"Good Old Games"

John_Many_Jars · 2010-10-12T09:48:40.000Z

Games:Jokes about Games::Good Old Games:Good Old Jokes about Games

Miramon · 2010-10-12T10:12:41.000Z

Brian Rubin:

I think because the first game is good too?

Yeah, I think IWD2 was superior, but IWD wasn’t bad. I’ll get it when I run out of other games to play sometime. Currently in the middle of PS:T, among others…

Rock8man · 2010-10-12T10:21:34.000Z

Catshade:

New release: Betrayal in Antara, now packed together with Betrayal at Krondor.

Another week goes by, and no Age of Wonders: SM release. I’m starting to get seriously irritated. It wouldn’t be bad if Impulse hadn’t already released it on their service. Surely this isn’t just to string people along? Maybe they’re actually taking a long time to make sure it works well on modern systems without problems? Did anyone have problems with the Impulse version on modern systems?

Creole_Ned · 2010-10-12T10:23:28.000Z

That’s a nice bonus for Betrayal at Krondor to include Betrayal in Antara. Since I already had BaK, I was able to re-download it and get the free BiA, handy since my version on disc had gone missing. BiA isn’t a bad clone of BaK but the voice acting is some of the most atrocious I’ve ever heard in a game.

Matt_Perkins · 2010-10-12T13:38:59.000Z

Rock8man:

Another week goes by, and no Age of Wonders: SM release. I’m starting to get seriously irritated. It wouldn’t be bad if Impulse hadn’t already released it on their service. Surely this isn’t just to string people along? Maybe they’re actually taking a long time to make sure it works well on modern systems without problems? Did anyone have problems with the Impulse version on modern systems?

I never really got into Age of Wonders, any version. The maps felt too big honestly. Each of the later maps felt as big or bigger than any MoM game and it was just one level! Three different planes to defend against and track bad guys on… Just got too tedious after awhile.

Shimarenda · 2010-10-12T13:46:47.000Z

Catshade:

New release: Betrayal in Antara, now packed together with Betrayal at Krondor.

GOG has added bonuses to games already in their catalog before, but I think this is the first time they’ve added an entire second game. That’s a really nice bonus. I’ll have to download it again soon.

thither · 2010-10-12T14:17:55.000Z

Rock8man:

Did anyone have problems with the Impulse version on modern systems?

AOW:SM works fine for me in Win XP (though something about, I presume, the graphics code makes the game basically unusable in Parallels on my Mac and I need to fully boot into Windows to play it). As a point of interest, all three games are out on Steam now as well.

Freezer-TPF · 2010-10-12T14:26:44.000Z

I’m still waiting for the GOG release of the rest of the AoW trilogy, but the delay is going to cost them more and more sales now that the games are out on Steam.

Relayer71 · 2010-10-12T14:32:16.000Z

Disconnected:

Cool combat encounters are the core of both games, and IWD1 has better encounter design (IWD2 is very good, though). Also, everyone I know (myself included) thinks IWD1 has the more compelling story.

I agree, IWD 1 just had a tighter, more focused story. Ditto the combat and quests.

With IWD 2 Black Isle got more ambitious and it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing (the game had some really humorous bits which the original was lacking, a bit more dialogue, more detailed NPCs), but overall, the original just had a more streamlined design and it just had a certain charm and feel the 2nd was missing. The difficulty in IWD2 seemed to be all over the place too, there were a few areas that got frustrating.

Still, IWD2 is worth playing.

prolix · 2010-10-12T16:18:41.000Z

Otagan:

I’m not saying they won’t have IWD2. They just won’t make a big deal about it until the day of its release.

Or else they will pretend to go out of business the day before they release it, because that worked so well last time.

JustinFletcher · 2010-10-12T19:56:16.000Z

Freezer-TPF-:

I’m still waiting for the GOG release of the rest of the AoW trilogy, but the delay is going to cost them more and more sales now that the games are out on Steam.

I wonder if the rights holders gave Steam and Impulse an exclusive launch window. The latter two games are certainly the jewels of the AoW crown.

TimJames · 2010-10-12T20:30:19.000Z

Is Heart of Winter required? I notice I have the Icewind Dale CDs but no expansion. Never played any of the IWD games. I’d like to get away with just playing 1 and 2 unless the expansion is important or really good.

