I have never rented a game in my life. I know many people do to see if it is worth a purchase. I probably would have saved a bundle of money had I rented games from time to time. But I do try and support developers.

I was a little miffed with EB going the used sales game route because when a store routinely sells used games, they start taking liberty with opening new stuff and shrinking the contents, then if that's the last copy, you end up buy it opened, paying new prices, or you go around town finding it elsewhere. But the one thing used games is absolutely good for people are titles you may have missed. How many people had to garage sale hunt the game SMT: Nocturne? I know I did and I even got a second one. It was selling for $175 on ebay at one time. There are really good "Diamond in the ruff" titles out there that when new people buy those, only helps people like Atlus and other developers by winning over a new fan base. If companies would truly repackage and sell old stuff as new, then this wouldn't be a problem, but they don't do that as a rule.

I know EA and Blizzard like to resell things until the end of time because they can afford to. The problem is the rest of the industry rarely does. So losing the resale market hurts folks that want to hunt down those games they missed the first go round. I can buy just about everything that comes out, but that doesn't mean I do, and with a game saturated market like we have now, it's a full time job vetting games and you will miss some. I really see this more of a big company against all the other developers issue.

I finally got the patcher to install the 1.01 patch.

When I start the game, the main menu is just a black screen with a star. I can hear the music. Odd thing is when I disconnect the internet, the game runs fine, and I can even connect it back after I get past that point. But I can't get the menu screen to work if I am connected to the internet initially.

Have only played Russia so far. Can answer a few questions I am reading below... Russia can turtle effectively if you like to. Tesla - Think NOD Obelisk with faster rate of fire. Takes out most things in 1 hit, large ambhibious ships and other mega units take 2 hits. Superweapons in the game so far seem to be just a skill tree system of super powers you buy with skill points as the map progresses. Russia's earliest is to cause orbiting space facilities to deorbit and crash at a specified location. Another power is sucking up units into space. If you use the crash power after that, the units as well as deorbiting sats will crash into your target, kinda funny when it's an aircraft carrier you grabbed.

Playing Solo campaign, you must have a co op AI with you. I am not really liking this part of the game as the AI is a resource hog (forced to share resources...) and unless you babysit his activities, AI will stream units and burn cash. Then if you do babysit what it does, you end up pretty much stomping the enemy with a zerg.

Maps and graphics are purty, clean with 8x aa and all max. Loads are REAL fast. I got some triangle spray and weird shadow popping after playing 7 maps into the game and in an area of heavy units, debris and conflict. There is a patch 1.01, but the server wasn't patching when I tried it earlier tonight. It's a fun game so far. Have to take it tongue and cheek. Approach it that way and you will enjoy it. It has more depth than I anticipated but not the deepest RTS by a long shot.

8-10 Twin Blades (Helicopter/Russia) is a pretty nasty attack on light defense. Action in the game is very fast paced (which is why I think the game isn't strategic enough, you just don't get the time to actually execute a plan, stuff blows up too fast). You can lose 10-20 units in a blink of an eye if you aren't careful, including Twinblades.

There are some extremely long range units in the game. Aircraft Carrier, LRMs, Missle ship, etc... So long range warfare is very much a threat above and beyond the air stuff we are used to seeing in C&C. And if you do turtle, make sure you have some air to clean up the pesky air craft carrier that keeps trying to take out your turrets.

I know the whole ordeal was a clustershag, don't know who those Flagshipped people are... I was sub'd so I got all the perks and enjoyed it. I was very much anticipating the content in 2.0.

As long as it doesn't turn into microtransaction hell, or cuddly pom poms of doom, I will be interested. I got a feeling that lifetime subs should be honored to avoid a serious round 2 of people hammering that game.

Friction from differing view points, turns in to cries to grab a torch and burn down a forum for people to express those differing views. I think people need to stop playing head games, especially when it's involving a site as old and respected as Blues.

DRM is bad. It solves nothing, it hurts legit buyers. It's a no brainer. While I understand Stardock is feeling pressure, their original stance was the correct one, now I do not respect their position at all, as they are simply waffling to the most comfortable position, while trying to have their cake and eat it too.

DRM is a very risky stunt to be pulling with the economy the way it is. People are already spending less on games according to many statistics. Nov-Dec will be tighter than last year for this reason and the fact there is more competition. I have even cut back, and I don't need to. The negativity surrounding the thought of actually handing money to someone who insults their own customer base is repugnant.

I had a 40 within 15 days of release or so, and have 2-3 20ish, bunch of 12ish. I resubbed with wife since she likes to play. I could take or leave the game honestly. But it is a good game, I am just a bit burnt on mmo games.

The problems that I see directly game related:

1) Maps aren't very good at telling people how to get around because they either hide destinations, or the rvr flow chart indicates going one way and unless you have a quest that points you to the next area perfectly, you spend a long time puttering around looking for where the zone line is. Some of the zones are 3D mazes and can get a bit tedious to traverse. It's pretty hard on new people for the first time.

2) I have been waiting several weeks for people to get to 40 and do stuff. There are enough now to get the feeling of how it will be for another month or so. Pretty much Qing up the chase the boat part scenario. I really don't like that scenario and it's about the only thing I find people playing so I am playing alts. Hopefully they can add some of the other scenarios people want to play at 40, and when enough of the server is all in 1 tier (tier 4) serious RVR will start. So until then I pretty much play alts.

3) Itemization and PVP. I am playing my Ironbreaker through pvping for the most part. I find myself having to break away from PVP advancement system to get gear outside of it (PQ, AH, and quests). They are redoing items to some extent, so this should be a short term issue.

