Eshanas

I hope this intersects somewhat with what Ross talks about. I know I've delved into it a bit, with my own prior topic to grab a game out of the grave (guess how that went? Right, nowhere, though I do think I have a community somewhat above dead, which is a win). All those games...lost to time, like tears in the rain. Thoughts?

Nabbed it. I'm not 'good' with these types of games, always dying and getting the grip of it through trial and error, but it was fast, fluid, immersive. Def recommend if you're in for those old style shooters.

Hello from the future! This thing has turned into a global pandemic and we're being kicked in the balls about it. Uh, live maps and the big Hopkins University map say there's around 200k recovered, as of about 04/01/20. 40k dead. And around 860, 900k infected. I think there might be some recovered people out and about. Tom Hanks came back? I think he got it and was healed, he's in LA right now. But yea. 2020 everybody.

No prob. I'm still looking for more maps that are more in the general consesus, or even just more educated guess than just what Parag did. Will post here if I find something like that.

720 dead. 2000 'recovered'; 35,000 cases, and China is touting a picture of four health care workers who 'recovered', (saw it on France24) but that's probably to offset their dead whistleblower. The damn thing isn't doubling, but it doesn't seem to be burning out or slowing down, either. Just how many people went into that damn market? There's talk of fecal-transmission now, like SARS.

Well we've passed 500 dead. Looking to overtake Sars in half the time of it. I wonder how far it'll go....

Is it as simple as 'I have armed ships coming your way and you can't stop them'? I mean, any interplanetary capable body is also capable of having a full sensor net and computing power to note, log, and track every satellite, spaceship, base, launch, receipt, and even tonnage of everything floating and flying out in space. And attempting to mess with, or destroy, those nets would be an automatic declaration of war, yes? And even then, any populated planet can just chuck missiles, railguns, coilguns, or lasers (on subs) against any orbiting fleet, there is a massive home advantage unless the attacker is focused on genocide or environmental destruction. Would war be something much more...'coded'/'honorable'/'gentlemanly' then, sort of like the Flower Wars or the European Westphalian system? "Underhanded" tactics sometimes popped up but it was still more or less regulated. And even then, there's still the issue of detection; would that just boil down to 'we can bring more mobile assets to bear'? - and then ultimately becomes an issue of production? Especially if reaction mass/fuel for speedy/convienent interplanetary travel is expensive. After all, there's little to nothing stopping one from just picking off a fleet as it cruises through space to your planet, even with antimatter beam cores, 1g acceleration and Brachistochrone trajectories, it's still a trip in the realm of days and weeks. I don't know, I keep prodding my head about this, and I can't find a sufficient answer. Even chucking in some 'hyperspace/warp' mumble jumble doesn't work well. Is it analogous to modern naval warfare in a way as well - I mean, every great power or even middling power has radar and sat nets tracking every mobile asset of their adversaries - the Russians and Chinese probably have a damn good inkling of where every American or Euro surface ship is, and vice versa, and modern naval combat among peers is...well, more exists in the realm of books than anything else. What do ya think?

Because 100,000,000 could die globally and the world would barely feel it, and we would just enter a slight global recession, at best. And so far, we probably won't even see 500 dead; and of those they all seem to be the elderly of Wuhan. A local tragedy, yes, but barely a disaster.

I guess I can add Fallout: Tactics to the list. It switches up the Fallout genre, drags out the same old factions for another spin, but damn, I can enjoy it. The maps are detailed, the challenge is about right to force you to change tactics as needed, and the story, while cliche, fits Fallout in a way. I just wish they added more meat to the world than following, basically, the Kansas-Missouri river. They experimented, they changed things around, updated a few things. It's everything I want from a series, even if they could had used some more creativity or added more stuff.

I think I found the one I was looking for: Ferion.

Oh those poor Russians what ever will they do being painted as bad guys??????

They could easily make a few more expansions, but now that Homeworld 3 is coming out, and the game hasn't been touched in two years, it's unlikely. The war in the North Pole doesn't just end because some skirmish (and yes, it's basically a skirmish) in the desert killed their head-honcho. The Khaaneph need to be dealt with. Kiith Siidim basically started a second war on their own. Kiith Manaan and Kiith Paktu are still on the south pole. So on and so on....

Too bad the remake is a mess visually and really cuts down on the meat of dialogue of the 80-90 anime.

I was thinking about how Warhammer 40k doesn't need to be set in 40k. From m2 to m20 or whatever it's a formless gap. Just shuffle it down and crunch it down so it's 5k. Language still evolves; technology still adapts, earth still rises and falls; the Imperium can have 10k years of history in 1k. It's basically Rome anyway.

