Recommend me some RTS games?

[yaster]

Starting with the time travelling back to dinosaurs, for instance. Then there's the level in Hollywood where you can rescue 'action movie actors' who are better at killing people than a level 3 SEAL. Another map where you're hired by Bill Gates to protect his company building. Hypnotised civilians saying 'Needs of the many are outweighed by the needs of the Yuri'. Mission on the moon with kosmonauts with jetpacks and lasers. Most units have new voices which are mostly stupid. Mummies come out of pyramids in the Egypt level. Soviets have the retardedly overpowered Boris who can take out tanks with a Kalashnikov and call airstrikes on buildings. Mission briefings are also simply stupid. And I probably forgot to mention a lot of stuff here, as I remember my intelligence being constantly insulted while I was playing it.

It does sound awfully lot like it was part of Red Alert franchise...

 

[Darth Roxor]

No way. Red Alert 1 didn't really have any silly stuff other than time travel and actors speaking in weird ways. Red Alert 2 might have been corny, but it was not stupid or as over the top as people make it.

 

[Destroid]

Most of those masses of bizarre RTS games were pretty terrible TBH.

I don't think the genre has declined at all (from an MP perspective).

There has been a stream of solid titles (with a lot of expansions), with some innovation from time to time.

DoW1, CoH, DoW2, Supcom, now SC2, all are great games well worth playing. Supcom2 declined pretty hard unfortunately, but hopefully they will do better in future.

 

[MetalCraze]

No way. Red Alert 1 didn't really have any silly stuff other than time travel and actors speaking in weird ways.

I take it you haven't finished a Soviet campaign? Silliness everywhere and it's fun.

Then there's the level in Hollywood where you can rescue 'action movie actors' who are better at killing people than a level 3 SEAL

Are you saying they are not?

Red Alert series is all about taking stereotypes and making them x1000 times bigger.
Bears walking on the streets of snowy Moscow in summer in RA2 is awesome.

Now RA3 with anime crap - that was shit.

 

[Darth Roxor]

I take it you haven't finished a Soviet campaign? Silliness everywhere and it's fun.

I did, and not that long ago either. The silly stuff is pretty much only during briefings.

 

[Wulfstand]

The hell can you recommend AoE 3 over AoE 2 is a mistery to me. Hell, even the skirmishes vs ais were more fun in 2 rather than in 3. The only thing that stood up for the 3rd game was that 'family storyline' and the whole fountain of youth plot twist at the end.

Listen, if you can manage to persuade 1-3 more friends in torrenting and playing a few games with you, than AoE 2 +the conquerors is your sure ticket to some hellafun nights.

If it's only sp you're interested, defintely try out SC 1 and torrent SC 2 too. C&C generals, red alert, etc I've never been a big fan of, but I heard some of them were pretty good.

 

[circ]

I'm perfectly fine with someone recommending AoE 3 over 2. Much more interesting campaign, and medieval europe gets tiresome after the 10932750 time. Anyway, I've gotten to europe in Tiberium Wars, and people who recommend this have got to be fucking kidding me. I grabbed the freebie Tiberian Sun from EA because I don't feel like looking for the cd's, and hey, it runs in 1920x1080, has more detailed graphics and more interesting missions. Tib Wars didn't add anything, and reviewers giving it a score of more than 50% are retarded. Also movies in Sun were better, because hey, Jimmy Earl Jones and Mike Biehn!

So if people are calling Tiberium Wars playable, along with Supreme Commander, I'm gonna do a big pass on SupCom.

 

[MetalCraze]

People recommending Tiberium Wars do it because it was their first RTS. With SC2 being second now.

has more detailed graphics and more interesting missions

That's exactly what I was saying when C&C3 came out. Also no superunits like Mammoth tanks for noobs.
The only problem I have with TS campaign is that the pace becomes slower after the first half.

Also movies in Sun were better, because hey, Jimmy Earl Jones and Mike Biehn!

They also have a bigger budget. Proper decorations, none of that crap from TW with you constantly looking at the same room with a bunch of monitors.

 

[1eyedking]

Starting with the time travelling back to dinosaurs, for instance. Then there's the level in Hollywood where you can rescue 'action movie actors' who are better at killing people than a level 3 SEAL. Another map where you're hired by Bill Gates to protect his company building. Hypnotised civilians saying 'Needs of the many are outweighed by the needs of the Yuri'. Mission on the moon with kosmonauts with jetpacks and lasers. Most units have new voices which are mostly stupid. Mummies come out of pyramids in the Egypt level. Soviets have the retardedly overpowered Boris who can take out tanks with a Kalashnikov and call airstrikes on buildings. Mission briefings are also simply stupid. And I probably forgot to mention a lot of stuff here, as I remember my intelligence being constantly insulted while I was playing it.

