🚀 go-pugleaf

be...@accessnv.com (BenV) writes:

>Origin seems to have just pushed the envelope with their game requirements. 

So what's new?  Origin should probably change their name to "High End System
Recommended/Required". :)

>And if you don't have the stuff to play them, you're screwed. 'Course if you 

Of course the same can be said for most games.  If you're trying to play a
386+ game on an 8088 ...

>do, you're in for a GOOD game. The last game I bought from them that ran ok 
>was Ultima 7/7.5 and it RULED!!!

What type of system do you have?  If it's a 486 or higher, I'd expect that
these games ran "perfectly", not just "ok".

>I got Wing Armada and thought they'd come 
>out with enough add-ons to the war between Earth and Kilrah. Although it 
>looked REALLY cool at some points (like when the cloaking ship becomes made 
>up of boxy polygons, glows, then there's just the wireframe, and then that 
>glows and vanished. It looked awesome). 

No comment on Armada.

>Ultima 8 sucked but since Origin 
>doesn't come oput with that many games that are overwhelmingly hated tha can 
>be let go. Everyone makes mistakes, especially when trying to come out with 

I only disliked Ultima 8 for the lack of a conventional realspace map (in other
words, it's nearly impossible to model a pie shaped area well by using squares,
and I don't see that Origin's cloth map fit the real world map well, although
it might have) and the Nintendo-izing of the puzzles.  While throwing a ball
at something or other might be cute in Ultima Underworld, where you have full
3D control over your position and whatnot, it's darn hard in Ultima 8 where you
must try to step on the right square at the right height, etc. etc. etc.  Oh,
the pentagram should have been done a tad better, with candle holders at each
point.  But it was a pretty good game.  Speed could have been better but it
ran ... acceptably.

>principles all thought them (U1-U8). I bought System Shock, maybe their first 
>game to ask for the most from your machine. It ran like crap. It pulled the 
>sorriest frame rate out of my computer I've ever seen. It was my first look 

My 486/33 with ISA 1Mb video ran it just fine.  Sometimes it did run
SLOOOOOWWWLY but I simply reset my system and it ran just fine again.  I'm
not sure what was going on, maybe a mouse or sound driver gone flaky.  Really,
System Shock was a joy to experience on my system; I'm surprised it wasn't
on yours.  If you need to, perhaps you can play it in VGA instead of SVGA.
(320x200 instead of 640x400).  I doubt it makes THAT much difference in terms
of graphics - it didn't on WC3 (where I had a choice between SLOOOW SVGA
and acceptable VGA and acceptable VGA won hands down).

I must say that Looking Glass has made me want to buy their NEXT game as well.

>awhile. But if I DO upgrade my computer, the first game I'mgoing to install 
>will be system shock. And the first game I buy of there's will be Wing 
>Commander 3.

Again, I did play WC3 on my system, and it ran, well, acceptably.  Perhaps a
bit faster than WC1 did on a friend's 386SX.  Sure, I used VGA, but all in all
that didn't detract much from the game itself (SVGA cutscenes were nice tho).
However it did make me realize that there's a real difference between a 486 
with 1Mb ISA SVGA and a 586/90 with 2Mb PCI SVGA and 4xCD in terms of the
gaming quality you can have on it.

>If anyone wants to write to me and tell me WHY exactly Origin 
>sucks. I'd be glad to hear it, because out of the rest of the computer game 
>designers Origin at least cleans out alot of their bugs

And doesn't release junk (even Ultima 6 wasn't junk, though it had to be
debugged for 3 months before it was bug-free enough to play a game without
worrying you'd corrupt your save file beyond recognition).

>add GREAT cut-scenes 
>with well-known actors and keep the basic gameplay there. Using this trick 

They don't even need well-known actors.

>as more of something to compliment gameplaying, instead of making it feel 
>like you're solving some mission or puzzle JUST to see the nifty sfx and 
>pictures on your computer screen. Just wanted to give my .002 on a post 
>saying that one of my favorite game companies "sucks"
>-Ben

					Michael Lewchuk
					lew...@cs.UAlberta.CA