4) Running around large maps after death over and over. How many times have we in games, died, respawned, and then run forever someplace to fight, then die again, repeat... Maybe it's my age, but I don't like to run everywhere anymore. Leveling up by quests is bad enough but atleast you spread traveling between hubs. I would like to see them address large playfield RVR with spawns to keep running between death and fight a minimum. Thinking ahead on this because some of the tier 4 zones are vast, spread out, and maze-like.

Other than that I think they are doing fine. Asthetics is another issue. Population balance ties in to that and RVR rewards. But if you like pvp in bursts via scenarios, the game plays better than it did at the start, so it's progressing.

Did they change something with tanks recently? I haven't played one in a week, but when I did, they were pretty important. Ironbreaker cc, kd, and did some nice damage.

I loved Crysis, I have always liked the Farcry style games, even Predator on 360. I have to agree with what has already been posted. Warhead weas like the less fun part of original Crysis.

I also can play Crysis max settings SLI no problems, but Warhead has all kinds of issues (on lower settings than max) that apparently need a lot of clean up. I get artifacts, triangles sprraying all over the screen, big black polys stretching into infinity etc.. In a cave there was this one area that looked like soda straw stalagtites. I could go on and on, it needs some fixing. I stopped playing half way through.

I will just play normal Crysis or the online stuff which seems to run great despite neeeding a lot of feature/balance/function fixes. I got bored with Crysis Wars. I felt all the Battlefield games did it better but maybe with some work it could be really fun... But I do like the maps where you play team deathmatch and have tanks and vehicles everywhere. I haven't played FPS in 5 years since Planetside (if you count that as even being fps).

It was a fun return to it all. I got started in Doom2 coop and 1 on 1 and played through to about the time when Counterstrike started. I played with TF2 a day just too compare to the original, two forts wasn't the same to me but it looked like a really cool game. I am a couple years away from being a grandpa, so these kind of games are not something I play often anymore

Scratch that, I just cancelled my 2 subs. Decided this morning for some reason it was boring.
This comment was edited on Oct 12, 2008, 11:14.

That sounds like 8 million too much... That game sold itself 6 months ago. People are chomping at the bit for it. My 14 year olds have been talking about it every other day for the last 4 months. That's all they care about is when that game comes out.

When it does, it will have word of mouth like no other unless it bombs.

I would rather see a real nice redo of Magic Carpet and Dungeon Keeper 2. Overlord reminded me so much of Dungeon Keeper... DK2 had much more potential than was ever realized.

Not sure if any of you remember Powermonger, that game was pretty fun for it's time.

The hammer needs to fall on the fools that abuse GM clients after hours... The groupies that volunteer from game to game always seem to try and get away with stuff before getting caught. I know in AoC it was rampant and I am starting to see things that are somewhat obvious in Warhammer.

This DRM stuff will fail as long as people reject it. I know it may be hard, but simply do not purchase EA games until they have stopped doing this to people. I will simply play all the games I already own and can simply put into my machine and play because they DO NOT have these lame DRM protections. There are plenty of other good games out too, and coming out. Just choose not to vote for DRM.

If we don't then we can expect other games like this to be sold the same way. Can you imagine every single game you presently own being done like this? What a mess.

This comment was edited on May 10, 04:44.

While this is a step in the right direction, it is still "Begware". The software shouldn't be shrink wrap sold as a blind licensed contract. It should be a product. Registering is fine, limiting install is not. So I will be passing on these still.

I do not want every PC game of the future sold this way, therefore I did not buy Bioshock, I will not buy these, and hopefully others will continue to send the message that this isn't ok either. That is unless you want every game to be sold the same way.

I remember Wizardry 1 being written in Pascal and Locksmith and Disck Copy plus couldn't break the on disk protection because of it's well thought out and written protection. I was ok with that copy protection.

Over the last 30 years I have easily purchased 3000-5000 games. I remember the page flipping, the code wheels, the unique and bizzare methods used every year. I was ok with that copy protection, I "dealt with it".

Then we got into serial codes and other alpha numeric methods plus on disk schemes. I "dealt" with those as well.

Then we had Windows open a can of worms that I still do not like with it's online begging to be able to use what you paid for any time you upgrade or have to reinstall. I was not ok with that, and yet I "dealt with it".

When Starforce whatever came along and started making my CD rom perform poorly and physically changed the functionality of my system I decided to boycott every single game that used it, and was vocal. So was the community. Guess what? The community demanded change and they got it! Computer games are still being made, the sky didn't fall.

Now we are at a point where for the most part the games are dumbed down, lacking substance as a generality and so crammed into genre confined catagories and I am once again expected to "deal" with something even more ridiculous and obtrusive just to play a $50 game. Not going to happen. And if enough people resopond the same way, change will be demanded and the companies will change.

Point blank if a few companies get out of the kitchen because they can't take the heat, all the better. Leaves the PC market open to those that can handle it, and Mr. Wardwell over at Stardock is a prime example of what we need more of. So I am done "Just dealing with it".

This comment was edited on May 8, 08:00.

I buy 2 or 3 of really solid class AAA titles for the family and our LAN on occassions. I will not be buying either of these products until the copy protection is changed. It's time to vote with your dollars on this and send this silly idea the way DRM went on the big 4 record labels went.

I see EA using Mass Effect as a guinea pig here. Testing the water with a game that has already sold through quite well on the xbox. This all in preperation for their big concern, Spore. I feel sad for Bioware. I am 42 and have played their games forever. I won't blame them on this. But seriously, do not buy these games and be very vocal about not doing so.

I'm sure they saw how GTA 4 set the bar at 40,000 feet and decided they had to step up to the plate.