"aliens aren't actually my favorite thing in the world, i mean they're ok, but its more like i just keep running into them" ross and freeman are melding together again
I always thought that the "dungeon" part of the Game Dungeon title referred to us, the audience, being in a dungeon displaying twisted horrors. But ever since the Veil Of Darkness episode I've slowly come to realize that we are in fact the dungeon masters, and Ross is the poor soul forced through the torture.
I always assumed Ross was imprisoned in the same facility as Civvie, just the wing decorated in more medieval rather than cyberpunk style. Crossover episode when?...
I was of the opinion that it was neither us nor Ross imprisoned within the dungeon, but the games themselves locked within the mind of Ross, and him being the *mostly* sane host taking us on a tour through the mysteries held within... the Game Dungeon.
@@T3sl4 I thought Ross was on the moon, unless that's where the Department of Special Corrections' facility actually is? Ross did briefly appear in Civvie's Half-Life video, so it's not entirely implausible.
For some context, this came out two years after Command and Conquer and Warcraft 2. Two YEARS after both. You can see it tried to crib elements from both games and yet somehow managed to brilliantly avoid copying any of the actual good parts of both. Truly a masterclass in how to not make a video game.
This reminds me of Golem, a weird Polish RTS/turn-based strategy which graphically was about on par with Conquest Earth except it came out in 2004, two years after Warcraft III. At least the gameplay seems a bit better.
The original Command & Conquer didn't have unit queuing either, but it's shocking that an RTS released a full two years after C&C didn't include an equivalent to the sidebar UI for quickly constructing units (instead that entire portion of the screen gets devoted to those bowling alley cutscenes lol)
Christ, I just want to jam this whole research-production layer into X-COM's geoscape from 1994. That UI, planet view, research, pretty much everything, was made so much better.
You know a game has to be special when most of it's publisher's back catalog has been on Steam and GoG for over a decade, but for some reason they skipped over it. Real, real special.
well.. it dont say that much , if its most of the major publishers i mean.. the underhanded crap half of them try to railroad you into buying or rebuying crap ;) but when places like G.O.G dont even have a single 'wish' thread or post for a title... when even things like thandor got a few ones.. yhee... thats sort of telling ;)
I too played this game back in the day when I was a kid on our first PC and it was the most awkward RTS id ever played. Humans had no means of mining resources so what money you had, you needed to spend it wisely And playing it on easy mode meant you got so far then the game turns round and says "To get the rest of the missions play it on hard mode" I was really pissed
The idea that the aliens see a different spectrum of light, and their gas (sulphur dioxide?) is transparent to them, but our normal air is opaque, is kinda neat. But if it gets in the way of gameplay fun to this level... scrapping it would have been better.
Yeah... They really could have just used a typical Fog of War system. If they want to be thematic maybe have the air purifiers be like Oracles in Age of Mythology. Their line of sight increases as they stand still.
yee.. or well... it could worked fine IF ...the controls and unit behaviour not was such a train wreck i mean who the fk codes your turrets to shoot at ther own agenst hostiles.. but your soldiers to stand drooling as idiots when shoot at unless given direct orders ;) example i recall playing this and due to the train wreck of controls etc.... i ended up just building up a single city and then FROM there starting to retake all the others..but.. not by any actual control as i recall it mostly involved me setting it to easy and then fortifying the base and somehow sending a horde of soldiers on 'search and destroy' on ther own to win... but i also recall exausting the aliens resources agenst my turrets before doing so i think so.... maby this game breaks down extra hard on modern system and just cant be run properly for some hard coded reason ? hmm
with reviewers like him and Sseth, most of their catalog consists of games I know I wouldn't have the patience for, but they're such good entertainers I watch basically everything they upload.
There will never be "WIld West" of gameing like PC gaming in the 90's. Everyone had a different pc specifications, developers where making literally whatever they wanted, dev teams could consist of 5 guys in a basement. You'd get a big box with some gameplay snap shots, a brief list of features, and some crazy art on the front. A lot of people didn't internet to discuss games, gaming mags varied so wildly in content and quality, some times you just rolled in with a hope and a prayer.
I dunno, there's still wacky indie games being made. Have you seen Vinesauce Vinny? He covers a lot of them, from "Cryptworlds" to "Alien Afterlife" to "Goblet Grotto." I'd say it's arguably gotten wilder as the tech has progressed.
"That's one thing the game gets right. You go up against infinity, you're going to lose." Ross please don't give me flashbacks to the Marathon videos. I've still not fully recovered from those.
Shame you're not doing the awards these days, because this feels like another recipient of the Old School PC Gaming award, same as Baldies. Cryptic gameplay, has heart, there's a lot of it, it's hard as nails, and there's a weak ending. 5 for 5.
I would also add Doesn't Respect Your Time. The mechanics are vague even when they do work, research is frustrating, and there is often only one intended method to complete a mission, which hinders variety.
I like to imagine the briefing around 33:05 with that moonshine shack. "We need you to go through heavily infested snowy mountains, risk frostbite, destroy an alien generator, kill various aliens along the way, and once you've killed all the aliens, if you could, cleetus is up there distilling untaxed moonshine. Make sure he learns his lesson once and for all" Poor cleetus.
11:25 I thought Ross said that RTSes could trace their gameplay back to _Doom_ 2. I didn't understand how that could work, but I was completely willing to accept it.
Oh the number of times I tried to get people to read dune. Only for them to think I was talking about doom the whole time...seriously this happens a lot
As a college student aiming to get into working for the US National Archives, the thought of abandoned ware sites just disappearing genuinely kinda scares me. So many digital works erased in an instant without much hope of another source for them is as infuriating as it is scary. All useful information and creations deserve preservation, from the most influential art pieces known to man, to a manual for a PC strategy game that can't run on anything besides a Windows 98. Edit: Well, college didn't work out.
Unfortunately, it's a function of capitalist legal systems to "cull" unprofitable digital content. If you're playing old games, you're not buying new ones, and everyone in the industry is inclined towards you buying new ones.
@@greyfells2829 Yeah, we should be more like those communist systems, which famously never destroyed historical objects and documents, particularly those which proved embarassing to the leadership of oh wait
@Jotaro97 Funny you mention books, because if they're old and not popular enough that nobody bothers reprint them, and you pretty much have to rely on random folks scanning those books and posting them on the internet, wouldn't that be the same as the situation of old video games then?
I always felt that some day games would be taken seriously as an art form, but only when we've got 50 to 60 year old's running around who grew up playing them, and thus appreciate them. We are still living in the hump of that era where people think of video games in an out of touch, Siskel and Ebert, neophobic pearl clutching way just as people demonized Elvis and rock and roll as the scary new thing with no value that is destroying our great country. It'll inevitably happen though, hopefully not too much is lost waiting for it though...
I do kind of love the idea that the alien side is overpowered in one of these Xcom-like games, but then you can play as the aliens and get access to that same OPness.
