03/07/2005 Archived Entry: "addicted to MOO"
Or to be un-acronymized, Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares. For those not in the know, it is a turn-based strategy game from the late 90s. As the title of this entry suggests, this game is damn addictive. I’ve put off all kinds of school work and slept very extremely minimally just to play.
MOO2 is very well regarded in gaming circles, and I can certainly see why. The game is interesting in that it does not have a plot, or missions to beat, or a “story mode”, or any of those other conventions. It is purely made for skirmishes. You pick your race, set your settings, and try to own the galaxy. There’s something really liberating with the fact that you don’t have to commit to playing X hours to beat it.
What’s really good about the game is the way races are made. There’s a total of 10 points you can use to allocate special skills or characteristics to your people, you can also penalize your race in certain areas to have additional points to put into other skills. So for example, the custom race I’ve recently built does not need any food at all, is telepathic (can conquer planets without landing troops), but can’t have diplomatic relations with other races except for declaring war or signing peace treaties while normal races can trade tech, money, engage in research and economic trade agreements.
The only downside to this game is the fact that turn-based games tend to be SLOW. Playing against the computer is very reasonably paced, though ship-battles can be a bore if you’ve got like 2 dozen ships on each side – at which point the “auto” button comes in mighty handy. When playing with human players though, the pace of the game slows down significantly; everyone has to be done their turn before you can start your next one. If one player is dallying or is engaged in a battle all you can do is sit back and stare at the bloody turn screen, while entertaining text messages like “Combat is reported between the Psylons and the Elerians” appear. Not the best way to spend time.
Speaking of network play. MOO2 was made way before WinXP and thus is using some older network protocols that have never been updated. To get around that we installed kali, but the synchronization at the end of every turn took much too long to be playable. MOO2 also comes with a DOS executable which bypasses Windows networking; however, seeing as Windows is no longer built on DOS, we could not use that option. The solution? Install a virtual PC on WinXP that runs Win98 and run MOO2 and kali on THAT. Although, there’s no sound when done this way. D’oh!
Replies: 5 comments
You people and your addiction to games...:P! I had to uninstall Half Life 2 on my PC because my brother couldn't stop playing Counterstrike and was in denial of his state of addiction. It was happening day in and day out, for hours at a time. He couldn't even allow himself to skip a single day. The addiction wasn't as bad compared to how he changed as a person (only 14, easily influenced). He became this hyper unsocial moody brat.
Thai, no wonder you're not bumping into girls...:P
Posted by dAN @ 03/08/2005 10:15 AM EST
It's ruining my life in so many ways!
Posted by Rayne @ 03/08/2005 07:32 PM EST
Hehe.. that implies that you have a life to begin with... :D
Burrrrrrrrrrn!!!
Will
Posted by Will @ 03/09/2005 01:43 PM EST
Kali? I remember pay $20 for that in '96 or '97 to play Virtual Pool, Duke 3D and Warcraft II online.. had no idea it was still around.. wonder if my $20 lifetime subscription is still good.
Posted by Zamir @ 03/11/2005 04:43 PM EST
Yeah, I was surprised that it's still around too. I am on the 3 month free trial =D
Posted by Rayne @ 03/12/2005 01:31 AM EST