Earth on your list, Generals is still alive and kicking.

 

Now, in the realm of Space Sims, one game you could add is Freelancer. It isn't as in-your-face with online fans as XWA or any of the XvT games were, but with all of the modding that's going on and the graphics that still wow you, it will certainly have an even longer life.

 

Your FPS list is a little out of date, but not by much. Yes, Call of Duty is a big game, but if you look at the servers, there are a good number of them that have no players in them. Well, that and there really aren't that many servers . If you're going for strictly single-player FPS games, yes CoD should be up there, but you don't have to play Half-Life 2 to know that it's big, and that Counter-Strike Source, which comes free with Half-Life 2, is HUGE. Over 5000 servers, with only about 200 of them sitting with 0 players. You can expect these number to increase when Day of Defeat (a WW II mod for HL2) is released.

 

I know you said yo only listed games you own, but I though that these should be on there too (not that you should own them, but they should be listed). Of course, Half-Life 2 was sort of a given.

[Mad78]

For space fighting even if it isn't really simulation i found Wing Commander very good.

[Guest JediIgor]

Stellar_Magic is pretty much straight on with his list, and I'm glad he didn't include Freelancer (a sim with no joystick support and a horrible multiplayer?)

 

The inclusion of Call of Duty is of course arguable (as opposed to BF1942 or Counter-Strike). If looked closely upon, Half-Life 2 could easily replace it, since both games are fairly linear, but very fun to play single player the first time through, accompanied by a rather decent multiplayer (I'm talking about hl2dm), but it has been "epic" (Battle of Stalingrad?) enough to outdo its flaws (once again, linearity). Arguably among Half-Life 2, it was one of the most cinematic experiences for an FPS.

 

I only hope Call of Duty 2 will use Unreal 3 or Quake IV engine .

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

The standard Multiplayer for Freelancer was terrible, but many of the mods out there bring it up to what it could have been. By far the most entertaining multiplayer experience I've had in a fligh sim. That fact that it doesn't use a joystick is, well, unimportant. Joysticks are ungainly and innaccurate. The use of the mouse was brilliant, giving the player greater control over their ship. Those are some rather paltry arguments agains the game .

[Guest JediIgor]

The standard Multiplayer for Freelancer was terrible, but many of the mods out there bring it up to what it could have been. By far the most entertaining multiplayer experience I've had in a fligh sim. That fact that it doesn't use a joystick is, well, unimportant. Joysticks are ungainly and innaccurate. The use of the mouse was brilliant, giving the player greater control over their ship. Those are some rather paltry arguments agains the game .

 

I don't see why, a sim is meant to use a joystick.. so it's not really a sim, more like an arcade shooter, and it does that well. I'd love to argue about the rest, but why don't you just read my gameplasma review, since the problems are all listed there, .

 

========================

 

Back to the topic, I assume everyone has read the links on the front page? I suggest reading the 1up.com preview (wow its exactly the same as the CGW magazine I received today) and looking at those screenshots there.

 

Game looks like a Rise of Nations "Conquer the World" clone so far... space combat in 2d? Please, lame.. One wonders if they will have any EU stuff besides the TIE Crawler.

 

The screenshots are really funny, they are sending AT-AT Barges out and Sentinel shuttles to assault the planet.. except what kind of a dumbass would let them out of the ISD before wiping out the space defense forces?

[Trejiuvanat]

Read what was meant to be read, and looked at the screens.

 

When I first read it it seemed like a Rebellion for the weak-minded.

 

"Your primary goal will be to conquer the 20-plus worlds in the galaxy."

 

[sarcasm]Wow! That's a lot of worlds [/sarcasm]

 

Graphics are far from impressive. They do have a cartoonish look to it, and they seem to have invented few more ugly looking spaceships. Still it seems more entertaining than GB, we¿ll have some 10 more months to see what direction this takes.

[Mad78]

I believe the space fighting will be in 3d.

20 worlds only http://tcwozere.co.uk/smileys/eek6.gif

Well lets hope the ground and space combet will catch that up. i still have a hope for the ground. The space i am not sure. Will see.