Yeah, usually when there's one overpowered side and one weaker one, the overpowered one usually is "not the one you're playing" instead of a fixed one, so the moment you'd play as the side that's kicked your ass all game, suddenly they're nerfed to uselessness, and suddenly your side gets much better stuff much sooner.
So, 25 years after ruining my afternoons, Conquest Earth finally did something good for me: leading me to discover this wonderful channel! Thanks for suffering through this game, so that after so much time we can finally see the ending with the humans victorious. By the way, you can get the other ending quite easily by starting the human campaign and letting the aliens win (just set the time acceleration to max and do nothing). If I remember correctly, the video in that case was quite graphic, showing a human corpse consumed by insects.
This game looks like what would happen if the recycle bins from the developers for Command & Conquer and XCOM reluctantly got together and made a baby.
“Reluctantly” got together and made a baby. I’m just imagining love making where there’s no pleasure and both parties would rather be anywhere else, it’s pure obligation. I freaking love it.
For those people wondering, this is the same Data Design Interactive that would go on to make some of the worst shovelware for the WII. Good to know they started as they meant to move on.
I remember playing and dropping this thing. Then I forgot what it was called and was kicking myself for never beating it. Glad to know I wasnt missing much.
I once bought it for equivalent of $15 from a computer fair in 1999 thinking it looked good and was prepared for some good stuff Turns out there was a REAL GOOD REASON why they had so many boxes of these fucking things all over
I miss the awards that Ross used to give, to me they felt like sort of a funny and ironic steam achievement haha. And whats more, for someone who usually listens to most of the video while doing something else, I found they were a nice summary of Ross's feelings toward the game!
2:39 It pisses me off when companies go after abandonware stuff so god damned much, and copyright hoarding on this scale is one of the reasons why modern copyright law needs an abandonware clause. Consuming and sharing media is a natural human behavior and creative works have a right to exist. All being tyrannical about media consumption does is make everyone worse off, and if you're the kind of company who's worried about "competing with themselves", then maybe you should spend less time trying to cheat the system and more time focusing on being a good business.
the AI problem could be because of the tick value. if game expects to work at a certain tick value and you mess with that, things might break or not work as intended.
Yup. Wouldn't be surprised if that's why the enemy spawns units so fast too. It's really important to get original hardware/emulation for these older games for this reason, trying to speed things up an have big consequences. This happened in that game where you play as a child angel doing possession stuff, altering the speed caused enemies to not be stunned long enough and to track you too well, and then Ross blamed the game for being too hard.
@@Shenaldrac I really don't get how some devs back then didn't think to just add a damn framerate cap. It's not like they couldn't, either; if you throw a Pentium at Doom, it'll run just fine because the guys at id did exactly that.
When I was a kid, we had a CD rental shop (all pirated games, ofc), and Empire Earth or Earth 2150 had come out recently. Being the 8-ish-year old that I was, I was hyped as heck. However, the guy running the place had no idea what I was talking about and said "maybe this is what you're talking about". I think you can guess how far I got into the game in a manual-less pirated copy IN RUSSIAN (which I still have zero knowledge of)! So, what I wanted to say: thanks for demistifying this game for me after so many years, Ross.
Ross, the only man in the world who do videos because he likes it, talks about stuff he likes, and puts so much love in his videos you can't help but enjoy the journey draws you in. in other words, he's the best TH-camr.
51:15 "I am confused how that wouldn't poison the Earth?" This line reminded me of a stray line from Freeman's Mind related to nukes. "They thought they were gonna light the whole atmosphere on fire, and they did it anyway. That's badass."
Fun Fact: Data Design Interactive, the developers of this game, aside from later creating LEGO games of dubious quality (I don't know, I never played them), would later go on to create pure shovelware titles for neumerous consoles and PC - *especially* the Nintendo Wii, with one of their later games being the infamous Ninjabread Man. Seeing the issues Conquest Earth has, I can't help but feel creating bad games was in DDI's blood.
I thought this game reminded me a ton of Lego Rock Raiders, turns out it was by the same developer. That game was actually a lot of fun.. Or maybe it's just nostalgia.
Interesting because Conquest Earth does actually try not to be shovelware. The production value is quite high (high quality backgrounds, rendered sprites and cutscenes, licenced music).
Its kinda fascinating that XCom UFO Defense did the overworld R&D and troop maneuvers, better and with more elegance. And everything else really. What with the difficulty bug failing safe and instead of defaulting to the hardest difficulty it defaults to the easiest difficulty for an already tough game.
@@adenowirus exact thought! Unnecessary animated visual where as a "paperpusher"-commander you are to deliver orders, not watch the scientists running around the lab
@Jotaro97 sorry, X-COM: UFO Defense (1993) Yeah, it's confusing, similar organizations, similar names But loading difficulty bug was in the original one
@Jotaro97 Sorry I meant the Original Xcom, XCom UFO defense. I'm used to talking about the original in the European context. I'll fix that in my original post.
It had two names depending on where you were. In the UK/EU it was UFO: Enemy Unknown. In the US it was XCOM: UFO Defense. Of course, the reimagining decided to be confusing and so called itself a mixture of the two: XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Both are great games though!
Devs had to be actual aliens to design such a bad interface, damn. It's like they never interacted with anything (not just software, literally anything) in their lives.
Now when i will come to bowling someday, i will be subconsciously expecting to see a short movie of badass alien manta spaceship blowing the big factory or something as a follow-up for doing strike. Many thanks Ross! Awesome game archeology effort made again!
Just wanted to say: I love your content mate. There are some of your game dungeon vids I have watched 3 or 4 time. They are that good! Thanks for making them and I hope for many more to come.
...holy shit. The ending clip of the screensaver puts the whole game into perspective. It was made by fucking Data Design Interactive all along. OF COURSE it was a nightmare.
Every time Ross uploads one of these I feel like I owe him a big thank you. Thank you for half-suffering, half-playing these bizarre, broken-on-modern-system games that none of us would've known about otherwise!
Dude .. how much of a PoS you have to be to open a lawsuit against an internet archive ...i mean .. cmon dafuq. I cant count the times i thought i imagined a game as a child only to later discover it was actually real (quite a few i saw here, ty ross ). There is something magical about that period that i cant point my finger on. Anyway iam happy that there are ppl helping preserve it and for ppl like ross, a crazy dude makin his content the way he wants, never change man . Much love
I have the greatest respect for you documenting the rather lengthy steps you take to figure out why emulator hardware, real hardware, or software doesn't work properly.
