The Energon Pub

The only Command and Conquer game I've played is Command and Conquer for N64. I thought it was fun.

Burn wrote:Tiberian Wars was actually the first CnC game I played, and I moved onto it after finishing Dawn of War.

Took a bit of getting use to, still definitely preferred DoW over TW but it was still an enjoyable game. Had a problem with the video cut scenes, audio was out of synch, a patch probably would have fixed that but I couldn't be arsed downloading such things.

I've been playing CnC games since Tiberian Sun, and upto and including Generals, each game was an improvment on the last, and each game's addon added a masive amount of depth, resulting in a serious of games with a very long shelf life. Tiberian Wars was not an improvment on Generals in anyway other than graphics (it was a good 5 years after Generals, I'd have been somewhat astounded if it wasnt), and it's addon was aweful. Im waiting for Red Alert 3's add on with the hope they will do a lot better this time.

As for Dawn of War, I played the basic game, and I enjoyed it a lot, well, the campeign at least. Ive never gotten on with Warcraft 3's skirmish mode, and DoW, which used the same engine, had exactly the same problems, made much worse by the fact that the campeing only allowed you to play as one of the three factions. So you go to the skirmishes, you're bord silly with the Space Marines (thats the right ones isnt it?) and you dont have the first clue how to play the other two factions...

Im guessing the multitude of addons fixed all that, but as I never owned the game myself, and once I left uni, didnt know anybody else who did, I never got to try them.

Only the last add-on really changed the gameplay in DoW and that was only the addition of aerial units.

Which when I think about it, was one aspect where CnC beat out DoW for me. CnC's aerial units were actually useful whereas DoW's seemed to serve as nothing more than cannon fodder.

This one just popped into my head. Anyone remember Syndicate? That was a brilliant game. Good gameplay, brilliant graphics, and could be played on a 386!

Burn wrote:This one just popped into my head. Anyone remember Syndicate? That was a brilliant game. Good gameplay, brilliant graphics, and could be played on a 386!

Thank You! I've been thinking about that game for a while and I couldn't think it's name.

Never heard of it, what was it like?

If we're going old school, Transport Tycoon deluxe. Awesome game.

Its from the Amiga/Atari ST days Red, at least 15 years ago.

Isometric 3D rpg goodness, like a cross between XCOM:Enemy Unknown and Hitman. I loved it, the gauss gun was awesome.

Basically, it was set in the future, governments were no more and everything was run by corporations.

You took control of a team of, for lack of a better term, Cyborgs, who would go out and perform missions for the corporation you worked for.

Missions like "blow up this target", "assassinate this target", "capture this target", & "escort this target".

Set in real time, you had to lead your squad (1-4) around a cityscape to achieve your objectives.

Achieving it resulted in money which you'd then spend to upgrade your Cyborgs with prosthetic implants, weapons etc.

The most fun weapon of course was the mind control device, once activated you could walk around taking control of the general population (and opposing teams). Think of it as a futuristic Pied Piper scenario.

Great game, well ahead for it's time.

Another one released around that time was UFO:Enemy Unknown. Turn based, frustrating as hell, especially because it was turned based and you could see the alien moving up to attack and kill one of your guys and there was nothing you could do to stop it!

Ah Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The computer players would always make the strangest track patterns when a straight line would suffice and be cheaper. If I really wanted screw around with the computer players, I'd buy all the property around the resources that they were planning on building their tracks to. After a few minutes of it laying tracking all around the purchased zone trying to see if could get a station in catchment range, I'd see Company X has gone in bankruptcy

Couple of things I forgot to mention about the PS3 before.

Yes, it's hot. It actually puts out more heat then the 360 I think, but it's a lot quieter and it wont remind you it's running by being loud, even when running a game. It makes less noise then my girlfriends tower does, or even the Wii.

And for dvds, if you don't want to buy bluray, but you want to watch dvds in HD, the bluray player in the PS3 will upscale standard dvds into 1080.

I must be stupid, because I never noticed all of the simularities between Star Wars and the Transformers movie before.

neliz wrote:So, custom backgrounds cost $300?

Well yeah i guess, if someone like you doesn't want any of the games that are on PS3. But it's more than just the background themselves. You can customize the icons for games/music/movies/network, that sort of stuff...least i think so, cause you can on PSP now so i would expect you could on PS3.

Absolute Zero wrote:Listed a bunch of games.

Don't forget Little Big Planet, that's become something of a hit to my knowledge. Don't forget Final Fantasy 13 Versus as well. I know FF XIII is coming to 360, but as of now Versus is still PS3 exclusive, to my knowledge.

Any Burnout Paradise fans out there?

Netminder wrote:Ah Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The computer players would always make the strangest track patterns when a straight line would suffice and be cheaper. If I really wanted screw around with the computer players, I'd buy all the property around the resources that they were planning on building their tracks to. After a few minutes of it laying tracking all around the purchased zone trying to see if could get a station in catchment range, I'd see Company X has gone in bankruptcy

The AI in Locomotion (in every respect TTDLX's rightful sequal, used the Rollercoaster Tycoon engine) was even worse, and muich harder to bankrupt, and impossible to take over...

