General Gaming Questions

[Anduin]

I've played a fair few games over the years, and seen trailers for more. Some names stick in the mind better than others.

First, I played this on a mac way back in the 90s. A turn-based space conquest game. You select your starting species and get a homeworld on a randomly generated hex-based galactic map. Each species has several traits for its ships. Build speed, weapons armour, move speed. You could beef up your homeworld's shields too. So you could generate tough ships slowly, or weak ships fast, or have a balanced build. You sent your ships out to random parts of the map and could colonise uninhabited planets or pick fights with inhabited ones. I thought it was called Starbound, but that name belongs to a totally different game.

Second, I remember watching either a cinematic trailer or opening cinematic back on Gametrailers.com. Possibly a JRPG. It takes place on a train. Not a regular earth train, but kind of cyberpunky in that the cars hung from the tracks rather than ran on top of them. I think the police or other antagonists boarded the train, maybe jumped on top. There was probably a fight. I checked out some of the Final Fantasy cinematics, but I didn't see anything close. Sound familiar to anyone?

[starri]

5 hours ago, Anduin said:

First, I played this on a mac way back in the 90s. A turn-based space conquest game. You select your starting species and get a homeworld on a randomly generated hex-based galactic map. Each species has several traits for its ships. Build speed, weapons armour, move speed. You could beef up your homeworld's shields too. So you could generate tough ships slowly, or weak ships fast, or have a balanced build. You sent your ships out to random parts of the map and could colonise uninhabited planets or pick fights with inhabited ones. I thought it was called Starbound, but that name belongs to a totally different game.

Was it Master of Orion or one of its sequels?

[Anduin]

13 hours ago, starri said:

Was it Master of Orion or one of its sequels?

Based on a LP I just watched, I'd say similar but cruder. But at least I know how to properly describe it now. Like MOO, but worse. 🙂 Thanks!

[Sandman87]

On 2/14/2020 at 11:11 PM, Anduin said:

First, I played this on a mac way back in the 90s. A turn-based space conquest game. You select your starting species and get a homeworld on a randomly generated hex-based galactic map. Each species has several traits for its ships. Build speed, weapons armour, move speed. You could beef up your homeworld's shields too. So you could generate tough ships slowly, or weak ships fast, or have a balanced build. You sent your ships out to random parts of the map and could colonise uninhabited planets or pick fights with inhabited ones. I thought it was called Starbound, but that name belongs to a totally different game.

Was it Spaceward Ho!? Turn based, networkable, lots of fun. The little planet icons wearing cowboy hats were memorable. I used to play it at work when I was on hold during tech support calls.

[Anduin]

2 hours ago, Sandman87 said:

Was it Spaceward Ho!? Turn based, networkable, lots of fun. The little planet icons wearing cowboy hats were memorable. I used to play it at work when I was on hold during tech support calls.

Again, it's similar. But from the LP I just checked out, SH has no race setting or outright hex map. Still, thanks.

[quentinjones]

I got a very nice gift from a friend of mine a couple of months ago, he got me a PS4 and some very cool and exciting games (The Last of Us, Spiderman, God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn). I know, he's a good friend.

Also, I know these games are masterpieces and I was very excited to play them.

Unfortunately, I really can't navigate with a controller. Like, I really can't without focusing hard on it, and taking me out of the gaming experience. Is it just practice?

I want to get the hang of it but I am not sure if it's just a phase or I just cant.

Thanks!

[Danny Franks]

It's just practice. The analog sticks, in particular, are awkward to get the hang of (at least, they were for me even though I'd played with joysticks and then standard 4-direction controllers). And then getting the muscle memory to remember which buttons are which takes a while as well.

I would say that Horizon: Zero Dawn is challenging to play well, even for people who have used controllers their whole lives. It's a game that requires a lot of precise movement and quick reactions to avoid just getting completely squashed. Spider-Man is probably the most forgiving of those listed, because the controls require a lot of repetition and some button-mashing will get you through a lot of situations.

[Rushmoras]

It's practice. I had trouble as well at first, because it's had been literally decades since I last played with a console and decided to get in 2018 a PS4, and installed Uncharted on it. Needless to say, had troubles with the simplest of actions, but after a couple of hours began getting the hang of it, and after a week it was okeyish to play with a controller. Still, to this day, I have trouble aiming with a controller in most games that require shooting (GTA V is the worst offender for me).

 

HZD, as I remember, only the flying enemies gave me frustration, but in regards to all other, you have a pretty decent time-window to aim at their heads/parts.

[Anduin]

In fantasy CRPGs, there's generally a few races to choose from. Dwarves, elves, orcs, sometimes other classics and a couple of original ones. In SF CRPGs, it seems to be humans only. Fallout, KOTOR, Mass Effect, Outer Worlds, even the upcoming Starfield. Sure, in some cases you can recruit aliens and robots into your party, but you don't see them on the character selection screen.

Why do you think this is? Further, have I missed any games in this genre that let you play as an alien? I would happily play as a Klingon/Twi'lek/Asari/Ice Warrior/Nebari or whatever else.

[Rushmoras]

Most probably timing, money and programming issues. Let's take Dragon Age: Origins as an example, even though you can choose human, elf or dwarf, but it only matters for the prologue mission. Everything else is the same for each of them. It could also be laziness, but I'd still say it's timing, money and programming related.

[ethalfrida]

Wrong question...

Edited September 2, 2022 by ethalfrida
Error

[Anduin]

So, Skyrim Special Edition. Or Legendary. Whatever they're calling it. Do I have to register with Bethesda to get mods I downloaded from the Nexus working? So far, just dropping them into Data does absolutely nothing. I don't want to register. If I have to register, I'd rather go back to regular edition, where I don't.