[Cause]

Okay the dream is coming true. After exams I will have a gaming computer once more. What games should I play though. I like strategy games, shooters, action. Hate sport and racing. If I want to play sport Ill play the real thing and If I want to drive, I have a car. I know alot of people love these games but I just dont get them. If its not in any of these categories but its good suggest it anyway.

So whats good.

On my to buy list:
Medieval II Total war
New tiberium game (Ill actually be borrowing it I bought it for a friend whose machine cant run it but when mine can it will basically live at my house.)

So what else do I want.

[Sir Thursday]

There's that new Civ 4 expansion Colonisation...I've heard good things. Can't really suggest anything else at the moment, I'm a bit behind on the fresh releases. If your gaming computer is good enough, you could always give Crysis a try if you haven't already. It's pretty .


Sir Thursday

[Sparkimus]

The Colonization is lacking a lot of depth compared to the rest of Civ 4 (at least GI thinks so), so you may just want to stick with Civ 4.

Spore might be neat if you don't mind the DRM software on your computer.

Other than that, yeah try Crysis if your computer will handle it.

[zwitterion]

I have this habit of buying excellent gaming gear and then playing ancient games on it but here's my 2c-by-genre
Strategy
- Sins of a Solar Empire
- Supreme Commander ("biggest" rts you will ever play)
- Guild Wars (RPG on the surface, but really a strategy game in essence. Pick one of the later campaigns and enjoy)

Adventure (that's right I said it)
- The Longest Journey (avail for like $10 on steam, has a modern sequel which is prettier but worse. best adventure game ever made.)
- Portal (avail in the Orange Box collection on steam. this one is unanimously regarded as fucking awesome)

RPG
- Guild Wars cos i want to recommend it twice
- Hellgate London is a terrible game with partially finished assets a lot of bugs, and really fun gameplay.
- Mass Effect will test your system's prettiness capabilities and I hear is quite good. I'm only part way in.
- Bioshock is a great idea in a really pretty game, but it's totally broken. Cruise through the mind numbingly easy thing for the story and atmosphere but if you want a good game, go download System Shock 2 its inimitable predecessor (yes i'm a looking glass fanboy. for best trilogy ever made get the Thief series; even with the archaic and outdated engine of 1 & 2, and the xbox-retarded design of 3 it's an atmospheric, original game with a story you won't forget)

Action
- Team Fortress 2 wins for funnest online experience in a long time
- Legions, available on instant action, is the scion of the amazing but troubled Tribes series. Legions goes back the the series' fast-paced roots and provides the fastest most challenging first person action I've ever seen.

[Sparkimus]

Ahh, forgot Mass Effect and Bioshock were available on PC too. Both are great.

Supreme Commander is cool, but I can't seem to get into it...Maybe it's because my (or the other team's) Commander likes to blow up and take everything out with it.

[Mentalist]

isn't "supreme commander" basically "Total anhihilation" re-made?

likewise, I'm waaaay behind on all the gaming out there--largely to former restrictions of my laptop's hardware. I have recently got a RAM upgrade (WHOO, 1 gig of RAM onto my ancient 526!), but my video's still a crappy ATI Radeon god knows which.
personally, i enjoy Spellforce for a nice RTS/RPG blend. It's old, though.

[frookenhauer]

CIV 4 gets my vote. Warlords and Beyond the sword and Kael's Fall from heaven mod - But don't enter worldbuilder, it will really spoil the long term fun factor

Galactic civilizations

Dig up Master of Orion 2

And Alpha Centauri

and UFO defense.

/glory days

Darwinia was a good distraction

warhammer dawn of war dark crusade.

I too never really got into Supreme commander

Disciples 2, old game, but awesome fun.

You really can't go wrong with any of the above if you like your strategy.

[Mentalist]

I second Dark Crusade. T'was awesome
Frook, have you played soulstorm?

[Laxon]

Get the Witcher. Enhanced Edition just came out. And its a blast to say the least

Sins of a solar empire I played with a bit. And I like it, just dont have too much time to play play it. Sadly.

-Laxon

[Mentalist]

what are the video requirements for the Witcher--I've heard good things.
I'm also trying to get my hands on the books--read all the short stories, but don't have the main sequence...

[Silencer]

Minimum requirements:

Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2, Vista (Operating System must be up to date with the latest fixes)

Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz or AMD Athlon 64 +2800

1 GB RAM for Microsoft® Windows® XP / 1536 MB for Microsoft® Windows® Vista

128 MB Video RAM or greater with DirectX9 Vertex Shader/ Pixel Shader 2.0 support (NVIDIA GeForce 6600 or ATI Radeon 9800 or better)

8.5 GB available hard drive space

DirectX 9.0c compliant soundcard, plus speakers or headphones

DVD-Rom



Recommended requirements:

Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Vista (Operating System must be up to date with the latest fixes)

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHz or AMD X2 5600+

2 GB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX or ATI Radeon X1950 PRO

8.5 GB available hard drive space

DirectX 9.0c compliant soundcard, plus speakers or headphones

DVD-Rom


All that being said, the Witcher is one of those games that doesn't really run too well on it's recommended. Particularly the non-Enhanced Edition, which has, or so I've heard, appalling load times.

[Mentalist]

I gots me a ATi Mobility Radeon 9000
strongly doubt that'll work
sigh

[Traveller]

You can get Medieval 2 Total War and the Kingdoms expansion in a single pack for relatively cheap now... hours of great battle strategy, well recommended. You don't need really high spec to run them either.

This post has been edited by Traveller: 08 October 2008 - 07:22 AM

[dktorode]

I always liked minesweep

[Mushroom]

My only two real recommendations:
Medieval:Total War 2
Half-Life 2 and episodes 1/2.


