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Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: Kopachris on November 07, 2013, 11:00:19 am

Title: Must-haves?
Post by: Kopachris on November 07, 2013, 11:00:19 am: I've never really been that into gaming, but now I'm building a new pc and want to get more into gaming (instead of remaining a "filthy casual" all my life). This is my current must-try list. Some of these are series, and for those, I'd appreciate some input on which iteration of the series to start with (obviously going to get both Half Life games, though). I'd also appreciate any additional recommendations or un-recommendations (no "don't get CoD, it's st00pid", for example, but I wouldn't mind you telling me why I shouldn't bother with CoD). I personally don't care for strategy games (or Minecraft, KSP, or DF), but if you want to recommend them in this thread for the sake of others in the same boat as I am, feel free.

Portal*
Half Life
Assassin's Creed**
Skyrim
Need For Speed Shift 2*
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit (the new one--I don't have the original, but I do have HS and HP2)
MSFS X*
X-Plane 10***
IL-2 Sturmovik

Would especially like recommendations on where to start:
Fallout
Crysis
Battlefield
Call of Duty
Deus Ex

*Already own, just including for the sake of completeness
**Already own one in series, planning on continuing series
***Already own previous version

And of course the FS series: FS2_Open, FSPort, STR, AoA, WiH, Diaspora
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Ghostavo on November 07, 2013, 11:12:33 am: Minecraft is a strategy game?

Anyway, regarding the topic, it kinda depends on what interests you have, what genres you like, and how you appreciate games as a medium (e.g. are you interested in historic games, regardless of their objective value?).
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Kopachris on November 07, 2013, 11:35:16 am: Quote from: Ghostavo on November 07, 2013, 11:12:33 am
Minecraft is a strategy game?

Anyway, regarding the topic, it kinda depends on what interests you have, what genres you like, and how you appreciate games as a medium (e.g. are you interested in historic games, regardless of their objective value?).

No, I included Minecraft in addition to strategy games. In general, I guess I'm looking for more serious games. I appreciate games as an escape, and generally look for an immersive, plausible (with some reasonable suspension of belief, of course) world and storyline. It may seem superficial, but I consider graphics to be an important part of this. To clarify, I'm okay with primitive graphics, but I don't really care for intentionally unrealistic design elements (e.g. Borderlands with its almost cel-shading). I don't really care for games which glorify "evil" (I'm not particularly interested in GTA or Saints Row, for example, from what I know about them (which I'll admit isn't much)).

Despite all this, I'm fairly open-minded, and would be willing to try just about anything (including the ones I just said I'm not that interested in) given some convincing. Especially anything with a good storyline or an intriguing setting.

Except for Minecraft. I'm a boring person, so sandbox games bore me.

And Dwarf Fortress. Because ****, that game is hard to understand.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: headdie on November 07, 2013, 11:41:51 am: Quote from: Ghostavo on November 07, 2013, 11:12:33 am
Minecraft is a strategy game?

Anyway, regarding the topic, it kinda depends on what interests you have, what genres you like, and how you appreciate games as a medium (e.g. are you interested in historic games, regardless of their objective value?).

to be fair the post reads or minecraft.

of the list, CoD can be skipped for the most part byong 3 or 4, the later ones are ok for th emost part if you like glorified brain-dead rail shooters, though the multi is ok (but again flawed in many ways).

Deus Ex - yes yes yes, especially 1 and 3(Human revolution), 2(invisible war) is not bad, it dosnt hold up to the other games but is still respectable. also Project Snowblind was going to be DX3 but for various reasons was shifted to its own fiction but you can see the DX influences and i found it a good game.

Fallout - a good series of games, graphically 1 and 2 can be difficult to deal with being old 2d pixel sprites but the gameplay and stories still hold up. 3 is good, where as 1&2 are oldschool birds eye view games, 3 and vegas are FSP with heavy roleplay elements, as a result plays very like DX1 and surprisingly holds up well for being designed to work with consoles.

Crysis - only played 1 but omg its a good game.

battlefield, i have to admit i have never ever played the series :wtf:
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: The E on November 07, 2013, 11:50:43 am: Re: Crysis: 2 and 3 are also rather solid.

Battlefield is a good series ... if you like multiplayer. The singleplayer campaigns of 3 and 4 are nothing to write home about, but Bad Company 2 manages to be fairly decent.

As for serious games: I heartily recommend Spec Ops: The Line (but beware that this is the amateur game designer/storyteller in me speaking, I like it because it deconstructs the plots and tropes of the modern military shooter, not so much because of its gameplay)

The recent Tomb Raider reboot is also highly recommended.

Regarding CoD: IMHO, CoD4 Modern Warfare is the high point of the series. After that, it just goes downhill in terms of execution.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: StarSlayer on November 07, 2013, 11:52:34 am: Quote from: headdie on November 07, 2013, 11:41:51 am
Deus Ex - yes yes yes, especially 1 and 3(Human revolution), 2(invisible war) is not bad, it dosnt hold up to the other games but is still respectable. also Project Snowblind was going to be DX3 but for various reasons was shifted to its own fiction but you can see the DX influences and i found it a good game.

If you get Human Revolution get the Director's Cut. I've been playing it recently it is very good.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: NGTM-1R on November 07, 2013, 11:59:08 am: Quote from: The E on November 07, 2013, 11:50:43 am
The recent Tomb Raider reboot is also highly recommended.

Seconded very strongly. The reboot is amazing.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Ghostavo on November 07, 2013, 12:00:19 pm: Oops, didn't see the or...

Anyway, Batman Arkham Asylum and City (https://www.humblebundle.com/) seem to have good reviews.

