I think Half life 2 will be pretty cool as well

Age of Wonders II Review by Alrik Fassbauer

I know we generally talk about PC here but if you have a PS2 and you like action fighting games try out Dynasty Warriors..3 or 4 four just came out and it is alot like three just cooler.....seriously awesome game...I once had 1600 kills on one 20 minute level great stress reducer.

Hey Alrik? You still playing AOW2? I think its still pretty damn good after 2 months.
Highly recommended if you like fantasy/strategy/playing god.

Well, I usually play with some pauses here and there, so to say.

The last pause was with Death 1 , a level which I didn't like from the beginning.

I have begun other games meanwhile (Homeworld), but keep on watching the AoW2 Forums at Heavengames constantly.

Besides, there has been a "Age of Wonders : Shadow Magic" announced ...

Someday in the future I will continue the AoW campagn.

Actually you should play it through. Death 1 is THE hardest campaign scenario IMHO. Death magic in general sucks though.

Well, for me it's far more difficult: I don't like thios setting at all, because it doesn't fit with what I try to live in real life !

You can call me weird, but I have a strong feeling for everything that lives, but Death is just so different ...

Well, although it's something I don't like, it's something that simply belongs to life - death. That's why I'll play this "chapter" in the future.

Ah, so you'll play it when you 'feel like death' so to speak....

I'll play it when I have the feeling "I must do it to conclude the life-circle". Meaning AoW itself.

Probably buy Everquest 2 or Star Wars Galaxies next. I prefer to multiplay with other people in cooperative fashion.

Greetings all,
I did a really silly thing today. That I thought I'd share with you.
I bought Morrowind: Elder Scrolls III. I know, I know, NEVER buy a game without downloading the demo first. But Morrowind doesn't have a demo! Now I know why!
The game controls are DREADFUL! They are the worst I've ever encounted in a game. You have to move your character with the keyboard for God's sake, no mouse control! This may have been bearable (as in Gothic) but for what little mouse control there actually was. The mouse is used to sweep the camera around, up, down, here, there and everywhere. I've never been motion sick in my life, but this game had me dizzy and sick after a few minutes.
If it is one thing I passionately HATE more than anything else in 'computer' games, it's having to control your character with the keyboard. A computer is not a bloody playstation! Give me mouse control like and Diablo.
But that's not the worst of it. Crash, crash, crash! If you thought Divinity was buggy, you ain't seen nothin yet. After the fifth crash within only 10 minutes of gameplay, I packed it back up in its box and returned it to the store for a refund.
Never again, will I buy a game without a demo.
Sorry for the rant, but this game really infuriated me. It has so much promise and potential, it's heartbreaking to see it ruined by shockingly bad game controls and instability.
So just be warned if your thinking about buying this game, it has some very serious flaws. Ok, now that's off my chest, I'm done now.

Cheers

Thank you very much for the rant! As it won RPG of the year, i was looking for it, and was going to buy it. Good thing you said something.

Um, Morrowind uses standard wasd/Mouse controls.... mouse doesn't control the camera. It's a great game, especially with mods.

On morrowwind, I thought there were far too many herbs to be used with an alchemy system that was not fun at all. I like alchemy much better!
Worse sill for me was the lack of feedback the game provides. In older Bethesda games (that I liked) you would see your swing hits for 21 damage, etc. Also you have no idea how wounded a monster is as it has no health bar. You swing swing swing, assuming you are hurting it bad, but you have no idea when its going to die. BLEH!

Install the latest patch and you WILL see a yellow bar witch represent the health bar of your enemy.

rexfelis
There is a patch for Morrowind that will enable health bar for mobs.

Kashya
I dissagree.
Controls are standard as for any other first or third person shooter, if you don't like defaults you can freely customize them.
I've got this game in the package with my Hercules ATI Radeon 9700 pro. I like the game, graphics are awesome (just look at that water). I didn't play through it till the end because I became bored, but this is another story for another post.
The game shows it's wonders on ATI Radeon series cards I think 8500 and higher.
It can crash often if you have geforce or old drivers.


And what game I'd like to play beside DD2 (ha, yesterday I sweared to Sten that I'l play all addons, sequels of DD and I will, because I love it)


I am eager to see the game with as strong story line as Planescape Torment. I have had tears in my eyes many times while travelling in the world of tormented souls, filled with drama and tragedy. That was a masterpiece, with the strongest impressions on me the game have ever made.

I think that the game is like a book. Storyline that contains intrigue, conflict, drama and how it is implemented + playability - this is what makes a great game in my opinion. You live through it as you play, you become a main character have moments of joy and suffer in a world that becomes almost real, until you hit escape and return to RL. And this is very difficult to achieve.

So, this is what I will be looking in the future.

I hope I will not be executed for such a long post

Egin,
That may have been what my problem was. I'm using a GeForce card. But this is the first time I've ever encountered a game that crashed several times after only a few minutes of gameplay. But I do agree with you about the graphics of Morrowind, absolutely breathtaking! As I said before, this game has so much promise and potential.
But I REALLY, REALLY hated the game controls. That alone is enough to turn me off this game and any other that is keyboard controlled (it's the reason I won't buy Gothic 2, no matter how impressive it looks, but that's another story).
So even if I had a computer that could handle Morrowind, I would never play it. Simply because I hate keyboard controlled games SO much.
Morrowind is marketed as a Role playing game, which I think is somewhat misleading, as the game controls are more like a first person shooter, a game genre I don't like.
I was thinking a RPG meant a game like Divine Divinity, Baldur's gate, Dungeon Seige, Diablo etc. All of which are controlled by the mouse. I was horrified and angry when I found out the game was keyboard controlled. Nothing on its website warned about this.
But if a games controls really don't bother you, and you have the system to handle Morrowind, then by all means give it a try. But if your expecting something like Divine Divinity or Baldur's gate, but with better graphics and more open gameplay (as I was) I think your in for a disappointment.
I apologise to anyone who loves Morrowind, and finds my comments offensive. That was not my intention. I just wanted to warn other RPG fans that Morrowind may not be quite what they expect from a Role playing game.

Cheers

Kashya. Hmm. Good point.

You can play Morrowind with your keyboard and mouse, as any other FPS or TPS.

Ley's try and sort things out.
Views, detemine how you can see your character:
There are first person games - you see what main character sees (Doom, Half-life etc).
There are third person games - you see the back of your character (Heretic II, Tomb Rider etc)
Perspective view - you are upstairs and a bit back from your character (Diablo, Arcanum, BG, etc)

Then there are different genres like puzzle, action, adventure simulation, RPG.

Here we come to the point of determining what is the difference between theese genres.

What is a Role Playing Game? Role-Playing: Games whose primary objective is to role-play characters. Personally, I like to define a Role Playing Game as a game that MUST, ABSOLUTELY have three elements. One is a statistical setup for characters that describe certain skills/aspects of that character. Two, it must have some method of increasing and strengthening those statistics (usually but not necessarily by way of the experience/level system). Three, it must have a menu-driven combat system that utilizes the skills/aspects of the characters. Given there are other elements of RPGs that I'll leave out because of their obvious nature, these are the elements that are required for a game to be labeled RPG. -Written by Archmage

So, role playing a chacter is what makes a game RPG. And now here goes the question. A perspective view, - is it a must have feature for RPG?
Don't think so. Lets take an example: Deus Ex. It is RPG as it has all RPG's elements, though it is first person shooter.
Same goes with Morrowind.

I hope this helps.

Sorry, if I made this post too long.

Have you ever played Gothic ? It's a great RPG game, but also without mouse.

And the funny thing is: You get accustomed to it !

What is the Gothic storyline?