drinky crow c-list gaming grab bag

[Van Cruncheon]

i picked up untold legends dark kingdom (ps3) and aedis eclipse (psp) yesterday. i decided to give the former a shot since i enjoyed the psp untold legends 2 a fair bit. the latter? while the first generations of chaos title was a bad pc port addled by long and frequent load times and janky graphics, maf assured me that the sequel fared much better. so far, he is right.

thoughts?

dark kingdom is fun in spite of its massive flaws. this game has possibly the worst camera ever coded. it's like they spent all their time creating the physics engine and the cool spells effects, and then said fuck this camera shit and hey let's put the character in front of a lens maneuvered by an epileptic ape high on meth cut with viagra. when it isn't aimlessly spinning or shaking, it's trying to ram up your ass. still, the beat-em-up plus PHAT LEWT qualities are pretty solid, and the cool special effects make it more palatable. ook, the pre-level load times suck, though. blu-ray for the loss! on a scale of kirby's air ride to tech romancer i give this a bullet witch.

aedis eclipse is actually pretty good. it's like dragon force meets the culdcept map with riviera's square-by-square exploration mechanic, with lots of animu cutscenes. load times are not bad at all, and actually fairly infrequent. the graphics and art are nice. the game promises a tutorial, and it has one -- it's just spread out lamely across the first five missions. so far, i think i'm groking the game, although the game says i should turn enemy squares to an opposing element using a dispathced general, but to do so i'd hafta enter that square and fight. can't figure out how to change square elements from a distance. i'm not sure if this game is a strategy rpg or some weird dragon force meets riviera rpg hybrid, but i'm having fun nonetheless. on a scale of kirby's air ride to tech romancer i give this an izuna point five.

[MrAngryFace]

Bullet Witch is fun!

Ive changed square elements from 2 squares away, iirc the square at a distance doesnt highlight so it looks like you cant...least thats what I remember.

Im sadly addicted to Star Wars Empires at War all of a sudden

[Vizzys]

-nvm

[Shuri]

maf, have you tried the new missions for bullet witch?

[Fragamemnon]

Im sadly addicted to Star Wars Empires at War all of a sudden

That pack you picked up has some really fun and underrated games. Empire At War is a fantastic RTS (expansion is good too), Star Wars: Republican Commando lets you run from planet to planning slashing taxes, err, droids, recklessly, and KotOR2 has some of the best designed RPG characters on the PC in recent memory.

[MrAngryFace]

what does the expansion to Emp at War add? Also do you have advice on land assaults? IM playing sissy easy mode and while I easily dominate space engagements the land assault even with Y-Wing support is a complete bitch.

[Van Cruncheon]

adds a new faction -- some smuggler's consortium -- and some new units.

[MrAngryFace]

I want a b-wing, I havent seen one yet. Its a pretty fun game tho, pretty sure normal difficulty would smoosh me tho, I can barely take planets. I was able to take a few planets under light oppression, but the inner-planets are a bitch to crack.

[Fragamemnon]

Speaking of c-list gaming, I've got copies (obtained very cheaply) of Gothic 3 and War Front: Turning Point that I'm going to bust open when I get back from the honeymoon. I think both games might actually be decent but it could be really scary, especially Gothic 3.

May is a slow month-the only things listed that look good are the Spellforce 2 expansion (will be delayed), and Spaceforce 2 : Rogue Universe, which is also probably not coming out next month.

[MrAngryFace]

I want Sacred 2 so bad

[Fragamemnon]

I want Sacred 2 so bad

1Q 2008, and I think that's the EU release too. May be another full year off.

[Van Cruncheon]

man, i picked up civ 3 and WHY AM I SO BAD AT THIS GAME! i used to be a civ 2 god, and i was good at civ 4! i never played 3, so why am i sucking so hard at it

[Fragamemnon]

man, i picked up civ 3 and WHY AM I SO BAD AT THIS GAME! i used to be a civ 2 god, and i was good at civ 4! i never played 3, so why am i sucking so hard at it

In Civ3 I usually did the following:

A few early cities closer to the captial. Usually some overlap. I just wanted them in place. I teched for an early war with horsemen if I could, and then if I was free enough afterwards went into a more spaced out optimal layout for the midgame.

From there it was just econ. I'm good at econ, and doing this prevented me from getting into the terrible late-war mechanic of Civ3.

[jiji]

I know it's a matter of time until I end up trying an Idea Factory trainwreck. I'm just waiting for them to iron out the awful interface/technical issues in the GoC games, and maybe Aedis Eclipse will be the one.  Is it just a mashup of ideas from different games or something that's actually worthwhile on its own?

[Van Cruncheon]

for the record, dark kingdom is awful. never trust my first impressions.

aedis eclipse is still good, though, even if it is ridiculously easy.

[Beezy]

The only Civilization game that I ever played was the one for snes.

[abrader]

I love untoldlegends on PS3.

I havent played it in a while...

The camera you describe makes it IMPOSSIBLE to play a good game of 2 player co-op on the same screen/console....

I hope they patch/update the online stuff when system software 2.0 rolls out. I need friends list support and cokking voicechat support...pushing start and then going to the "game session chat room" is pretty fukkin useless. Plus other players have to press start and goto the room just to see what you even typed.

Need to communicate during combat or a complex boss fight? Forget about it.....want to tell the new joiner to use the pre leveled lv 29 scout instead of making that new lvl 1 warrior? forget about it....

They should have just completely not done online in this game as the way it works now is BARELY acceptable....wouldnt have even been good back when the Dreamcast was online...

If this is your first time digging into this how far along are you? PArts of the game seem unbeatable without playing online with a good party - and the lack of ability to communicate online makes managing a good party pretty much impossible

[Van Cruncheon]

i sold it back. it was crap.