Four old games

[screwtype]

I bought myself four new games this week. Well - old games actually - but they're new to me!

The four games are:

Football Manager 2005

X2 - The Threat

Runaway

Codename Panzers Phase One

Haven't looked at the last two yet as I know pretty much what to expect from games of this type. My question is mainly regarding the first two games. Football Manager looks hard to learn and I'd like to know if it's worth the effort?

The other game, X2 The Threat - is it any good? Or should I not bother with it?

[Caius]

Well, its all about which kind of games you like. I'd try X2 The Threat, as I never heard of that game. Football games I dont like a lot.

[UltraWar]

I'm currently saving up for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

[Craterus]

I think FM is really simple if you have any interest in football. Don't be put off by the way it looks. It's also really addictive though so beware. Speaking of which, I'm going to play 08 now

[Geoffrey S]

I don't know much about Panzers.

Football Manager is meant to be very addictive if it's your thing. It's not mine.

Runaway. I think it's an adventure game, and I think it's meant to be awful.

X2 is supposed to be quite hard to learn, but absolutely massive and a veritable sandbox once you get into it. I wanted to buy it once, but my computer wasn't up to it.

[screwtype]

Football Manager is meant to be very addictive if it's your thing. It's not mine.

I bought it because it's a strategy game and I like strategy games. The interface is not very intuitive though and graphically it's extremely basic - just a couple of screens of statistics, and a little screen of a football field where the players are just moving dots.

What I can't believe so far are the loading times - considering this is an old game now. I chose "recommended setup" as you are supposed to do this to limit the database, and without exaggeration I think the game must have taken 25 minutes to load! And that was only for about ten leagues!

I only have to go "on holiday" for a day and the game pauses for a minute or so (going "on holiday" is apparently how you advance the game).

I'm also struggling with the interface, it's not very intuitive and I haven't been able to even work out how to start a match yet, I did read the "quick setup" in the manual but I must have missed something because I can't see the "going on holiday until the next match" button that I thought it said I could select.

So this one is obviously going to take some work to get the hang of.

Runaway. I think it's an adventure game, and I think it's meant to be awful.

Well I bought it for $5, so if it is it hasn't cost me much to find out :)

X2 is supposed to be quite hard to learn, but absolutely massive and a veritable sandbox once you get into it. I wanted to buy it once, but my computer wasn't up to it.

Again I bought this because it looked like a strategy game, only with a full 3D universe to explore. It looks intriguing but again there's obviously quite a bit to learn, and since I haven't heard of it before I wanted to be sure I wasn't wasting my time with a total dud. Your comments make me think it might be worth persevering with, so I'll stick to it for a while and see how it goes :)

[TevashSzat]

I just got X3 and I must say it has the worst learning curve that I have ever seen. There is just a mess of various commands/windows and the plot is very illdefined. Indeed, it took me quite a while just to learn how to dock.

I would recommend you to go to the official forums and read the guides there because you're gonna kill yourself or destroy the game out of frustration if you don't

[screwtype]

Heh, thanks for the warning. I will take your advice :)

[LittleGrizzly]

I only have to go "on holiday" for a day and the game pauses for a minute or so (going "on holiday" is apparently how you advance the game).

Nooooooo! there should be a football in the bottom left corner (or some corner) which you click to advance to the next day/time interval

Football manager is an amazing game, the main problem i find is the stats of players, each one has a big screen full of different stats, after a week or 2 of plying the game you learn to read that screen from a few seconds looking.

and just wait until you find some amazing player in some crappy side you feel so proud watching your new prodigy tear apart the opposition, its not a game for everyone, but if you get into it its well worth it.

[Viking]

The thing about FM is to pick Man U and see how far down through the divisions you're able to get them. I got them delegated from Conference League.

[Navaros]

I liked the demo of Panzers a couple of years ago but after the demo I found out they put Starforce in the retail version, which is malware IMO. So I advise to not buy or install Panzers due to it's Starforce infestation.

[screwtype]

Nooooooo! there should be a football in the bottom left corner (or some corner) which you click to advance to the next day/time interval

Hmm, that's funny, I'm sure I pressed that football plenty of times but nothing happened. I was pressing everything to try and get the game moving, LOL.

From what you say it definitely sounds worth persevering with though, so I intend to give it a good tryout, but I don't have much time for games right now so it may be a few weeks before I get the chance to look at it. Thanks for the tips though

[screwtype]

I liked the demo of Panzers a couple of years ago but after the demo I found out they put Starforce in the retail version, which is malware IMO. So I advise to not buy or install Panzers due to it's Starforce infestation.

Hmm, that doesn't sound good. Maybe it's not on the budget version? I will be careful with this one, thanks for the tip

[screwtype]

The thing about FM is to pick Man U and see how far down through the divisions you're able to get them. I got them delegated from Conference League.

It's not usually hard to do badly in a game Are you saying it's a challenge to get relegated in this one?

[Pannonian]

The thing about FM is to pick Man U and see how far down through the divisions you're able to get them. I got them delegated from Conference League.

Why didn't they sack you?

I bought it because it's a strategy game and I like strategy games. The interface is not very intuitive though and graphically it's extremely basic - just a couple of screens of statistics, and a little screen of a football field where the players are just moving dots.

I can't stand these newfangled games and their fancy graphics. What happened to the good old text commentary?

[Viking]

It's not usually hard to do badly in a game Are you saying it's a challenge to get relegated in this one?

Yep.

Why didn't they sack you?

They sacked me sometime in the 1. division; but I gave them such a momentum that they eventually plunged out of the entire game.

[Pannonian]

Yep.

They sacked me sometime in the 1. division; but I gave them such a momentum that they eventually plunged out of the entire game.

Can you give some "tips" on how you did so "well"?

[Viking]

This was FM 2000 though, maybe it isn't that easy anylonger...anyway, what I did was selling out all the top players, putting on free transfer those who I could (of course, don't sell all at once); buying in the worst of the worst players that I could find; typically checking the UEFA cup schedules for som really crappy players from the continent. The last step is demolishing the stadium in order to remove most of the income. The AI manager(s) never managed to compensate for this, though modern games probably haver better AI.

[Pannonian]

This was FM 2000 though, maybe it isn't that easy anylonger...anyway, what I did was selling out all the top players, putting on free transfer those who I could (of course, don't sell all at once); buying in the worst of the worst players that I could find; typically checking the UEFA cup schedules for som really crappy players from the continent. The last step is demolishing the stadium in order to remove most of the income. The AI manager(s) never managed to compensate for this, though modern games probably haver better AI.

Did you play at New Trafford when you overtook them on the way to the top?