we're nerds, why the hell arent we talking about video games

Social Forums Non-Philosophical Chat
1

ive discovered the next step in online gaming. its rough, its kind of amateurish, its hard to get into, but if blizzard has half a brain, this is the game that they will perfect in their ‘next big thing’.

its called “savage battle for newerth” from s2games. you can download the demo here: http://www.s2games.com/savage/index.html and its one of those demos that has pretty much a whole games worth of content in it for free.

its an online team based shooter/melee real time strategy role playing game. thats right an OTBSMRTSRPG. you join a server of usually around 64, two teams of 30. one guy on each team is playing a warcraft2 style real time strategy game. he is collecting stone and building spawn points surrounding the enemy base or whatever strategy is appropriate. the other 30 guys are running around on the ground obeying his orders.

it sounds like it sucks being a slave but think about it. your commander tells you to run into the next opening to build a spawn point and over the top of the hill, an army of twenty beasts leaps down to kill you. one of the greatest things is that the main weapon is melee, the guns are for softening them up. its serisouly a real braveheart style melee on the ground, running around dodging swords and battle axes, using all kinds of powerups to do cool stuff.

its an rpg because when you kill guys, gold falls out of them and you get exp, which will do the traditional things that exp does like make you stronger, faster, give you a cooler sword. when the money falls out of dead guys, everybody scrambles for it and it feels good being the nice, rich guy and killing a guy and letting the poor guy run up and take your gold. hey capitalists would you take the gold even if your at your maximum amount? and your team needs it and will work better if you share it?

anyway the gold is used to buy weapons and your guy who runs around comes in small, medium, large and siege weapons. theres also a guy the size of a standing elephant who carries around a tree and when he bashes you, you fly hundreds of feet across the level. and theres medics who can raise you from the dead. the commander can zap you full of lightning a few times per game and your damage increases a whole lot, or he can shield you, make you go fast, heal you.

its just such an incredible game the likes of which you have never seen and will not see in this next upcoming wave of christmas titles. there is only one savage for at least another 6 months or so. i havent heard of any new games that has warcraft mixed with half life and diablo. and its better when they are together. a lot.

seriously people download the demo its free and its big, and as always, Future Man will beat the shit out of you if you mess with him.

so whats another ridiculously awesome free video game that everybody should know about and where is the link?

2

WarCraft is a very good game, But I personally prefer Age of Empires. I can’t really explain why, I have just always really liked it.

3

Yeah for Age of Empires, both of them!! I personally think that the 2nd is the best but the first os cool as well. As for free games talk to “friends” who have games you want and “borrow” them.

4

yeah but you cant play the high quality ones online if they are pirated. which reminds me, i downloaded like 4 gigs of half life 2, wasted 5 cds and this freaking steam program wont even let me play single player, i think. i havent found any way to hack around it (my version of hacking=type “half life 2 hack” into the p2p search)

screw anti-piracy, its objectively evil because it makes me sad.

i think youd like Rise of Nations. its almost a rip off of aoe, but i think it is done better. dont you ever want to be the little guys and run around and stab?

5

I agree with Hamster on Age of EmpiresII. I like Rome:Total War. It is a new game out, very cool.

6

This is going to be the type of game that figures predominantly in Army/Marine recruiting strategies. Just as military branches that fly airplanes (Marines, Air Force, Navy) really like guys who’ve played lots of console video games, this is going to be that kind of thing for ground combat.

-Ability to follow orders under stress;
-Teamwork, both psychological and teleological;
-Leadership;
-Spontaneous division of labor (I guess this goes under teleological teamwork).

A standing joke during Vietnam was that the green lieutenant is asked how best to take a hill defended by enemy troops, and he responds with all this half-assed gibberish he learned at West Point, and the seasoned officer, when asked the same question, responds, “Easy. You say, ‘Sergeant - take that hill!’” One would think, if this type of game becomes popular, that that would work to ameliorate this kind of problem…

7

Well I can’t say people love third-person bird-view strategy games. I must agree that AoE2 was the better of the two, until Microsoft should dare put out a third edition. The first AoE was cheesy, although cleverly put together when it came out. Everyone was the same, there was no signifying distinction aside from the color of your troops and buildings. And everyone rushed to get a Centurion first… Then came AoE2, the magnificence of having multiple cultures, languages, and most importantly, different final units. The Briton Longbowman own.

Of course, the undisputed god of this genre in video gaming is obviously Blizzard. Their contribution to deliver high-quality-end games featured in the WarCraft and StarCraft series never cease to amaze gamers.

