Video Games

[Lord_La_forge]

It's summer once more, so I'm having Tropico Gold installed again. Highly overlooked game from 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico

It's a rare gem, guys.

 

 

"Games based on Caribbean city-building have been created before, but Tropico was the first to be centered around Cuban Revolution and Cold War themes. The game is tongue-in-cheek in its presentation of banana republics, using a great deal of humor while still referencing such topics as totalitarianism, electoral fraud, and the interventions of powerful companies (United Fruit is implied) and the Cold War superpowers (the United States and Soviet Union).

 

Tropico features Latin-styled Dominican music, largely performed by Daniel Indart. The game won the Original Music Composition category in the 2002 Interactive Achievement Awards."

[DarthTofu]

Looks like an interesting one, there. I do feel compelled to mention that I've seen that island before somewhere. It looks almost like the isle of Myst, just undeveloped. Though not quite, obviously.... hmm. I know I've seen that pic in a different context somewhere before....

[Mad78]

I remember hearing about that game. Looks quite fun, I'll have to give it a try.

[Eagle]

Tropico? I love Tropico!!!

 

"Presidente? The people need entertainment."

 

Played it for years and its addictive. Its from the same guys who also made "Railroad Tycoon 2". Tropico is a little bit like "Settlers".

[Lord_La_forge]

I had a feeling that you know the game Eagle

 

"Presidente! You're people starve! Grow more food! Quickly!"

 

gameplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSL6iQQYA4k

[Eagle]

Oooh, I love the music! Its always like some kind of little holiday playing it.

[Darth_Rob]

I just finished playing Tales of Symphonia, I ended up putting almost 55 hours to complete it. It was definitely one of the longest RPGs I even played (the previous winner was Kingdom Hearts, with 40-some odd hours).

 

It was a pretty interesting game. Had a good story and a really great combat system that I enjoyed.

[Defender_16]

So... I started playing EVE Online a few days ago. This is personally noteworth because I've never signed up for an MMO that has online fees.

 

I actually like the setup they have. None of the grinding to level up or anything like that, instead they have skills that have to be trained. You choose which ones you start off with at character creation and if you want additional skills you have to buy and then train them from locations in-game. Each skill level takes longer to train unless you've really leveled up your "Learning" skill before hand.

 

I've spent the past couple of days trying to take the soldier type character I created and get him good at mining. Hard work but Idon't feel like starting over and the combat skills are handy to protect myself from pirates.

 

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/Defender_16/EVE-Latestships.jpg

 

Just got what I consider to be a freakin' huge transport today. If I can fill the darn thing with minerals I can make .5 million in one haul.

[Darth_Rob]

Sounds interesting. I have never played a fee-based MMO game before. I guess I just dont like the idea of paying a subscription to play a game.

 

Its probably better that I dont, since Ive heard those games are addictive. Thats the last thing I need.

[DarthTofu]

Soooooooo... Who was the brave soul who went out and bought SoulCalibur IV,to act as Guinea Pig for the rest of the forum members? Granted, that's assuming that a forum member has a PS3 of XBox 360 (I own neither), but still...

[Lord_La_forge]

That EVE thing sounds interesting. Especially the anti-leveling system.

[Darth_Rob]

I must say that Soul Calibur IV is one of the games I would love to get, whenever I happen to finally get my PS3...

[Eagle]

A friend of mine is absolutely obsessed by EVE. He plays it now for years.

[DarthTofu]

I just picked up Europa Universalis: Rome. I thought I was getting Rome: Total War, just with both of the expansion packs- really should have noticed that it said "Paradox" on it instead of "Sega" for the folks who made it. >.<

 

All the same, it looks like I might have made a pretty good mistake. Europa Universalis appears to be (appears being the key word- I've not installed it yet) Rebellion with better graphics, set on Earth, with the Romans battling each other. I've only skimmed the manual (I tried to return it when I realized that I'd screwed up; the screenshots looked like they were from Rome: Total War!), but it looks like Rebellion meets Civ IV in a lot of ways. If it's good, I'll recommend it. Maybe one of our modders will jump on it and start turning it into a legit Rebellion II, eh?

