RTS: Any games to compare to starcraft/warcraft??

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 04:08

The new monitor has me on a little game craving, I am installing some of my old games and playing with them for abit.

One of the games I always go back too is Warcraft III, The 1 player is great and online is wonderfull (Im not a big fan of the regular vs mode I prefer the fun custom games) I never did take too well to the new system with heros and all in the normal game.

I much prefer the older warcrafts and my fav of all was Starcraft! There has yet to be a game that gave me a rush like that did trying to build my protoss army and fight off the legions of the zerg ^^.

Admitedly being that I am older now, no game has the same effect on me. I can barly find one that keeps my attention, let alone one I get into like I used too.

I never did like the C&C series, just didnt sit well with me. So any recomendations for somthing similar, or maybe even some good news for a warcraft/starcraft sequal on the horizon?

Post by **skipclarke** » 23 Apr 2007, 04:22

I'm in the exact same boat as you are.. none of the games today can give me the same rush and excitement as classics like Starcraft. I pretty much enjoyed it when they kept it simpler, not like newer games that try to hype up graphics with elaborated gameplay.

Now I spend most of my free time watching movies and anime :P

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 04:50

Wow we do sound the same then. I hardly ever game anymore (thus why im in no rush for a computer ugrade and made the monitor upgrade mroe of a priority) and just watch anime and movies ^^

Just saw Bleach 122 today, and recently got done with Death Note and .Hack//Sign.

As for movies, I just get what sounds good. I am more of a anime person. I much look forward to 300 on dvd tho. Hopfully a HDDVD or somthing. I saw it at IMAX so that was a great experience.

One game I do play and it kept me hooked for awhile is O2Jam, its a music game, online and free. Just hit keys when they get at the bottom of your screen and you play music... may sound simple but since I love music and you can just pick up and play or quit whenever its a great game for me. Play a classical music song and it really feels like your playing a piano.

I cant play too well on my new 37" monitor tho.

Post by **skipclarke** » 23 Apr 2007, 04:55

Haha, I also want a new monitor for watching anime and movies.

I just started on Samurai Champloo since I loved Cowboy Bebop. I did watch Bleach when it was originally released but the earlier episodes turned me off. I heard that it has improved MUCH since then, so I'm going to give it another shot sometime.

300 was great on IMAX :D

O2Jam sounds similar to Stepmania but more so to Guitar Hero. Is O2Jam a flash type game or is it downloadable and customizable with different songs?

DanielTC · Post by **DanielTC** » 23 Apr 2007, 05:43

Yeah . . . games mainly suck now, all about graphics.

The closest thing to StarCraft you can get right now, in terms of micro and so on, is Company of Heroes, for RTS.

I cannot play RTS anymore, excluding StarCraft; StarCraft has made me an elitist, a competitive as hell person, and so on.

At work, because of StarCraft (at least, it made me more competitive), I am competitive; I try to do my best, I strive to be better than other people there and so on.

For other genres:

Racing: Trackmania Nations
RPG: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
FPS: Rainbow Six: Vegas.

StarCraft is just too friggin' awesome . . . I played it almost every day since I was eleven years old till I was 18 or so; then I got depressed, had no internet for like 11 months. Now I work, and just have not felt like getting into StarCraft . . . plus the lack of ladders at the moment for competitive play.

Oh, and thanks for telling me about episode 122; I forgot to check. :D Bleach <3

Hellsing is awesome. :D

Because the lack of good games, I mainly play on my DS Lite; besides Trackmania (finished Vegas and Dark Messiah).

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 05:53

Hmm even more to talk about!

Samurai Champloo is great, its one of the very few anime that are dubbed really well so you can watch it in english. I also thought of cowboy bebop alot when I saw it (one of my favs for sure, best new age anime I think)

Bleach does start off slow, I watched the first 2 or 3 episodes on 4 or 5 diffrent occasions and stoped there even tho I had 20 episodes to see.

One day I had NOTHING to do, and watched all 20 and was soooo hooked. Once it gets a few episodes deep it gets better, by the time the soul society arc gets going its one of the best action anime I have seen. The only one I say I like better is Rurouni Kenshin, wich is the same, its starts off rather slow untill the plot forms and you get to know all the characters and there backgrounds.