Atmospheric Scientist here. What Ross is describing at 50:30 is a process known as Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, or SAI. The idea here is to release small particles (aerosols) or gases which will turn into aerosols, from planes or balloons in the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere above 10-20km). These particles will then scatter some sunlight back into space, cooling the planet. Ross is right that the leading candidate is Sulfur Dioxide (SO2). When this is released into the stratosphere, it will combine with oxygen and water vapor to produce sulfuric acid (H2SO4). That sounds bad, but it will primarily remain in the stratosphere (above where we and all other life and weather occur). This sulfuric acid condenses on dust or other aerosols, forming particles which reflect some of the sun's light back into space. The lifetime of H2SO4 in the stratosphere depends the latitude at which it's injected. Some of my colleagues are researching where it's most effective to release these aerosols. Eventually, some of the H2SO4 will mix down into the troposphere (the part of the atmosphere where we live), but its lifetime is very short (
Scattering sunlight back into space sounds like it would potentially heavily affect plant growth... even a small decrease can be enough for some to prefer aborting their fruit/grain/etc. or to grow less, as they'll not be able to produce as much organic matter. Wonder how that would affect forests and crops. Probably not a good idea, just for that sole reason.
I give this the following awards. +USER HOSTILE INTERFACE -This game hates you for daring to think you are good enough to play it. +LOST LAND -This game apparently remembers New Zealand exists. +FIST-FIGHTING THE FUTURE -Improvements? QOL improvements? Self Defence? Sorry? I can't hear you over the sound of my gas-clearing troops. +FOG -Fog!
The second level in Burning Rangers took place in a underwater theme park in New Zealand! I also think Terranigma remembered New Zealand exists, but you can't visit it.
@@marcellosilva9286I should really look into Burning Rangers one of these days. Never even seen a second of gameplay, but the homage quests in PSO were awesome.
Oh wow, I finally noticed the developer was Data Design Interactive when you started showing the screensaver at the end. That company is something else, their catalog of games is... basically bad across the board, especially during the Wii era, with shameless shovelware like "Ninja Bread Man". One exception was their game Lego Rock Raiders in 1999, which, while kinda weird and janky, was somehow still decent and charming enough to earn a cult following. It probably helped that it was a Lego property. I have fond memories of that game, and was almost shocked to learn years later how shlocky all the rest of DDI's offerings were. It makes a lot of sense how bad and (rightfully) forgotten this game was.
I appreciate this as always, but man, dude, you gotta play a game you're hyped about pretty soon. I love seeing never-before-seen endings but I like seeing the cool things you find enjoyable even more.
59:30 "I thought it wouldn't be so bad, then it was so bad I thought I wouldn't make it, then I did and it wasn't worth it." Now how best to save this quote for when it's fitting? Desktop background? Wood-burned plaque, à la 'Live Laugh Love'? Tattoo?
Hop to it, my guy... Earth needs new leadership, and literally anyone else will do. Earth's invaders cannot possibly be worse at running the planet than we humans are...
BTW - the sound effect used to "alienate" the solider voice lines is vibrato, not flanger (minor detail, but as a sound guy I couldn't resist to not mention this).
And to think that when this came out, game press was anxious to see what this game was all about, and Total Annihilation really seemed more of an afterthought. Only for TA to end up blowing people away, and everybody forgetting that Conquest Earth even existed.
THANK YOU ROSS! Early Birthday present for me! (It's tomorrow. The 4th!) Always happy to see another glorious game dungeon! 💜 thank you for your hard work
Some games become so outdated they're essentially unplayable. This game chases down so many evolutionary dead-ends that in order to play it you have to unteach yourself how a RTS works in order to understand basic aspects of it.
I've watched my older brother playing this game during the '90s. I still like the design of units and buildings, despite looking cartoonish and toyish.
Thank u Ross for more game dungeon I hope you know how good and high quality your videos are forever one of my favorite channels could rewatch all videos over again thank u king
I feel like the immense curiosity and perseverance that drives you through these games that openly despise you might be an undiagnosed medical disorder.
Arnold Schwarzenegger once gave an interview admitting he was a fundamentally unbalanced person who was so obsessed with certain things that happened to bring him success, like working out and being in action movies. His particular brain cocktail just happened to work great for him, and Ross here has used his to build a mighty channel online.
The Dos version runs much better (in Dosbox-X), looks identical and the savestates do work as long as you load the game first. You could've saved yourself a lot of trouble. ~97000 cycles seems like a reasonable speed.
@@Lefiath Well nobody knows anything about this game except you two and Ross I guess. Plus complaining about that for a popular TH-camr's comment section is like complaining that touching the lit stove was hot
@@Lefiaththe comment below this one is an atmospheric scientist explaining in detail how stratospheric atmosphere injection works because apparently Ross said something about that at some point. I'm just saying, as far as comments sections go the ones on this channel are pretty interesting at least every now and then.
Never stop making these, I have followed you since you began and I love seeing the consistent amazing content that still feels nostalgic like the first bunch :)
I remember seeing this previewed and hyped up in magazines as a kid, then paying full price from my meager saturday job wages. I enjoyed it kind of, but yeah, but I knew back then I'd been had. One of the first times I realised I'd been had by magazines.
I am subscribed to about 500 channels but this is my favorite. Please keep doing your thing. :) I played this game when it was released...for about 10 minutes xD
@Zoomer Stasi I believe the only game that has done this concept well, albeit not to your extent, is Creeper World. In it, the fog of war is your enemy, depicted as an alien, corrosive blue liquid oozing from spores with you piloting and defending the last city of Humankind from it with a network of power nodes and turrets as you make your way to the center of the galaxy. I remember playing it as a kid via a cracked version from some website and being fascinated with the gameplay.
Watching your videos always gives me the urge to play those old games I played as a kid but never beat. Definitely want to do my own one day because of you!
YES! I'm so glad the you've made a video on this! I played this when I was a child in elementary school and I really enjoyed it back then. Of course I had no idea what I was doing most of the time but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
Thank you for not being an impudent little rat and not ruining abandonware for people. It's one of those things that's better left as an open source for all
Regarding the game speed issues - I have a theory that the developers all had different CPUs and couldn't find a way to make the game work the same on all of them, so everyone has been doing their part in a way that it works properly on their machine, but not others. This would also explain why they can't agree on a CPU speed this game needs. No speed will work good!
So many memories 😂 Some tips and tricks from another soul that had the ptsd of playing this game haha. - Easy difficulty ends at mission 15 with cinematic. - Medium difficulty ends at mission 30 while requiring you to still play all of the first 15 missions beforehand that you play on easy. Another cinematic is shown once you beat mission 30. - Hard difficulty goes to mission 45… I think anyway as I can’t recall if I ever beat the hard mission to reach that far. I never beat the escort mission for the aliens which was mission 13 or 14 if memory serves. You had to escort some odd alien vehicle through a gauntlet of mortar men who just rain hell on you. I was only able to morph my alien dudes into humans to sneak to end but couldn’t figure out how to win even when I got the vehicle there as I think I actually ended up doing that one time but I can’t recall exactly. The tricks I used to beat the human missions was to immediately attempt to locate the enemy base and then just sell my structures and literally build my power plant near the alien power thing and then build the tower gun thing and mow them down while attacking the building. On missions that start out with all the cloud sulfur, you do the same and when the power plant finishes, an clear around forms temporarily around it allowing you to see what’s there. So what I did was move the screen up/down and left/right and count 1,2,3 etc. and blindly slap down the power plant and let it complete to see if I guessed right. I restart the game and repeat this process until I finally find the correct area where the alien base is and just repeat for every level that I could to easily use the powerful firepower on the gun tower to mow everything f down fast enough before they can launch a counter attack. Meanwhile I repair my stuff while I’m mowing them down. After I take out their main source to build an army, then I build some units to mop the rest up. Also one last tip. You can double click the units and they get a crown 👑 on them. This allows you to manually control/move then with your keyboard. Works great for the tanks and gliders and harrier jet.
