Starcraft is still on my hard drive. In fact, I just ran through the origonal campaign last spring.
X-com 2: Terror from the Deep has been mentioned. I haven't played that in awhile but was going to boot it up in september. I found out about the new expansion for GC II, and have been playing DA and the beta since (one of these days soon though).
Dawn of War is a game that once you reach Dark Crusade (at least with the DVD version) you don't need more than 1 copy to play LAN. It also has a new expansion coming out late next spring.

Not being made by Relic though :/ Any RTS by relic I'd pretty much buy sight unseen. The new expansion is being farmed out to the "Titan Quest" studio, so um, we'll just have to wait and see.

I too would recommend DoW through Dark Crusade, or even just Dark Crusade as a cheap stand alone entry point...the campaign mode in that makes the sinlge player slightly more interesting. 40K is the best intellectual property that there is, and if you liked Starcraft, you'd definitely like it. And like I said before, I dont even really *like* "RTS" games.

Obviously if you're not into Multiplayer RTS games then you won't enjoy Starcraft for much more than the time it takes to finish the campaign, and you'll probably prefer other games. However, while one can't compare Starcraft to non-RTS games directly I think it's important that Starcraft has dominated its genre far more than any game ever created, it's for that reason that I would find it hard to disagree that SC is the best game ever made.

Starcraft is by far the best multiplayer RTS ever made. No game in that genre that has come before or after it has had as good balance whilst retaining as much variety in the different races as well as still giving the player 100s of strategic options. The only area where Starcraft has been bettered as a multiplayer RTS is in the interface itself, which is obviously extremely dated (for example you can't have only one unit cast a spell when you have 12 selected) and of course the graphics.

Now take any other genre, whether it be RPG, TBS, FPS, MMORPG, fighting games or whatever and you always have at least a few titles that are up there and competing for the title of best in their genre, and there are always good arguments for each case. But ask any multiplayer RTS fan which is the best game in that genre and you'll almost always get the same answer.

Actually, just to be nit-picky, I would say that Myst has the clicky-puzzle-type-game genre dominated about as well as StarCraft has the RTS genre.

Here, here. And how many folks on this forum have expressed their pining for MoM, with others talking of the extremes to which they have gone (keeping a DOS box/partition/emulator, etc) just to run MoM.

If the Civ franchise weren't such a cash cow, we'd all still be playing Civ 1, too!

Its the gameplay, man.

drrider

Mmmm, MoM.
I'd probably still be playing but I never got it to play on XP without being extremely buggy. I can only handle crashing to desktop so many times for no discernable reason.

As for Civ 1... the first game I ever played that caused me to stay up all night and miss classes... I gave up on the franchise after civ 3 though. It was changing a bit more than I liked by then.

I dunno most people I've spoken to about that genre never mention Myst, it's all about the old school Lucas Arts games. Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island.... so many memories...

I am a bit confused with the civilisation series? Right now i am playing civilisation 2 by microprose which seems to be the most fun of the lot. Then there is civilisation call to power which has two brilliant features - a space level and armies arranged by ranged and non ranged units. Then after civilisation call to power there is civilisation 3 rite? which got rid of the above mentioned features in call to power... probably because the AI did not form armies well or make good use of the space level!
Civ 3 introduced better public works features except for the nerfing of constructing roads in neutral/enemy territory which was a big negative.

Anyway, civilisation 2 seems to be a different game and civilisation call to power, 3 and 4 are clearly the same game with a few minor differences? I am wondering if there is another civilisation 2 which fits in with that line of games?

I have never played civilisation 1?

Doesn't everyone have a DOS box emulator for MoM, and MOO? I kind of like Cavewars as well (bit of an unknown, not that good of an AI, but just fun!). Thankfully, I have Colonization for windows and don't need the emulator for it (although I do have the DOS version of it as well around somewhere).

Mystikmind, Call to Power is by a different game company and isn't part of the microprose family. That's probably causing a bit of confusion. Civ 2 is my personal favorite, follow by Alpha Centari, Civ 3 then Civ 1. I don't really like Civ 4.

Seems like civ3 is an expansion of call to power? Call to power, civ3 and civ4 go together but civ2 by microprose looks like a completely different game?

Alpha Centauri has no equal in my opinion, that game is so full of great features and concepts that nothing else compares.

Civ4 is ok but not as good as its predicessors. The nerfing of unit bombard capability was a big kick in the guts. There i am foolishly building artillery to attack enemy ships off my coastline (as did any nation in WW2 for example) and then i try to shoot the ship with my artillery - wooops! huh?? what the fxxk???

Nope. Call to power is not part of the chain, but all the others are. My understanding is that Sid Meier had a hand in 1 and 2, but not 3 and 4. Still, the inheritance is just civ 1->2->3->4.

You could put Alpha Centauri between Civ 2 and 3, if you want. In order of release, I believe that is where it fits, if memory serves. I wouldn't quibble with calling it the peak

I'm still confused, Civ2 by Microprose looks like a totally different game to anything else i have ever seen? Call to power looks as close to civ3 as DL does to DA. I have a feeling i do have another civilisation 2 game which was the next in line from call to power and then went on to civ3 and civ4

So like are there two genres of civilisation games running side by side or am i just crazy?

just arrived home and noticed i have call to power and call to power 2!

