Valosar

I really loved Outpost when I played it one time at my cousin's house. I never got another chance to play it but apparently I dodged a huge bullet with that one. X-Com and Tie Fighter were my big favorites from this year. The recall there being a bunch of negative press around X-Com that made me want to play it even more and when I finally got my hands on it I was not disappointed in the least! I played Wing Commander at my older brothers behest and he also forced me to go to the movie. I never understood the draw if it when there were games like Tie Fighter and Elite that were so much better. The only Wing Commander I ever enjoyed was the one on SNES Master of Magic was the one game that totally took over my life at some later point. I played that game for hundreds of hours probably way longer than had been intended by the developers. I was young enough to be lost in the story of each race and treat them like they were each worth playing through. I didn't know at that point how to min max every little thing and just played for the story that would developed in my head.

Apparently Emperor came out in NA in 1997 Feb. I remember the days of waiting for patches of CDs in gaming magazines lol. I played the TA medieval game and bounced right off it but really enjoyed Supreme Commander, especially the Forged Alliance stand alone. I really appreciate this episode as it has braught up a lot of great old memories

For me the best RTS of the year was Age of Empire based solely on the amount of time I played and enjoyed myself. Myth was a fantastic game but it was punishing as hell. I enjoyed playing it but far less than my Mac owning friend who forced me to buy it. The Multi-player aspect of Myth was fantastic of course but we later had a lot more fun playing Age of Empires 2 multiplayer. Still I'll never forget him using fetches to launch moltov cocktails across the entire map at me like long range artillery pieces on Myth : ) I'm kind of shocked that they left Emperor of the Fading Suns out of the 4X discussion. It was by far the best grand strategy game of the year and is still one of the most interesting 4x strategy games I've ever played. Imperialism was absurdly boring and Warlords 3 was over simplified for my taste. I admit that Emperor of the Fading Suns had issues but I still had more fun playing it than I ever had playing the other two. Gettysburg of course was an amazing game and also stands alone with nothing really like it, even it's sequel didn't stand up to it. Close Combat A Bridge Too Far was also one of my favorite games ever. I loved watching the flame throwers wrecking entire enemy units, seeing them running out of buildings screening and on fire There are a few games out now that are similar but none of them really capture that same feeling as a Bridge Too Far did. If we're going to throw games where you manage a home and build it up slowly making money with an end goal in mind (Like Dungeon Keeper) I think the far superior strategy RPG Harvest Moon on the NES really blew away all competition. It is one of my favorite games of all time and all comers after it including Stardew Valley pale in comparison! In researching EotFS I was reminded that webrings used to be a thing memories!

I loved this episode though I would have loved to hear your take on unreal world. I am a huge dwarf fortress nerd and also dabble in unreal world so this episode scratched an itch. I'd never heard of Aurora before now and gave it a load as soon as I got home from work. It fired up right away without issue then my brain attempted auto erotic euthenisa or something. I can take the keyboard shortcuts of Dwarf Fortress but the endless nested forms from Windows 3.Whatever induced nightmares. I admit I listened to quill 18 play the game on the way home on my long commute and he made it sound amazing but I gave up just trying to assign a governor for Earth lol. I will give it another shot when I've actually watched all the episodes I listened to on the car ride this game requires visual learning. I love this show btw, been listening for years