Javito1986

Good sir! The classics never get old. Why, just in the last year I've gone back to replay Wing Commander, X-Wing, and Gabriel Knight... all early 90s games and all quite lovely! In fact, Gabriel Knight in particular made me lament the dearth of writing quality in modern gaming. Wing Commander too. They literally do not make games like Wing Commander anymore, where you fly with a squadron of likeable pilots whom you gradually befriend, any of whom can die permanently and their funerals will make you sad, and the ending of the game can either be you attacking and destroying the enemy HQ or you fighting a desperate rearguard action to cover your carrier's retreat, depending how well you fly. Hell I wish they'd make games like that these days. Mass Effect is really well written and I love it for that, and there's a few other modern examples... but really, the majority of games these days are McShooters with outrageous production values but lacking literary value. Most companies don't even employ full time writers. I know, "If I want story I'll read a book" says people, but since I was a wee lad I've seen games as a storytelling medium. My favorite games are always ones that have made me think, and get myself really involved in their stories. Also, space sims don't even exist anymore and that sucks. Thank god for Freespace 2, keeps me sane. Link to a FS2 video of a user-made mod I made last year for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about.

I WANT TO HAVE YOUR BABIES *flees*

EVE is basically one huge virtual society where capitalism is allowed to run rampant. I'm on hiatus from EVE Online right now, but for a few months I was there as a squad leader in the Ivy League Navy, the military branch of EVE University, the game's premier teaching school (and one of the few altruistic corporations in New Eden). Our job was SPECIFICALLY to protect the students (newbs) from the playerbase seeking to take advantage of them. Between May and September I think there was somewhere along the order of 15 declarations of war against us? During that brief span of time I was with the ILN I saw a guy carrying cargo worth $1,000 of -real world- money get attacked, robbed, and killed in High Security space (the safest it gets in EVE). Saw pirates set up ambush sites along key trade routes to prey on merchants. One alliance declared war on us, and our intelligence chaps infiltrated it and assassinated their leader. Killed his clone, took all his assets (stuff that it takes months and months to work for). Our intel guys were SO good, we would monitor each and every individual hostile in any given alliance, track all his movements, and pick them off when they were alone and kill them. At one point we even knew that one of our enemies' hamsters' had just died and so we expected him to be in an emotionally reduced state. When I say "killed" I mean destroy their ship and kill their clone. Which costs them lots of money and experience, and since experience is earned in real time you can potentially lose weeks/months worth of progress if you fail to keep the insurance on your clone up to date (which gets to be exceedingly expensive). For that reason people on EVE have a rather acute sense of self preservation. In November there was a fleet battle in which 3500 pilots participated in total. The really neat thing about it is when you consider that the commander of one of the fleets was in command of some 1600 pilots, divided up into battlegroups and so on all the way down to individual squadron commanders. Wars there can get downright Napoleonic. I really enjoy EVE a lot. I don't play it so much though because, frankly, I'm just too busy and it really is an alternate life set in space that you access through your computer.

http://www.battlefro...d=18&Itemid=469 This is about to be released. This page is, I think, the game's manual? If so, damn is it detailed. Do want! Edit: Aye, that's the actual manual available for online viewing. Again, do want!

War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition? My friend has that, it's bloody brilliant.

I forgot about Diablo. Mainly since I never played it and wasn't very old in 1996. I remember the first I heard of Blizzard was when they released WarCraft 2 and all my friends were playing it. Bullethead, you sound like you'd enjoy EVE Online. If there was ever a game that shows NO mercy to noobs it's EVE. That's seriously the most unforgiving and cutthroat virtual environment I've ever heard of.