It gets abit "eh" again in the Bounto Arch, then picks up again in the new arch.

Funny that you mention comparing O2Jam to stepmania and gutarhero because thats exactly how I described it to my friends. Its like the combo of the two.

In Stepmania (or DDR as I call it since I played it in the arcade and not on the computer) You have the scrolling notes going up and have to hit them when they get to the right part of the screen acording to the beat. Thing is you just hit the arrows and get a combo, your not playing the music or effecting it.

In gutar hero, if you miss a note or hit the wrong note the game (depending on the song) will eather not play a sound thats a part of the song, or give you this "boing" noise to say you hit a wrong note so you actually sound like crap if you play like crap.

Well O2jam is like Stepmainia on crack. Instead of 4 arrows, you now have 7 keys. Default is S, D, F, Space Bar, J, K, L (aka the base typing keys if you took typing classes) they scroll just like DDR but from up to down. Thing is each key has a note, sound or somthing asigned to it. So your actually PLAYING the music when you hit the keys. So if your offbeat you hear it, or if you hit extra keys or miss somthing you really can tell. You can even kinda freelance and hit your own keys to add stuff in. its a online only game based from malasia i think so alot of people speek chinese or somthing similar (I speak pretty good japanese, and its definitly not japanese) but they speak english too, and alot more american players are showing up.

I just love the game, its fun and addicting. Get the songs via a torrent file because downloading them from the sever is a nightmare, the game itself runs great tho so I guess the game server and file server are totally diffrent. More than just the music game ist he awards you get for your game rank. You get Gems depending on how good you did in a song, you can use those gems to go buy avatar pieces and make your own custome avatar to represent you in the game. I have a gothed out drum player. Also as you beat other players you level up, your level is kinda your "epeen" to show how good you are at the game, and also certian levels give you a mission to get to the next level. I was stuck at lvl 27 for a long time.

Its free to download and play so just give it a shot. You CAN spend money for exclusive money only avatar stuff or songs, but there is no need too.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 05:57

Yeah . . . games mainly suck now, all about graphics.

The closest thing to StarCraft you can get right now, in terms of micro and so on, is Company of Heroes, for RTS.

I cannot play RTS anymore, excluding StarCraft; StarCraft has made me an elitist, a competitive as hell person, and so on.

At work, because of StarCraft (at least, it made me more competitive), I am competitive; I try to do my best, I strive to be better than other people there and so on.

For other genres:

Racing: Trackmania Nations
RPG: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
FPS: Rainbow Six: Vegas.

StarCraft is just too friggin' awesome . . . I played it almost every day since I was eleven years old till I was 18 or so; then I got depressed, had no internet for like 11 months. Now I work, and just have not felt like getting into StarCraft . . . plus the lack of ladders at the moment for competitive play.

Oh, and thanks for telling me about episode 122; I forgot to check. :D Bleach <3

Hellsing is awesome. :D

Because the lack of good games, I mainly play on my DS Lite; besides Trackmania (finished Vegas and Dark Messiah).

Thanks Daniel, I am looking for a good racing game (hopfully that supports WS) Test Drive Unlimited has my attention I read up on it and its like a Massive Multiplayer Racing game, where you can race other playres in an open world or run into other players at anytime while on the road. Sounds kinda neat. If it played like that and had a Need for speed most wanted type enviroment that would be like the best game ever.

I cant find any games online right now in the racing type that work for me online ^^ most of them say bad CD or are not even in english...

Enjoy Bleach 122, It just progresses the story abit further and leaves you with a nice cliffhanger.

I was incredibly competitive on starcraft aswell, I was at the very top of the ladders for awhile. I remember the day I first saw starcraft at a friends house, i was amazed (this was before I had a computer, sucks being a poor kid) I can remember the colorfull pixels that were my drones mining crystals, and the coolness of my siege tanks shifting. I ultimatly became a protoss master. I had an EVIL stratagy where I ammased nothing but archons and arbiters, id fly my arbiter into the middle of your town or behind your defenses (too many people just built this huge wall of defenses to block entry into there base) then recall a whole sh[t load of archons into a base and tear it apart before they knew what happened. It worked everytime on a long game (rush games I hated) untill sombody one day found out emp shockwave made the archon into a deadchon :/ I got the expansion but never really played it much.. just a few times. I guess by that time I grew out of gaming abit or was just burned out on starcraft.

