Nice. You made the right call buying that instead of Rome II.

yeah I think so too.

After seeing some stuff on it I went back and installed the original, unenhanced Baldur's Gate 1. Just got through the Nashkel Mines. This is the farthest I ever made it back in the day. Cruisin' along with my level 4 fighter, going to dual class to a cleric soon.

The Nashkel mines are punishing. Fuckin' kobolds with fire arrows everywhere.

I'm like a Baldur's Gate pro so it was pretty easy. Had a little trouble with a mage and her party outside the mines.

I might download it on Steam. Never played the original.

It's been a long time since I just sat down and played a video game by myself, but this weekend I installed Age of Empires II. I tried it once in high school when I was really into III, but for some reason never got too into it.

II was my favorite.

See I'm the opposite. I loved II. III I found almost insultingly easy. Especially if you were the Dutch who basically vomited up gold out of their banks making it a trifle to knock any opponent out.

II had a great balance of challenge and I think a greater depth and diversity of factions while still being pretty balanced (well to a point I'd like to see anyone beat me at the English once it got to midgame and I had longbowmen)

Empire Earth is where it's at, yo. The AI on that game is ridiculous.

Also it was insanely fun to fly B-52s over everyone and nuke the crap out of them. Much love to both franchises though.

Empire Earth, wow I forgot about that game. It was a great concept.

That game is why I almost failed 8th grade English. It's also why I had to retake Algebra I. I went back and played it a year or two ago and thought, "Oh, this is the level that I blew off writing that paper to beat."

Whoa, never heard of it, but it looks amazing. On the one hand it's a good thing I kind of got out of playing construction-management/real-time-strategy games right around the time that was released or it would have totally destroyed my life, but at the same time it would be nice to have those memories. Maybe I can justify playing it for my Platforms & Apparatuses course...

Man, 98-00 were the golden years for me. I don't think I've ever been more absorbed by a series of games since. Pokemon red & blue, Starcraft, Age of Empires II, Tiberian Sun, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Worms Armageddon. Way too much time having a total blast playing those games. I've been a casual gamer ever since with intermittent obsessions, but nothing like those years.

Heh yeah, it's 500,000 years of human history, but it actually takes longer to go up an age than Age of Empires. I remember back when I played that game there would be some multiplayer games that started in the very first age and then would go until the end. If you had enough n00bs everyone would stay in their bubble and just age up, so you would go from the first age to the last age in an 8-hour multiplayer game before you finally started nuking each other.

There were also diplomacy multiplayer games where everyone started out unallied and people would take certain sides and declare war and stuff. It was great.