Let's say a young man, his way in the world unclear, finds himself in possession of a new computer that can play games manufactured within the current fiscal quarter for the first time since, oh, 2003 or so.
He might want to know what people are into these days, since his most recent copy of PC Gamer suggests that he should get really excited about American McGee and I don't even remember what. Doom 3 or something.
But I'm not looking for recommendations so much as I'm curious about what the kids (read: you) are playing these days, which descriptions will hopefully turn into positive or negative recommendations through conversational mutation. Assuming you are not too busy driving the kids to capoeira practice, keeping a close eye on the Singapore Exchange and worrying about the value of the yuan.
In conclusion, an open letter to the Gaming Industry:
Dear Gaming Industry, where is our Battlestar Galactica space combat sim with realistic physics?
(Keep in mind that, for all practical purposes, my internet connection consists of me writing down the contents of my packets, expressed numerically, on small strips of paper which I then place inside plastic novelty easter eggs and toss into the river, hoping for favorable currents in the Pacific this time of year.)
Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :
My system is currently aging, so I mainly stick to 2004 stables, like World of Warcraft(which runs the smoothest), and Halflife2 and it's serial sequel Episode 1. I play the multiplayer HL2:deathmatch too.
I'm waiting for some money to finish my upgrade system so that I can play Everquest II without crashing after 20 minutes, but I'm also looking at picking up Sam & Max episodes as well.
Warcraft and hl2:dm are probably the internet connection hoggers so I don't know if you'd be interested, but their single player content is great.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Right at the moment I'm playing Star Wars - Empire at War which I got out of the bargin bin for a tenner and find it quite distracting, if a little limited.
I have to admit I've never been one for online playing. Tried it a few times with Half Life 2 and Homeworld (ages ago) and Age of Empires (even ages'er ago) but could never get into it as the people I found myself playing against were 1. Better at it than me. 2. Had a habit of cheating, of unsporting behaviour, and 3. Jibbered constantly on the chat function.
So yeah, single player games are my preference. If you can find it there's a little gem of a PC game I discovered going cheep on Amazon called "Beyond Good And Evil". It looks "younger" than the sort of game I usually play, but I found it oddly engaging. Think Zelda, but on another planet...with hovercrafts...and about a third as long. If you want something a little more violent, the Punisher game was surprisingly good.
As for BSG I think you can download a fan made stand alone mod/demo for Freespace 2 called Beyond The Red Line. Not exactly real physics, but pretty close since you can do the nose to tail flip with a little practice.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
PC games from 2003 onward? Hmmm. Well, one of my favorite's is Halo for the PC. The multiplayer is rather laggy, filled with retards and cheaters, and gets rather repetitive after a while, but there are still enough players that running across cheaters isn't all that common.
Oblivion is another one of my fav's, although you're PC won't run it. Hell, it killed my video card
Some good RPG's include the Fallout series. The Tactical strategy game Fallout: Tactics. And a hidden gem of a game called Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. Think Baldurs Gate during the Industrial Revolution. You can either choose magick or technology. And build guns and other contraptions to help you on your questing. The story is very well done. And there was a lot of effort put into the game. Too bad it didn't get much in the way of promotion or it might have been more popular than it was. Still a great game and I highly recomend tracking down a copy.
Posted by Josh (Member # 1884) on :
For PC right now, I'm playing Star Wars Galaxies, of which you will hear no end of controversy on, but it's still a great game.
I'm also playing a lot of the Steam platform games like Natural Selection, Day of Defeat, Counter Strike and Half Life.
I still play the old classics like Elite Force, Bridge Commander and Starcraft.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
I have, out of boredom, regressed to the old Exile series. After this I was thinking about dusting off my Might & Magics, then perhaps a bit of Command & Conquer.
Limited time on the computer these days makes upgrading seem pointless, so playing anything newer than games from the 20th Century is not happening.
Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :
Sam and Max Season One!! It first came out last October so I gather you missed it. I bought the whole season and promise it is totally worth the 35 bucks. If your connection isn't fast enough to download all the episodes, the DVD is coming out soon.
I second the nomination for Beyond Good & Evil. I would call it a platformer/adventure combo, and it is a classic (but had very poor sales). If possible I recommend playing with a PC controller or on a console - I really didn't like the keyboard controls.