I miss good ol' 2d games, I think pixels can look just as good or better than polygons, and its ahella lot easier on the computer to deal with them.

WCIII is good stuff tho, I learned to not be so competitive because its bad for me, the custome games are alot of fun, everything from ninja vs samurai, to excape from the prymid. last time I installed WCIII tho looks like DOTA has taken over the custome games and there are not nearly as many of all the other things. DOTA can be quite competitive.

Post by **skipclarke** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:07

I just tried O2jam and you are very right, it's just like stepmania but on crack. I like it though, more functionality and more challenging. However, for some reason the lobby music is too fast, so it skips around. I tried looking around in options to mess around with some things but it didnt help. No big deal though, in game works flawlessly.

When you download songs via torrent, do you just look for specific songs or do you search something more general?

Also, did you ever see the anime Berserk? A friend of mine recommended it to me but I haven't had the chance to pick it up yet.

I speak a little bit of elementary Japanese but probably not as well as you. I'm taking some classes and it's a very unique and interesting language, but does require some dedication to learning it. :)

Anime no naka de, nani ga ichiban suki desu ka.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:21

The actual game music is fine, the everything else music is messed up. I guess you may have an X-fi soundcard like me??? its just not compatible. X-fi had alot of isssues when it came out with alot of games, they patched them all over time with driver updates, but a 3rd world game like 02jam never was one to get a fix. You get used to it ^^

Beserk, yes seen it and like the whole thing... Untill the end. I mean I HATED the end, never have a had anything be it movie or anime make me so mad. Not because it sucked like was a bad ending, but just what happend, it really connected with me and I was so pissed off. Then the idea the first episode starts off in the "future" then the whole series is the past up to that point and its over. It was left for a sequal. One that will never happen, so for a good week or two you will be upset that they didnt pick up where they left off, you may even read the manga just to see what happens. I cant say much more without spoiling anything. I say watch it, then make sure to give your feedback to me after.

As for the torrent, the offical download page has a torrent link for all the songs in one file. Thats the one I used. Im pretty sure it was from the offical page, if not look around for one.

Keep up the JP study, I self tought myself and have hit a dead end to where I cant learn more without sombody to teach more or to speak it with me. You may very well be able to speak more of it than me, I do have both hiragana and katakana memorized tho. So in theory I could read a japanese book to a bunch of japanese kids and they would know what im saying and I wouldnt.

Post by **skipclarke** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:26

Ah, that makes more sense to me then. I have an older audigy card and they haven't released an update for it for at least a year now.

My friend also warned me about the ending, so I will have to see how bad it is for myself. I hate it when things are left for a sequel.. but never get one. :( Which anime would you personally rate as your favorite?

I'm impressed that you were able to teach yourself Japanese. I found it very difficult at times even with a teacher's help, who is a native speaker.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:35

Well, I always have been able to learn things fast.

I got the "accent" from anime and stuff and just learned the alphabets and stuff via online. I even ordered a few issues of Jump and started translating them with the help of an online translator jisho.org best one I know of, denshi jisho is "electronic dictionary" the good thing about jump and alot of other manga is they have the 'subtitles' for the kanji and since kanji is my weak point it lets me look them up and find there meanings. I got about 50 pages deep before I gave up on the japanese study and started doing photoshop as my main hobby instead (I do all of this at work, my only free time) I mean I just kinda noticed hey... every day I run into about 15 or so people that speak spanish and I speak none, and thru 2 years or working in a hotel I hae had 2 guest that speak japanese, so its not doing me much good, and if I dont use it I will forget it (much like spanish, 2 years of it in highschool and because I never used it I forgot it all) I admit im forgeting the japanese very fast, not being around it means unless you refresh yourself constantly it goes away.