When the first WarCraft game came out, it was revolutionary, but when WC2 came out, it made the predecessor look like crap. Obvious advancements in graphics, playability, and most certainly music made WC2 a must have. This was followed up by the fan-favorite StarCraft, which took the gameplay of WarCraft, put it in space, and gave it another race to use. StarCraft, known to be based on a number of sources including Starship Troopers, the Alien series, and Predator series, made it undeniably addictive. Blizzard followed up with an expansion pack to StarCraft that continued the story, but never made a second, which antagonized me because I wanted to know how it ended…

I say that because if you look at the first StarCraft game, you have Episodes 1-3 starting with Terran, then Zerg, then Protoss. In BroodWar, you have Episodes 4-6 starting with Protoss, Terran, then Zerg.
What drives me insane is already using this formula to know that if they were to make a second expansion to finish the series, it would have Episodes 7-9 starting with Zerg, then Protoss, then Terran, showing that in the end, we win… :evilfun:
But Blizzard never made a second expansion pack, and probably never will. The sad fact is they may just save the end story for StarCraft 2, whenever the hell that comes out. For now we can look foward to StarCraft: Ghost, which is a prequel to the first game.

After SC2, players were blown away by the increadible improvement in all fields, especially cinematic movies, when WarCraft 3 appeared on the shelves. I can only expect Blizzard to do better than what they’ve already accomplished.

8

I am currently playing an RPG called Arcanum, and I love it. The most interesting aspect about it, and what I believe sets it above the rest, is that it incorperates two themes which are rarely found in RPGs. Usually you will find an RPG to have a certain setting, or era, in which it takes place. We have the medieval setting: the warriors and magicians. The modern setting: WW2, or the urban spy, or the hitman in New York, etc., etc.

Arcanum combines these into one game. The actual plot of the game involves the conflict between ancient magic and modern technology, so that one can be a gun carrying magician or a spell casting engineer. The time setting is hard to tell because of this. It appears to be set in the 1800s, judging by the architecture and clothing style. Yet along with these modern effects there comes clothing such as chainmail, wizard robes, studded leather. Weapons such as swords, axes, bows and other primitive weapons.

In the beginning you choose your class according to which practice you want to master: magic or technology. For instance, one who chooses technology can build a ballistic weapon like a gun and specialize in its use, but will have a weaker aptitude for casting spells and will not be able to use magic potions.

Currently I am playing an elf character who specializes in magic and stealth. However, I am having trouble making progress because, aside from literally getting lost (the game is huge), I have accepted too many quests without finishing previous ones first. I am at a point where I can’t really engage in melee combat because, as an elf, I am weak in constitution and strength. So my plan is to hang around the towns until nightfall, break into the stores, pick pocket the merchants and steal the expensive weapons. Now I’ve got thirty thousand gold, a few magic weapons (to compensate for my lack of combat ability) and a partner who thinks lowly of me because I am a thief. Half the time he doesn’t follow my orders because of my ‘evil’ reputation.

[sigh]

9

I played Arcanum once, could never really get into it. It plays out alot like D&D, you’d have to play forever just to become powerful enough to consider taking on some thugs in ‘the bad part of town.’

I thought the premise of the game was great, but it was too big and sometimes too confusing.

10

I know exactly what you are talking about, Sage. It was called 'The Boil."

A quarantined part of town where even the law wouldn’t go. Pretty cool idea, eh?

Well, I finally made it in there and it turns out that you end up joining one of two opposing gangs. Upon doing so, you are given quests which often involve measures against the other gang. Which gang you join doesn’t matter.

Let me tell you how I got in at only level seven. I casted two ‘summon ogre gardian’ spells, put shields on them, increased there strength and…

…sat back and watched as they mutilated the ruffians at the entrance.

[hehe]

11

rpgs are boring

Tribes Vengeance is a multiplayer shooter in the way future where you have recharging jetpacsk, you fly hundreds of feet up in the air and then you have to land to recharge for like 3-5 seconds depending on how intensely somebody is chasing you. whenver you touch the ground, thats when you get shot, since everybody is able to stay a certain distance away and its hard to directly hit them. you hit the ground near them and the explosion damages them, but when they fly around in the middle of the air you cant do that.

what might be even more fun about this game is the skis. you have these anti gravity skis you turn on when you want and when you land from flying high onto an incline, you go flying down the hill so fast that your enemy cant hit you. there are times when both me and the enemy land on the same hill and we fly across the landscape skiing next to eachother, shooting exploding frisbees at eachother. the skis cant be aimed by anything but your momentum, so you can aim in any direction and continue moving straight. it really feels a lot like you are on a highway standing on the roofs of cars for a good 10-30 seconds of skiing, then your jetpack fuel is back and you have to go back up in the air and find another hill to land on.

so you fly up and go down and try to land in a place where the other guy cant shoot you, and then you ski around at over a hundred miles an hour. its seriously very unlike any other game there is (besides the first two tribes games), download the demo.