My four-year old was playing Lego Batman today on Xbox. No, I don't just mean moving the guy around like a jackass, I mean actually playing! Dropping bombs. Sucking up the little garbage pieces. Jumping and climbing ladders.

I know you guys don't give a ****, but - sniff - so proud.

Yeah I deleted TAK fast, I forgot how much I didn't like it.

If you wanna do some co-op vs some AI's one day, we can sir. I wouldn't mind like 4 AI on hard vs us 2.

That's awesome. I can't wait to someday plan out the videogame education curriculum for mini-goofy (who thankfully does not yet exist, but someday!).

Downloaded Empire Earth 2 today, that's not a bad RTS either.

i am going to raise my future children to become pro gamers

I forgot how dumb the AI can be in TA.

Well, I started the first level in the expansion. Jesus, first level I ever lost. And then I tried it again, and it was still rough. Constant bombardment.

Much better, but gonna be much harder.

What I often do is try to figure out the tricks to a certain map, and then see if I can avoid them.

Downloaded and after about an hour....got Red Alert working in Windows 7. It's been fn playing the old game.

Well, the first level of the Arm side in the expansion is an all water map. Zero land masses.

You have to kill every bit of the Core.

You can't really avoid them. The only real trick is to build a ton of boats and hope you can survive long enough or kill enough of their long range ships until you can build torpedo seacrafts.

I was so over Red Alert once I started played it online. It made me realize how much better people are than me.

And yeah, I downloaded TA and Empire Earth 2.

Yeah, I like skirmishes against the computer still. At least I can get some Ws. Online play in just about any game anymore and I get destroyed. I just don't have the time to play like most online RTS players.

Also, is it just me or is Starcraft a billion times quicker moving than Red Alert? It feels like it.

Well, if you liked red alert, I promise you'll like Total Annihilation, if you want it, send me a pm, and I'll hook you up with what I have. No need to set up anything, it just works.

I bought the new xbox which has an wireless n adapter built in, when I connect to the internet it still connects as g even though my router is n capable. When I try to stream from my computer I get a warning message saying that I have a n router + wireless adapter and that I should change my settings. I can't find the setting anywhere to change, can anyone help me with this?

I mean in skirmishes. Campaigns are all about figuring out what is sometimes the one and only trick the designers wanted you to use to beat the level, which is why I usually don't like campaigns much at all. You can come up with a perfectly good solution but it will be blocked somehow.

I don't recall if you said you had played TA before, but if not, a few tips on sea warfare:

1. Use destroyers instead of subs on almost all occasions. Subs take a long time to build and maneuver too slowly to get out of the way of depth charges.

2. Use scouts to provide line-of-sight for your more distant and costly destroyers and other ships.

3. Destroyers are almost all the time than other surface ships.

4. Get sonar and radar up ASAP. Use it to concentrate fire on ships before they're even in visual range. You can kill a lot of enemies safely this way.

5. Build aircraft carriers en masse for energy and radar coverage.

6. Your commander walks so slowly that he is a slow builder in the water. It's often better to have him guarding out production from your shipyards, which also can save them when they're under attack. Send a ship or two out to continuously build energy and metal makers and cap metal spots. Don't stop until you reach, along with your ships, the unit limit. If you get so many aircraft carriers that you don't need your resource producers as much, suck them up for the metal.

7. Building sonar and shutting them off is the cheapest way to get energy.

8. Control your ships carefully. They have a tendency to wander off and get into situations where they are the only ship surrounded by five enemies. Also be sure they are firing from maximum range whenever possible, and concentrate their fire on one ship at a time. It's best to have them in several groups so you can concentrate fire on several ships at once without wasting time on overkill.

9. The person who reclaims the metal is often the person who wins the battle. Establishing control of the wreckage is key to winning many battles.

Yeah, pretty much dead on. I just hate the sea fights. They always adv units and I'm basically just zerging my units to keep them low and away, until I can get adv units.

