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jeffnz

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Everything posted by jeffnz

  1. jeffnz

    Air Combat games

    Hahaha you know everything, about everything. I wonder if Lucas Arts got the game engine to keep, or perhaps they made Starfighter and Secret Weapons from scratch? Factor 5 Rouge Squadron - reception and sales The V wing was cool, with those tracking missiles that destroyed everything!
  2. jeffnz

    Air Combat games

    Back in the day, I played a game called and yesterday I showed this video to my friend's son (who's in his early teens). My friend's son plays a game on Steam called War Thunder and when he saw European Air War he said it was like "the first War Thunder game". Another air combat game that I liked is (here's of it). What I appreciate in these games is the focus on detail. In European Air War, when you were killed you lose the game and it shows a letter from the air force with your name on it, the letter that gets sent when someone is killed and the family is notified. Depending on whether you were flying as German, British or American, the table and room would be decorated differently, if I remember correctly. In Secret Weapons the menu theme has black-and-white photographs and they are attached to a document with paperclips (similar to European Air War). In War Thunder the menus are really polished and modern which I think is terrible! Ever since the games industry sold out, everything has been about polish and having a modern UI. Wolfenstein The Old Blood is based entirely in the 1940s and although they show detailed images in the main menu and on the game's cover, it isn't actual game graphics, it's an artists impression, which gives a nice quality. War Thunder features air combat but it's one of those free-to-play games, with an optional campaign so I don't believe it'd have the quality of Secret Weapons, which was made by Lucas Arts, by the way (studio now deceased). Lucas Arts included bonus videos in Secret Weapons, which included a brief interview with the guy who made the sound track and also an interview with a WWII veteran who was a B-17 gunner. Interviewing the B-17 gunner may not be what made the game great, after all it's bonus content, but it's clear that Lucas Arts had a historian on board, a lot of effort went into the "feel" of the game, and attempts to make it somewhat accurate. Secret Weapons Over Normandy was released in 2003, two years after Star Wars: Star Fighter. In Secret Weapons you could cheat and fly an X-wing and use it to shoot down BF-109s and Hurricanes which was entertaining until you realise it isn't fair. The coolest thing about Secret Weapons, besides cutscenes and dialogue, is the number of missions and bonus missions, you can also upgrade planes. Around that same time in the early 2000s there was a game called Crimson Skies which I think I played only once, perhaps it was a demo. Crimson Skies was partly promoted as an Xbox Live game and I didn't get broadband until 2006, and not until 2007/2008 at my dad's house. Back then the best plan was 10GB a month and that cost an obscene amount at the time. The most recent air combat game I've read about is Air Conflicts: Pacific Carriers but I never played it. I just looked up air combat games and found a video "Top 10 Air Combat Games" by Mojo on Youtube, I'll look at that. Even if there are some half-decent air combat games I still feel that this genre has been pushed down. Update: Wow I've nearly watched 3 minutes of the and already I've seen 2 titles from 2009-present that I never even heard of. Back in the 90s, Nintendo 64 had an air combat game as one of its flagship titles
  3. jeffnz

