"There are several changes in MW4 that can be considered positive. Each is relatively minor, but definitely change the nature of play as compared to the previous games. First, the weapons have been tweaked downwards � they do less cumulative damage, and energy weapons have a longer �recycle� time."

Comments on Scharmers' interesting article?

Great stuff. Now write one for us about the strategy games! Missionforce Cyberstorm is one of my favorite games of all time. How's Crescent Hawk? I never played that one. I had a chance to buy it and the other one for a few bucks a few years ago and passed. Now I'm sorry.

- Mark

The strategy one would be fun, but would be totally obtuse. There's simply too many 'Mecha strategy games, and many of them have ridden into the sunset a looooong time ago.

I mean, how many people would want me to do a William S. Buckley imitation on "Cyber Empires"? :)

--Scharmers

Man, I never even heard of Cyber Empires, but I'd love to hear your Buckley imitation. :)

I wonder if I still have m Cyberstorm disks. That was a W95 game. Does it still play with all the DirectX crap? That's still one of my favorite multiplayer gaming experiences.

The first CStorm plays just fine on a Celeron 712, DirectX 8 :)

And it's still worth playing, too.

--Scharmers

You know, not only was the first Cyberstorm game an out and out classic, Sierra shipped the game with a free second CD of the game to give to a friend. Now that's cool.

Fantastic article. Now I want to go and get MW2 and a Voodoo5.

Btw, who is William "S." Buckley? ;)

William F. Buckley.

And I was actually thinking of William BRINKLEY, but you know, the Quaker Oats guy works just as well. Better, actually.

:)

Hey, that was a cool and I don't even like Robot games that much. You should do another history on something I like, flight sims, for instance. How about Gunship (for the Amiga) to Enemy Engaged? Or maybe WW2? Or how about just the F-22... there must have been thirty-four F-22 sims, all of them done between 97-99. ;)

Well, as long as Q23 continues letting me hold classes on games, I'm up to it. Flight sims would be fun, but to be honest, I don't want to poach on MiGMan territory -- his "Museum", while leaving a bit to be desired in layout, has tons of love poured into it.

Damn...we got Mark, Tuba, Tim, and Bruce posting on here...reminds me of the days when I ran a juarez Amiga BBS and the only people on the message boards were the area Sysops ;)

--scharmers, halfway through a 1.5 l bottle of Cabernet holiday cheer

woot!

We'd love something on flight sims if Scharmers can A) Figure out how to do it without poaching from MiGMan and B) Still write after consuming a 1.5 liter bottle of cheer. Heh.

What about space sims? Scharmers, you'd get to go after Derek Smart! :)

BTW, has anyone played the latest beta that Derek has put out? I read Chris Johnson's take on GDR and it sounds promising. I know Derek's full of his own version of holiday cheer that lasts him all year, but it does look like he has code that's playable. With the woeful state of the flight- and space-sim market these days, maybe BCM will be the last game we desire because it will be the last one made. :(

Going after the Supreme Commodore L. Ron Derek Smartyman? I haven't done THAT before...

:)


To Derek's credit -- from the little I've seen and heard on BCM -- he has learned quite a bit from his previous disasters...at least game-wise. (Saying he's learned anything in other important areas, like, say, public relations is stretching it). However, what little naescent interest I had in BCM quickly evaporated with his "pay me $15 to beta-test my software" scam.

Whoa -- better stop before the BCM L. Ron Himself shows up and attempts to make us "clear".

So -- a space sim retrospective. All you ever wanted to know about Lightspeed, Battle for Jacob's Star, Mantis, and Privateer II: The Marketing. God help us. :D

--scharmers

Your list already brings up a few memories:

"Lightspeed"

I think there's some sort of Lightspeed/Hyperspeed connection/confusion. I remember getting one of them and my friends and I being thoroughly baffled. Or maybe it's Mantis I'm thinking of. At any rate, it wasn't until years of Wing Commander conditioning that I stumbled across I-War and finally appreciated the true joys of Newtonian physics.

"Privateer II: The Marketing"

One of the year 2000's best movies is a supercool British movie called Croupier, from Mike Hodges, the director of the original Get Carter, arguably the supercoolest British movie ever. The star of Croupier is a guy named Clive Owen. While I was watching the movie, I knew I'd seen him somewhere before and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out where. Half way through the movie, I realized he was the lead character in Privateer 2! And, get this, he's *great* in Croupier!

-Tom

Jurgen Prochnow was great in Das Boot, too, though. Sad, sad day when he met the Roberts Bros.

--scharmers

Das Boot happens to be my all time favorite war movie. That thing was just epic. BTW, if you've not seen the DVD director's cut version - it's WELL worth it.

"Flight sims would be fun, but to be honest, I don't want to poach on MiGMan territory"

I bet MigMan would be glad to link to that kind of information. And just think, if he did link to it, it would be yet another web site to get fired from! LOL, send your secretary over to my place when you're done. ;)

"Das Boot happens to be my all time favorite war movie."

