Not being made by Relic though :/ Any RTS by relic I'd pretty much buy sight unseen. The new expansion is being farmed out to the "Titan Quest" studio, so um, we'll just have to wait and see.

I too would recommend DoW through Dark Crusade, or even just Dark Crusade as a cheap stand alone entry point...the campaign mode in that makes the sinlge player slightly more interesting. 40K is the best intellectual property that there is, and if you liked Starcraft, you'd definitely like it. And like I said before, I dont even really *like* "RTS" games.

Actually, just to be nit-picky, I would say that Myst has the clicky-puzzle-type-game genre dominated about as well as StarCraft has the RTS genre.

Mmmm, MoM.
I'd probably still be playing but I never got it to play on XP without being extremely buggy. I can only handle crashing to desktop so many times for no discernable reason.

As for Civ 1... the first game I ever played that caused me to stay up all night and miss classes... I gave up on the franchise after civ 3 though. It was changing a bit more than I liked by then.

I am a bit confused with the civilisation series? Right now i am playing civilisation 2 by microprose which seems to be the most fun of the lot. Then there is civilisation call to power which has two brilliant features - a space level and armies arranged by ranged and non ranged units. Then after civilisation call to power there is civilisation 3 rite? which got rid of the above mentioned features in call to power... probably because the AI did not form armies well or make good use of the space level!
Civ 3 introduced better public works features except for the nerfing of constructing roads in neutral/enemy territory which was a big negative.

Anyway, civilisation 2 seems to be a different game and civilisation call to power, 3 and 4 are clearly the same game with a few minor differences? I am wondering if there is another civilisation 2 which fits in with that line of games?

I have never played civilisation 1?

Seems like civ3 is an expansion of call to power? Call to power, civ3 and civ4 go together but civ2 by microprose looks like a completely different game?

Alpha Centauri has no equal in my opinion, that game is so full of great features and concepts that nothing else compares.

Civ4 is ok but not as good as its predicessors. The nerfing of unit bombard capability was a big kick in the guts. There i am foolishly building artillery to attack enemy ships off my coastline (as did any nation in WW2 for example) and then i try to shoot the ship with my artillery - wooops! huh?? what the fxxk???

I'm still confused, Civ2 by Microprose looks like a totally different game to anything else i have ever seen? Call to power looks as close to civ3 as DL does to DA. I have a feeling i do have another civilisation 2 game which was the next in line from call to power and then went on to civ3 and civ4

So like are there two genres of civilisation games running side by side or am i just crazy?

Civ II was different to Civ I due to a few things:

1. Battle, technically slightly more different with hitpoints and firepower.

2. Isometric grid (ie: squares are essentially diamonds to give a pseudo 3D appearance to the units).

3. Rivers not considered a separate tile, but overlaid as a "bonus"

Civ III then changed a few things compared to Civ II, like armies, strategic resources.

Civ IV brought in unit promotions and a whole different world layout. In between Civ II and III however was not just Alpha Centauri, but also Civilization: Test of Time (also by Microprose). Civ ToT was basically the same game as Civ II, but had different worlds and units to play on.

And yeah, like what has been said, Call to Power series is by Activision?, not Microprose/Firaxis.


Now, how back to the topic at hand of Starcraft being overrated. I was going to say that no matter if a game is considered overrated, if it truly is good, or portrayed as good, then the whole genre benefits to some extent, other developers look at what made the game good, and work ways of developing those sorts of systems into their own games. Starcraft truly brought into play the unique races. Remember Warcraft II was where the Orcs and Humans were pretty much equal, except for spells and heroes, the units were on equal footing. Starcraft I believe showed the world that balance can be achieved if races are made unique.

It depends on the point of view. But chess is popular some time.....

Starcraft is most definitely not over-rated. If I could find my disks I would be tempted to install it again and play it today just for thinking about it.

Starcraft was barely fun for me, the storyline made out humans were just little puppy play things which bugged me allot since there i am eating the alien scum for breakfast with human technology! And then once i kicked ass in the first stage of the campaign, i basically loose and have to play an alien race?? Oh ok then what was i just doing a minute ago as human? oh thats rite, winning!!

They make games with "good enough" graphics so that the game will run smoothly on the widest possible range of systems. Their art direction is very stylized. The put more emphasis on creating a balanced and "GOOD" game rather then a "pretty game"

Blizzard's argument is that lower graphical quality actually improves sales. for example, i never intended my PC to really be a gaming PC - i bought it intending it as a HEPC. it has a graphics card, but nothing that could do justice to most of the newest, high-end graphics games (probably wouldn't even run them).

it can handle GC2 fairly well, and i'm sure it'll run SC2. i wouldn't even want a strat game with high-end graphics. as long as i can tell what's what, i prefer smooth gameplay with nice movies thrown in here and there, that i can actually focus on (and some of blizzard's movies in the original SC and Brood War were really enjoyable for me).

if SC2 were to have the highest graphics out there, i probably wouldn't buy it. i wouldn't be able to enjoy it. and i don't have an extra G to spend on a gaming rig.

hardcore gamers will enjoy SC2, i think, as much as SC for its greatest stregth - it was a good, balanced game. the story was well developed as games go. the characters and races were memorable. and it had a great MP community online (heck, it still does). casual gamers who don't invest large amounts in their PCs will also be able to enjoy all of its streghts as easily as hard-core gamers.

while everyone likes better graphics, i think it's a minority who actually "need" better graphics to enjoy a game (mostly people who blow thousands of dollars on the newest system avaiable, and then realize that there aren't a whole lot of good games that can make use of their new toy's full potential). for what it's worth, i wouldn't be surprised if their art department was just as frustrated with the limitations they have to work with as you are--"you want me to make it look good under those kinds of constraints?"

if you really want to see poor graphics, play a game of Risk  

you might not have liked StarCraft, and that's fine. whatever fries your taco. but i don't think you'll find much agreement with the idea that it was over-rated (at least not compared to the many games that actually deserve to be called over-rated).