April 9, 2009 3:22:33 AM
"Unfortunately, buying Assault on Dark Athena seems to be pretty much the only way to play it these days, as it's not backwards compatible on a 360." There is still the PC version of the original game which was superior in every way, must be lying somewhere around @ budget price. Now, the PC version of Assault on Dark Athena on the other hand seems to be bloated with DRM of the dark ages it seems... :(
February 22, 2009 8:02:43 AM
Step back from Dark Crusade? Well, if you ask me it is a step forward in storyline terms (it's still very basic alien invasion stuff sure but it's incredibly well told and involving and at least now writers don't need to make 1569 different unrealistic reasons why races couldn't temporarily work together as in DC and SS) and in campaign mechanics. There's a lot more random stuff going on in the repeatable defence/kill boss missions of DoW II than in any of the utterly worthless skirmish grinds in DC and SS and the pure story missions are just as good. The new limited squad scheme and the foundry/shrine/relay system respectively are also much more balanced than the exploitable Honor Guards and the persistent basebuilding in the skirmish campaign parts of DC. Too bad it's SM only idd but with all the short atmospheric CGI's, voice chatter and the focus on the Blood Ravens themselves it's for the better this way. Relic really has made a good point to downscale things from the uninvolving 'play as everyone!' DC/SS trickery. On Captain difficulty and in coop especially DoW II is a great experience, definitely beats the original DoW linear setup and the short but more varied scope of Winter Assault. DC or SS were more about showing off two new races each than anything else. About everything else I pretty much agree, multiplayer could have been so much more (see, now here a DC/SS-like worldwide persistent online campaign would have made 1000 times more sense).
February 12, 2009 5:57:08 AM
You're probably losing with the Apothecary because he's bugged since the last patch (something to do with not being able to heal others). :) Try the Mekboy, he's the most enjoyable of them all if you ask me with his teleporting-self"turret"-gameplay style. RTSs are certainly going in less traditional directions these days, and the close-up action style (coupled with RPG influences or not) is enjoyable but I'd love to see a bit more massive games à la SupCom or SoaSE. The oldskool RTS is clearly only going to survive if it's done well and/or linked to a big name franchise (just look at StarCraft II, C&C3 or Red Alert 3), so people wouldn't notice the surpassed UI antics. Btw, the first (and often even the most true) RPG influences in RTSs were present in Warwind (II), Original War and Rival Realms. Battlecry had a thing going for sure but it was far from original when it first came out.
October 25, 2008 9:43:50 AM
Care to tell us which last RTS was 'good' then? :) Blizzard has a lot to prove after the SCII split idd but the BlizzCon panel showed some promise and not only because a branching star map popped up on the screen, it seems that at least now they have the guts to look past multiplayer balance and units. Even then though, just choosing missions is simple when real choices and consequences can be applied in other ways in missions, War Wind II and Original War being big examples of that.
September 12, 2008 4:23:27 AM
"Doesn't everyone already own it?" No. :)
September 10, 2008 7:31:38 AM
Do try SupCom(+ FA) though, it's not even harder than any smaller-scaled RTS trying to mimick the archaic micro-hell known as StarCraft. It's a lot more fun with friends too. You just have to know what to do with the many interface tools the game offers you. Rest of the tips are great idd.
July 26, 2008 3:57:23 AM
Anyone will make time if those 100 hours are worth playing and varied enough, most recent RPG's (hell, games in general even) are short enough already without being (so much) more compelling than the Interplay-classics.
July 24, 2008 2:31:02 PM
"desperately-in-need-of-a-reboot real-time strategy genre" On PC it already got several reboots in very different forms (CoH, SupCom, WiC) in recent times, at least in terms of gameplay (campaign is another, sad story though). The problem with Halo Wars is that it just looks (and even seems to play) like a C&C3 Halo mod, which wouldn't be that bad if C&C3 actually had something memorable about it but it didn't. Just making controls work on another platform and having the Halo-theme aren't
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