It is confusing because civilisation 3 is leaning towards being more similar to call to power than civilisation 2. I was always thinking civilisation call to power was part of the series because of that.

Civ II was different to Civ I due to a few things:

1. Battle, technically slightly more different with hitpoints and firepower.

2. Isometric grid (ie: squares are essentially diamonds to give a pseudo 3D appearance to the units).

3. Rivers not considered a separate tile, but overlaid as a "bonus"

Civ III then changed a few things compared to Civ II, like armies, strategic resources.

Civ IV brought in unit promotions and a whole different world layout. In between Civ II and III however was not just Alpha Centauri, but also Civilization: Test of Time (also by Microprose). Civ ToT was basically the same game as Civ II, but had different worlds and units to play on.

And yeah, like what has been said, Call to Power series is by Activision?, not Microprose/Firaxis.


Now, how back to the topic at hand of Starcraft being overrated. I was going to say that no matter if a game is considered overrated, if it truly is good, or portrayed as good, then the whole genre benefits to some extent, other developers look at what made the game good, and work ways of developing those sorts of systems into their own games. Starcraft truly brought into play the unique races. Remember Warcraft II was where the Orcs and Humans were pretty much equal, except for spells and heroes, the units were on equal footing. Starcraft I believe showed the world that balance can be achieved if races are made unique.

Sorry, but chess is the best game ever made.

It depends on the point of view. But chess is popular some time.....

Starcraft is chess on the computer, in a non-turn-based fashion, where my knights look like tanks some of the time and stationary artillery other times, and your knights look like giant worms that shoot fists.

Starcraft is most definitely not over-rated. If I could find my disks I would be tempted to install it again and play it today just for thinking about it.

As I recall, Call to Power was done separately after Sid broke off and did SMAC. They wanted a sequel, but without Sid, that was the best they could do. Eventually they worked things out and he did 3 and 4.


And no, SC isn't overrated

Starcraft was barely fun for me, the storyline made out humans were just little puppy play things which bugged me allot since there i am eating the alien scum for breakfast with human technology! And then once i kicked ass in the first stage of the campaign, i basically loose and have to play an alien race?? Oh ok then what was i just doing a minute ago as human? oh thats rite, winning!!

Nice feedback guys

Couple things:
1. Whats Dawn of War?
2. If Valve makes an RTS, they should make it based on Half-Life. Combine vs. Resistance would be cool.
3. I might be willing to try Starcraft 2. However, why doesn't Blizzard make a game with nice graphics? More people would by SC II if it had nice graphics.

Etrius

They make games with "good enough" graphics so that the game will run smoothly on the widest possible range of systems. Their art direction is very stylized. The put more emphasis on creating a balanced and "GOOD" game rather then a "pretty game"

Besides that, the majority of customers Blizzard wants are the ones who will keep playing the game. If people buy the game just because it's pretty, they don't get advertising cash through Battle.Net because the gameplay (see Stardock's argument against multiplayer, though slightly less major because of the size of Blizzard) begins to suffer.
And if the game lags, people don't play MP.

Blizzard's argument is that lower graphical quality actually improves sales. for example, i never intended my PC to really be a gaming PC - i bought it intending it as a HEPC. it has a graphics card, but nothing that could do justice to most of the newest, high-end graphics games (probably wouldn't even run them).

it can handle GC2 fairly well, and i'm sure it'll run SC2. i wouldn't even want a strat game with high-end graphics. as long as i can tell what's what, i prefer smooth gameplay with nice movies thrown in here and there, that i can actually focus on (and some of blizzard's movies in the original SC and Brood War were really enjoyable for me).

if SC2 were to have the highest graphics out there, i probably wouldn't buy it. i wouldn't be able to enjoy it. and i don't have an extra G to spend on a gaming rig.

hardcore gamers will enjoy SC2, i think, as much as SC for its greatest stregth - it was a good, balanced game. the story was well developed as games go. the characters and races were memorable. and it had a great MP community online (heck, it still does). casual gamers who don't invest large amounts in their PCs will also be able to enjoy all of its streghts as easily as hard-core gamers.

while everyone likes better graphics, i think it's a minority who actually "need" better graphics to enjoy a game (mostly people who blow thousands of dollars on the newest system avaiable, and then realize that there aren't a whole lot of good games that can make use of their new toy's full potential). for what it's worth, i wouldn't be surprised if their art department was just as frustrated with the limitations they have to work with as you are--"you want me to make it look good under those kinds of constraints?"

if you really want to see poor graphics, play a game of Risk  

you might not have liked StarCraft, and that's fine. whatever fries your taco. but i don't think you'll find much agreement with the idea that it was over-rated (at least not compared to the many games that actually deserve to be called over-rated).

Yea this is a good point. Even though i hated being forced to loose the human campaign at the end, it was very good while it lasted!

PS i never even bothered playing through the Alien campaigns, never will! That was a dumb idea for a campaign.... Imagine playing the Galciv campaign and half way through you have to play the Drengin race and trample all over the Humans? Dumb.