"Good Old Games"

Shellfishguy · 2011-06-23T11:00:35.000Z

The soundtrack from 2 was exceptional and I agree that 3’s is only slightly behind.

Brian, thanks for the comments on Freespace. I guess for $3 its hard to go wrong, especially with all the mods etc.

BrianRubin · 2011-06-23T11:04:28.000Z

FYI, one reason I got Heroes Chronicles, besides never playing them, is the hope that the soundtrack might be slightly different from HOMM3, but in listening to it it appears to use most of the exact same tracks. Ah well, not that the music is bad or anything, just thought y’all might like to know.

Fenris99:

The mighty Brian Rubin has spoken.

I always pay attention to your posts. So, 3 it is. :)

Wow, thanks, I’m quite flattered. :)

Shellfishguy:

The soundtrack from 2 was exceptional and I agree that 3’s is only slightly behind.

Brian, thanks for the comments on Freespace. I guess for $3 its hard to go wrong, especially with all the mods etc.

No, you really can’t. Freespace 2’s campaign is one of the best stories I’ve ever come across in a video game ever, with lots of scary moments, some that will make you nearly pee yourself. ;) And with all the mods and missions you can get for it, you can be playing beyond the original campaign for a very long time.

malkav11 · 2011-06-23T11:18:17.000Z

For starters, there’s a conversion of the original Freespace’s campaign and expansion to the open source Freespace 2 engine.

BrianRubin · 2011-06-23T11:19:51.000Z

Yup, and the FSOinstaller installs that as well IIRC.

scharmers · 2011-06-23T12:03:05.000Z

Justin Fletcher:

Now there’s a series I’d like to see on GOG. Probably never happen due to licensing, but still.

I have SFC:OP lying around somewhere. To me, the SFC games were far better in theory than in practice. The SFB board game is all about min-maxing about a bazillion systems in a very complex environment, and trying to carry that over in a RTS just didn’t work for me. I was like “yeah, I could micro my ships like a zerg rusher on crack, or I could just say fuck it and try to alpha strike every time”. So much of the nuance (hassle) of SFB was just whisked away.

Shellfishguy · 2011-06-23T12:12:29.000Z

Brian Rubin:

No, you really can’t. Freespace 2’s campaign is one of the best stories I’ve ever come across in a video game ever, with lots of scary moments, some that will make you nearly pee yourself. ;) And with all the mods and missions you can get for it, you can be playing beyond the original campaign for a very long time.

Bought and downloading. So if I use the installer you linked last page, is that all I need to do?

scharmers · 2011-06-23T12:19:54.000Z

Shellfishguy:

Bought and downloading. So if I use the installer you linked last page, is that all I need to do?

FSOInstaller is easy mode BUT it is old, there are newer source and VP updates but it can be a hassle to manually get them installed.

BrianRubin · 2011-06-23T12:20:45.000Z

As far as I know.

Install the game from GoG.
Run the FSOInstaller and wait for it to download and install everything.
Run the new FSO launcher you’ll get and tweak your settings accordingly (this thread should help)
Launch the game from the launcher.
Enjoy!

:)

BrianRubin · 2011-06-23T12:23:16.000Z

Oh, I was told FSOinstaller used the latest VP updates. If it doesn’t (I installed mine manually), this thread takes you through the manual install process. It’s not that complicated.

Ponicus · 2011-06-23T12:54:34.000Z

What resolutions is Alpha Centauri restricted to? Can it scale up to 1680x1050? I hesitate, as much as I want it, to buy it if it can max out at 1024x768 because then it’s very hard to see on my laptop and causes a lot of eyestrain.

rowe33 · 2011-06-23T12:54:52.000Z

FSOinstaller was downloading for a few hours last night and didn’t finish. Hoping to resume tonight and finally get back to some Freespacing!