Anyway, there were better ways to mnake companies go bankrupt.
Build a peice of track that butts on to the end of their track, build an engine shed on to that, buy the cheapest engine, tell it to ignore the signal, run it out, and stop it on the peice of track. If the AI has used signals, they wont let the train enter the section, it sits there costing money. If they havnt, it runs into your engine and blows up! (The engine somehow overhangs the square slightly) They never replace it, and eventully go bankrupt.

I loved playing TTDLX, its just a shame it simply would not work on anything XP onwards.

Netminder wrote:Any Burnout Paradise fans out there?

Na, Its crap

Much prefered Revenge, though I do have to admit I quite like smashing through them billboards

Absolute Zero wrote: Games on both the 360 and the PS3 look better on the PS3 (reverse of last gen when they looked better on the gamecube and xbox then they did on the ps2)

So howcome the 360 wins all the graphics comparison test on Gamespot? 360 wins hands down in all the "latest" mutltiplatform games (fallout, dead space, force unleashed, soul caliber and they are still cutting back on effects in some games (mortal Kombat) to keep the ps3 running happy.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6201700/p-1.html
If you want I can give you all the reviews so you can cry a bit more..

that has been the general tendency over the years now and ps3 simply does not catch up yet.

Raphael Prime wrote:

Absolute Zero wrote:Listed a bunch of games.

Don't forget Little Big Planet, that's become something of a hit to my knowledge. Don't forget Final Fantasy 13 Versus as well. I know FF XIII is coming to 360, but as of now Versus is still PS3 exclusive, to my knowledge.

Thanks for reminding me about that. It is awesome.

Netminder wrote:Any Burnout Paradise fans out there?

Good game. Planning to get it again sometime.

neliz wrote:

Absolute Zero wrote: Games on both the 360 and the PS3 look better on the PS3 (reverse of last gen when they looked better on the gamecube and xbox then they did on the ps2)

So howcome the 360 wins all the graphics comparison test on Gamespot? 360 wins hands down in all the "latest" mutltiplatform games (fallout, dead space, force unleashed, soul caliber and they are still cutting back on effects in some games (mortal Kombat) to keep the ps3 running happy.

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6201700/p-1.html
If you want I can give you all the reviews so you can cry a bit more..

that has been the general tendency over the years now and ps3 simply does not catch up yet.

Most 360 games can run in 1080, while developers don't push the PS3 so far actually. The PS3's processor is harder to develop for, and when you port a game (which most companies are doing when they make multi-system games) to a system with better graphics, when done wrong (which is pretty common due to deadlines) the graphics end up looking jaggy. Look at RE4 on the Gamecube, beautiful game. Then the PS2 version came out and it looked like crap. It's not exactly rocket science figuring things out. Though personally, I had the benefit of being able to talk to people in the industry.

Absolute Zero wrote:Most 360 games can run in 1080, while developers don't push the PS3 so far actually. The PS3's processor is harder to develop for, and when you port a game (which most companies are doing when they make multi-system games) to a system with better graphics, when done wrong (which is pretty common due to deadlines) the graphics end up looking jaggy. Look at RE4 on the Gamecube, beautiful game. Then the PS2 version came out and it looked like crap. It's not exactly rocket science figuring things out. Though personally, I had the benefit of being able to talk to people in the industry.

no matter how revolutionary cell seems, it's instruction set is largely based on PPC, it's greater parallelism (8 cores versus the 360's 3) should give it a massive computational advantage (F@H) on the level of graphics however, this is not the case. the "RSX" is nothing more than a downclocked Geforce 7800GTX. So a whole lot of processing power yet no graphics card to match. the Xenos is the 360 is a bit different (but expensive compared to RSX) but lacks in pure horsepower.

the PS2 is a different bag of tricks. it's basically lacking a functional graphics processor where it has 16 pipeline shaders, 1 texture unit and another half functioning texture unit. it depended on the CPU to do a lot of things like setting up geometry etc. the only EMOTION coming out of that ENGINE was crying.

P.S. Killzone 2's Producer Steven ter Heide's nickname is "Aap (Acme)" Arjen Brokhoven(nickname Harlequin) was a rapper/graffiti guy before he was the lead designer on Killzone:Liberation we went to demo parties together and played things like quake for days without end. Even they admit they can't fully use the PS3, potential can't always be fulfilled.

neliz wrote: Even they admit they can't fully use the PS3, potential can't always be fulfilled.

This is like, year three for the PS3. By the time 360 hit year 2, it was running at 80% capacity. The system is going to be around for several years (PS1 was having games made for it for about 8, PS2 is about a decade old now). Something that was pointed out to me, and there's been rumors of Microsoft already planning a new console to come out within the next two years, is that Microsoft is very much focased on the "How can we make money now" while Sony tends to focas on building something for long term success.