Dreamfall - sequel to the Longest Journey. The story is excellent.
Psychonauts - I bought this but haven't started playing yet. Has great reviews and was produced by Tim Schafer who did Grim Fandango.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
There's also the Grand Theft Auto Series, if like your games violent and filled with dark humor.
Posted by Josh (Member # 1884) on :
And full of obscure references to the era the games are set in
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
I always found the GTA series to get a little old after a while. Actually GTA 2 was and is still the best of the series.
If you have a 360 and are looking for a GTA clone that far surpasses the GTA games, check out Saints Row. It's a phenomenal game. Plus Crackdown's pretty damn good, although it's like the Anti-GTA.
Some other good older PC games include Jagged Alliance 2, Soldier of Fortune II, and Tropico.
Another good one is 1nsane, it's an old off road racing game. Think the great great great grandfather of MotorStorm and you'll be right on the money. It has many of the early computer game technologies that are only now the norm for those kind of games.
There's also Trespasser, it's a really great game that didn't get a whole lot of publicity or good reveiws because of the control scheme. Basically the mous controls your avatars arm and you use the sights on the gun model to aim and fire instead of a crosshair as with most FPS games. it's another one that uses an early version of the physics engine that's most commonly used today. Plus it has the greatest health meter ever. You look down at your female characters cleavage to see a tattoo on her boob that tells you how hurt you are. It's fucking brilliant I tell you.
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
My Sig.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Freespace 2? Meh, TIE Fighter was better.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
This thread isn't necessarily turning out how I expected, I guess. But, onwards!
I totally bought Half-Life 2, though every day Steam apparently requires an additional 32 gigabytes of data.
I could run Oblivion like nobody's business, son.
Fallout is as old as coal. Plus I totally beat it, never got around to the sequel, and Tactics is a vicious slander to the name. (Well, OK, I've never played it, or even seen it, but so I've heard tell. ((Actually, I'm not sure I ever beat the first one, entirely, on account of not being willing to do it without my dog, who did not deal well with laser-wielding mutants.)))
I played Star Wars Galaxies before they turned it into a slower, buggier, turn-based Jedi Knight. For about thirty minutes or so. (Is how long I played it, because it was not my computer.)
I forgot all about Psychonauts, which did sound interesting, or at the very least well-pedigreed, because Grim Fandango was liquid cool.
GTA? I had a series of older PCs, I wasn't chained up unconscious inside an empty boiler buried on the Moon. (Though, to be fair, I never did play San Andreas much.)
I have never heard anyone, outside of this thread, have anything good to say about Trespasser. Aren't the developers in hiding in some Serbian Orthodox monastery these days? I am curious to hear more.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
Well, Steam, as an online service, sucks big time. Half-Life 2 was pretty good. The real gem is the original Half-Life redone on the source engine.
As for Oblivion, I guess I misread your original post. There's a few mods you should check out that makes the experience a little better. Particularly mods that increase the spead of the spells and arrows. They're way to slow to be effective. Let's not forget the nudie mods
Fallout may be old as coal, but it's still one of the best PC games ever made. Fallout 2 is even better. You even get ROBOT DOGS! and Dogmeat makes a cameo appearance in one of the wasteland encounters. I can't remember if you can recruit him or not. And Tactics isn't bad once you get it figured out. It's not an easy game.
Never played Galaxies, probably never will considering what they did to it.
There's nothing wrong with Trespasser to speak of. Yes, no one really liked it, most likely because the control scheme was convoluted at best. And time constraints forced the developers to scrap the AI for the dinosaurs. Forcing them to be rather dumb. They still manage to suprise you from time to time. I like the game because it was innovative at the time. It had an early version of real world physics similar to Half-Life 2s source engine. It was quite satisfying pushing a car over a ledge and squashing two raptors underneath.
The game had flaws, I'm not denying that. But if you take the time to learn the controls (I learned how to throw my gun straight up into the air and catch it before it hit the ground. That killed an hour alone. Pointless, but interesting.) you'll have a fun time with a game that, for it's time, was incredibly immersive. I broke out into a cold sweat a few times knowing that a pair of raptors were following me through the jungle. And I even let out an "eep!" when they snuck up and killed me and started feeding on my corpse.