    Air Combat games

    I forgot to mention which is also by Lucas Arts. I've been watching some of the play-through and the graphics are pretty good I reckon. The explosions don't look too terrible and the lack of lighting effects doesn't bother me. The visual effects are pretty good, they have a sparking effect when your laser hits an enemy ship, then an explosion when the enemy ship is critically damaged, then it loses control and crashes. Destroying an AT-ST leaves a husk (the legs) that you must not fly into. They even had soldiers on speeder bikes on some missions. The coolest thing in Rouge Squadron is probably the variety of ships you can fly, and also the different missions and planets. They have a mission on Cloud City and other missions on moons, volcanoes and lush green planets with posh cities. After the game's release you could download extra content, they added a Naboo Starfighter when The Phantom Menace came out. I can't recall anything else. There were bonus missions: Beggar's Canyon Race, Deathstar trench run, and Battle For Hoth. I think those were included on the game's disk. Rouge Squadron's final mission (not including bonus missions) is "The Battle Of Calamari" where the empire uses huge hover ships that cruise over cities, vacuuming up and obliterating anything underneath. This storyline is after Return Of The Jedi. I haven't seen the new films, in fact I never even watched episode 3, so I'm not sure what the story is but there is something in the new film/game that shows a world that looks like Calamari. I'm not sure if Rouge Squadron is 100% canon but it talks of the empire still being strong under a leader who replaces Darth Vader (post-Return Of The Jedi).
  4. Better yet, both in one. Have LAN support that lets you have 2 people per screen. Then you don't need to buy an extra console and an extra TV for each player. I got annoyed with Xbox games like Counter Strike and Battle Front, which only allowed one person per screen. There's no point in that unless you have a hall of people who're going to camp and play for a whole week. Back in the day Halo was the coolest thing because you could use split screen and LAN combined. We'd have two teams [using four consoles & tvs] and you'd only need to share your screen with another person who was on your side. It worked great.
  5. The developers said that there'd be a split screen mode in Halo 5 but then changed the plan. Now they're adding split screen to Halo 5. The part I like in this article is where the person responsible for 343 Industries, Bonnie Ross, says that removing split screen violated fans' trust. Some of these studios have gotten too big for their own good, I suspect. Split screen kicks butt! I prefer split screen to online. Here's a list of split screen games that I reckon are great: Duke Nukem on Nintendo 64, Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Halo 1, 2 and 3, Goldeneye (n64), The World Is Not Enough, and I'm probably forgetting several more. Halo 3 ODST was really good because it had the cooperative mode where you have to survive unlimited waves of enemies. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/02/halo-split-screen-combat-is-coming-back-and-its-here-to-stay/ I know that most folks played Duke Nukem on PC but I was indoctrinated by the N64 version. It had better graphics and the split screen cooperative was so cool, I bet Bungie made a co-op campaign in Halo partly because of Duke.
  6. That looks really good, I like the diagonal texture on the background, it looks like metal. I first noticed the texture under the word "forums" then realised it was the background of the page, with "blocks" covering most of the screen (though with spacing around each block item, to reveal parts of the texture). That's clever. I'm going to steal that idea for future projects.
  7. Hints of blue is good, I like the idea of some blue. Right now ... since I thought about it, I see there's blue for "Posted Today, xx:xx PM" text, and also blue for the quote background, and for the background of the main column. Then there's another blue for the sides of the website. Perhaps the sides could be a dark grey, the same (or similar) grey as the edge of the text box where you type a post. The darkest blue could remain for the centre column and quoted text. Then you've got the more colourful colour in focus (a bit of blue in the centre region) and the really dark grey on the edges of the screen, that would make sense for focus, viewers will naturally ignore the darker outer regions. A dark charcoal grey is good, the default GNOME 3 desktop in Linux uses heaps of black and dark grey shades. Image: Here's the GNOME 3 desktop
  8. On the specific point about moving CNCNZ into a new era, I don't see a new era, not for C&C anyway. Keep it old skool I reckon. The only forum change should be the layout and software version, in my opinion. Colour schemes are a minor detail compared to layout and spacing.
  9. I think the dark blue and black is good for a gaming forum - Steam is dark too. I think dark websites are fine for gaming forums; light websites are great if you're a law firm or you're selling interior design You could try going lighter but then you'd be doing what lots of other websites are doing, using light silver-greys, lots of white, and a tiny bit of light blue (but never light blue as a background colour, lest it look queer on the wrong screen)
  10. I haven't watched the whole video yet ... I am strongly in favour of an action game that involves strategic gameplay (strategic as opposed to simply "tactical"). BattleZone 98 Redux is a good example of a shooter that also requires thinking and base building, and that's what no studio dares to do any more. See also: II. I certainly wouldn't play any of the major FPS titles, I'll stick with Wolfenstein and Doom and everything else can just 'f' off and die. Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain is the only other shooter I can play, because of its stealth and logistical stuff. As usual we return to the issue that most companies see everything as an investment, it comes down to gender/age/various gamer stereotypes (in plain English, "markets"). Speaking of age, I think a lot of games are aimed at teenagers right down to 12 year-olds. I played Halo when I was 13, I sucked but it was easy to obsess over, because it's such a brainless game. Once the mobile market peaks then I hope some studios will be more creative. Tiberian Sun as an action game sounds cool but c'mon ... having titans and orcas won't make it cooler than anything else. In BattleZone they have walkers and BattleZone II had two assault-oriented aircraft. BZ2 would have made more money if the graphic requirements weren't so high for its time, and also, if they didn't release it right after Christmas. It's only a matter of time before someone makes an FPS-RTS hybrid or similar.
  11. Tell them to create a new strategy game that isn't based on exhausted (done-to-death) intellectual property. It's time for something fresh.
  12. jeffnz

    What happened....

    Corporate politics killed CnC, you can read about what happened to Generals 2 if you search the CNCNZ front page or the forum archive.
  13. I've got a new laptop, it has a solid-state HD and an AMD A-4. Say what you want about AMD, I'll keep buying their stuff regardless. I've nearly built 0ad from source, this should be fun to mess with!

    1. Doctor Destiny

      Doctor Destiny

      Anything before Ryzen is only good for a budget build.

    2. jeffnz

      jeffnz

      I missed your comment here. I think you're right, fortunately budget-build is all I care about these days. I'm going to keep using the systems I currently have until it becomes excruciating. I could use an SSD in my desktop PC but I'm prepared to wait longer. A guy in my class said that Samsung SSDs are the fastest.