I mean - level 1 subs and destroyers vs adv destroyers/subs/missile frigates/battleships = lose

I'm noticing that I do like to send zero scout ships on the battles they are giving me. I like to send combo of level 1 subs/destroyers. I mean, they're all going to die anyways, because I'm out tech'ed. just gotta keep them weakened, until I can kill them

After switching to some other game and forgetting about it for forever, I just got back to playing Dead Space again last week and just finished it - highly recommend to anyone who missed it when it came out 2 yrs ago, I'm sure you can get it for ~$20 or so now.

It actually has a little bit of replay value because the weapon upgrade system (you acquire power nodes throughout the game which you can spend on weapon upgrades, but they aren't transferable to other weapons once you use them and there's a finite enough supply that you can't upgrade everything) pretty much guarantees you'll pick a few weapons you like and stick with them through the whole game; when you beat it, you can start a new game over again with the same equipment you had at the end, which gives you a chance to try playing w/ some different weapons that you didn't really use the first time through without having to go through the "my character sucksssss without all the armor upgrades" phase that you'd otherwise encounter at the start.

Bought Dead Space during Steam sale for $10.

Haven't gotten to it yet.

Not scouting is a huge leak. A scout running in front of your line can make it open up on ships and sink them before they fire a shot. The loss of the scout is almost always meaningless in comparison.

The frigates can be a pain, but once they are gone, a lot of the levels resolve themselves.

Also, sending those subs is usually a big leak too. Destroyers are just much better and build much faster.

And be sure to send a construction ship somewhat close to your frontline of fighters, and rotate damaged ships back to it while sending fresh ones up front.. Repairing your ships can save you a lot of time and resources.

Eventually when you get the hang of it, you won't be hanging on to get advanced units much besides the aircraft carriers. Destroyers and scouts can win most battles, plus an occasional missile ship or two. The torpedo planes are okay too.

I'm not a huge fan of naval battles either, mostly because the units move so ponderously and micromangement can get pretty intense.

What I did was:

I just spam lurkers/crusaders, while building up power/metal so I could get sea plane lab up. Once you get 3-5 torpedo sea planes up, it's game over for almost anything, those things are so sick. (not the lancers from adv airplane) These things shoot 2 torpedos and missiles. Low HP, but they rape anything in packs 3-4. I didn't bother to build any defensive things like torpedo launchers/missile stands/laser turrets until I had a sea plane or two. There is a sonar sea plane that I used for scouting, it has an insane range. I put it on guard on one of the crusaders. Then I use another and fly around.

I like a good sea battle, but I like the option to build real airplanes and land units, pure sea battles are just lame.

Yeah the torpedo launchers suck. The laser turrets are occasionally powerful but you really need just the right set-up for it. The sonar planes are indeed really great.

Pelicans are good if you can get those. I find the land-based missile towers pretty decent, but the water-based ones are usually too vulnerable.

Like you say, if you can get enough planes up, you can change the scenario into an air-based war. It can be pretty expensive, but it works.

I think my favorite thing about the water wars is the sound of the cannons. I love the sound effects in TA. It sounds like the whole world is coming to an end.

Stupid port forwarding, no online TA until I get home. Too lazy to fight with hotel internet tech support to try to get setup to play.

Also, for whoever else has TA installed/downloaded..
Certain ports are required to be open, in order to play online.

http://portforward.com/

This site - you pick your router and then the game. It will walk you through how open those ports.

I played a couple games yesterday and man my skills slipped fast. After being a really good player, I picked up the game again and stank but got better. And now after a month or so lay-off, I slipped back toward the stink again.

TBH though, you don't have to be super to beat the computer. Just have to know the basics. They don't think outside of the box.

Yeah I'm about 5 hours in and man I see what you are saying. This is moreso than most JRPGs I've gotten into. I like the combat for it enough that I plan on playing through it, so I guess its worth what I paid for it. I think I'm gonna get to a point where I'll start skipping the cut scenes.