I'd like them to hire Richard Dean Anderson again. Even though I killed off his character in Fallout (again and again and again), I'd like to hear his voice return, if only to create a bit of a connection with the original game.

Test Drive III is my all-time favorite racing sim. It was so great because it was fully open; you could drive anywhere. If "Unlimited" is anything like that (and, from reports, it is), then I'll be delighted. Of course, it can't be dumbed down in handling, presentation or anything else, so I'm crossing my fingers that the bad reports aren't as bad as they sound. The open idea of this game has *so* much potential. It'd be a real shame if they screwed it up.

Bite your tongue, Hump. It's only been a snoozefest since the 4th game. The first 3 were the best racing simulators around for their time.

I wonder if they've fixed the Titan crash bug that they "claimed" to fix in the last patch. Eh, probably not. It's not worth being optimistic when EA is involved. It's better just to expect the worse with them, since you'll usually end up being closer to right.

Irrational Games (System Shock 2 and Bioshock) is the one and only studio that I trust to do X-Com right. I hope that this is true.

BTW, if you have fears that they won't do it right (because of Freedom Force or anything else), consider that their System Shock 2 was true to the original. That may be the best, most faithful sequel from a different studio that I've ever played. The Irrational folks know how to do a sequel.
This comment was edited on Feb 17, 20:23.

"your a fool." Haha. Stones and glass houses, they say.

I played the original Microsoft Train Simulator and I was surprised at how boring it was. You have to be a hardcore train enthusiast to enjoy it. Being stuck to a track, going only forwards and backwards is incredibly boring.

The note about the free registration being enough seems to be untrue. Both sites require you to have a paid subscription.

I agree that leveling up was the most fun, but I'm not about to trash a game that slowly went downhill after that. I got a good 6 months out of the game before I quit, and I'm a guy who's found something special if a game lasts much more than a month. If people expect MMOs to maintain their excitement indefinitly, I think that you expect too much. Sure, you expect more for your $13/month, but when the cost finally becomes unworthwhile, I can't see trashing the game because it had an expiration date in your opinion.

That's definitely true. My system is close to the minimum now and it definitely sputters.) Surprising since this is the same engine that powers Civ4 (and Oblivion for that matter), both of which run like butter on my system.

The difference is that Civ4 is a much simpler, turn-based game, while Railroads is a dynamic real-time game. For example, in Civ4, the competition's moves aren't calculated until your move is over and you're not playing for a minute or two. In Railroads, all competitor moves are calculated all of the time. In addition, there are things like 3D objects like trains that need to be re-drawn all of the time, something that Civ4 doesn't have. It makes a lot of sense for Railroads to be harder on systems than Civ.

3D graphics doesn't mean blurry or ruined. Take a look at Civilization IV. That's how you do 3D in a traditionally 2D genre. Sure, most times, companies screw games up by making the move to 3D, but that's their fault for being stupid and not doing it right, not the fault of the 3D, itself. Civ4 (and Pirates!, which used the same engine) set the bar for how to do 2D gameplay with a 3D engine and, hopefully, future games will follow suit. From the screenshots of EU3, I think that they're on the right path.

Anyways, don't trash 3D; trash the developers who have screwed past games up with inappropriate use of it. They're the ones that you're upset with.

The first two screenshots were released today.
http://www.3dgamers.com/screenshots/games/settlers6/

I hope that the re-make of Settlers II has gotten them back in touch with what makes a great game and that this new version is more like that than previous Settlers efforts (which weren't worth playing, IMO).

Ooh, I so want to spend half the price of a full game for only one quarter of a full game... not.

That didn't stop me from thinking it was a completely stupid and pointless move. Proper sequel or not, that still means it's a good 2 or so years until we get something that isn't fluffed up with fantasy bullshit.

I know what you mean. I wish that developers would quit branching out with their historical franchises to include fantasy and magic. For the most part, it wastes their time and people's money. I would've rather had another AoE game instead of Age of Mythology, as well as a Rise of Nations 2 instead of Rise of Legends. I play the historical games because I love history. There aren't that many good ones, so it's even worse when the good ones are corrupted with fantasy junk. Keep the orcs in the WarCraft games and give me actual historical units and battles in my history games.

The "Legends" in the title should tell you that it's not a real sequel. It's exactly like how Rise of Legends wasn't a real sequel to Rise of Nations. The "Legends" in the title of both tells you that they're set in a fantasy world with fantastical creatures and magic, not in reality or history. Stronghold fans will probably be greatly disappointed. This seems to be aimed more at Battle for Middle Earth fans.
This comment was edited on Aug 23, 15:57.

The game has, apparently, gone gold, yet this demo is a beta... odd.

I really haven't been very impressed with the screenshots of UE3 games that I've seen. It doesn't look much different to me than the Doom 3 engine with higher polygon counts. Both engines have that "plastic" look to everything. Maybe they just haven't implemented the next-gen technology that was showcased in that old UE3 demo (which *was* impressive), I don't know. I hope that UE3 games end up more impressive than they appear right now. Most games that are 8-12 months away have you drooling over the graphics in their screenshots, but I definitely don't have that reaction when I see the UE3 games now.

Keep in mind that there is a problem with having 40-man raids in an expansion: everyone in your guild would need to buy the $39.99 expansion. What's the chance of that? Yeah, pretty low. Can you imagine buying the expansion and not being able to experience the content immediately because a bunch of your guild members are either slackers or too poor? On the other hand, expecting 25 of your usual 40 raiders to immediately buy the expansion sounds just about right. With the content tailored for only 25 players, early adopters can enjoy the new content almost immediately, instead of waiting for slackers to buy the expansion or quitting the guild to join an expansion-only guild in order to have the numbers to do the content.

This is incredibly fun, just like the original. I recommend downloading it. Too bad the game doesn't hit shelves for another two months.