  14. jeffnz

    Battle Zone 1998 has been remastered

    After playing BattleZone lots of the past months I'd say it's pretty damn good. I beat the entire game on hard last week, then I played the trickiest missions again to prove it wasn't luck. They have a patch out this week which improves performance but I haven't installed it yet. Cool game ... strategy, hover physics, tactics and strategy.
  15. There's a new thing that's just come out called Battle Zone Redux. Look it up. They made it look better but that's about it, I see no indication that the ai improved. If all goes well they'll remaster Battle Zone 2.
  16. I think it's farcical that it now comes in a box; but from a business perspective 8 Bit Armies does have an amusing yet cool cover, which is worth showing off in stores. Surely it will be an all-in-one? It'd be ridiculous to release it with less content. My friend's son who's about 14 years old would know better than to buy a boxed version, if it had less stuff edit: oh yeah by the way, Tropico 5 is only ~5GB but it comes on a 50GB Blu-Ray disk, they didn't make many copies though. I asked EB Games a couple of years ago and only one store was stocking Tropico 5 in my city ... a few months after its release. Expect 8 Bit Armies to be seen in some stores, but it will be a novel item I suspect
  17. Divine Intervention would be the best track for a final battle Modern Design got a few votes on Twitter, it is pretty cool. I listened to it and noticed that it develops really well throughout the first 1 minute. The 1 minute 45 second mark has a somewhat depressing drop which reminds me of Tiberian Sun. Overall I think Modern Design keeps the player alert and engaged in gameplay, it has decent tempo.
  18. Command your forces, Conquer the world! It's worth noting the CnC reference, definitely. It didn't need to be in the title though. This will be good for their business, I hope they get into the newsletters and get good promotional coverage.
  19. I replied on Twitter. Anything fast and angry is good, Novus had some cool fast tracks. I used to like Masari several years ago but I think it's too cinematic, it's a good balance though. The fast, technical music is what Frank seems to be known for: everything in 8 Bit Armies seems to be fast but maybe they added new, more varied tracks, I don't know.
  20. jeffnz

    C&C reboot?

    You need a good team too, graphics people and animators are handy when making a proper game
  21. I read this book and learned that the MI6 director of the time, Sir Stuart Menzies, was in favour of smashing the bolsheviks and leaving Germany alone. Churchill was very unpopular in May 1941. He could possibly have been restrained but MPs and the public were too tolerant of him. If Rudolf Hess had stayed in Germany he most likely could have talked Hitler into retreating from the Russian winter but nope he flew to England and it seems the whole thing was a setup anyway. True, there were influential people in England who would have worked with Hess to stop Churchill from declaring war, but there is also evidence that (some) letters inviting Hess were forged, and that the lights on Dungavel House's air strip were turned off after Hess missed it on his first pass.
  22. jeffnz

    C&C reboot?

    I hope someone creates something in Unreal or Unity and steals EA's customers.
  23. Maddox - "I hate Infowars" and "I hate Buzzfeed" (respectively) He's brilliant. His website throws a million errors when you run it through the w3 validator yet it works perfectly. I like the comment: "this website was made with vi, because everything else is for failures". Classic.
  24. jeffnz

    Trump vs The World (the next 4 years)

    I'm waiting to see what happens with his foreign policy - whether he gets along with Putin, or has a hissy fit and gets his ego hurt by Putin. I'm very interested in what Trump might do in Syria. His immigration policy was a bit whacky, he bans people from Iran but not from Saudi Arabia. It isn't consistent considering that the 9/11 hijackers nearly all came from Saudi Arabia. As for Iran, I've had this conversation with my mum and my brother. My brother told my mum that he'd like to visit Iran, perhaps for a honey moon later this year. My mum warned him that Iran was a dangerous country ... hahaha, not so! Iran has its own whacky views on religion but it's no-where as bad as Saudi Arabia. Certainly, Shia militants (funded by Iran) might kill the odd US soldier here-and-there but overall they kill the Sunni terrorists from ISIS and Nusra. I guess the US foreign policy people love to blame Iran for everything. The US Department of State has apparently* put travel warnings on Iran before, basically to reduce tourism it seems. *I think it was my brother who said this New Zealand seems biased to the left wing, especially because our political system (MMP) allows the Green Party to have seats in Parliament. Even so you can find luke-warm Trump supporters on the internet, in the comments section of the Stuff news website** (I give several quotes from that comments section in this post, there's the source link** if you want it). It seems that many Kiwis are willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt because they're sick of the media constantly going after him. Some New Zealanders are indifferent - it isn't a matter of caring. Trump is on TV and on Radio New Zealand every second day, no-one here can escape hearing about Trump so most Kiwis could talk about Trump but perhaps not very passionately. It isn't our country but yeah Trump is taking over our 6 O'clock news and radio programme coverage.
  25. jeffnz

    Windows 10 Game Mode

    OK that makes sense, in Visual Studio they have "universal windows app" ... "windows form app" ... "windows phone app" and I think, win32 app. I don't care to know what it is precisely. win32 is a developer's term and I'll hear enough about it in 4 weeks when the course starts. End of mystery. Back on topic ... Pro-tip: get a SATA III solid state drive to improve your game speed, not fancy optimisation software. I was a little bit bummed out to discover that my desktop PC from 2 years ago has a mechanical hard drive but apparently they cost more back then, they're cheaper now. Approximately one day's wages in my currency, that will buy you a low capacity drive, perhaps not the most reliable one though.
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