"Stay tuned for the next episode, where I could sum it up in one word, but that would give it away, which is kind of the problem." Atrocity by Solare Games, maybe? I dunno, I'm bad at guessing.
Considering how he was hesitant to give a hint, it's likely going to be a more mainstream or well known game. I almost want to say it's Cult Of Lamb. It seems like something that's right up Ross's alley, plus it's a new release and is fresh in a lot of people's minds. so even the smallest of hints could give it away. That said, it's also likely going to be the Halloween episode, so there could be a dozen things to choose from that fit the criteria (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, ect.), so it's anyone's guess.
Honestly? I think the whole "both sides have their own atmospheres they need" has potential. Sort of like Splatoon's ink mechanic, but for RTS games. The ways I'd change it to not be garbage would be to make them mostly transparent, have units/buildings that both spread and remove it (basically, you have a unit that has an area around them that spreads gas A and turns gas B into gas A, but if a unit that spreads gas A overlaps a unit that spreads gas B, then nothing changes) and have it that units can fire into the gas, but they take damage if they're in it. Sort of an extension of zerg creep and tiberium fields.
@@EvilDoresh scouts with thin hazmat suits that puncture if they take any damage, and assault troops in heavy armor that only puncture if they lose 50% health.
So I found out this was actually made by Data Design Interactive, which basically flips this entire game around from "why is it bad?" to "why is any part of this game any good by even the loosest standards of good?"
"aliens aren't actually my favorite thing in the world, i mean they're ok, but its more like i just keep running into them" ross and freeman are melding together again
Top shelf comment
I see no issue
Wait, they aren't the same person?
ross and freeman aren't melding together, you're just being paranoid
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I always thought that the "dungeon" part of the Game Dungeon title referred to us, the audience, being in a dungeon displaying twisted horrors. But ever since the Veil Of Darkness episode I've slowly come to realize that we are in fact the dungeon masters, and Ross is the poor soul forced through the torture.
I always assumed Ross was imprisoned in the same facility as Civvie, just the wing decorated in more medieval rather than cyberpunk style. Crossover episode when?...
The visual of Ross slaving away in a medieval dungeon playing obscure and sometimes shitty games for our entertainment is so funny for some reason.
I was of the opinion that it was neither us nor Ross imprisoned within the dungeon, but the games themselves locked within the mind of Ross, and him being the *mostly* sane host taking us on a tour through the mysteries held within... the Game Dungeon.
@@T3sl4 I thought Ross was on the moon, unless that's where the Department of Special Corrections' facility actually is?
Ross did briefly appear in Civvie's Half-Life video, so it's not entirely implausible.
@@T3sl4 they recently made cameos in the same video. Not the same but still.
For some context, this came out two years after Command and Conquer and Warcraft 2.
Two YEARS after both.
You can see it tried to crib elements from both games and yet somehow managed to brilliantly avoid copying any of the actual good parts of both.
Truly a masterclass in how to not make a video game.
It's like their intention was to create the worst possible interface for an rts.
This reminds me of Golem, a weird Polish RTS/turn-based strategy which graphically was about on par with Conquest Earth except it came out in 2004, two years after Warcraft III. At least the gameplay seems a bit better.
there's some XCOM thrown in too. they missed the mark on that as well.
The original Command & Conquer didn't have unit queuing either, but it's shocking that an RTS released a full two years after C&C didn't include an equivalent to the sidebar UI for quickly constructing units (instead that entire portion of the screen gets devoted to those bowling alley cutscenes lol)
Christ, I just want to jam this whole research-production layer into X-COM's geoscape from 1994. That UI, planet view, research, pretty much everything, was made so much better.
Look at that subtle off-color commentary, the tasteful editing of it. My god, it even has an end credits
Thanks for coming to make sense of this Admiral. Will there be more later?
Is something wrong Admiral? You're sweating.
TJ! We need you defending us with the MG42!
American Admiral
You don't sound yourself Admiral, maybe you should go home; spend some time with your family, read a book, play a game - more later.
You know a game has to be special when most of it's publisher's back catalog has been on Steam and GoG for over a decade, but for some reason they skipped over it. Real, real special.
"Special" is one way to describe it.
Have fun with this one, Embracer Group.
Yeah, "special" spelled starting with "r"
well.. it dont say that much , if its most of the major publishers i mean.. the underhanded crap half of them try to railroad you into buying or rebuying crap ;)
but when places like G.O.G dont even have a single 'wish' thread or post for a title... when even things like thandor got a few ones.. yhee... thats sort of telling ;)
'for some reason'
I too played this game back in the day when I was a kid on our first PC and it was the most awkward RTS id ever played.
Humans had no means of mining resources so what money you had, you needed to spend it wisely
And playing it on easy mode meant you got so far then the game turns round and says "To get the rest of the missions play it on hard mode"
I was really pissed
Yeah, not telling players that upfront is outright abuse.
Games that do this are so dumb. Why even have an easy difficulty then?
The idea that the aliens see a different spectrum of light, and their gas (sulphur dioxide?) is transparent to them, but our normal air is opaque, is kinda neat. But if it gets in the way of gameplay fun to this level... scrapping it would have been better.
Yeah... They really could have just used a typical Fog of War system.
If they want to be thematic maybe have the air purifiers be like Oracles in Age of Mythology. Their line of sight increases as they stand still.
@St. Haborym I don't think the aliens are blind without the gas; they are just able to see through it.
Why not have cameras with right wavelengths for soldiers tho, both sides
yee.. or well... it could worked fine IF ...the controls and unit behaviour not was such a train wreck i mean who the fk codes your turrets to shoot at ther own agenst hostiles.. but your soldiers to stand drooling as idiots when shoot at unless given direct orders ;)
example i recall playing this and due to the train wreck of controls etc.... i ended up just building up a single city and then FROM there starting to retake all the others..but.. not by any actual control as i recall it mostly involved me setting it to easy and then fortifying the base and somehow sending a horde of soldiers on 'search and destroy' on ther own to win... but i also recall exausting the aliens resources agenst my turrets before doing so i think so.... maby this game breaks down extra hard on modern system and just cant be run properly for some hard coded reason ? hmm
@@deadpope66 There's fog in their missions as well, so they are.
Hot damn, only Ross Scott could make a bad game with a disappointing ending into an hour of pure entertainment.
Thats the magic of the game dungeon.
