Turn based strategy Games

[ilya]

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HOMM2 was fantastic, my favorite along with the first XCOM. The graphics were never mind-blowing, but had an imaginative charm to them. I'd love to have this on my system again, especially with the auxiliary materials to keep it figured out.

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Gametap has all the HOMMs. And XCOM. And Jagged Alliance 2. And Civ III. Oh and Warlords something. And Disciples 1 and 2. And Age of Wonders II. And a bunch of Panzer Generals.

They will soon have Alpha Centauri and Laser Squad, the new(ish?) X-Com spinoff.

Gametap is the overlord of turn-based strategy.

[Blarg]

Rather than googling it my lazy self, can you tell me what Gametap is and/or how you like it?

[ilya]

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Rather than googling it my lazy self, can you tell me what Gametap is and/or how you like it?

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It's a subscription service like Netflix, except instead of movies you get games, and instead of getting the games through the mail, you get them by downloading them onto your computer using Gametap's client. And the only limit to the number of games you can have "out" at a time is how much space you have on your hard drive. They have over 840 games right now and they regularly add new ones, with most of the recent additions being on the recently-released side. A lot of the games are ports of old arcade or early-console titles -- Galaga, Space Invaders, Pac Man, Tempest, Defender, Dig Dug, Crazy Taxi, Tony Hawk, etc....They also have a lot of family/edutainment games. But they also have a good and quickly growing selection of PC games -- a lot of classic adventure games like Zork, Space/King's Quest, Quest for Glory, Dark Seed, all the Myst games (including a new Myst MMO called Uru developed exclusively for Gametap), but also newer titles like the strategy games I mentioned, Splinter Cell, Pandora Tomorrow, Far Cry, both Deus Ex games, Serious Sam, a bunch of Tom Clancy games, the Descents (including the 2 Freespace games), X2, Tachyon, Space Empires IV, a couple early Command & Conquers, Empire Earth, both Tropicos, Settlers III, Prince of Persia, Beyond Good & Evil, Second Sight, bunch of Tomb Raiders, bunch of Sim Cities, etc etc etc you get the picture.

Oh and they also have a lot of great RPGs, everything from the Might & Magic games (through Clouds of Xeen) to both Baldur's Gates & Icewind Dales and Planescape:Torment too.

The client's decent & they're working actively on improving it. You can use AIM in-client, check on the exact progress of your downloads, search for games by name, genre, or system, organize your downloaded games into user-created lists, participate in leaderboards for many of the arcade games, and more stuff.

One thing you can not do is cancel online. You gotta call their toll-free number and hold for eternity. When I asked them why they fed me some garbage about protecting my information. LOL yeah right.

All the same, at <$10/month ($7 if you sign up for a year)it's not a bad deal& you probably won't want to cancel for a while. Maybe by then they'll get with the times.

[SuperUberBob]

Disgaea is the nuts

[Poker Plan]

Field Commander (PSP)- direct rip-off of Advance Wars (GBA) but very good all the same.

[BillNye]

PC: Sega Genesis Emulator + Shining Force 2

The game is amazing.

[VickreyAuction]

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PC: Sega Genesis Emulator + Shining Force 2

The game is amazing.

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The science guy speaks the truth.

[BillNye]

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PC: Sega Genesis Emulator + Shining Force 2

The game is amazing.

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The science guy speaks the truth.

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Unfortunately you can only beat it about 10 times before getting semi-bored.

If I were to play again it would be to beat this game in one sitting w/ speed hacks (10x faster than normal play). In reality it will decrease the playtime by about 2-3 times (thinking about other factors such as you still need to decide where to move, what to attack etc).

Man just typing that makes me want to play it. If only the first 20m wasn't boring after the first couple playthroughs.

[JuntMonkey]

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PC: Sega Genesis Emulator + Shining Force 2

The game is amazing.

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The science guy speaks the truth.

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What about Shining in the Darkness? I know it's a different type of game.

[Blarg]

Thanks Ilya. That sounds pretty cool. I LOVED HOMM2 and Descent 1 and 2.