THE THIRD STRIKE

battleforge f2p?! and a word on Sots

Published on May 28, 2009 By Levelheaded In PC Gaming

BATTLEFORGE FREE 2 PLAY!
as a sidenote: Why aren't we seeing more games like nexus?

First things first: I was gobsmacked when i learned today that BATTLEFFORGE has become free 2 play. In what i can only describe as a colossal kick in the guts for everyone who bought the game when it still changed hands for 50 bucks, EA must have decided that selling a game at full price and then charge again for more "content" (as far as anyone would call new cards content...) wasn't exactly the most ingenious of ideas.

So we basicly we now have a Trading card game that has a decent PC based foundation.
Curse or a blessing?

I tend to call it a blessing as it offers a truly different gameplay and is not infested with japime artstyle.

Its worth a look for everyone but be aware you gotta swallow a hefty 2,6 download and make around 8gb off hdd available.

www.battleforge.com

SWORD OF THE STARS gets yet another addon, and i will love it.

SOTS has proven to me that, despite not being MoO2, 4x games can still suck me in.
SoTs is a rather special blend though, it minimized the micromanagement of your colonies (and seriously, them colonists had it coming, why do I need to tell everyone poersonaly what to do?! I'm tze bloody emperor not some lowly administrator!) in favour of assailing you with Agressive AI and random events that ranged from catasrophe to the big armageddon hoedown.

It's fun to manage your assets (fleets) to outmaneuver your opponents and gain a strategic advantage. And im talking STRATEGY here. Being able to intercept reinforcements before they can gather is VITAL to survive a sots game on higher difficulties and a challenge to pull off since the ai is very build happy on every world it owns.
The whole juggling of technolgies is a fun aspect either. Often you will find your ship setup that so easily vanquished the Tarkas Race to be totally ineffective against the other races.

Its a game of constant change and very entertaining if you let it draw you in.

It has problems though.
The key component, the tactical Combat is AWFUL on many levels.
Im not only talking about the rather weird control sheme but also about the outrageous hardware hunger the engine has.
I understand that an engine that keeps track of every bullet IS a hardware hog but why must it LOOK awful on top of that?

I'll gladly trade 50 Ships on the screen for 10 that look great and offer decent fx.

I want to point out that NEXUS - The juipiter incident had very good graphics while still running fine on a pentium III 800 with a geforce FX.
In many ways Nexus still holds the crown as far as Graphics in space tactical combat games go (well, not much competition though). Sure the game was buggy but all the pieces for greatness were there, it just lacked polish. (something Stardock has beome good at)

I now of course could give a link to a nexus vid but that would be wrong. We can't JUST look back can we? We will instead look back just enough so we can get a glimpse of how NEXUS 2 COULD have looked if it wasn't iced indefinetly due to some lawsuit clusterfuck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECR5RxTfuuk

Here is the same clip in High Quality and im talking HD here.
http://files.filefront.com/space_techdemo_HDrar/;6335725;;/fileinfo.html
In fact i ORDER you to watch this instead of the youtube clip.

So here i am. I ask you, Kerberos games and all other developers: WTF do i NOT have THIS kinda Eye candy EXploding in my face but instead have to suffer through Bon-bon graphic-lagfests?

I dare you to show your face again with SOTS2 without graphics that equal this.

Please remember. its 3 YEARS OLD.

3 YEARS. And looks so awesome.

Thats what i want. It will run good on our PC's, it will look good. I'll buy this without second thought SO MAKE IT HAPPEN!

Oh and im giving away a 50% off coupon for DEMIGOD, the coupon is valid till 29th of may.

First come first serve

Comments

SpardaSon21

on May 29, 2009

Keep your pants on. There are a few goodies coming out from Kerberos before they get to SotS2. There's Northstar, in which you are the captain of a vessel called the Northstar and you do all sorts of unsavory acts like smuggling just so you can get rich. There's also Fort Zombie which is an RTS in which you command the survivors of a zombie apocalypse and keep their fortress safe from hordes of zombies. So be patient. SotS2 will take a while, and it will kick ass. I suggest you grab the Argos Naval Yard micro-expansion for AMoC that adds some freaking sweet weapons and new ship sections that's coming out for SotS on June 17. Don't worry, Kerberos will take those several years of extra development time and really put some spit and polish on it.

Levelheaded

on May 30, 2009

Heh. I'm not in need of another game-just-like-elite-but-15-years-to-late-to-keep-my-interest and i have no interest in zombies or RTS about people diggin in dirt.

Its either spaceships duking it out, giant robots mowing down other slightly less giant robots or people in power armor carving each other up with heavy ordnance.

As far as the new addon for a murder of crows is concerned: i know. thx. in my mind i have already bought, played and enjoed it (i never said Sots was a BAD game, i just said they fucked it up where it could have been stellar).

As for sots 2: Have you watched the video i linked? If sots 2 looks like that, i'll be impressed. I'll build an altar for it and sacrifice one goat every day.

Seriously, i'm not gonna settle for less. (and im not asking for more btw, its lokking good, thats enough. i don't need a game that cooks my 8800GT just by displaying a fckn barrel -exagerationwarninghere-)

They say that graphics aren't important ,the gameplay has to be right.

Let me tell you this: FCKN-bull-shit! I'm tired of hearing this. The gameplay in sots is decent. Now you only need fix your control sheme (aka have one that actualy works...) and give me my eye candy. Theres no need to reinvent the wheel(gameplay). its rolling fine. Polish, yes but not reinvent. Put that time into making it an eyeopener.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4osuwGcYl4c&feature=quicklist

Nexus TJI, 5 years old. still looks awesome (and runs smoothly on my 07' pc even in large multiplayer battles) Now tell me why its impossible to get a space themed 4x game where i can design my own ships and have those kind graphics at the least?

just plug nexus graphics onto sots. there you go. thx. i'd buy that.

Shadowgandor

on May 31, 2009

Levelheaded

reply 2

They say that graphics aren't important ,the gameplay has to be right.

Let me tell you this: FCKN-bull-shit!

In my opinion, the gameplay IS more imporant then the graphics. I mean, my favorite game is an ASCII game, Dwarven Fortress.

My favorite mmorpg is Tibia, it's anything BUT pretty.

Some games thrive on their graphics, yes, but those games won't survive longer then a year or 2, because the graphics keep improving. What looks pretty today, might look terrible in a few years, just because we're used to better.

Welcome Guest! Please take the time to register with us.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:

Richer content, access to many features that are disabled for guests like commenting on the forums.
Access to a great community, with a massive database of many, many areas of interest.
Access to contests & subscription offers like exclusive emails.
It's simple, and FREE!