I like me a good complicated monster game. Hundred page manuals is where I live

Y'know I'm really not that surprised. People forget that back before Blizzard scored OMFG BIG with World of Warcraft, they were considered one of the best game companies in the business after scoring BIG with Warcraft 2 and BIGGER with StarCraft. We always praised Blizzard, said they could do no wrong... except for the constant delays. Blizzard was always delaying and delaying its games, it's part of what they were known for. So I've never really expected to see Heart of the Swarm within a year of Liberty's release. Wings of Liberty is still perfectly viable though. More than viable, it's a master RTS game. I don't play it competitively anymore because it's an E-Sport more than a game and is therefore way too stressful, and I use games as a relaxant dagnabbit. That said I do frequently watch StarCraft 2 matches on youtube and the Day9 Daily analysis show, because it -is- very fun to watch. I didn't watch the Superbowl (and I -live- in Wisconsin) but I sure did watch Huk vs QXC at the Major League Gaming tournament.

Shogun 2 looks fun but I fear it's well beyond my system, at least for now. I could run Empire at full settings with 1920x1080 res, but not Napoleon, and certainly not Shogun. And I dunno, if I'm going to play a game on PC I like to see it for all its worth, so I don't like playing games on medium graphics or whatever.

I've never liked scary games. Could never play Resident Evil, Silent Hill, F.E.A.R... I'm actually impressed with myself I made it through the first level of Bioshock!

Man. I'm sorry but they have never since made planes as pretty as these ones. Well, except for that Fee. That thing's hideous! Glad I wasn't in the RFC in '16, I would've been too self-conscious to be seen in one of those. But a Nieuport? Yes please. I know, I know, to each their own, but for me (and with a few exceptions coughSpitfirecough) aircraft aesthetics plummeted after 1920.

I played BGT with widescreen at 1680x1050 resolution. It's fulfilling to take the same character all the way through BG1 and into BG2, and BG1 vanilla for me was almost unplayable having experienced BG2 before some time ago, so it was much better to just play BG1 using the BG2 engine. I spent basically all December and most of January on Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, left off a few weeks ago in BG2 chapter 4 I think. I just needed a bit of a break I think, try out some new genres after all those weeks of straight Infinity Engine RPGing. Have every intention of returning to BG2 and finishing it in the near future. In addition to BG2 and Planescape I also own Arcanum, and the Icewind Dale games and Neverwinter Nights on GoG, which I've heard GREAT things about. Though I'm thinking it'll be at least a year before I start any of them, they're quite fun to look at on my virtual shelf and think of the good times that will be had someday ;-)

See? Von Paulus understands. Gaming is hard work! I get home from work or Uni, tend to the wife and make sure she's taken care of, and settle in on the Nintendo. Takes commitment I tell you!

I do have that issue, it's true. Ironically I don't have that at all with books. Last month I read The World Undone, then I got Sagittarius Rising and read that, now I'm about to finish reading Food In History, have my next book lined up... very methodical, one at a time and orderly. Games though, I'm just all over the place. 'tis why I finally just decided to put a spending block on myself and finish what I already have

Did you play Witcher 1? I really liked it, played through it in the summer of '09. Used the enhanced edition to run it in its original Polish, was better that way since I could appreciate it without the sometimes iffy English voice acting (and I don't know Polish well enough to recognize good or bad VA). Witcher 2 will be great, and GoG is an amazing company, but if the Polish VA isn't available on release then I might hold off until it is. These days I'm busy playing Okami on the Wii and The Longest Journey on PC. Both are SUCH well designed games, love them. I've got quite a backlog at the moment so last week I committed to clearing out my current games before I buy a new one. That means before I pick up Dragon Age 2, Witcher 2 or anything like that I'll have to finish: Planescape Torment Baldur's Gate 2 (about halfway through) Okami (about halfway through) The Longest Journey Final Fantasy XIII Valkyria Chronicles (almost done) Dragon Age DLCs + Awakening (Have yet to play Leliana's Song/Witch Hunt/Awakening and I've never done the campaign with all the DLC) Fallout New Vegas So that'll take me a good long while, particularly since I've got school + writing + programming to work on. But that's ok, by the time I get around to buying this year's biggest baddest games they'll be dirt cheap, so win win.

