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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: Microid's 2024 Empire of the Ants demo came out yesterday!
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2024 11:17:07 -0400
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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. 

(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)


>> 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. ;-)