Thraeg · 2011-06-23T13:18:15.000Z

Brian Rubin:

I say get 1-3 because they’re all awesome in their own way. 4 is questionable. 3, IMO, has the best story along with one of the best random map generators in the business (maybe only outdone by the Kohan games), so there’s a TON of gameplay there. 3 also has an excellent soundtrack that’s only slightly not as good as 2’s in some way’s due to the operatic nature of it.

As much as I loved 1 when it came out, it’s been superseded in every way by its sequels, and is hard to recommend today. 2 and 3 both hold up wonderfully, though. 3 is the peak of the mechanics and has the best story and campaigns (especially once you include the expansions), but 2 has the edge in music and graphics (charming hand-drawn sprites vs. pre-rendered 3D).

BrianRubin · 2011-06-23T13:22:21.000Z

True, but I’m a completest. ;)

Angrycoder · 2011-06-23T13:35:37.000Z

drish311:

What resolutions is Alpha Centauri restricted to? Can it scale up to 1680x1050? I hesitate, as much as I want it, to buy it if it can max out at 1024x768 because then it’s very hard to see on my laptop and causes a lot of eyestrain.

Set your laptop’s graphics card to stretch the screen but maintain aspect ratio. Even if you could get the game to scale to 1680x1050, the tiles would be too tiny to play.

Matt_Bowyer · 2011-06-23T13:58:10.000Z

Heroes III is my favorite of the series, but both II and III are wonderful, wonderful games.

Miramon · 2011-06-23T15:31:03.000Z

scharmers:

I have SFC:OP lying around somewhere. To me, the SFC games were far better in theory than in practice. The SFB board game is all about min-maxing about a bazillion systems in a very complex environment, and trying to carry that over in a RTS just didn’t work for me. I was like “yeah, I could micro my ships like a zerg rusher on crack, or I could just say fuck it and try to alpha strike every time”. So much of the nuance (hassle) of SFB was just whisked away.

I think that’s exactly right. In theory they should have been great…

IMO one big problem was in SFB they were completely unable to balance the races after the initial release, which was itself somewhat unbalanced in favor of the Federation. But then they went way way too far in the other direction. Really, guys, you’re sure you want the Romulans to move 31 cloaked while powering up plasma torpedoes? Yeah, right. At least it makes plotting the turns easy when you don’t have to manage energy production. And then for some reason they decided to slavishly imitate the SFB balance problems in SFC, which made multiplayer quite unpleasant at times.

Then too the SFC games were terribly buggy for long after release, the campaigns and strategic map play were terrible and each successive promised update to fix them made it worse, but still, lurking within the heart of both SFB and SFC were good games that just didn’t quite work out right.

BrianRubin · 2011-06-30T10:41:59.000Z

Today’s release is SWAT 3: Tactical Game of the Year Edition which I will buy in a heartbeat because I LOVE the SWAT games (3 and 4 mostly, though 2 was cool).

Tyjenks · 2011-06-30T10:46:10.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Some would disagree and say 2 is the best one, but the general consensus is that 3 is the best one.

Matt Bowyer:

Heroes III is my favorite of the series, but both II and III are wonderful, wonderful games.

What they said.

I totally missed that Chronicles came out. I kinda skipped on those back in the day and was just lamenting in some other thread that there was no way to get them. So, ya GoG yet again.

I am having trouble processing the fact that Fenris has never played them, especially with them being on GoG for quite a bit. Let me go back and reread that post.

scharmers · 2011-06-30T10:47:05.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Today’s release is SWAT 3: Tactical Game of the Year Edition which I will buy in a heartbeat because I LOVE the SWAT games (3 and 4 mostly, though 2 was cool).

Yeah, this is a win. Hopefully GoG gets SWAT4 Gold as well.

Otagan · 2011-06-30T10:51:16.000Z

Brian Rubin:

Today’s release is SWAT 3: Tactical Game of the Year Editionwhich I will buy in a heartbeat because I LOVE the SWAT games (3 and 4 mostly, though 2 was cool).

My money. All of it.