So not to discourage you from learning it, but thats what happened to me and why I only brush up once in awhile rather than study it like I used too.

edit: oops forget about the question.

Well favorite anime.

I guess if I had to pick just one out of the blue the first thing to hit me is Rurouni Kenshin.

it really connects with me, great soundtrack, great plot and character devolopment. by the time you get so many episodes deep you really feel for the characters and can feel there feelings and emotions. Its about japan and that era when swords were more common than guns.

You would have to understand abit about me to know why that fits me so well, im a black sash in ninjitsu and have also taken kendo and iaido, I have a hand made katana from japan that I consider my closest and most prized object. Im not going to freak anybody out and say I consider it my soul like the samurai of the past did, but I feel connected to it in some way. Its kinda funny that I took up japanese and the japanese culture too. I had no reason too, or any influences to do so. So depending on your religon you may say somthing like "I may be a reincarnation of a samrai, or ninja"

So to that extent me aside, Kenshin was wonderfull with the sword action scenes and the fighting, but while having the best plot ever.

The OAV's will rock you with all the violence and blood, then the series will be "bleh" at first this really soft cheezy comedy, but once you get maybe 10 episodes deep and the real story starts it gets just as good as the OAV, then better and better and better. I honestly cant say I know any anime that combines all those elements so flawlessly. i didnt mention the animation being top notch, and also the idea it has some comic relife too to help take you along. Its not super short, and its not like naruto and bleach where it drags on forever. Its just right.

From there my other favs:

Cowboy Bebop: best new age type anime with guns isntead of swords, but atleast there is still good ol' vicious of who I am named after who uses a sword (I guess more history for you my friends call me Vicious, because even tho everybody carries guns today, I used to carry my sword with me all the time, im very much capable with a gun tho ^^ top scores in the marines with my rifle. Got the expert rifle badge)

Full Metal Alchemist: somthing diffrent, was light hearted but cool theme and nice animation, also a pretty good story.

Recently just saw Death Note, and I really liked it aswell, first anime I can call "mystery drama" or somthing to that effect, definitly check that out.

Those are all "middle sized" anime with like 20-50 episodes. Wich I think is perfect. If you want some shorter stuff:

I enjoyed Macross Plus, Vampire Hunder D2 (bloodlust I think), Lodoss War (the OAV is better, but the series is good). thats about all that pops in my mind right now.

DanielTC · Post by **DanielTC** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:44

ViciousXUSMC: Not to be demeaning or anything; but with the way it sounds like you play, I was/am on an entirely different skill level than you are . . . plus I meant Brood War, sorry. :P

Berserk is good, I only watched 5 episodes or so, though; but I really liked it what what I saw.

Oh, yes, Rurouni Kenshin is also awesome, along with Yu Yu Hakusho.
Samurai Champloo seems really cool, watched it for a bit and quit . . . I could not stand the music; I might try it again.

Oh, a thing about Trackmania: online play is pretty weird . . . you do not just start off on a circular track with 3 laps or whatever; you mainly play with a bunch of other people and on a track that lasts anywhere from 10 seconds to 2 minutes+. Your goal is to try to get the best time; and you get rewarded points towards your ranking if you do well.
Online play is pretty much like multi-player Time Trial/Attack.
Another thing is that it is not your standard racing game you have to make jumps, loops, wall-ride and other crazy stuff. . . .

Here is a video:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=O-XchwyNTxg (crazy track though, very unlikely to come across one such as that online).

You should get Trackmania Nations, it is free; I want to get Trackmania United and Test Drive Unlimited. I have always been a huge fan of racing games.
One of the cool things about it is you can make your own tracks, and play other people's tracks and so on.
So it stays fresh, at least a bit.

I'll make a video of myself playing it, to give you an example of what its like to play it online; with no crap.

Dem Pyros · Post by **Dem Pyros** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:52

Take a shot at Empire Earth or Empire Earth 2, those are some randomly fun RTS's that are somewhat similar to Starcrat.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:53

I was seriously on the top of the ladder for awhile when I played alot, thats just my fun strat and it works ^^ I didnt use somthing like that exclusivly. It depends on who I was playing. Im sure the brood war had totally diffrent strats tho with the new units. I didnt play that much at all. Even after installing it I guess due to being used to it I played the original more.

