Both are really solid RTS titles and both are overlooked :( I am currently enjoying skirmish mode in Lost Souls. While the interface still could use some work, the research tree, unit creation, and battlefields make it a pretty cool game.
Conquest just rocked because it was Star Trek Armada done right. Nothing like watching two huge fleets duke it out. Tiamat’s rock. And that green fart cloud thing was cool too.
Conquest is like 5-10 dollars most places, Lost Souls is going for 30 right now. OH, by the way, I saw Kohan: AG going for 15 dollars NEW at Electronics Boutique. If you’ve been putting off trying this game out, now is the time to snag it.
Both are really solid RTS titles and both are overlooked I am currently enjoying skirmish mode in Lost Souls. While the interface still could use some work, the research tree, unit creation, and battlefields make it a pretty cool game.
I take it you never played Earth 2150 or The Moon Project. While Mr. Chick and I never got to hook up for an online game of Lost Souls, I know we were both reviewing it at the same time. When we shipped mail back and forth the game was usually referred to as Lost Moon Earth Souls Project 2150 or something similar.
It’s the same game as The Moon Project…quite literally, which was just at best an expansion pack for Earth 2150. The only difference is the campaign itself. Given that the campaign is murder even on easy a lot of the time, it’s just not worth playing if you’ve got any experience with the others in the series. Lost Souls still looks good which is testament to the engine created for the first game and used in like 10 games since. But with things like Kohan, Warlords Battlecry 2, Warcraft III, etc. etc. etc. out there to play…even Conquest which I think is a great game as well, Lost Souls, after three iterations and despite its quality, loses a lot of punch. They couldn’t even be bothered to add new music this time.
I did play the first two, I just didnt really appreciate them at that time. Lost Soul is a pretty good way to revisit the series.
Warcraft III, Battle Realms, Empire Earth and the many other supposedly high quality RTS titles have done nothing to capture my interest like Conquest and Earth 2150 have.
I am thinking I am just a sucker for things exploding. I AM looking forward to Age of Mythology tho, sounds nifty.
If none of these games does it for you, I doubt Age of Mythology will. Except for the occasional meteor spell, it doesn’t have a whole lot of explosions, and it follows the RTS blueprint stylishly but still pretty slavishly. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but if you weren’t impressed with WC3, AOM’s gonna be a hard sell.
if you weren’t impressed with WC3, AOM’s gonna be a hard sell.
I wasn’t impressed with Warcraft III, but I am an AoM fanboi, although it has nothing to do with the amount of stuff that blows up.
Lost Souls is good, if you don’t mind getting jacked for $30 to rebuy The Moon Project, but with some incredibly difficult and tedious campaigns.
The Earth 2150 engine is beautiful and unlike Mr. AngryFace, I like the interface a lot. One thing you can do in Earth2150 that no one else has adopted yet is that you can assign units being built to control # groups. I love that. Of course, it’s completely undocumented in Lost Souls. The unit building is also more than a gimmick, especially in multiplayer. The AI is very good. And, if that’s your bag, there is lots of stuff blowing up.
While I didn’t like Warcraft III that much I do like its interface. Earth 2150’s interface is unique n all, but I WAS a big Starcraft fan so I tend to gravitate towards the interfaces that copy (conquest as one).
Dark Reign III would be cool. They need to apologize for II :(
Dave Long wrote:
next time you slag IGN or some other site for their review, stop to think that maybe you’re the one that’s off the mark or maybe, get this, you just disagree!
Ya know…the best thing that’s come out of this is that it’s apparent people are finally reading my posts. But you’re off the mark here Mr. Guest. I simply disagree with the Gamespot review. I’m not writing a ten paragraph tirade on how it’s wrong and Gamespot must be on the take, blah blah blah like jeep did. I simply don’t agree with the assessment of the game on Gamespot. Do you have Gamespot Complete, have played Lost Souls and were able to read the review linked to? Or have you been stalking me so long you just couldn’t wait to post something you thought was contradictory even if it wasn’t really so? Thanks for responding so quickly as you have to Met_K. I hope we can all count on you for Board Cop status from here on out!
I did play the first two, I just didnt really appreciate them at that time. Lost Soul is a pretty good way to revisit the series.
I guess… except you can get The Moon Project for $10 or less and you’ve bought the same game you’re playing now. You said you’re playing skirmish. The two games are identical if that’s all you’re doing. Take that $30 and put it toward something that’s not a blatant attempt at a cash in? While the game deserves a reasonable score because it’s still the same good game it was before, it seems like there was almost zero effort put into producing it.
Warcraft III is big…but the other two are marginal. If you wanted something to rekindle your love of RTS, Battlecry 2 is that game. I’ll agree that it’s a shame no one played Earth 2150. I’ll even say it’s a shame no one played The Moon Project. But on the third iteration of the same game, I can’t say the same thing. It still has what’s good, but since that’s the same stuff from the last two games, it’s not worth $30.
Age of Mythology plays like a traditional RTS in that you have an economy and you need to tend to it. However, the ages have a larger effect on the game and there’s a lot of diversity in the way you play each side. It also looks pretty durn cool. But Erik’s right, it’s probably not a big enough break from the genre’s roots to make you a believer. Personally, I can’t wait to play it though.
Hey Dave, sheathe those claws man. I apologize for the fact that my need for instant gratification won out as I searched for an older version of the series only to find Lost Souls on display at the local game shops. Geeze.
Oh, and I tried WBCII, and it just really wasn’t my thing. Im sure its a great game but I played it against friends and tried the single player. Just not for me.
Sorry… I was too personally involved in that game for two weeks. I just couldn’t believe it was the same game! I guess I’m just trying to save someone else the money…
…that and the constant Guest bombardment I’ve been getting lately probably caused the long posts. Oh, and I’ve got all machines running at work here so I’m kinda bored.
I’ll play the single player stuff once I get used to the game in skirmish, that’s sorta how I start RTS titles. Since I couldn’t find the previous titles locally and I hadn’t played moon project much at all, it was a good purchase for me.
Plus it was trade in credit for games I hadn’t touched in months so there ya go.
It’s a tough call with Lost Souls. It’s great if you haven’t played the earlier games, but the problem is that so much of it is undocumented for people new to the series.
For instance, did you know about building defenses on structures? I don’t think there’s anything in the manual or tutorial about that, yet it would be impossible to complete some of the single player missions without knowing this.
And what’s with all this civility, Mrs. Long and AngryFace? Should you guys be calling each other asshats and spoogenozzles by now?
And buildings that can produce units automatically assigned to control groups.
Nice, but if you’ll read my post, you’ll see that’s not what I was talking about.
In Earth 2150, you can assign specific units from a building to a control group. Let’s say I’m building heavy tanks, light tanks, and an unarmed stealth unit. I can spit them all out of the same factory into separate control groups.
I don’t recall whether TA did that, but I’m sure you’ll clue me in.
When am I not in the mood for a little anal retentiveness? Don’t worry, it’s a rhetorical question.
You wrote:
One thing you can do in Earth2150 that no one else has adopted yet is that you can assign units being built to control # groups.
… which is something TA could do.
Then you clarified with
In Earth 2150, you can assign specific units from a building to a control group
I shouldn’t have to explain to you, mr. famous writer, the importance of wording in a sentence. If it’s so clear as stated, why did you feel the rewording was necessary? Maybe you could clarify that for me.