Id never think Captain Zapp would be worth looking at, let alone play, but its one of my favorite episodes
with reviewers like him and Sseth, most of their catalog consists of games I know I wouldn't have the patience for, but they're such good entertainers I watch basically everything they upload.
Ross is one of those uploaders that I dont care what I'm doing. The moment he uploads I'm dropping everything to watch it.
Same here
Ditto guys
I usually try to save his uploads for when I really need something.
Same goes for RLM.
I know, right? And like 10 minutes after its uploaded, no less...
Absolutely - should go to sleep... nah! Game Dungeon Time!
There will never be "WIld West" of gameing like PC gaming in the 90's. Everyone had a different pc specifications, developers where making literally whatever they wanted, dev teams could consist of 5 guys in a basement. You'd get a big box with some gameplay snap shots, a brief list of features, and some crazy art on the front. A lot of people didn't internet to discuss games, gaming mags varied so wildly in content and quality, some times you just rolled in with a hope and a prayer.
don't forget about flash games during the 2000s. Those were some REALLY wild stuff too
I dunno, there's still wacky indie games being made. Have you seen Vinesauce Vinny? He covers a lot of them, from "Cryptworlds" to "Alien Afterlife" to "Goblet Grotto." I'd say it's arguably gotten wilder as the tech has progressed.
It's like movies in the 70s. Fortunately, there are still tons of smaller studios putting out brilliant games today.
@@AbandonedVoid most of them are pretentious copycats or just nostalgia bait
That's what things were like in the UK in the 80s, I'm both sorry we exported it to everyone and glad everyone got to share in it.
"That's one thing the game gets right. You go up against infinity, you're going to lose."
Ross please don't give me flashbacks to the Marathon videos. I've still not fully recovered from those.
There is no escape
@Jesse Upton Ross had a cameo on Mandaloregaming's Marathon retrospective recently.
@Jesse Upton there is no escape.
@Zoomer Stasi Like your name? lol
@Zoomer Stasi bro HATES ross 😭
Shame you're not doing the awards these days, because this feels like another recipient of the Old School PC Gaming award, same as Baldies. Cryptic gameplay, has heart, there's a lot of it, it's hard as nails, and there's a weak ending. 5 for 5.
he stopped awards?!
@@iamme2739 he only gives them now if something really really earns it, rather than giving everything a few (unfortunately)
I would also add Doesn't Respect Your Time. The mechanics are vague even when they do work, research is frustrating, and there is often only one intended method to complete a mission, which hinders variety.
@@Ashalmawia I wish he'd give them out to everything again, those were always a fun way to cap off every video.
@@Henskelion Agreed. It was always fun to see what he'll come up with.
"It's just a guy getting shot in the face, but I appreciate that."
-Ross, 2022
I like to imagine the briefing around 33:05 with that moonshine shack.
"We need you to go through heavily infested snowy mountains, risk frostbite, destroy an alien generator, kill various aliens along the way, and once you've killed all the aliens, if you could, cleetus is up there distilling untaxed moonshine. Make sure he learns his lesson once and for all"
Poor cleetus.
11:25 I thought Ross said that RTSes could trace their gameplay back to _Doom_ 2. I didn't understand how that could work, but I was completely willing to accept it.
lmao same
Yeah I can see the confusion, its Dune 2.
Well DOOM itself traces its gameplay back to Gauntlet, so it'd just be an additional layer of cross-genre pollination.
@@LonelySpaceDetective And, like every other game ever made, Gauntlet can be traced back to Heiankyo Alien!
Oh the number of times I tried to get people to read dune. Only for them to think I was talking about doom the whole time...seriously this happens a lot
As a college student aiming to get into working for the US National Archives, the thought of abandoned ware sites just disappearing genuinely kinda scares me. So many digital works erased in an instant without much hope of another source for them is as infuriating as it is scary.
All useful information and creations deserve preservation, from the most influential art pieces known to man, to a manual for a PC strategy game that can't run on anything besides a Windows 98.
Edit: Well, college didn't work out.
Unfortunately, it's a function of capitalist legal systems to "cull" unprofitable digital content. If you're playing old games, you're not buying new ones, and everyone in the industry is inclined towards you buying new ones.
@@greyfells2829 Yeah, we should be more like those communist systems, which famously never destroyed historical objects and documents, particularly those which proved embarassing to the leadership of oh wait
@Jotaro97 Funny you mention books, because if they're old and not popular enough that nobody bothers reprint them, and you pretty much have to rely on random folks scanning those books and posting them on the internet, wouldn't that be the same as the situation of old video games then?
Most of humanity's cultural works have been lost. How many texts of the predigital age did we preserve?
I always felt that some day games would be taken seriously as an art form, but only when we've got 50 to 60 year old's running around who grew up playing them, and thus appreciate them.
We are still living in the hump of that era where people think of video games in an out of touch, Siskel and Ebert, neophobic pearl clutching way just as people demonized Elvis and rock and roll as the scary new thing with no value that is destroying our great country. It'll inevitably happen though, hopefully not too much is lost waiting for it though...
I do kind of love the idea that the alien side is overpowered in one of these Xcom-like games, but then you can play as the aliens and get access to that same OPness.
OPness. Say it out loud to yourself.
this whole game is like you wanted to make xcom but couldn't.
@@KdogPrime ohpeeniz
@@lasskinn474 XCOM at Home:
Yeah, usually when there's one overpowered side and one weaker one, the overpowered one usually is "not the one you're playing" instead of a fixed one, so the moment you'd play as the side that's kicked your ass all game, suddenly they're nerfed to uselessness, and suddenly your side gets much better stuff much sooner.
It's like an RTS designed by someone who has never seen an RTS but had one vaguely described to them.
It's an RTS that a tv show would have a character play on screen for about 5 seconds to get across they are infact a nerd.
31:33 Air Support was a single Harrier... Thanks, Command, really helpful.
Ace Combat tier support this was not
Aha! I've read it with Ross's voice. 😁
@@Brunosky_Inc Ace Combat would still send in a single Harrier, but that Harrier would be piloted by Jesus Christ himself
So, 25 years after ruining my afternoons, Conquest Earth finally did something good for me: leading me to discover this wonderful channel!
Thanks for suffering through this game, so that after so much time we can finally see the ending with the humans victorious. By the way, you can get the other ending quite easily by starting the human campaign and letting the aliens win (just set the time acceleration to max and do nothing). If I remember correctly, the video in that case was quite graphic, showing a human corpse consumed by insects.
This game looks like what would happen if the recycle bins from the developers for Command & Conquer and XCOM reluctantly got together and made a baby.
Reminds me a little of XCOM
a crackbaby with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
“Reluctantly” got together and made a baby. I’m just imagining love making where there’s no pleasure and both parties would rather be anywhere else, it’s pure obligation. I freaking love it.
For those people wondering, this is the same Data Design Interactive that would go on to make some of the worst shovelware for the WII. Good to know they started as they meant to move on.
I remember playing and dropping this thing. Then I forgot what it was called and was kicking myself for never beating it. Glad to know I wasnt missing much.