Never seen it. I think the only sub movie I've seen is Operation Petticoat. Is Das Boot funnier than that?

Somebody please bomb Mr. Asher's house.

Thank you.

Or, conversely, send him a copy of Das Boot (Director's Cut). This movie is incredible. I remember seeing it with a friend in some Art Theatre in Portland, OR when I was 11. My dad got real tired of us saying "Jawohl, Herr Kaluean!" whenever tasked to do chores :)

--scharmers

Das Boot? Isn't that a movie about a bunch of sweaty men in close quarters getting all emotional. That's not a war movie, that's a San Francisco bathouse. :)

Well, I think U541 was a pretty good pretender to the throne, but even Harvey Keitel can't stand up to Pronchow.

I think they tried to borrow the tension from Boot, but you just can't do it with "hollywood" you have to do it with "grit".

Also, I think the best 'Nam movie I've ever seen was a little ditty called "Charlie MoPic821". It's a movie about a rifle squad as filmed by a military journalist. The whole movie is viewed through his camera. Honestly, the kids who made Blair Witch must have seen this movie and gotten inspiration. The first time I saw it, I thought it was real.

Aszurom: "Well, I think U541 was a pretty good pretender to the throne..."

[scharmers weeps tears of frustration and rage]

--scharmers

Agh, I hated U541.

I love submarine movies and have seen most of them ones that were worth a shit (read: Das Boot) and U541 was the pits.

I can't even remember specifically what I didn't like about it. Most submarine movies don't even come close to getting it 'right' so I dont' think it was just realism issues, although I have a nagging feeling this was big part of the problem with U541.

Heh, had a chance to mess around on the sub trainer at Perl. We had an excellent COB who didn't mind dialing in catastrophe after catastrophe. What a hoot!

Similarly, when I was at Ft Eustis I had plenty of opportunity to play with the TADS trainer... it was sitting there unused at lunch every day and they didn't care if I messed with it. It was basically a "stick your head in the scope and master Hellfire engagement" rail shooter. The AI flew you around on a tour of the landscape and you had to find, ID, and plink ruskie armor.

Ya know what? Longbow II did it better! Actually, for "feel" I'm almost saddened to admit that Gunship! actually "felt" the most like that thing though. (Aside from the nuclear chain gun that is.) I was really really hoping to someday use my knowlege to leverage a ride in the front seat, but the hard rule was that the crewchief NEVER flew with his bird... it required 2 officers and enlisted people were SOL. With a few quick browsings of the FM and a couple of weeks of messing with it, I think any good simmer would be ready to make a semi-passable attempt at CPG duties. Actually flying is another matter I think... a short dose of stick in an OH58 taught me real quick that it ain't so easy as games make it look. Luckily, there were no fatalities... but I now know why they issue brown underwear.

When I went to the airshow in Cleveland, I got to rapping with the AH64 crewchief who was there... I'm PISSED. They're training crewchiefs to ride front seat now. Damn. Can I get back in?

Now that sounds like a fun trainer.

The sub trainer at Perl was, for the most part, pretty boring stuff. --Planesman, all ahead full. --All ahead full, Aye. Pfft. The only fun part came when the COB dialed in something that you couldn't recover from. Engine room flooding, whooop, whooop, blow the tanks, and you were pretty much hanging from the wheel for dear life until it "hit the surface."

The really fun trainer was damage control. Think of a fish tank made to look like an engine compartment. Bunch of squids climb in. The Chief dials in high pressure water through various size simulated holes while said squids scramble to stuff the holes with rags and assorted junk, and then duct tape the mess water tight. This went on until there was a wee pocket of air at the top of the tank, which meant that you failed, and were required to buy at the local watering hole. Great fun!

Heh, but then one day you're on watch imagining a scenario where you're at test depth and the 2' pipe springs a leak and you save the day by stuffing a fucking rag into it and wrapping it with freaking duct tape! WTF, over? Is this a bunch of guys out back with a 58 Chevy or the USN.

Yeah, I never understood that submarine movie shit... you get depth charged and all the pipes start leaking, so you shut the valves. Hey, how about automatically shutting the valves? I'm sure they make valves that do this these days!

Why do submarines have so many pipes full of water running around inside them anyway? Oh... so people have valves to close in the middle of a fight! Duh!

"Why do submarines have so many pipes full of water running around inside them anyway? Oh... so people have valves to close in the middle of a fight! Duh!"

Heh -- most of you probably aren't old enough to remember the one and only submarine TV series -- Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea I think it was called. About all I remember about it is that every episode the nuclear reactor was always being sabotaged by someone, and there was a fight at the end to get to the control room and shove the reactor rods back in. I'm pretty sure that was the final scene in every episode.

"...there was a fight at the end to get to the control room and shove the reactor rods back in. I'm pretty sure that was the final scene in every episode."

