Hexed Gamer
Posts: 561
Joined: 6/24/2004 Status: offline
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I hope this is taken the right way, but I won't stand around worrying if not. You could have bought any number of wargames out there, wargames with baggage trains several miles long. Lets see, screw it I will just list some, and not care if I piss someone off slagging their precious garbage game. HoI. Garbage, started as garbage, still garbage. Not just a few bugs the whole program is garbage. Only the total fanatics can see it as something else. Blitzkreig, someone forgot to program in anything that remotely could be called realism. Program runs, but like it doesn't matter. Sudden Strike 2, only useful as a teaching tool for grade three teachers learning the fine art of controlling large groups of irrational dependents. Again, the program runs, but no real wargamer would make the mistake of calling it a wargame. Sorry if I instinctively picked games that run in RTS mode, but then they make so many of them, and so many of them suck. It was just to easy to think of those examples. Now Steel Panthers was a great game in the first year of its sales, and it is still a great game. If not for Matrix Games and SP Camo though, odds are you would just have to settle for something else now eh. The game is not perfect. Sadly the logic behind who ever owns the name SSI is also flawed. Matrix Games doesn't own Steel Panthers. Sadly they can fuss with the game, but make almost nothing off the effort. That they do it for love just only goes so far. Love ain't paying the bills. If DH OWNED Steel Panthers, odds are he would have long ago built a much better mouse trap too. It would have been possible to SELL the whole game, make a better profit and have the financial muscle to actually have an easier time doing so. What is not being said about Steel Panthers, is it has a multitude of ways to be played. Not all of which are equal. I think Battle mode for instance has no value. The game "functions", but the AI is so bad as to be pointless. That doesn't mean anything though if you only want to play the scenarios. The 8.2 file has a few files missing. Now that might annoy some, but I find it hard to endure a person crying over their missing 301 302 and 303 files, when you consider they have 300 other perfectly good ones. I am not 100% sold on the Long Campaign mode, but I love the Mega Campaigns. Do the MCs have quirks? I suppose they might. But what is interesting, is if I had bought the MC, and never once visited the forums, I would still be playing Desert Fox unaware anything was wrong. The game plays so well, that often these "bugs" that get so much attention, often refuse to reveal themselves. I have heard of the crash problems and the video and sound problems etc etc. I am not saying they don't exist, clearly they must exist. But they are not dominate conditions. I have been playing the game years now through numerous variants/versions. In all that time and through several computers, some older some cutting edge some cheapo modular junk, some loaners with scavenged parts a buddy yanked out of a parts box only moments before the install, and I have actually had zero trouble playing Steel Panthers at the hardware level. Must have something to do with Aries liking me :) At the end of the day, Steel Panthers will out do any computer wargame out there new or old on the market for return on investment. The 4 MC purchase is the safest purchase on the planet. But as nothing is ever 100%, you will find at least some have had "difficulties". My sympathies go out to all of you guys having difficulties. Remember, I said you have my sympathies. If you didn't like my post, get over it.
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