I'm asking because I never played it, from what I read it added a new faction and expanded upon Yuri's plot but nothing more and at the time I didn't bother. I didn't know it hit that level of stupidity.

RA1 was very serious in its approach, maybe some quaint tongue-in-cheek humor every now and then but nothing near RA2's level. Even then RA2's silliness was nowhere near that Yuri crap you described. There is a limit.

The hell can you recommend AoE 3 over AoE 2 is a mistery to me. Hell, even the skirmishes vs ais were more fun in 2 rather than in 3. The only thing that stood up for the 3rd game was that 'family storyline' and the whole fountain of youth plot twist at the end.

Listen, if you can manage to persuade 1-3 more friends in torrenting and playing a few games with you, than AoE 2 +the conquerors is your sure ticket to some hellafun nights.

I never did.

AoE 2 > AoE 3 anytime. The game went to shit when villagers no longer needed to haul back resources to HQs/camps. AoE 3's card system is worth a check, though.

BONUS: Playing AoE 2 with Stronghold's soundtrack playing in the background is in the OH GOD ITS HEAVAN level of entertainment.

 

[Lyesmith]

What people see innovative in Warcraft 3 is beyond me.

Another forgotten game is Praetorians. More of RTT, where you recruit troops only through conquerable villages.

Also: Battle Realms.

 

[DraQ]

Homeworld, Myth 1-2, Nexus: TJI, and, for a taste of pre-SC mechanical and interface goodness, Dark Reign.

Try NetStorm if you're into kinky weird stuff.

 

[Sceptic]

Starting with the time travelling back to dinosaurs, for instance. Then there's the level in Hollywood where you can rescue 'action movie actors' who are better at killing people than a level 3 SEAL. Another map where you're hired by Bill Gates to protect his company building. Hypnotised civilians saying 'Needs of the many are outweighed by the needs of the Yuri'. Mission on the moon with kosmonauts with jetpacks and lasers. Most units have new voices which are mostly stupid. Mummies come out of pyramids in the Egypt level. Soviets have the retardedly overpowered Boris who can take out tanks with a Kalashnikov and call airstrikes on buildings. Mission briefings are also simply stupid. And I probably forgot to mention a lot of stuff here, as I remember my intelligence being constantly insulted while I was playing it.

Thank you for reminding me how hilariously retarded Yuri's Revenge was.

Oh and if you thought this was bad, don't get even close to RA3...

 

[1eyedking]

What people see innovative in Warcraft 3 is beyond me.

Heavy emphasis on special abilities/spells/items, Heroes, huntings creeps for XP, special map locations (fountain of health, mana, shops, etc.), different races with unique approaches.

People that don't see innovation in Warcraft III are just blind faux "rebels".

 

[Sovard]

Dragonshard was fun...



Fuck you guys (preemptive)

 

[1eyedking]

Myth 1-2

Fuck yes, if you can stomach the graphics don't you fucking forget about those.

Mind you they're not standard build-base-attack RTS, though.

 

[L'ennui]

What people see innovative in Warcraft 3 is beyond me.

Heavy emphasis on special abilities/spells/items, Heroes, huntings creeps for XP, special map locations (fountain of health, mana, shops, etc.), different races with unique approaches.

People that don't see innovation in Warcraft III are just blind faux "rebels".

Warlords Battlecry. Those were after Warcraft III, right?

Regardless, now that I think of it, OP: ignore all other games suggested thus far and try Warlords Battlecry III (I think that was the last one?). Awesome game, you create a hero to lead your troops and keep him persistently from skirmish to skirmish. Lots of races to pick from, lots of possible classes for your hero, basically it's Warcraft on crack.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Oh and if you thought this was bad, don't get even close to RA3...

I actually finished all RA3 campaigns... I thought the gameplay was pretty neat and close to RA2, and I liked the added focus on naval warfare. It's just a shame that the... 'humour'... was pretty much an extension of Yuri's Revenge.

Oh yeah, btw? Nobody mentioning Dark Omen and Shadow of the Horned Rat is of the year.

 

[commie]

No way. Red Alert 1 didn't really have any silly stuff other than time travel and actors speaking in weird ways. Red Alert 2 might have been corny, but it was not stupid or as over the top as people make it.