LOL, yep, almost like how the old Star Trek series always seemed to end with Bill Shatner stepping up to the camera, shirt ripped off, of course, and explaining what it meant to be human.

What I remember about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were the cool fins on the front of the boat--I kinda remember getting the plastic model for X-mas many moons ago.

"What I remember about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were the cool fins on the front of the boat--I kinda remember getting the plastic model for X-mas many moons ago."

Yeah, the submarine was cool looking. It had sort of a Flash Gordon look going with those fins.

I guess Voyage was a Star Trek rippoff? I was too young to understand the idea that one show might inspire clones. I do remember Batman being on twice a week, and the Green Hornet also. One season there were also a bunch of Batman knockoffs. I think one of them starred that old Hollywood Squares staple Wally Cox. I don't think any of the Batman rippoffs lasted more than a few weeks.

On Voyage:

It was actually a bad movie that got turned into a bad TV show. The second season (I think) featured the way cool "Flying Submarine" which could zip through the ocean, or through the air (and was yellow!)

On the MW series:

Scharmers, Activision lost the MW license before MW2 ever came out. The long, troubled, development period had FASA losing all faith in them before they even saw a game. Then MW2 came out, was a huge hit, and Activision (and FASA) would have gladly cranked out as many MW games as we could stomach, but they were contractually limited to two add-ons. That's why Mercs is officially an add-on and not a separate game called MW3: Mercenaries. It may also have contributed to the Engine That Wouldn't Die syndrome.

You may remember around the time of Mercs that MW3, being developed by FASA Interactive, was supposed to be a port of their pod software (y'know, you go to the mall and pay a bunch of money and they put you in these pods to pound the virtual snot out of each other). Then something happened, they couldn't figure out how to port it and they wanted another MW title out there, so MW3 supposedly was going to become MW4 and they hired Zipper to do a new MW3 from scratch.

So is this MW4 that port, or is it something different? Isn't FASA Interactive now defunct, or so absorbed by other companies that it's nothing more than a sticker? What's the deal?

"You may remember around the time of Mercs that MW3, being developed by FASA Interactive, was supposed to be a port of their pod software (y'know, you go to the mall and pay a bunch of money and they put you in these pods to pound the virtual snot out of each other). Then something happened, they couldn't figure out how to port it and they wanted another MW title out there, so MW3 supposedly was going to become MW4 and they hired Zipper to do a new MW3 from scratch."

Mech 3 was a Microprose title, and (I think) they were behind shifting development to Zipper. Paul Schutemaya (sp?) was the designer at FASAi for Mech 3, and he left over it to go work on Prey (laugh).

"So is this MW4 that port, or is it something different? Isn't FASA Interactive now defunct, or so absorbed by other companies that it's nothing more than a sticker? What's the deal?"

Mech 4 is from FASAi, yes, and they were purchased by Microsoft and moved to Seattle.

"(y'know, you go to the mall and pay a bunch of money and they put you in these pods to pound the virtual snot out of each other)"

I went to Virtual World a couple of times. I couldn't figure out how they planned to make money with an arcade that featured one game (later two, though Red Planet or whatever it was called really sucked). Apparently, they did not make money - what a shock! I quit going to VW when my P90 could run MW2 better than the pods could run their version, and that couldn't have helped the bottom line.

Just found the board, so forgive my lateness.

On missionforce cyberstorm:

I consider this to be one the best games i've ever played, up there with xcom. The AI was too stupid, the story was interesting, the graphics were pretty good at the time, and the only bug i ever came across was when it would promote me every successful mission (which meant you died soon after).

Then i played the demo for MF:CS2, and wept at what they had done. All they needed to do was upgrade the resolution of the engine and the models, add some different types of missions, more herc/ai designs and equipment, another "run off and kill the bad computer" campaign or two, and all would have been nice.


I'd really like to see a review of mf:cs1 from you guys, if you ever get the time, inclination, and desire - it would be cool to see what you think of it.

"I'd really like to see a review of mf:cs1 from you guys, if you ever get the time, inclination, and desire - it would be cool to see what you think of it."

It's one of my all-time favorites, though I mostly played it as a multiplayer game. I did play through it in single-player, but it was much more interesting as a multiplayer game.

We had an informal group of 20-40 players playing it every night via Kali for several months. God, that was fun. It was one of the most fascinating gaming experiences I've had. Since you could configure your hercs based on a some kind of point system, we were constantly evolving new strategies.

We had a great time, but then Diablo came out and too many of us were lured away to play that game, and the Cyberstorm multiplayer games fell apart.

And yeah, CS2 was a huge disappointment. It was a victim of attempting to design for sales. The addition of the real-time options just wrecked the game design.

Oh, and thanks for stopping by! If you want to register for the boards (not at all required), send me a user name and password and I'll set you up. The advantage is that you can use the "New Messages" option to only see a list of new messages since your last visit. "Last Day" does something very similar without having to register, though.