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It's almost shopping time for me and I've had my eye on these titles: Battle Fod Middle Earth, Kohan 2 and Armies Of Exigo. I would appreciate any input on these games. Are they any good? Pros and Cons? Basically, are they woth the money?

Armies Of Exigo
Not worth the money. Its warcraft3 but without the "feel" of warcraft.
Fun if your a real RTS addict, if not there is much better out there.

Kohan 2
A very good RTS, i realy liked this one. It has a unique recource system, that makes it a totally different game from what you ever played before (atleast in my case and if you havent player Kohan 1 )

Battle For Middle Earth
Havent played this one jet, read some good things about it, read some bad things.
The multiplayers isnt that great form what i've heared, and as you can expect from a C&C-game mass units works better then tactics.

2 more suggestions
Rome:total war
Best RTS if you want to try out tactics. Very very good gameplay, huge battels, the only downside is that there isnt a story line in the game, and that the battles get repetetive after a while.

Nexus - The jupiter incident
Not realy an RTS cause it has a pause button, but that makes it alot better, but a GREAT game, very good storyline, and verygood gameplay. It's a space RTS, but it hasnt got a recource management system, you just do the missions with the ships you have, and with what you have left of your last mission. Good grafix, great gameplay!

From this list (without battle for ME, cause i havent player that one), i would recommand Nexus for the singleplayer experience (unless you want a more RTS feel, then go for Kohan2)
And Kohan2 for multiplayer!

But you can never go wrong with Rome: total war, thats one of the games released this year that you just have to have player once!

Try this site, input a game title, and then you'll get a summary of all available reviews ratings, online and in magazines. You can also click to read the online ones. I find it useful, with a large grain of salt--after all, most reviewers tend to fall for hype, and have no history of playing games beyond the last 2-3 years.

Definitely Rome: Total War.

[QUOTE=Stilgar]
2 more suggestions
Rome:total war
Best RTS if you want to try out tactics. Very very good gameplay, huge battels, the only downside is that there isnt a story line in the game, and that the battles get repetetive after a while.

Nexus - The jupiter incident
Not realy an RTS cause it has a pause button, but that makes it alot better, but a GREAT game, very good storyline, and verygood gameplay. It's a space RTS, but it hasnt got a recource management system, you just do the missions with the ships you have, and with what you have left of your last mission. Good grafix, great gameplay!
[/QUOTE]

Rome has a pause button as well "P".

But that is probably the best RTS I've ever played, and I've played quite a few.

I don't think I've ever heard of an RTS that doesn't have a pause button

I already played Rome:TW and it is truly a great game. I loved the new world map (as opposed to the one in Medieval:TW), and the combat seemed to work out smoother and more convincing.

I did some reading up on Jupiter:The Nexus Incident and I must say I'm impressed. The only thing that has me confused is the release date. On 3 different sites I got varying info (It's already out, it will come out by the end of the year, it will come out next year)...

[QUOTE=Rookierookie]I don't think I've ever heard of an RTS that doesn't have a pause button [/QUOTE]

Starcraft, Warcraft series, C&C series, Age Of Empires series,....

Well - I used to pause in Ages of Empires and also recall doing so in the early C&C games as well as Warcraft 2.......

so that list is flawed

You could also try out Sid Meier's Pirates, It's quite new and it have some elememts of an RTS and it's actually great fun.

Although you might end up saying ARG! to everybody you now, but that's a small price to pay

It does have a pause button though........

[QUOTE=Xandax]Well - I used to pause in Ages of Empires and also recall doing so in the early C&C games as well as Warcraft 2.......
[/QUOTE]

Under "pause", I think people mean that you can issue orders to units while the game is paused (as seen in Baldur's Gate), and I'm fairly positive that there was no such function in ANY of the Warcraft or C&C games, and IIRC there wasn't any in AoE. If there is, please tell me what key was it binded to. I'd like to try it out...

Rise of Nations is a very good RTS. It involves much less micromanagement than other real time strategy games like Warcraft 3 or Starcraft. I think you can pick up RoN and the expansion, Thrones and Patriots for a tidy price.