Absolute Zero wrote:This is like, year three for the PS3. By the time 360 hit year 2, it was running at 80% capacity. The system is going to be around for several years (PS1 was having games made for it for about 8, PS2 is about a decade old now). Something that was pointed out to me, and there's been rumors of Microsoft already planning a new console to come out within the next two years, is that Microsoft is very much focased on the "How can we make money now" while Sony tends to focas on building something for long term success.

Your sources have read the same sony PR reports as everyone I know What they forget is that it is a financial decision much more than a technological one.
Imagine an XB3, IT will be built on much the same technology that it is now (manycore x64 or PPC) and a custom graphics chip much like Xenos, not expensive, technology is there. in other words, a next generation xbox won't be more expensive than todays PS3. because that's where it hurts. PS3's development has cost it so much and the investment in "Cell" (along with Toshiba) needs some ROI this lifecycle. It's not that Sony wanted the PS3 to be this late and this expensive. Ofcourse, this means PS4 will just be a 12/16SPE design with another GPU and it will be closer than we think because everything it advertises it to be today (first blu-ray overall 1080p system) will pale with the next generation. Sony can't afford another cock-up because their stubborn feeling of superiority is costing them a lot in sales at the moment because a long lifecycle doesn't help you sell anything right now, they are selling roughly half of the consoles versus M$ and a third of of the software. (please, don't talk about the wii)

neliz wrote:

Absolute Zero wrote:This is like, year three for the PS3. By the time 360 hit year 2, it was running at 80% capacity. The system is going to be around for several years (PS1 was having games made for it for about 8, PS2 is about a decade old now). Something that was pointed out to me, and there's been rumors of Microsoft already planning a new console to come out within the next two years, is that Microsoft is very much focased on the "How can we make money now" while Sony tends to focas on building something for long term success.

Your sources have read the same sony PR reports as everyone I know What they forget is that it is a financial decision much more than a technological one.
Imagine an XB3, IT will be built on much the same technology that it is now (manycore x64 or PPC) and a custom graphics chip much like Xenos, not expensive, technology is there. in other words, a next generation xbox won't be more expensive than todays PS3. because that's where it hurts. PS3's development has cost it so much and the investment in "Cell" (along with Toshiba) needs some ROI this lifecycle. It's not that Sony wanted the PS3 to be this late and this expensive. Ofcourse, this means PS4 will just be a 12/16SPE design with another GPU and it will be closer than we think because everything it advertises it to be today (first blu-ray overall 1080p system) will pale with the next generation. Sony can't afford another cock-up because their stubborn feeling of superiority is costing them a lot in sales at the moment because a long lifecycle doesn't help you sell anything right now, they are selling roughly half of the consoles versus M$ and a third of of the software. (please, don't talk about the wii)

You forgot IBM. They were in on the Cell development too.

There are some disgruntled microsoft people who will confirm the XBox being near max. But if you really want to question my information about Microsoft, I submit Windows ME, XP before the two SPs, and Vista before the SP fix. And Microsoft's changes in the 360 warrenty. Orignally, it was the standard 1 year, then because of the extremely high defective rate (at one point it was 80%) and they upped it to 3 years for the Red Ring of Death (Achievement Unlocked!) however, if you call in because you got the red ring of death, and depending on the person's mood you talk to, you could get the box sent to you, or they could give you some bs run around (Gamestop was no longer able to accept returns on the 360 about 6 months after it came out, and you had to contact Microsoft because of the defective rate).

I'm not sure why people seem to think that Sony can't afford to screw up. Sony backed Betamax and lost that in the consumer market (though apparently betamax was used by news studios) but until recently Sony was outselling the 360 in Europe and Japan. Infact, until Ace Combat 6 came out, the 360 had never outsold the PS3 in Japan. All those arguements people used to throw out when the Xbox came out, you know the "Microsoft should stick to making computers and stop making videogame consoles!!111oneoneoneeleven rar11." applied more to Sony. They've been in the tech business for a long time, and there's something to be said for fanboy loyalties. It's what kept Nintendo going.

But really, the main arguement is lack of games right now. They are a little behind the 360 for this time last year in number of games, but it's pretty much the opposite of last gen. PS2 was the inferior system with a higher defective rate, but had far more games compared to the Xbox (or the Dreamcast. That was a awesome system right there).

Absolute Zero wrote:(or the Dreamcast. That was a awesome system right there).

Amen to that. Get Grind Radio anyone? Haha. I still have mine and rock it occasionally.

Dreamcast another microsoft powered console.

I knew there was a reason I didnt like it!

-----------------------------------------

In other news: I just downloaded the full 4 disk set of music for the '86 movie Vince DiCola did (for botcon acording to the dl's title). I'd already heard the orgianal version of the soundtrack cd, but the Piano only disk is fricking awesome, and the next disk (which seems like full instromental expansions on the origanal musical themes) is pretty damn epic too!

I just got off the phone with with Microsoft, they're going to fix my Xbox 360 for free, wooooo

I'm going crazy without playing Saints Row 2 and NCAA Football 2009

Mainly SR2, blowing **** up in that game is such a stress reliever!

neliz wrote:Dreamcast another microsoft powered console.

Dreamcast's a Sega console.