I think I've played this but it has fallen from my memory, if it is the game I'm thinking of I definitely dropped it as unplayable jank
I once bought it for equivalent of $15 from a computer fair in 1999 thinking it looked good and was prepared for some good stuff
Turns out there was a REAL GOOD REASON why they had so many boxes of these fucking things all over
"Aliens aren't actually my favorite thing in the world. I mean, they're okay, but it's more like I just keep running into them."
-Gordon Freeman
Yeah
I miss the awards that Ross used to give, to me they felt like sort of a funny and ironic steam achievement haha. And whats more, for someone who usually listens to most of the video while doing something else, I found they were a nice summary of Ross's feelings toward the game!
2:39 It pisses me off when companies go after abandonware stuff so god damned much, and copyright hoarding on this scale is one of the reasons why modern copyright law needs an abandonware clause. Consuming and sharing media is a natural human behavior and creative works have a right to exist. All being tyrannical about media consumption does is make everyone worse off, and if you're the kind of company who's worried about "competing with themselves", then maybe you should spend less time trying to cheat the system and more time focusing on being a good business.
the AI problem could be because of the tick value. if game expects to work at a certain tick value and you mess with that, things might break or not work as intended.
since he had fully emulated the game's native environment and specs, that would make this game ludicrously finicky if that was the problem
Yup. Wouldn't be surprised if that's why the enemy spawns units so fast too. It's really important to get original hardware/emulation for these older games for this reason, trying to speed things up an have big consequences. This happened in that game where you play as a child angel doing possession stuff, altering the speed caused enemies to not be stunned long enough and to track you too well, and then Ross blamed the game for being too hard.
@@Shenaldrac I really don't get how some devs back then didn't think to just add a damn framerate cap. It's not like they couldn't, either; if you throw a Pentium at Doom, it'll run just fine because the guys at id did exactly that.
@@Shenaldrac if you read reviews for this game, even people playing it back in the day had tons of problems. Ross isn't the one causing problems.
@@ArvelDreth Good to know.
"Yellow clouds of sulphur covering everything" isn't really a future phenomenon. It was a regular occurance in England until around 1956.
When I was a kid, we had a CD rental shop (all pirated games, ofc), and Empire Earth or Earth 2150 had come out recently. Being the 8-ish-year old that I was, I was hyped as heck. However, the guy running the place had no idea what I was talking about and said "maybe this is what you're talking about". I think you can guess how far I got into the game in a manual-less pirated copy IN RUSSIAN (which I still have zero knowledge of)! So, what I wanted to say: thanks for demistifying this game for me after so many years, Ross.
Man, you were straight up subject to child abuse.
I'm Russian. I will download that copy you're taking about and try to play it. You mystified me.
@@KOTYAR0 was it any good?
Ross, the only man in the world who do videos because he likes it, talks about stuff he likes, and puts so much love in his videos you can't help but enjoy the journey draws you in.
in other words, he's the best TH-camr.
Man, the Quadraliens look sick in 3D!
51:15 "I am confused how that wouldn't poison the Earth?"
This line reminded me of a stray line from Freeman's Mind related to nukes. "They thought they were gonna light the whole atmosphere on fire, and they did it anyway. That's badass."
Fun Fact: Data Design Interactive, the developers of this game, aside from later creating LEGO games of dubious quality (I don't know, I never played them), would later go on to create pure shovelware titles for neumerous consoles and PC - *especially* the Nintendo Wii, with one of their later games being the infamous Ninjabread Man.
Seeing the issues Conquest Earth has, I can't help but feel creating bad games was in DDI's blood.
Good to know Data Design interactive was shit even before their wii shovelware days.
Oh god, they made the Ninja Bread Man and clone games...
I thought this game reminded me a ton of Lego Rock Raiders, turns out it was by the same developer. That game was actually a lot of fun.. Or maybe it's just nostalgia.
@@recon_p there is an open source version of that game called Manic Miners
Interesting because Conquest Earth does actually try not to be shovelware. The production value is quite high (high quality backgrounds, rendered sprites and cutscenes, licenced music).
Its kinda fascinating that XCom UFO Defense did the overworld R&D and troop maneuvers, better and with more elegance. And everything else really. What with the difficulty bug failing safe and instead of defaulting to the hardest difficulty it defaults to the easiest difficulty for an already tough game.
As soon as I saw the footage of the campaign mode, I've got the feeling I was looking at X-Com's shunned cousin.
@@adenowirus exact thought! Unnecessary animated visual where as a "paperpusher"-commander you are to deliver orders, not watch the scientists running around the lab
@Jotaro97 sorry, X-COM: UFO Defense (1993)
Yeah, it's confusing, similar organizations, similar names
But loading difficulty bug was in the original one
@Jotaro97 Sorry I meant the Original Xcom, XCom UFO defense. I'm used to talking about the original in the European context. I'll fix that in my original post.
It had two names depending on where you were. In the UK/EU it was UFO: Enemy Unknown. In the US it was XCOM: UFO Defense. Of course, the reimagining decided to be confusing and so called itself a mixture of the two: XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Both are great games though!
Devs had to be actual aliens to design such a bad interface, damn. It's like they never interacted with anything (not just software, literally anything) in their lives.
Now when i will come to bowling someday, i will be subconsciously expecting to see a short movie of badass alien manta spaceship blowing the big factory or something as a follow-up for doing strike.
Many thanks Ross! Awesome game archeology effort made again!
Just wanted to say: I love your content mate. There are some of your game dungeon vids I have watched 3 or 4 time. They are that good! Thanks for making them and I hope for many more to come.
...holy shit. The ending clip of the screensaver puts the whole game into perspective. It was made by fucking Data Design Interactive all along. OF COURSE it was a nightmare.
Every time Ross uploads one of these I feel like I owe him a big thank you. Thank you for half-suffering, half-playing these bizarre, broken-on-modern-system games that none of us would've known about otherwise!
Dude .. how much of a PoS you have to be to open a lawsuit against an internet archive ...i mean .. cmon dafuq.
I cant count the times i thought i imagined a game as a child only to later discover it was actually real (quite a few i saw here, ty ross ).
There is something magical about that period that i cant point my finger on.
Anyway iam happy that there are ppl helping preserve it and for ppl like ross, a crazy dude makin his content the way he wants, never change man . Much love
Yeah imagine being that asshole that reports sites hosting abandonware... People suck.
I have the greatest respect for you documenting the rather lengthy steps you take to figure out why emulator hardware, real hardware, or software doesn't work properly.
"I'm not an ambiturner. I can't turn left"
"That's nothing to be ashamed of"
Ross Scott: "NO, SHE'S WRONG, THAT IS SHAMEFUL"
He calls "em like he sees "em.
Atmospheric Scientist here. What Ross is describing at 50:30 is a process known as Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, or SAI. The idea here is to release small particles (aerosols) or gases which will turn into aerosols, from planes or balloons in the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere above 10-20km). These particles will then scatter some sunlight back into space, cooling the planet.