Portal is okay some good fun but nothing fancy, and way too short and easy though.
Sins of Solar empire lacks any real action and one is easilly disconnected from what is happening.
Mass effect is decent, though I would not say it is great. The engine it goes on fairly similar (if not the same) as the KOTOR engines. Escept it is a shooter not a sword/fighter game. And it doesn't work quite as well as a shooter than using a lightsabre.
FEAR is decent enough. But gets Very repitative after a little bit and there is No outdoor settings like in say half-life
I've played the second part of Longest Journey (Dreamfall) was very impressed with the story, One of the best (if not best) in recent memory. But the actual gameply is fairly ordinary. Still getting through the original. Good graphics and detail though.
Crisis is actually pretty good for an action game. Good variety of weapons. But chances are you will probably underutelise half the games little fancy thingy's. Like power strength to lift people up and throw them into others. As cool as it is, its only really novelty and doesn't work well tacticly.
Call of Duty Four is also fairly decent. But short and fairly predictable story. Fairly decent multi-player though. Good graphics and detail though.
Bioshock is decent as well. But too easy and short. Supposed to be an RPG, but in the end you end up getting most modifiers to yourself. The AI is way too stupid. The only thing that makes the game somewhat hard is that you lose health easy. Good graphics and detail though.
The Witcher seems decent. I've only played a bit of it. The crap part is you attack the enemy by clicking Once! and if you want to get real fancy sometimes you might click twice on the enemy to attack them!
Supreme Commander really is just a modern redux of total annihilation. Still decent though. But it takes a little bit before you can build real decent armies and there are limited maps
Oblivion is okay. The leveling up of the bad guys as you level up is real crap though. And so is quick travel. It really took the fun out of the game. Morrowind was way better for immersion and story just the combat was shitty compared to oblivion.
Company of Heroes is okay. Not your typical Strategy game but still good.
Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars is decent. Not great. The problem is some of the super powers are too strong at the late tech levels. But there still some really cool units.
Thief:The dark Project is pretty cool. The engine is okay. But this is a really good game atomshperic wise. You will play one level Shalebridge cradle which will be scarier than anything else you ever played (or movie) for that matter.

Just my two cents for those games.

This post has been edited by Mushroom: 08 October 2008 - 12:54 PM

[frookenhauer]

Mentalist, on Oct 8 2008, 01:53 AM, said:

I second Dark Crusade. T'was awesome
Frook, have you played soulstorm?

Not yet, but I'm really behind when it comes to games, and its mostly my job and late hours, but also because fall from heaven 2 is eating up my soul. Spellforce was an interesting game, but for the first time in my life there was this level that I could not get past..I've clocked driver for fucks sake, and I got witnesses, that level, it was like beating my head against a wall for a few days, fuck it I'm going back...

I would like to point out that I am not addicted to games and have never in my whole life failed exams due to excessive gameplay.

Hey Silencer! wanna swap rigs?

[Mentalist]

what? Spellforce? the game where you can re-do a level as many times as humanly possible (losing only a bit of EXP every time you die)? lol
if it's not a secret, which level was it? Also it depends on your avatar class, I guess-- I use the hand-to hand type generally, so i can always lay the groundwork to cleaning up the level before I claim any monuments...
I've recently been able to get my hands on the two expansions to the original and "Breath of Winter" is quite addictive. Mind you, it's not exam season yet, and I'm almost done it... so I should be fine, but for several days in a row I've found myself tearing away with difficulty from my laptop around 4 AM...

Edit: and I've also never failed anything academic due to excessive gaming. In fact, in the recent years my gaming habits have been quite tame when compared to high school.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 09 October 2008 - 12:39 AM

[frookenhauer]

It was quite well into the demon section. after the Medusa. Where those pesky demon spawn gates existed, you start on the left on a separate plateau. there is this valley that runs down the middle, with ramps leading up to side ledges. And I think you are right. My avatar is too general purpose, half magic and half strength and therefore not brilliant at either. I might get round to 'ave another go at some point in the future.

[Mentalist]

ohhhh
THE RIFT
yes, that one was a major challenge. on my first playthrough, I've definitely been crushed, or ran out of resources several times and had to re-start.
my avatar's generally a warrior/fighter, with some healing and sometimes basic elemental magic stuff--quite a mish-mash, but by that point he's pretty capable of holding off the random patrols they send at you.
trying to actually climb UP the hills where the demons breed IS certifiable suicide--they've got some level 20s and up there, that do MASSIVE damage.
what I did last tilme i played was, advance very slowly through the valley, having my peasants build towers right next to one another. then, you grab a bunch of your orks and make a run for it.
on the other side of the vally you have to kill Ulather--he's level 23, I believe. Once you do, you can quickly hop to your camp using the bindstone to unlock the 3 chests by the portal, and grab plans for a lot of Troll buildings. meanwhile, the huge army of level 25 demons will demolish your orc camp.
hop back to the East, there's a Troll monument there, as well as a hero monument.
*interesting note: there was a weird bug in my game. once I've built all those towers, the level 25 horde didn't actually attack, but kept wandering around them, for no reason, untill eventually they all died. They re-spawn up in the hills, but they just stay there, really. So I actually kept my Ork settlment as well*
but I digress. you build up a Troll settlement, and then you just punch through back to the west.
If you want, you can go up the hills to wipe out the camps for EXP but it's not necessary, and you can always come back and do it later on.
now, the important thing is: have you done the Farlorn's Hope map before this one? (the one where you get the other 2 mosaic pieces). Because, although it makes less sense, that one SHOULD be doen first--it really helps if you do it first. You get to get he t hang of running an ork camp, and you pick up the plans for the warrior unit.

[Laxon]

Yup, and the enhanced edition actually made it much smoother. Which is a big thanks to CDPR