Tony_M · 2010-10-13T01:12:27.000Z

AOW2 and SM are better than Master of Magic IMO (dons helmet and flameproof suit). They have all the good stuff, but without the tedious end game micromanagement. Games of MOM are fun to start, boring to finish. AOW is great all the way through and pushes the same buttons.

In short. If you, like MOM then I recommend you try AOW. You’ll probably like it even if you don’t agree with my verdict above.

Tony

rezaf · 2010-10-13T04:13:52.000Z

To offer a different opinion, I love MoM, but never managed to get into AoW2 or SM.
I liked the first AoW for what it was, but the sequel … not so much.

For me, it scratches more of a HoMM itch.

Maybe it’s because I basically only played the campaign, which was supposed to be quite good.
I always ended up struggling to keep a very small empire afloat and maintaining a small army, and then some AI player would come round a corner with five maxed out armies that shred me to pieces.
After several retries I would, on one of these occasions, quit and uninstall AoW2/SM straight away.

rezaf

Otagan · 2010-10-13T05:01:12.000Z

Temple of Elemental Evil was just released for $5.99.

Jarrodhk · 2010-10-13T05:06:51.000Z

Never played it, may have to pick it up to finally try it out.

Tony_M · 2010-10-13T05:21:40.000Z

I enjoyed Temple of Elemental Evil but I could not finish it because I ran into a game stopping bug that was never fixed (at least not by an official patch, maybe a fan patch has solved it since). It looks like a RPG, but in fact its closer to Tactical Combat Game using the DnD rules.

It has a bizzare opening. 95% of the game is pure combat, but the first 5% of the game is nothing but tedious fetch quests in the starting town. The quests are optional but they give you xp. Very strange decision to put all the non-combat quests in row at the start of the game. If they were spread over the games length they would have been fine.

You might want to ignore the starting town and skip straight to the fighting.

Tony

Nikolaj · 2010-10-13T05:32:47.000Z

Tony M:

I enjoyed Temple of Elemental Evil but I could not finish it because I ran into a game stopping bug that was never fixed (at least not by an official patch, maybe a fan patch has solved it since). It looks like a RPG, but in fact its closer to Tactical Combat Game using the DnD rules.

It has a bizzare opening. 95% of the game is pure combat, but the first 5% of the game is nothing but tedious fetch quests in the starting town. The quests are optional but they give you xp. Very strange decision to put all the non-combat quests in row at the start of the game. If they were spread over the games length they would have been fine.

You might want to ignore the starting town and skip straight to the fighting.

Tony

There’s mod by a group called Circle of Eigth, that solves most, if not all, of the issues that Troika never got around to patching, as well as adding a bunch of stuff. I wouldn’t play Temple of Elemental Evil without it.

I believe that the decision of putting most of the quests in the starting town stems from the fact that the game is based on an old DnD module, although since I’ve never actually played that module, I couldn’t say if the game stays true to it at all, so I might be wrong.

Dan_Theman · 2010-10-13T05:46:13.000Z

Nikolaj:

There’s mod by a group called Circle of Eigth, that solves most, if not all, of the issues that Troika never got around to patching, as well as adding a bunch of stuff. I wouldn’t play Temple of Elemental Evil without it.

I believe that the decision of putting most of the quests in the starting town stems from the fact that the game is based on an old DnD module, although since I’ve never actually played that module, I couldn’t say if the game stays true to it at all, so I might be wrong.

I have to second what Nikolaj says here: I HIGHLY advise to not play the game without the Co8 mod. Make sure to follow the insturctions for installation, including not installing the final official patch (which is likely what introduced the bug that Tony found).

As for how it matches up to the original, ToEE actually keeps the basic framework of the modules pretty intact (T1 - T4). There is more that was added and some things removed, but I find it fairly representative of the PnP version.

Tony_M · 2010-10-13T05:48:16.000Z

I played the original Pen and Paper and the whole game is very true to that module (including the fact that its basically a giant dungeon hack). So I should have mentioned that in my post. I checked the Circle of Eight forum out. Holy Cats! (to quote Tom) those are some dedicated fans. Time for me to play through the game and actually finish it this time.

BTW the combat is very true to DnD and the interface is a little arcane. Its all too much for the manual to handle. I remember these forum posts helped me get a handle on how combat worked.

Become a TOEE Tactical Master

Thorough explanation of combat

Although looking at the Circle of Eight Forum there might be better start guides out there now. Those links above a quite decent though.

Tony