[Ivo]

Although I havent played any of the new fight simulators, Falcon 3 was the best simulator that I've played.

[Mad78]

Was that aircraft fighting?

[Ivo]

Yep you fly the F-16 Fighting Falcon, unfortunately you cant play it on newer versions of windows. It keeps coming with an error saying you dont have enough memory even though 10 times the amount you need.

[Mad78]

I tend to find these flight simulators a bit too complicated thats why i always enjoy a good game of Rogue Squadron

[Guest JediIgor]

I believe the space fighting will be in 3d.

20 worlds only http://tcwozere.co.uk/smileys/eek6.gif

Well lets hope the ground and space combet will catch that up. i still have a hope for the ground. The space i am not sure. Will see.

 

Now why would I say it's in 2d? Because I like speculating?

 

Whether or not a game is in 3d or 2d would be a fact. Now whether or not you may believe my opinions is up to you, but I like to give true facts.

 

Incase you haven't realized yet, the space fighting will be in 2d. There may be 3d graphics, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter. The 1up.com preview may not have said it, but my Computer Gaming World article sure did.

 

Don't count too much on ground fighting either, looks to be like it's just going to be lots of base building... plus conquering a planet with only a few hundred troops seems stupid to me.

[Stellar_Magic]

I think what JI is trying to say is that the space combat will exist only on a Two dimensional plane. X and Y with no Z movement for the ship's.

 

Now bad graphics can be excused on some conditions...for example. American Conquest uses the old 2d Sprite system for its units, which normally mean awfully dumb gameplay. But as I said there's an excuse, it allows you to have engagements with much more units on a slower machine then with pure 3d. In that game I played levels with as many as 16,000 units!!! I doubt Lucasarts would be intelligent enough to consider how dumb it would be to conquer a planet with less then 10,000 troops, come on!

[Guest JediIgor]

I think what JI is trying to say is that the space combat will exist only on a Two dimensional plane. X and Y with no Z movement for the ship's.

 

Now bad graphics can be excused on some conditions...for example. American Conquest uses the old 2d Sprite system for its units, which normally mean awfully dumb gameplay. But as I said there's an excuse, it allows you to have engagements with much more units on a slower machine then with pure 3d. In that game I played levels with as many as 16,000 units!!! I doubt Lucasarts would be intelligent enough to consider how dumb it would be to conquer a planet with less then 10,000 troops, come on!

 

I wasn't just being pessimistic, take a look at the screenshots, in one of them a base is being assaulted with 2 AT-ATs, 5 AT-STs, and about 20 infantry dudes. That's even worse then the movie representations!

 

And, yes, I did mean that the space combat will be in a 2d plane (what else could I have meant? I certainly didn't say the graphics were 2d ).

[Trejiuvanat]

I wasn't just being pessimistic, take a look at the screenshots, in one of them a base is being assaulted with 2 AT-ATs, 5 AT-STs, and about 20 infantry dudes. That's even worse then the movie representations!

 

You could wait for Coruscant: Total War to come out, but that probably will not happen, so you better find some ways to use your 20 infantry dudes.

 

And, yes, I did mean that the space combat will be in a 2d plane (what else could I have meant?

 

2D space combat is pretty lame. It's easier for the young kids that will buy it only because it says Star Wars on it, but for people more familiar with RTS it will not be very thrilling. It's ten months again, perhaps they'll recover and greatly enhance Rebellions Tactical Engine.

[Evaders99]

Who needs an upgraded Rebellion tactical mode? Just use Homeworld 2

[Trejiuvanat]

Tell that to the folks at Westwood.

[Guest JediIgor]

Homeworld 2 is great, though you gotta admit it's a mix between tactics and building, and space combat Star Wars-style should only be about tactics :-\.

 

That's not to say I don't like eville's mod, I love it, but I'm talking about a *perfect star wars game* scenario here.

[Mad78]

That's not to say I don't like eville's mod, I love it, but I'm talking about a *perfect star wars game* scenario here.

Does that actually exist? Each person has a perfect SW scenario I believe.

[Guest JediIgor]

Well the perfect "modern war" game where you would be a real life general or something, so I don't see why not .