Mankind is capable. Gigatons of Water vapour, Co2, and Methane over centuries in an near-perfect enclosed system has consequences. Mankind cuts down, overburdens, reaves and reaps the world; and then is surprised when their economies and states collapse; and try to blame nature for not being tougher, and never looks to itself for demanding too much. How many species has man killed? How many proud states have fallen because Man dried up the aquifiers, cut down the forests, closed up the rivers, broke the mountains? And how many more will die and how many more states will fall? We pump gigatons of Co2, Water Vapour, Methane, et al every year for a century or so. That builds up. In that regard; The IPCC has made a new report that'll I'll try get my hands on. An overview here has some revelations. "in a worst case high-emissions scenario, sea level would increase by 3 feet by 2100 and by 12 feet by 2300." (Let's face it, we're not meeting the Paris Climate Agreement). '...and to a loss closer to 70% in a worst-case scenario. In that high-emissions scenario, thawing permafrost could lead to a “release of tens to hundreds of billions of tons of permafrost carbon as CO2 and methane to the atmosphere by 2100 with the potential to exacerbate climate change.” For comparison, humans currently release about 10 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year, so this feedback could be equivalent to adding decades’ worth of human carbon emissions into the atmosphere if fossil fuel use continues unabated.'

I got bored of watching the show around season four...when the Crystal Empire and Princess Sparkle showed up. And even then I just watched it as by-catch. I heard they were making a more mature spinoff/sequel, what happened to that?

It was like that, but darker, in a way. Grimier. Hmmm.... It looked a lot like this, Galaxy Warfare. Maybe it was? This was almost a decade ago, a decade of updates since might had changed it....

I've long looked for this browser game. It was a space game mmo. You played as a ship. Dark UI. You could jump to points via a X-Y-Z system. Top-down view. We're talking 2006-2007-2008. I think I found it via wikipedia but I could never find the list again even in history. I wonder if anyone else here played it?

Finished Queen's Wish: The Conqueror. It ended poorly. I stumbled around the underworld, found the main enemy base. It was full of low-mid level creatures. What the hell? I go through waves of enemies without breaking a sweat. Finish. Get a slideshow cutscene using the main map for most of its imagery. I'm using tier 3 equipment; there's no real magical or Underworld equipment thereof. I just..I get that they're Retro, but twenty years later the games seem the same then and now. It's high time at least the eye candy went up a bit. Better pixel art, Music - at all - better assets, better quests, better enemies. I dunno...I recommend it if you can nab it on sale. There are highs and rises, not a lot of downers until the end. But it's milquetoast overall I guess.

I got Queen's Wish: The Conqueror. Wow the quality of Jeff Vogel's games have dropped dramatically. Though I didn't know it was his at first, which made it tolerable for a while. He's been doing this for a quarter of a century and got 98k on Kickstarter but everything is a step backwards. There's no music; there's little looting, and the writing is basic. The character customization is horrid and barebones. You're a spoilt prince who has never dirtied himself or lifted a finger for himself and your mother, the Queen, sends you off to retake a big island your Kingdom/Empire was ousted from. Take back the island, find out why Haven was ousted in the first place, return home to be judged. Build and upgrade forts; deal with uppity vassals (all of whom are in a civil war it seems) and all of that jazz. You're fighting for this. A swampland, a desert, and a dead magical forest around a plain. It's about the size of Puerto Rico, or half of it? It's...enjoyable. But it's a step backwards. If it was 2000 it would be fine. But 2020? What's going on here.... Will DLC expand on it? They reached a tier in the kickstarter for an 'alien' realm.... I'll finish it, it's not terrible, but it feels like it was made 20 years ago. I got a slew of other RPGs I've found lately from RPGCodex like Knights of the Chalice that might be a better fix....

The epitome of Environmental Narrative games of the mid-10s. Good soundtrack. BEAUTIFUL VISUALS. Good for one playthrough. Rent it. Watch someone you like play it. Don't buy. Not worth it really. Then again, is any non-replayable game?

On page 8, there was a post for X-com. I concur. The X-com series is great, OG, artificially made harder and smaller by out-of-tune Devs, has a lot of failed projects, then got a reboot that was commercially successful but divisive. Much like...Deus Ex.

Ross typically does link/lists music around in the end credits or the description...unless it was OC? Hmm...this is an interesting question. The music is def enjoyable.

I got so fed up with Icewind Dale - maybe I rolled a bad party, we couldn't deal with the Orc Shaman or even the Yetis as easily as I remember from childhood - that I went and brought and started The Temple of Elemental Evil instead. That party-maker felt more natural and I have high hopes. Two fighters - one Human, one Dwarven; a Halfling Rogue, a Elf? Cleric, and a Elf Evocation Wizard.

I got Knights N' Bikes! Super excited for it. I've been following it since I saw it in Game Informer around a year ago. I like laid back, cutesy, but still solid games.