[QUOTE=Jandau]Under "pause", I think people mean that you can issue orders to units while the game is paused (as seen in Baldur's Gate), and I'm fairly positive that there was no such function in ANY of the Warcraft or C&C games, and IIRC there wasn't any in AoE. If there is, please tell me what key was it binded to. I'd like to try it out...[/QUOTE]

Well - I'm almost 100% certain that I could queue items being build and give units orders etc under pause in AoE (Well - AoE 2 at the very least). I used to play that game a lot in the old days, and I remember the first thing I did when starting a single player game was to pause the game and put out 3 villagers (started with 150 food by default). And if I could see the berry bushes from my town center, I'd during the pause also set gathering point at the bushes.
So - as you see I'm pretty confident about the pause in AoE.

It has been litteraly an age (well - not literally) maybe only since I've played Warcraft 2 and C&C, so maybe it isn't possible to give commands to units while in pause there, although I still recall it as possible. But at the least - the games were pausable still.

Any game in which you can open the main menu during the game is technically pausable But I stand corrected concerning AoE2.

Back on topic, has anyone played the new Leisure Suit Larry game? It's been a while since I last played a decent adventure game...

Starcraft, Warcraft series, C&C series, Age Of Empires series,....

The pause button for the Age series is called "Pause|Break", which is located to the right of the function keys, right next to the Scroll Lock key. IIRC the other games all have a pause button too.

[QUOTE=Jandau]<snip>
Back on topic, has anyone played the new Leisure Suit Larry game? It's been a while since I last played a decent adventure game...[/QUOTE]

Then don't play the new Larry game.
It is terrible and not much adventure game over it. It is nothing like the old Larry games, but mostly a series of button-smashing "mini-games".
I think it is a terrible waste of money.

Nexus is realeased (atleast here in the Netherlands) and it's a very very addictive game!

Of the games I saw in here I would say definitley go after Rome: Total War, and then Sid Meier's Pirates. Best of luck deciding.

Well, shopping's done. I bought Battle for Middleearth and Nexus, and a friend of mine got Kohan 2.

I've just started playing, but here's the basic rundown:

Battle for Middleearth - A well executed RTS that does a great job of capturing the "feel" of the movie. Tons of movie cutscenes, a beautiful interface, most voice clips are also from the movie, good graphics, fun gameplay.... The game isn't groundbreaking, but is very good. It's nice to see such a great licence spawning a good game...

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident - Just what I was looking for. A bit frustrating at times (some missions are just plain hard), but quite rewarding. Good graphics, cutscenes, storyline, gameplay, etc. There are some minor interface issues, but these are mostly personal objections... Basically, a game with no evident flaws and quite a few advantages. Highly reccomended!

Kohan 2 - Being a fan of the original Kohan, I was quite excited about this one. I was a bit suprised when I found that the game wasn't done by Strategy First, but I gave the new team the benefit of doubt. My mistake... The game seems like a shell of the original. The graphics are ugly, no other word for it. Terrible colors (the grass is almost flourescent), interface textures and font look like placeholders; unit animations are not bad, but you rarely get to see them due to excessive combat effects. Also, lack of any coherent storyline (I got to mission 6), bland characters (no more Darius, and the replacements are just weak). Gameplay is dumbed down, maps are smaller, etc. If this game were a child, we'd be looking at a semi-failed abortion...

The only game there that really interests me at the moment is Battle for Middle Earth. It's a sweet looking game...but are there too many cut scenes? They can def make a game a whole sweeter, but I've noticed that too often these days, games can become overrun with cut scenes....

hoping thats not the case...

The cutscenes are quite sexily down in a corner and replaces your map for the few seconds it takes to view it, thus you can choose to view the cutscene, or continue playing as before.

It's definetly a great game, but once your heroes (at lest on the good campain) reaches lvl 10 you don't really need an army since they can take care of pretty much anything themselves (especially Aragorn and Gandalf) also if you should need it, you can summon four battalions of rohirrim, three battalions of elven warriors, two giant eagles, some ents, and four battalionsof those ghost guys. That should take care of pretty much anything the enemy can come up with.

But still it's a great game with many nice features. I especially like to ride over 10 battalions of Uruk Hai with my elite rohirrim warriors and watch as the enemy are flung into the air of course, any troll or mumakil can do that to my army, but that's half the fun.