Ross is right that the leading candidate is Sulfur Dioxide (SO2). When this is released into the stratosphere, it will combine with oxygen and water vapor to produce sulfuric acid (H2SO4). That sounds bad, but it will primarily remain in the stratosphere (above where we and all other life and weather occur). This sulfuric acid condenses on dust or other aerosols, forming particles which reflect some of the sun's light back into space.
The lifetime of H2SO4 in the stratosphere depends the latitude at which it's injected. Some of my colleagues are researching where it's most effective to release these aerosols. Eventually, some of the H2SO4 will mix down into the troposphere (the part of the atmosphere where we live), but its lifetime is very short (
I'm sure DARPA already knows.
Scattering sunlight back into space sounds like it would potentially heavily affect plant growth... even a small decrease can be enough for some to prefer aborting their fruit/grain/etc. or to grow less, as they'll not be able to produce as much organic matter.
Wonder how that would affect forests and crops.
Probably not a good idea, just for that sole reason.
17:20 The direct control of your troops reminds me of classic *CANNON FODDER* games.
War never been so much fun!
Love that you never know when these will drop, makes them feel extra special when they finally do! Keep up the good work ross
I give this the following awards.
+USER HOSTILE INTERFACE
-This game hates you for daring to think you are good enough to play it.
+LOST LAND
-This game apparently remembers New Zealand exists.
+FIST-FIGHTING THE FUTURE
-Improvements? QOL improvements? Self Defence? Sorry? I can't hear you over the sound of my gas-clearing troops.
+FOG
-Fog!
The second level in Burning Rangers took place in a underwater theme park in New Zealand!
I also think Terranigma remembered New Zealand exists, but you can't visit it.
This was decent except for the lame Reddit tier New Zealand joke.
@@justind4448 Found the New Zealander
@@marcellosilva9286I should really look into Burning Rangers one of these days. Never even seen a second of gameplay, but the homage quests in PSO were awesome.
These guys clearly blew most of their budget on the fancy menu animations
As an RTS fan I couldn't stop watching.
Thank you for your blood sweat and tears for this one. Perhaps in youtube you've given it another decade.
Oh wow, I finally noticed the developer was Data Design Interactive when you started showing the screensaver at the end. That company is something else, their catalog of games is... basically bad across the board, especially during the Wii era, with shameless shovelware like "Ninja Bread Man". One exception was their game Lego Rock Raiders in 1999, which, while kinda weird and janky, was somehow still decent and charming enough to earn a cult following. It probably helped that it was a Lego property. I have fond memories of that game, and was almost shocked to learn years later how shlocky all the rest of DDI's offerings were. It makes a lot of sense how bad and (rightfully) forgotten this game was.
I appreciate this as always, but man, dude, you gotta play a game you're hyped about pretty soon. I love seeing never-before-seen endings but I like seeing the cool things you find enjoyable even more.
I feel like I could almost feel your pain in this one. You're doing god's work, Ross. One of my favorite history channels.
I feel like he has been in pain since 13 dungeons ago, lol
The only TH-cam page where I actually get super excited and pumped to see a new upload/game dungeon. Game dungeon is my favorite series on TH-cam.
59:30 "I thought it wouldn't be so bad, then it was so bad I thought I wouldn't make it, then I did and it wasn't worth it."
Now how best to save this quote for when it's fitting? Desktop background? Wood-burned plaque, à la 'Live Laugh Love'? Tattoo?
A tombstone?
After ten thousand years I'm free! It's time to Conquest Earth!
Hop to it, my guy... Earth needs new leadership, and literally anyone else will do. Earth's invaders cannot possibly be worse at running the planet than we humans are...
@@jamesduncan6729 I'm half convinced that we already live in V but the lizard overlords are both somehow more malicious and criminally incompetent.
Go-go Accursed Rangers
@@patchmoulton5438 I'm pretty much on board with that theory 👍🏻
@@jamesduncan6729 I'd rather take Abyssals or the Grimm at this point...
I don't normally realize how much work Ross puts into simply running a game. Now i do.
BTW - the sound effect used to "alienate" the solider voice lines is vibrato, not flanger (minor detail, but as a sound guy I couldn't resist to not mention this).
Ross you're saving my life over here! Thanks so much for this well-timed upload.
And to think that when this came out, game press was anxious to see what this game was all about, and Total Annihilation really seemed more of an afterthought. Only for TA to end up blowing people away, and everybody forgetting that Conquest Earth even existed.
Man, Ross you are a hero. It hurt me just looking at you play this piece of jank, can't imagine how painful it must have been to play trough it.
THANK YOU ROSS! Early Birthday present for me! (It's tomorrow. The 4th!) Always happy to see another glorious game dungeon! 💜 thank you for your hard work
I need all game dungeons to be this long. More of stuff this good is always better
Some games become so outdated they're essentially unplayable. This game chases down so many evolutionary dead-ends that in order to play it you have to unteach yourself how a RTS works in order to understand basic aspects of it.
This game was notably terrible even for its time, I remember reading an article about it in the 90s calling it the worst game of the year.
I've watched my older brother playing this game during the '90s. I still like the design of units and buildings, despite looking cartoonish and toyish.
Man I legit get all happy when Ross drops a new video. Thank you man!
One hour of Ross TV, I love it!
I would have tried changing some numbers in the game files at 44:32 and hoped for the best.
Any content coming from this channel feels like a birthday gift (only channel i have notifications for)
I really checked your channel just like two hours ago because I was like “man where is Ross I need me some Accursed Farms” and here you are. Godspeed.
Thank u Ross for more game dungeon I hope you know how good and high quality your videos are forever one of my favorite channels could rewatch all videos over again thank u king
I feel like the immense curiosity and perseverance that drives you through these games that openly despise you might be an undiagnosed medical disorder.
Arnold Schwarzenegger once gave an interview admitting he was a fundamentally unbalanced person who was so obsessed with certain things that happened to bring him success, like working out and being in action movies. His particular brain cocktail just happened to work great for him, and Ross here has used his to build a mighty channel online.
Opening a video uploaded in 2022 from this channel and immediately being greeted by a 4:3 ratio is already a good start :)
I honestly feel like God himself is smiling on us all as each Game Dungeon is uploaded!
"this is the control scheme timeline that didnt happen"
this is too accurate for most games of that era lol
The Dos version runs much better (in Dosbox-X), looks identical and the savestates do work as long as you load the game first. You could've saved yourself a lot of trouble. ~97000 cycles seems like a reasonable speed.
Thank you! It's near impossible to find a comment from someone that has something to say about the game and not just mindlessly praising Ross.
@@Lefiath Well nobody knows anything about this game except you two and Ross I guess. Plus complaining about that for a popular TH-camr's comment section is like complaining that touching the lit stove was hot
@@Lefiaththe comment below this one is an atmospheric scientist explaining in detail how stratospheric atmosphere injection works because apparently Ross said something about that at some point.
