Yes, they are very similar. I played HoMM 3 first and loved it, and found Disciples II to be pretty lacking by comparison.

I like X-Com so much I re-bought the old strategy manual on Amazon.com. Was about 13 bucks, worth it to me.

Re Disciples 2 versus HOMM2, both are great games. HOMM2 is more cartoony and to me has higher replayability because the skirmish/random map feature is so incredibly robust. It's virtually infinitely replayable. In D2, there isn't a skirmish ability like that, just some maps. And the expansion has a very small campaign. Also, in D2's battle screen, the characters don't move, but attack from fixed positions. HOMM2 has your characters advancing across the field. And in HOMM2, attacking and defending castles plays a much bigger part. I really love D2 and plowed a preposterous amount of time into it, but it doesn't have the infinite legs of a HOMM2.

Do you guys play through the HoMM storylines or mostly just dick around with custom/random stuff? Are there difficulty levels for the main campaigns?

I'll always have a soft spot for HoMM1 even though I've never played it, because in late '95 or early '96 some of my friends were playing it, and I asked if I could borrow it. I had "only" a 486DX2-66 at that time, so my friend said forget it, the battles would take 2 hours. Was he correct or is that silly?

They'd take two hours because your 486 was too slow? Don't recall now what I played HOMM1 on back then. One thing I was disappointed to find out carried over from HOMM1 to HOMM2 though, even though I had a really kick ass machine when I was later playing HOMM2, was that the length of time the computer took to make its turns was aggravating. STILL. HOMM2 wasn't really all that different from HOMM1, and on a computer so much better than my previous one, I was expecting to take my turn and not have to wait too long before it was my turn again. Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Keep a magazine handy.

That's probably what he was thinking about with HOMM1 too. To be honest, I found that very frustrating and the only significant faults with those games. The computer could have taken a trip to Bermuda while it was calculating its turns.

The modern incarnation of theze gamez iz looking good:

http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/101/1017713p1.html

Yea that must have been what he meant...

Wow, glad to hear people are playing HoMM, homm 3 and 4 were both sick, you guys playing homm2-3 should check out HoMM 4.

Don't bother with HoMM 5 though, it's ****.

X-com isn't too complicated, you have to manufacture items to make enough money to win the game - which is a little tough until you find out Laser Cannons are more profitable than any other item.

In addition there's some good base building strategy and other tips here:

http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?t...ayout_Strategy

Once you get the better defence levels you can build new bases and put some defences down and never station anything there except researchers and engineers.

Once you get the money game sorted out the game becomes a lot simpler and you can focus on actually having fun until you get to mars

Intro to x-com probably my fav game intro ever. Except maybe Syndicate.

Mechwarrior II is probably my favorite intro.

Didn't check the link but did read an XCOM FAQ years ago about setting up the base. It really helped a lot. If I recall correctly, it mentioned putting entrances in corners so the aliens could be more easily contained and any damage done wouldn't take out as much of your good stuff.

Civilization's intro was pretty baller back in the day.

I feel like too many games don't give enough attention to the intro. The first time you start up a game, having an awesome intro makes it a lot more exciting to jump into.

I can't remember if the intro video to Quake 2 played when you booted the game or just when you started a new single-player game, but either way it was pretty sweet too. Youtube link

Civ 4's intro was pretty good too, for the song mostly.

Oh, and the intro for Crusader was righteous also.

I think the X-Com manual gives you a little tutorial on how to get started. It was in PDF format on the CD though, so ne'er the twain shall meet.

Just found this thread and used to love HOMM3. My CD is now not functioning and I was wondering if once you purchase the game you can download it multiple times if needed. Thanks .

yep, there's no DRM so you can download as many times / on as many computers as you want, just by logging into the account that purchased the game in question

ty

What is so different about 5 that it isn't good? I've only played 3 but really enjoyed it. Is 4 the same?

its not a great old game, but i think COD4 wins the best intro contest w/out a question. when i got tied to the pole and shot in the face i ****ing freaked out it was so unexpected and awesome.

Man I'm really glad I wasn't the only one that was mystified by GameTap's most recent update. It's brutal, pretty much completely unusable. Oh well.

Anyway thanks for the link to this site. I got super stoked for a moment because I read one of Blarg's posts to mean that they MWII on the site, which they don't =( But still downloaded HOMM3 and UT, which should be fun.

Never played, but read a bunch of initial reviews. Just from recollection at launch time, bad points were: DRM, tons of bugs, no random skirmish/map generator (which was one of the outstanding aspects of the earlier 3 games at least, dunno about HOMM4), and feeding off the last problem mentioned, there were almost no maps included to make up for there not being a random skirmish/map generator. I think I read there were something like all of five maps at launch.

wowow HoMM3 is so good, this game is like ****in crack

4 is even better than 3 (in most ways anyway, worse in some).
4 also has excellent campaigns w/ interesting stories


I've only briefly played 5 but i didn't like anything about it, the animation looked stupid, the storyline was just terrible. it was a pretty huge letdown so i quit it after like a day of playing it
--------if you don't care about that and just like the gameplay than maybe you'll like homm5 though, it's somehow a success, guess most people disagree with me here.

hah, good to hear this.

Homm is seriously underrated, before this thread i thought that nobody has heard of it.

There is an un-official patch mod that upgrades homm3 to 3.5 which has very positive feedback.

Its called In the wake of the gods.

For some reason the main page of the mod is not working for me though.

GOG alert! GOG alert! Soldiers to wallet stations!

GOG is having a one year anniversary promo. Buy as many Interplay titles as you want and get the next one free, for the next six days. All individual games are six bucks. Here's a link to the listing of games.

Note: The list appears to be tailored to purchases of individual members in the sense that what they have already purchased is not listed. For instance, I have the first Fallout but not the second, so Fallout 2 is on the list for me. I have two Jagged Alliance 2 games, so I don't see them even though others do.

So just an example of the games:

Fallout series
Descent Series (including Freespace series, their outdoor version of Descent)
Jagged Alliance series
MDK Series
Sacrifice
Earthworm Jim series
Castles Series
SHOGO
Messiah
Screamer
F/A 18E Super Hornet
MAX series
Redneck Rampage

etc etc etc

I've owned Fallout 1 for years and never played it. Was debating whether to buy it from GOG for ease of use or trying to get my old copy to run on a modern machine. I guess now that I can get it free with F2, my choice is clear.

For six bucks, how wrong can you go? And now it's six bucks for the two together.

Personally I really like that with GOG I don't have to fuss with DOSBox, finding patches, etc., a lot too, and don't have to worry about losing or scratching CD's anymore either.