Settlers for DS

[jarrody2k]

Hey all,

Was just missing my WinUAE setup on my near dead laptop.  In boredom I decided to read the Wikipedia article on The Settlers to find this:

A new port of The Settlers 2 for the Nintendo DS is set to be released in March 27, 2007.

... I almost had a hard-on.  Do you know what this means?!  Do you understand how awesome Settlers would be... to be able to carry it around in your pocket (okay... an oversized pocket).  Thank-you Nintendo for putting a stylus on the DS, now point and click strategy games have entered the world of the portable console!

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/DS/The+Settlers/news.asp?c=1321
http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/DS/The+Settlers/news.asp?c=1505

My only fear is how departed from the original it will be after the Ubisoft producers get their grubby hands on it.

Jarrod.

-EDIT-

Here's the official site (in German only):
http://www.siedler.de/siedler_ds/

[weirdami]

The original would be cool, too. Any Amiga game would rock the DS... except the sucky ones. :-)

[jarrody2k]

I would much prefer the original.  Mainly because I have never played number 2  The original kept me occupied for hours... and still can.  If it ain't broke... don't modernise it you Ubisoft marketing whores!!!

Settlers 5 annoyed enough people... wasted my time downloading the demo... and all they have to show for number 6 is more graphics.  I am crossing my fingers that they have learnt their lesson with gameplay.

[jumps on soap box]
Settlers is unfortunately one of those sparks of genius that cannot be recreated by a commitee of "Game Designers" that are under a belief that you can make a good game from following design 'rules' or 'guidelines'.  You can blame the current lack of innovation in the games industry on the prevalence of this mindset in larger production and publishing houses.  Why can't they take some damn risks and do something *different*?
[jumps off]

Anyway, the old-school version won't be another Age Of Empires clone, thank god.... I hope.... can it?

[adolescent]

Worms for the DS sucked.  I'm not sure what they were thinking but they made it thoroughly un-enjoyable.

[James]

This game is pretty old news actually. It's been announced for a year now.

The Settlers 2 is by far the best of the series. It keeps everything from Settlers 1, but improves on it. And gone are the bugs from the first one...you can actually finish a level with Settlers 2. The series went to hell with the third installment, basically because you didn't have roads anymore.

I've worked for Ubisoft for a while and yes, they are complete whores. I haven't bought a Ubisoft-made game since... well.... forever. They do publish good titles now and again, but they sure as hell can't develop them in-house.

Good news though, The Settlers 2 has been pretty much left intact save for a couple of improvements. It's what Settlers 3 should have been: the same game, with more of the good things.

I've been looking at it since I got my DS (the first one sold in Montreal! w00t w00t).

But... last thing.. don't expect Amiga games to be re-released on the DS. This is just a coincidence that this game was originally made on Amiga. Ubisoft just acquired the rights at some point by buying off yet another dead developer. The Settlers were in fact, much more popular on PC than it was on the Amiga.

[jarrody2k]

James wrote:
But... last thing.. don't expect Amiga games to be re-released on the DS. This is just a coincidence that this game was originally made on Amiga. Ubisoft just acquired the rights at some point by buying off yet another dead developer. The Settlers were in fact, much more popular on PC than it was on the Amiga.

Hahah, yes, it is purely on a franchise by franchise basis.  Settlers has a big following.  But despite this they still don't know how to make use of that.

I am glad to here that things are looking pretty much like the old-skool version.  It would be a reason (and the only reason so far) for me to by a DS or any console.

Jarrod.

[weirdami]

The Settlers were in fact, much more popular on PC than it was on the Amiga.

Isn't that because it came out after Commodore went dead? Or, was that just Foundation? In any case, I don't think it was on any Windows box until way after that, and then, it had all those sequels. Anyhoo, let's quibble some more about things. :-)

[motorollin]

I said in my mini "review" of the Nintendo DS Lite on this site that lots of the games feel extremely Amiga-like. I absolutely love my DS. It's my favourite piece of technology after my A4000 (and it's close...) I just hope that Nintendo develop a more powerful model with more memory and a faster processor so UAE can run properly on it :-)

--
moto

[James]

weirdami wrote:

The Settlers were in fact, much more popular on PC than it was on the Amiga.

Isn't that because it came out after Commodore went dead? Or, was that just Foundation? In any case, I don't think it was on any Windows box until way after that, and then, it had all those sequels. Anyhoo, let's quibble some more about things. :-)

Actually it was released in 94 on the PC so it was a year before Win95 "graced" our PCs with its bloated interface. The Settlers is a DOS game, but The Settlers 2 is native to windows and still runs very well, sound and all, on modern machines. I have two games that never leave my laptop: Colonization (the DOS very thank you very much) and The Settlers 2. I don't play them as often as I could or should, but when I get the bug, they're there!


@motorollin
OH YEAH!!! I love my DS I just wish it had a built in browser and mail client...seeing as its fully wifi anyways. It's also my alarm clock Have you seen all the hacks that have been popping up lately? Some crazy asian guy hooked an IDE HD to it I remember when I was working on one of the launch titles...you should see the dev kit. It's a huge freaking blue metal box about half the size of a PC. And you've got this equally huge, not-too-flexible cable coming our of the DS and into the box. Working on that kinda ruined the whole "portable" thing really heh. I hated the DS because of my experience with it. Then the DS lite came along and I just had to get it, too sexy. Me and my ex got to the store at like 5am (opens at 10) to be the first ones to get one Errr come to think of it.. that's a bit sad hehe

[motorollin]

Actually mine has got a built in web browser :-D I've got an M3 Simply in Slot 1 with a patched version of the browser, and an M3 Lite in Slot 2 which provides the extra memory.

--
moto

[weirdami]

@James

Sad... or freakin' genius! That's what I'm talkin'bout! Nowutimsayin! Whawha!

[motorollin]

@Weirdami
Riiiiiiiight... :-?  :-P

--
moto

[kd7ota]

I have always liked Overdrive... That top-view racing game.  I think that DS could do a good job on that game. Eeek! I think I may play it on WinUAE later. Wish I had my Amiga 1200 though, then I would be hauling @$$ at full 60fps lol.

[jarrody2k]

If I could be bothered whipping out the A1200, I still have the original box.  Nice game indeed, very slick.  But I wouldn't say the gameplay had that much longevity.

Jarrod.

[XDelusion]

I would not mind seeing Genetic Species, DVS 4, Worms DX, and of course Turrican 3 on the DS, but that day will never come sadly.