I'm just saying, as far as comments sections go the ones on this channel are pretty interesting at least every now and then.
Ross always comes back when the world needs him most. Thanks for the vid!
0:32 I literally yelled "NOOOOOOOO" when I saw the DDI logo. If you're at all familiar with wii shovelware, you'll know why.
Never stop making these, I have followed you since you began and I love seeing the consistent amazing content that still feels nostalgic like the first bunch :)
I remember seeing this previewed and hyped up in magazines as a kid, then paying full price from my meager saturday job wages. I enjoyed it kind of, but yeah, but I knew back then I'd been had. One of the first times I realised I'd been had by magazines.
I am subscribed to about 500 channels but this is my favorite. Please keep doing your thing. :) I played this game when it was released...for about 10 minutes xD
This game takes the "Fog of War" thing way too far. Thanks for another awesome Dungeon Ross!
Smog of War.
smeaaauuug of war
@Zoomer Stasi I believe the only game that has done this concept well, albeit not to your extent, is Creeper World. In it, the fog of war is your enemy, depicted as an alien, corrosive blue liquid oozing from spores with you piloting and defending the last city of Humankind from it with a network of power nodes and turrets as you make your way to the center of the galaxy. I remember playing it as a kid via a cracked version from some website and being fascinated with the gameplay.
Watching your videos always gives me the urge to play those old games I played as a kid but never beat. Definitely want to do my own one day because of you!
Finally a new game dungeon now things are starting to make sense
I'm going to be with my family
@@MrMrsirr I’m sorry admiral😢
The notification has not yet reached the Admiral. Graham is getting a battlefield promotion for showing initiative.
where's the other feller that says this
That's my line!
A new Game Dungeon? Hell yeah! Keep up the amazing work, Ross!
YES! I'm so glad the you've made a video on this!
I played this when I was a child in elementary school and I really enjoyed it back then. Of course I had no idea what I was doing most of the time but it was enjoyable nonetheless.
Eidos liked their trapezoidal boxes.i remember the Tomb Raider boxes taking up so much space on my dad's game shelf
Hey Fred, I need you to program in "Fog Of War" all the strategy games have it.
Fred:
Thank you for not being an impudent little rat and not ruining abandonware for people. It's one of those things that's better left as an open source for all
Regarding the game speed issues - I have a theory that the developers all had different CPUs and couldn't find a way to make the game work the same on all of them, so everyone has been doing their part in a way that it works properly on their machine, but not others. This would also explain why they can't agree on a CPU speed this game needs. No speed will work good!
Fancy seeing you here, unfa!
@@somebonehead Hi! :)
Ross, gotta say, I love this show, and thank you for always being hilarious. I swear your "RAUUUUGGGGGGGG" warcry scream gets me every time.
"I have seen the future, and I can not see much" is such a good line.
So many memories 😂
Some tips and tricks from another soul that had the ptsd of playing this game haha.
- Easy difficulty ends at mission 15 with cinematic.
- Medium difficulty ends at mission 30 while requiring you to still play all of the first 15 missions beforehand that you play on easy. Another cinematic is shown once you beat mission 30.
- Hard difficulty goes to mission 45… I think anyway as I can’t recall if I ever beat the hard mission to reach that far.
I never beat the escort mission for the aliens which was mission 13 or 14 if memory serves. You had to escort some odd alien vehicle through a gauntlet of mortar men who just rain hell on you. I was only able to morph my alien dudes into humans to sneak to end but couldn’t figure out how to win even when I got the vehicle there as I think I actually ended up doing that one time but I can’t recall exactly.
The tricks I used to beat the human missions was to immediately attempt to locate the enemy base and then just sell my structures and literally build my power plant near the alien power thing and then build the tower gun thing and mow them down while attacking the building.
On missions that start out with all the cloud sulfur, you do the same and when the power plant finishes, an clear around forms temporarily around it allowing you to see what’s there.
So what I did was move the screen up/down and left/right and count 1,2,3 etc. and blindly slap down the power plant and let it complete to see if I guessed right.
I restart the game and repeat this process until I finally find the correct area where the alien base is and just repeat for every level that I could to easily use the powerful firepower on the gun tower to mow everything f down fast enough before they can launch a counter attack. Meanwhile I repair my stuff while I’m mowing them down. After I take out their main source to build an army, then I build some units to mop the rest up.
Also one last tip.
You can double click the units and they get a crown 👑 on them. This allows you to manually control/move then with your keyboard.
Works great for the tanks and gliders and harrier jet.
It's like someone slapped Babylon 5's CG onto a hybrid of Command and Conquer and classic X-Com!
Which sounds like the coolest thing it's possible to conceive of, sadly there's a reason this one was lost to history.
@@RoyalFusilier Yeah. I wouldn't really a shed a tear if this game was actually lost.
To be fair, only season 1 of Babylon 5 had eye burning CGI...
Didn't ask, don't care :) Lightwave could do some amazing things...in the right hands.
A new Ross' video, on my birthday notheless. Thanks for the birthday present, Ross!
"Stay tuned for the next episode, where I could sum it up in one word, but that would give it away, which is kind of the problem."
Atrocity by Solare Games, maybe? I dunno, I'm bad at guessing.
Considering how he was hesitant to give a hint, it's likely going to be a more mainstream or well known game.
I almost want to say it's Cult Of Lamb. It seems like something that's right up Ross's alley, plus it's a new release and is fresh in a lot of people's minds. so even the smallest of hints could give it away.
That said, it's also likely going to be the Halloween episode, so there could be a dozen things to choose from that fit the criteria (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, ect.), so it's anyone's guess.
One of my all time favorite Ross quotes “NOOO!!! Nooo, they can’t do this to me!” 55:06
Honestly? I think the whole "both sides have their own atmospheres they need" has potential. Sort of like Splatoon's ink mechanic, but for RTS games. The ways I'd change it to not be garbage would be to make them mostly transparent, have units/buildings that both spread and remove it (basically, you have a unit that has an area around them that spreads gas A and turns gas B into gas A, but if a unit that spreads gas A overlaps a unit that spreads gas B, then nothing changes) and have it that units can fire into the gas, but they take damage if they're in it. Sort of an extension of zerg creep and tiberium fields.
You could also have units in hazmat suits who start taking damage-over-time if their armor is too damaged.
@@EvilDoresh scouts with thin hazmat suits that puncture if they take any damage, and assault troops in heavy armor that only puncture if they lose 50% health.
thanks for all the great videos ross. they've meant a lot to me over the years.
Always good to see a new Game Dungeon. Hope you’re doing well, Ross
Oh my god dude, you just unearthed a memory in my brain with the dirty mouse ball from back when I was a kid, holy shit.
So I found out this was actually made by Data Design Interactive, which basically flips this entire game around from "why is it bad?" to "why is any part of this game any good by even the loosest standards of good?"
Quite possibly the best channel on TH-cam, full stop. Nobody can do what Ross does