IMO: The game would translate really well onto thw Wii. Or another other system that has one of those motion sensor glove type dealies.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
You know Sol System, I should have told you to buy the Half Life 2006 Christmas bundle pack which includes Half Life: Source, Half Life 2, HL2: Episode One, and Counter Strike: Source. I just finished the first Half-Life and I'm currently playing Half-Life 2. It's like I'm in a Big Blockbuster summer movie because it's so realistic.
Posted by Diane (Member # 53) on :
I'm playing Oblivion too. My computer (my brother built it last summer) can only run it smoothly at about medium graphics, but that's ok. I felt the art style was very bland, and the gameplay somewhat overrated. Still, it's enjoyable and I plan to download some mods when I'm done with the game.
EDIT: Also, I recommend giving Tomb Raider Legend a try since it's like, $10 for a new copy on Amazon and probably even cheaper on ebay. I downloaded it from GameTap (took 20 hours on DSL!), since it's one of the free-to-play games right now. It was a pretty fantastic puzzle/platformer similar to Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Not to mention it had great voiceovers and atmostphere (almost like a crossover between Bond and Indiana Jones). I was never a fan of the older Tomb Raiders, but overall Legend was a very enjoyable game.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Um...I play a lot of Katamari. On my PS2. Yes.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
I'm also playing Ratchet and Clank on my PSP as well as Lumines 2.0
Posted by Saltah'na (Member # 33) on :
DaBang, look at the link in my sig. You go to the forums and you'll find that they are making a new Star Wars game based on the Freespace 2 engine.
The reason why they did it? Simple, the Freespace 2 Engine was simply the best out of all space sims. Including Tie fighter.
Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :
1. Halflife: Source isn't any more impressive than halflife in its original form. It may not be out for a while, but Black Mesa Source will truly be the most impressive reimagining of the original Halflife with the Source engine.
2. Steam has turned into a fantastic content provider, especially lately. Have you checked out the games that are available? It may have had a rocky start but that was years ago. It's coming into its own and it works really well.
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Real time -- and it's free!
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I thought about getting the Ultra Jam Packed Edition of Half-Life 2, but I decided to save the ten dollars. (Not like ten dollars really does me much good.) But I thought, am I going to be playing Counterstrike any time soon, really?
Since the door is open: that first new Prince of Persia was so good, but why so short?
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Yeah I don't play much counterstrike either, but at least I got to download Half Life 2 Multiplayer for free.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
I don't know about anyone else but I'm really looking forward to HL2:ep2. Not so much for the game (which looks really good) as for "Portal" that's being bundled with it. If you don't know what I'm talking about check out the trailer on youtube, it looks like an hysterically fun game.
Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :
I am anticipating the Team Fortress 2 game. I was a huge TFC fan back in the day(as Charles also knows). The game looks like a true winner, taking all that was fun about TFC and expanding it.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jeff Raven: I am anticipating the Team Fortress 2 game. I was a huge TFC fan back in the day(as Charles also knows). The game looks like a true winner, taking all that was fun about TFC and expanding it.
QFT!
I loved TFC. The best character was the spy/scout. Playing dead then knifing someone in the back was the most fun I've ever had in a video game. And that assasination gametype was pretty neat. Although your defenders always fucked off and left you to kill everyone with your umbrella. Still good fun though. Can't wait for TFC2.
Posted by Not Invented Here (Member # 1606) on :
TF2? What the hell? That's almost been in development as long as Duke Nukem Forever.
I bought a Mac specifically to stop playing computer games as I don't have a great deal of time for them right now. However, Portal may convince me to spend all my savings on a shiny new PC. But that means getting Vista these days. On second thoughts, I'll just go and buy a Wii and distract myself with Wii-sports.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I thought Portal was going to be released on its own.
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Nope. Well, at least not in the shops. If like me you already own HL2 & Episode 1 then the only way to avoid doubling up is to buy the new stuff individually through Steam. Personally I'd prefer to have it on disc.
Speaking of portal, check this out. Type "login", pick you own username and type "portal" as the password. from there there's lots to explore. But remember that the cake is a lie.
Posted by Mars Needs Women (Member # 1505) on :
Holy crap, Portal looks awesome. And Reverend, once I type in portal, what I do I type in after. I'm not exactly experienced with DOS Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Type "help" and remember what I said about the cake.
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