# Video game ID help **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** video-games-e-games\ **Created:** [May 21, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881 "2024-05-21T18:04:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/1 "2024-05-21T18:04:24Z")
I’m trying to remember a game I played in the late 90’s early 2000’s. - PC internet based game - I don’t remember if I downloaded anything, but certainly didn’t pay for anything - Top down realtime “battle” game - 1- 4 online players, randomly assigned. - the goal was to capture the other guys fort on the map - you controlled several types of characters: swordsmen - moved fairly fast archers - shot from a distance, vulnerable to soldiers dwarfs (2) threw hand grenades slow moving Shambling zombie that exploded when it got close to the enemy. vulnerable to archers Any ideas? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/2 "2024-05-21T18:09:55Z")
Sounds a bit like Myth, but that game wasn’t free to play. ---
**Author:** ![sohvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/96bed5/32.png) [@sohvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sohvan)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/3 "2024-05-21T18:42:41Z")
Could it be one of the Warlords Battlecry games? ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/4 "2024-05-21T18:54:38Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Sounds a bit like Myth Definitely sounds like Myth. I wonder if it was a clone. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/5 "2024-05-21T19:42:02Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Sounds a bit like Myth, but that game wasn’t free to play. Looked that up, and yes, that was it. I think I was only playing one of the online “demo” modules, and never actuallly did pay for the full game. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/6 "2024-05-21T20:15:58Z")
I’ve done this with songs on this board. It’s amazing how quickly this place comes up with the right answers. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/7 "2024-05-21T20:25:05Z")
Yay! I don’t know if I’ve ever been the fastest on the draw in one of these threads before. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/8 "2024-05-21T22:27:24Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Looked that up, and yes, that was it. I think I was only playing one of the online “demo” modules, and never actuallly did pay for the full game. That sounds right. Free to play was a pretty alien concept in the late 90s, early 2000s. You had another decade or so before that practice kicked in. Back then, something free was either going to be a person’s hobby or a demo. And congratulations @Johnny_Bravo! ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/9 "2024-05-21T22:29:09Z")
I was thinking of something else. ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/10 "2024-05-21T22:40:50Z")
What happened to games like Myth? I assume they got smashed by Dota, but that didn’t come along until like 2006 so there was still time. I don’t remember many clones either, but Myth (and Bungie) were always the Mac company. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/11 "2024-05-21T22:46:10Z")
Are we talking about the same game made by Bungie? [Myth: The Fallen Lords?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords) ETA: The OP said 1-4 players online (I do not remember that being online) and top-down which it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/12 "2024-05-21T22:58:03Z")
The problem with Myth was that it didn’t have much going on aside from fighting. RTS games generally have other stuff going on to increase the tactical and strategic options and challenges. Total War’s combat is just like Myth, in that your armies smash against each other in real time, but it also has the city building and resource management outside of the battles to keep things interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/13 "2024-05-21T23:03:17Z")
> [@Palooka](#): > > What happened to games like Myth? I assume they got smashed by Dota, but that didn’t come along until like 2006 so there was still time. I don’t remember many clones either, but Myth (and Bungie) were always the Mac company. They made two sequels, which provided diminishing returns. The real time strategy space got really crowded in the late 90s/early 2000s, and properties like _Age of Empires_ and _StarCraft_ were taking up a lot of air. Microsoft, which owned Bungie by that point, decided it was a waste of time trying to go head-to-head with them, and had Bungie focus all of its development on their new _Halo_ IP. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/14 "2024-05-21T23:43:30Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > Yay! I don’t know if I’ve ever been the fastest on the draw in one of these threads before. And thank you! This has been bugging me for some time. It came up last night when my son asked what computer games I used to play. And I was like “uh that one with the guys that fight each other, and the one guy blows himself up, and there were grenade throwing dwarfs.” And he just looked at me like I had something growing out of my ears. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/15 "2024-05-21T23:45:16Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Are we talking about the same game made by Bungie? > > [Myth: The Fallen Lords?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords) > > ETA: The OP said 1-4 players online (I do not remember that being online) and top-down which it wasn’t… Yes, that was it… Maybe only two players (again, demo, not full game). And maybe not totally top down, but sort of angled? If that makes a lick of sense. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2024, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/16 "2024-05-21T23:54:19Z")
“Isometric view” is the standard term for that “from above, but at an angle” camera POV in video games. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/17 "2024-05-22T00:00:08Z")
I do not think “Myth: The Fallen Lords” was isometric. I think it was a 3d landscape with sprites that moved across it. Not quite the same thing. > We tried real hard to come up with a term that was different from ‘[real-time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_computer_graphics).’ We’re calling it a “multimetric tactical game.” ‘Multimetric’—I made that word up—because it’s not an [isometric game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_graphics_in_video_games_and_pixel_art) in the conventional sense. There are many angles a player can have and many views the [camera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_camera_system) can take. And we’re calling it ‘tactical’ because there are no elements of the game that focus on [resources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromanagement_(gameplay)) or [management](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macromanagement). It’s strictly a tactical game. - [SOURCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth:_The_Fallen_Lords) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/18 "2024-05-22T00:07:29Z")
Yeah, you had your troops, and maybe you might rescue more troops, but you could never train more, so every death counted. Even more than that, your troops gained experience as they defeated enemies and got subtly but definitely better, and the same (experienced) troops carried over from mission to mission, so you REALLY wanted to keep them all alive, if possible. And I never played Myth III, but II was excellent. I loved the gameplay, which was a very good match for my style, and it was also an absolutely beautiful game. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/19 "2024-05-22T00:13:27Z")
“Isometric” has a technical definition that does not entirely align with common usage. In video game circles, anything with an angled over-head view is generally referred to as “isometric” view. That’s what Doug Zartman means when he says its not isometric “in the conventional sense” in your quote. > [@](#): > > The term “isometric perspective” is frequently misapplied to any game with an—usually fixed—angled, overhead view that appears at first to be “isometric”. These include the aforementioned [dimetrically projected](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimetric_projection) video games; games that use [trimetric projection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimetric_projection), such as _[Fallout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(computer_game))_ (1997)[[23]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-gspot_fo-23) and _[SimCity 4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_4)_ (2003);[[24]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-ign_sc4-24) games that use [oblique projection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_projection), such as _[Ultima Online](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Online)_ (1997)[[25]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-gamasutra_uol-25) and _[Divine Divinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Divinity)_ (2002);[[26]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-26) and games that use a combination of [perspective projection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_projection) and a [bird’s eye view](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%27s_eye_view), such as _[Silent Storm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Storm)_ (2003),[[27]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-cvg_ss-27) _[Torchlight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torchlight)_ (2009)[[28]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-tlight_gr-28) and _[Divinity: Original Sin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinity:_Original_Sin)_ (2014).[[29]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#cite_note-29) [From here.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2024, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881/20 "2024-05-22T00:22:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And I never played Myth III, but II was excellent. I loved the gameplay, which was a very good match for my style, and it was also an absolutely beautiful game. 100% agree. One of my all-time favorite games. I was (still am) mad that Microsoft bought Bungie and made all future Bungie games X-Box exclusive (and, of course, Bungie was mostly gutted and ruined after that anyway…as almost always happens when a good gaming company is bought by a big business…looking at you EA). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-game-id-help/1001881.md?page=2)