 

I'm both excited and apprehensive. If worst comes to worst, I just waste thirty-five bucks in store credit, plus six or seven out of my own pocket.

 

Edit: I still haven't played it- I haven't even finished reading the manual- but this looks a lot like a Rebellion-style game, with elements of Civ IV and Risk-style play. It's definitely detail-based; you set up your own trade routes, in fact, to get resources to different provinces as needed. And there appear to be a lot of provinces (think of them as the equivalent of Rebellion planets... only the last title, Europa Universalis III, had 1500 provinces- this one may or may not have more), but I think there will be a "let the computer take care of it for you" button somewhere.

 

This game is described as "Grand strategy game" as opposed to an RTS, which means that, rather than pointing and clicking to send lots and lots of little men off to attack lots and lots of other little men, you assemble an army that has attrition rates based on supplies, moral, location, etc. and send a large digital man to attack another large digital man, with each of your digital men representing armies. Then, based upon the composition of your army and the composition of the other guy's army, as well as moral, supplies, terrain, etc. a modified dice roll determines whether or not you win in the battle.

 

There's a lot of stuff in here that I remember people wanting for Rebellion II. For instance, to build ships, a province must A) be connected to the water, B) Have access to wood (via trade or natural growth nearby) and C) have the manpower to do it. The whole thing operates on the Rebellion-style day-counting clock, with certain actions taking a certain number of days to complete rather than a certain number of "turns" (Six months in game time, if you're playing Rome: Total War) to complete. Users commented on how you have to start and stop the speedups on a regular basis.

 

Once I've actually played this beast, I'll be able to give it a better review and see if it really is a great Rebellion-style game for folks on the forum to try out. Right now, it really looks like it might be. It appears that I made a rather lucky mistake. XD

[Krytos]

The New Lara Croft

[Sinister]

I'd like to raid her tomb.

[Mad78]

The game looks highly promising. ... As does the girl.

[Eagle]

I always felt that the first and the second Lara Croft models came closer to the original than any of those following including Angelina Jolie. So she´s just doing some promotions and not appearing in any movie, right?

[Darth_Rob]

Yeah, Im pretty sure she will be just a "mascot", and appear at conventions and whatnot.

[Mad78]

She's just the reference that they used to make the ingame model. Possibly the furthest she would go is if they used her to help animate the in-game Lara.

[DarthTofu]

So, the "Force Unleashed" demo comes out tomorrow. I have no idea where you can download it, but seeing as everyone is so excited about it, somebody with a PS3 or 360 should really download it and tell us all how it is... Or else.

[Darth_Rob]

Its available on the PS3 and 360's online shop area.

 

But I agree with Tofu. Anyone who has such excellent systems should download it and let us know.

 

As for me, I will have to wait a few weeks and hope the Wii version is somewhat decent...

[DarthTofu]

Its available on the PS3 and 360's online shop area.

 

But I agree with Tofu. Anyone who has such excellent systems should download it and let us know.

 

As for me, I will have to wait a few weeks and hope the Wii version is somewhat decent...

 

Dude, don't do it! The duel mode isn't worth it! Just wait for the full-out duel game! TFU will be a waste if you play it on the Wii; it's gotta be on a 360 or PS3. Go to a friend's if you have to, but don't settle for the Wii version. There's a reason I shan't be buying it for the PS2.

[Darth_Rob]

Amazon.com is having a All PS3 Gold Box Event tomorrow, starting at 12am Pacific time (thats 3am my time, but I'll still check it out). Im hoping to see some kind of deal for a system, and if the deal is good enough, I will definitely snag one.

 

Heres hoping the deals are good so I can get Force Unleashed!

[Eagle]

New Sequell of "Settlers 2" announced:

http://siedler.de.ubi.com/features.php

Sorry, only found a site in german. Always when I do click on the english language-button it redirects me to another site. But I guess that it will be only of LLFs interest.

 

So they plan to make an own series of the very popular "Settlers 2"-Remake, which will be called the "Traditions"-Series. Looks like there´s more to come in the future and let´s hope that they don´t release games which are more or less of addon-size.