Let me know what you think of test drive unlimited once you get it if you do, as for Trackmania I'll check it out, cant go wrong with a free game !

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 06:59

wow that video is crazy! kinda reminds me of those old micro machines racing games on my snes. I think i will have alot of fun with that.

Now... to use my joystick or my 360 controller ^^ (I need to find some excuse to justify buying a joystick, but I really dont have space for it on my desk anyways, so controller is probably better.)

DanielTC · Post by **DanielTC** » 23 Apr 2007, 07:13

I want to get a new, wireless controller for my PC; I am sick of having to watch out for two wires around me (from headphones and controller).

Having wireless headphones is not an option, thus I will go with a wireless controller.

Geez, there is just too much stuff I want to buy. T_T

Westy 37", AKG k701's, X-FI, new games, and so on.

At least my handheld gaming is good to go, just waiting for my new stuff to get here (Monday or Tuesday, I hope).

Oops, forgot to mention . . . Trackmania Nations installs StarForce; far as I know, though, you may still play it with StarForce removed.

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 07:22

Yah I hear you. I cant buy anything else tho. I got the westy with the combo of my tax refund money and working thru my vacation for 2x pay. It was worth it tho. When I upgraded my crappy P4 computer to my nice new Opteron and 7800GTX and 2gb ram ect ect. Sure I needed that upgrade in power to play any decent game, but before I had gotten the new computer all put together I got a 19" LCD to replace my 17" CRT and even tho it was hooked to my old computer for a few days, it was heaven. Like the best computer upgrade ever. Since thats your interface to your computer its just so important.

So here I did it again and upgraded from a 19" to a 37" and its like a piece of man heaven :P

I should have it adopted as one of those "man laws" to have a computer monitor thats atleast 24" big and widescreen ^^

problem with computers is one things leads to the next.

Now big high res monitor??? now you need a better video card to power it or be forced to play games at crappy settings.

new video card.. wow now you need a new cpu to go with that video card so you dont get a bottle neck.

new cpu... oh crap its a new platform so you need a new motherboard to hold it. Oh dont forget the ram just changed now you need DDR2 instead of DDR.. What your old PSU wont give enough power to hold the system stable.. before you know it you have a new computer.

Thats why as much as i know I would benifit from upgrading my 7800GTX to power the new screen, I wont upgrade my computer and just waist a good 7800GTX. I'll just build a new computer all together. Probably based on a Core2Duo and a 8800GTX (way down the road when prices are down and I have money. I doubt I'll have the money tho)

YouTube · Post by **ViciousXUSMC** » 23 Apr 2007, 13:55

I got trackmania nations but I cant get it to work, as in I start the game and at the name entry/flag select screen I cant type a name or anything, the only keys that seem to have any effect are the arrow and enter key. All the rest do nothing. So I cant get past that screen.

I tried diffrent settings to no avial, benchmark runs fine too 63.7 fps @ higest settings at 1920x1080

I cant find any info on this problem on the web eather....

P-Storm · Post by **P-Storm** » 23 Apr 2007, 15:24

That really wierd that you can't install trackmania :?

For the people that wanted to see some good anime i recommend these.

Code: Select all

Chrono Crusade

   .hack//sign

   elfen lied

   full metal alchemist

   fate stay night

   FCFL (fooly cooly) (i know i write it always wrong xD)

   Hellsing

   Mai Hime

   Megas XLR (just too funny, a must watch american cartoon :P)

   Noir

   Samurai7

   Samurai Champloo

   Tokyo Underground

   Yumeria

For games, good old games on the snes or other consoles (I have a lot of consoles here, but want to have more. But now i go, and go my almost burned pizza :lol:

Cynagen · Post by **Cynagen** » 23 Apr 2007, 20:23

Completely off-topic, you guys just reminded me of it though: I used to run an all anime all the time Winamp TV station, Full Metal Alchemist was one of those "draw people in" shows. I'm still messing around with the idea of reopening it. Anyone got some spare bandwidth?

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