Re: Microid's 2024 Empire of the Ants demo came out yesterday!

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 16 Oct 2024 23:55:43 +0000, ant@zimage.comANT (Ant) wrote:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, 16 Oct 2024 02:12:02 +0000, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic,
Ant wrote:

>
>

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287330/Empire_of_the_Ants/
And I'm still too busy and using an old video card (MSI NVIDIA GeForce
GTX 750 Ti (N750TI-2GD5/OC; 2 GB of VRAM) so I can't play it for now. :(
Maybe I will finally play it in a decade when it is free and have better
hardwares. Ha! :P

>
>

On Tue, 15 Oct 2024 21:29:03 -0600, PW
<iamnotusingonewithAgent@notinuse.com> wrote:

Maybe we should all chip in and get Ant what he needs to play his
family game.  Or maybe Spalls will find something good at the
dumpsters for Ant.

>

The dumpsters have been sadly quite empty recently. I think the
building staff is on to me and hoarding the good stuff for themselves
inside rather than leaving it on curb.

>
Did your previous good stuff include good video cards though? :p
>

Actually, I once found a complete system with a GeForce 790GTX and an
i7 processor; it wasn't top-of-the-line stuff even at the time, but it
was still a pretty decent gaming rig.

Ha, that video card would handle this game well than my old card. ;P

(It also had its hard-drives complete with all the user data on it in
unencrypted format. People really need to learn to wipe their drives
before tossing their PCs)

Geez. Did you find anything good in their HDDs? ;)

As to the game itself...

>

Firstly, there's a demo for those not sure if it's for them:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3062270/Empire_of_the_Ants__Demo/

>

Beyond that... well, the visuals are the game's biggest hook (and the
bugs, if you're into that sort of thing). But what little the trailers
show of the gameplay just doesn't look all that interesting. At best
it seems a rather humdrum RTS; some of its mechanics (riding a giant
snail? or leading armies of ants against armies of beetles?) seem
outright silly (and in direct opposition to the ultra-realistic theme
the visuals suggest), and apparently everything is done in
third-person mode, requiring you to shepherd your forces everywhere?

>

It just seems to lack any novelty or sophistication beyond its
graphics. I can't personally get excited about it.

>
So, you're not a RTS fan?

I play them. I enjoy them. They're not my favorite genre, but I don't
dislike them in general.

I'm a bit less sanguine about action/strategy RTS games, where you
have to take on the role of one of the soldiers on the battlefield and
order your troops from a ground-level perspective. I find it messy and
overly complicated. Even though several games -- "Battlezone" (1998)
or "Hostile Waters: Anteaus Rising", for instance-- rose to prominence
based on the mechanic, I think a lot of their success came from the
novelty of the idea rather than its workability. It's a concept that
is better left in the dustbin of history, as far as I'm concerned. ;-)

So, you didn't like RTS games like Dune, C&C, WC, SC, AoE, etc. I love those.
--
"He who heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray." --Proverbs 10:17. Am I an astrayer? Yay 4 Doyers' winning yesterday's winter hump day. Will they do it again for Thurs.?
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