So attack dogs and James Bond and Tanya weren't silly? Face it, I've always like RA but it's a nonsense to think it wasn't always ridiculous to begin with. The fact that it got more ridiculous as the series went on is understandable as each iteration had to outdo the last. RA2 also was over the top, what with the squid and dolphin units and the zeppelins.

At least there's someone else that liked RA3! I wonder why it's hated so along with Tiberium Wars when they aren't really all that different from Westwood's creations. Seems that it's just EA hate as really Westwood's last RTS Emperor was crappier than anything EA released. Of course they don't add all that much, but that's not the point. They are pretty good games, not too serious or overly anal. Quick to build and send fodder on it's way. There's a place for this kind of simple RTS as well. When EA tried to change the formula with TT is sucked arse.

I agree that Dark Omen is top class. Never got to play Horned Rat.

@circ Tiberian Sun has better graphic than TW? What have you been smoking? Game was archaic even in 1999. Could only queue 5 units, everything was so slow and jerky. Only cutscenes were better than later games. Earth 2150 which came out not that long after, shat on Tiberium Sun as an RTS.

Warlords Battlecry. Those were after Warcraft III, right?

Regardless, now that I think of it, OP: ignore all other games suggested thus far and try Warlords Battlecry III (I think that was the last one?). Awesome game, you create a hero to lead your troops and keep him persistently from skirmish to skirmish. Lots of races to pick from, lots of possible classes for your hero, basically it's Warcraft on crack.

Actually the first two Battlecry games came out before Warcraft 3. Warcraft III is just Battlecry 'lite'!

 

[Wulfstand]

Oh hell yes Warlords Battlecry 3 was amazingly fun! You could play that game for hours upon hours. It had some pretty good music too, even if it was kinda repetitive.

 

[circ]

I said more detailed graphics, not better as in clearer textures or something. Notice how in TS the locations look like they've been inhabited at some point. In TW they're just random desert landscapes with no little details that makes you think a five year old made the maps with a half-automated editor. And having played it back in 99 with a computer of that time, I don't recall jerkiness, and queue didn't bother me.

 

[commie]

I said more detailed graphics, not better as in clearer textures or something. Notice how in TS the locations look like they've been inhabited at some point. In TW they're just random desert landscapes with no little details that makes you think a five year old made the maps with a half-automated editor. And having played it back in 99 with a computer of that time, I don't recall jerkiness, and queue didn't bother me.

After seeing TA and other games in action, the stilted animation of the GDI walkers was horrible. Queue also sucked for me after being able to unlimited queue things elsewhere. I see what you mean with the graphics, but are you sure you're not mixing up TW with the new abomination TT? I recall quite a few missions in TW full of proper cities and towns. Maybe you didn't get into it all that much to get that far. I'm just surprised as having replayed the first two C&C games recently, I don't see the gameplay of TW as being markedly different. If anything they seemed to keep very true to the Westwood fomula. After all the DOW and COH games, never mind hardcore things like Theatre of War, it was good to just churn out units from a manageable tech and unit tree and send them out to shit on things. It's not like AI was ever a hallmark of C&C games anyway.

C&C4 on the other hand should have been aborted before release.

 

[Darth Roxor]

So attack dogs and James Bond and Tanya weren't silly?

What's silly about attack dogs? Tanya is a typical tough guy commando, just that it's a tough gal instead and the spies are just a clever use of a stereotype. Only other silly stuff about RA1 that I can think of is the broken engrish in which the Soviets talk, and I think that's it. That's all hardly 'ridiculous'.

 

[DraQ]

Myth 1-2

Fuck yes, if you can stomach the graphics don't you fucking forget about those.

If you can't, you should just stab yourself in the face repeatedly 'till you expire from blood loss.

 

[commie]

So attack dogs and James Bond and Tanya weren't silly?

What's silly about attack dogs? Tanya is a typical tough guy commando, just that it's a tough gal instead and the spies are just a clever use of a stereotype. Only other silly stuff about RA1 that I can think of is the broken engrish in which the Soviets talk, and I think that's it. That's all hardly 'ridiculous'.

Well they aren't exactly 'serious' units are they? Sure they aren't goofy like in later games but they set the tone of the game as being more light in tone.
I didn't mean those were ridiculous but the later ones in the sequels.

 

[Sceptic]

Actually the first two Battlecry games came out before Warcraft 3.

I think L'Ennui was being sarcastic.