Hell yes, Combat Mission was amazing. I still remember reading about it the first time, in EGM Magazine during 8th Grade Study Hall. Bullethead, my friend and I owe you big because we had -such- a great time with CMBO. To this day we reminisce about the epic Overlord/Barbarossa/Afrika Korps battles we fought.

Love the video!

Best wishes. See you when you get back Herr Olham

I couldn't even get the DH2 off the ground. Damn wing gave out on me on take off, hit a tree. Good war story for the grandchildren. Grandpa trained weeks, deployed, hit a tree on the first mission and sat out the rest of the war. Dashing heroism!

Oh so you're going to be one of -those- guys! Whenever I travel I always watch them intently from the airplane window, such interesting work. Not much fun on a freezing winter night at Chicago O'Hare but fascinating nonetheless! Don't forget to come back here and visit from time to time

I was just finishing cleaning up mountain of good strong Wisconsin snow and read the aforementioned thread and this one. My thoughts: A) Elephant, I rather enjoyed seeing the screenshots of your little RoF adventure. I also have it and enjoyed my time with it, though unlike Parky I -don't- have enough room on my hard drive for -both- WW1 flight sims + other PC games I play, so I only keep OFF installed on a permanent basis. As an old RB3D hand I adore OFF, though I admit in the past six weeks I've spent much more time on this forum than actually furthering my RFC campaign. This is mainly because I've been console gaming like a madman recently. B) Lou, you are a gentleman and a scholar old chap but you've got nothing to be so worried about! There was nothing at all offensive in your initial post though I suppose I understand you have cause for concern, the internet being the way it is. Still I think we can safely say that everything is fine and dandy. I have spoken! These proceedings are now closed, all parties are excused and you may step out.

When my lady fair used to get angry with me and start 'misbehaving', I'd get very angry at her. Was very frustrating but I was hesitant to really assert any authority over her, as I didn't feel like I had the right to do that. At which point she'd retort with "You really don't know how to talk to me. You have to learn, or I'm going to walk all over you when we get married!" After I started laying down the law, essentially implementing Hellshade's system, things improved markedly. After one episode in particular I cut contact completely for the entire night, made her sleep alone, and informed her I wouldn't do this or that until she apologized. I expected her to be even angrier the next day, but instead she said that she liked that she finally made me snap, said it was like she'd been misbehaving but now it was "Uh oh, Daddy's mad!". That was the day I learned that some women just didn't go along with that whole 'feminism' thing

I really didn't know that about the animals. That's interesting! I'll look that up later today, sounds like interesting reading. My father said that the difference between East and West Berlin in the 60s was startling. The West was neat, orderly, automobiles, pretty. The East side was run down, he said when he was there a lot of buildings still had extensive battle damage, as if repairs hadn't begun at all. The people were grimmer, there were long foodlines, and soldiers everywhere. He had a discussion with a young soldier from Ukraine, whom he describes as a thoroughly nice chap. These other military officers (I don't know if they were German or Russian or what, don't remember) told him that in the "inevitable" war they would steamroll the capitalists, and my father says he felt like telling them they were crazy and "Have you seen what they have over there?". After visiting East Berlin he was convinced that they would not win any conflict with the West. I'm not so sure of his conclusion as he is as I tend to think East Berlin was so poor specifically because they were throwing all their funding into the military. Still, I'm quite happy the "inevitable" war never panned out. p.s. I don't know why I forgot to mention this, on this forum of all places, but he also said that when he was in Germany he met an old veteran of Jasta 11 who flew with Richthofen. I ought to call him up and ask if he remembers the man's name so we can look him up.

American Civil War mod? I've heard nothing of this. TO GOOGLE!

The reality is that what happened in Germany in the 1930s could just as easily happen in any nation given similar circumstances, which is the prime lesson that any democratic state needs to take from that experience. As far as the DDR goes... well, it was basically an extension of the Soviet state and we all know how those chaps were. My father visited Germany for his work just a few years after the Wall went up, and he was one of the few permitted to travel freely from West to East for a time. He has rather fascinating stories about the contrast between the two sides of Berlin in the 1960s.