Regarding less hurrying choices:
Although they're strategy games, I whole-heartedly recommend the Homeworld series. They involve surprisingly personal struggles, and the setting together with the immersion the games provide is really really good.
Also interesting is the Mass Effect series.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Polpolion on November 07, 2013, 12:05:37 pm: Quote from: Kopachris on November 07, 2013, 11:00:19 am
Half Life

I'd say start with 1, then play all the expansoins, and continue to 2 and its expansions.

Quote
Fallout
Crysis
Battlefield
Call of Duty
Deus Ex

The original Deus Ex is a classic and a must-play. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is also a really good prequel, and definitely worth picking up if you enjoy the original. Deus Ex 2 is commonly accepted as a halfway decent game if you forget it's supposed to be at all related to Deus Ex. Going further, I'd also recommend you check out another classic System Shock 2 if you haven't already.

The first Crysis is another excellent game, IMO. Not really an par with DX or SS2, but probably one of the best first person shooters in "recent" history. Relatively open levels, possibility of stealth playthroughs, etc. I feel 2 does everything, except perhaps the story, slightly worse than the original but it's still worth checking out. Haven't played 3. I'd also recommend STALKER Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat for similar reasons, though STALKER really needs some mods to make it not too buggy to play.

It's been forever since I played Fallout 1 or 2, but they were definitely fun games and worth checking out. Fallout New Vegas is also an acceptable FPS reboot of the franchise.

As for CoD, I haven't played any of the more recent games. 1 and 2 were both fun, 4 was decent, and 2 was 'wat'. As far as singleplayer goes they're all corridor shooters, and I've never played multiplayer so if that's what you're interested in ignore me.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 07, 2013, 12:14:47 pm: Quote from: Polpolion on November 07, 2013, 12:05:37 pm
Going further, I'd also recommend you check out another classic System Shock 2 if you haven't already.
Personally, I recommend waiting until the Shock Community Patch releases; theoretically it's been coming "any day now" for about a year, but it really isn't recommended to play SS2 without some form of fanpatch, and the current standard (the "Anomalies, Discrepancies, and Outright Bugs" mod) has a few issues.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Polpolion on November 07, 2013, 12:36:21 pm: Quote from: AdmiralRalwood on November 07, 2013, 12:14:47 pm
Personally, I recommend waiting until the Shock Community Patch releases; theoretically it's been coming "any day now" for about a year, but it really isn't recommended to play SS2 without some form of fanpatch, and the current standard (the "Anomalies, Discrepancies, and Outright Bugs" mod) has a few issues.

Can you post a link to whatever community is making this patch? Google turns up nothing, and telling someone not to play a game without a mod they can't find is a nice way to make sure they never play the game. Personally I've never encountered anything game breaking in SS2 that wasn't already easy to circumvent.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: AdmiralRalwood on November 07, 2013, 12:42:34 pm: Quote from: Polpolion on November 07, 2013, 12:36:21 pm
Quote from: AdmiralRalwood on November 07, 2013, 12:14:47 pm
Personally, I recommend waiting until the Shock Community Patch releases; theoretically it's been coming "any day now" for about a year, but it really isn't recommended to play SS2 without some form of fanpatch, and the current standard (the "Anomalies, Discrepancies, and Outright Bugs" mod) has a few issues.

Can you post a link to whatever community is making this patch?
http://www.systemshock.org/

The Google-fu is weak in this one?

Here's a handy link to the ADaOB mod (https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=25.0) and a thread about the Shock Community Patch (https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=5626.0) (yes, the "SCP". Cue laugh track).
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Polpolion on November 07, 2013, 01:00:37 pm: Sometimes I forget I'm using Duck Duck Go instead of Google. :nervous: But yes, thanks.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Nakura on November 07, 2013, 01:16:35 pm: You don't like strategy games, you say? Then you're really missing out on a large chunk of PC gaming (StarCraft, Planetary/Total Annihilation, SupCom, Dota 2, GalCiv, Homeworld, etc.).

As for must-have PC games, I'd say you're missing:
-Arma
-Counter-Strike
-Dragon Age (the first one)
-Guild Wars 2
-Half-Life
-Mass Effect
-System Shock 2
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Mika on November 07, 2013, 01:42:47 pm: About Sturmo, be prepared for quite a learning curve. However, once you grasp the handling of the aircraft, it turns into a quite challenging and also fun ride. You'll just need to invest some time to it. Falcon 4 Allied Force is of more modern air war, and includes a dynamic campaign that doesn't stop to amaze me in how it all works together. For once I'd like to see a FPS wargame with a dynamic campaign, but given that it probably has a monumental amount of modelling, it probably remains exactly like that, just a hope.

For what it's worth, I found Saints Row 3 heck a lot more fun than Mass Effect, though the former relies quite a bit on Rule of Cool. I struggled to play through the first Mass Effect, and I thought it was pretty darn boring, only to pick up some momentum at the end. But beginning and intermediate parts suffer greatly from "where's the darn game" syndrome; I felt like watching a soap opera.

Fallouts 1 and 2, definitely recommended! First one especially is quite captivating despite the aged graphics. I'd say take a look at Jagged Alliance and Hitman: Bloodmoney too. Heck, why not throw Knights of the Old Republic into the mix as well? Then there's Far Cry 3 and Painkiller, and the less known Legend of Grimrock, Shadow Warrior and World of Goo. Soon, the prequel of Fallouts, Wasteland, gets a sequel Wasteland 2, whose developers I trust not to eff it up. Legend of Tomb Raider and the remake Tomb Raider Anniversary are also both platforming and puzzle games with some amount of action bits. I went through Tomb Raider 2 a couple of years ago and despite the aged graphics, found it pretty darn good.

So far the only game I can think of transgressing really into art is Planescape - Torment. Very thematic role-playing game and one of those rare cases where you feel you learned something new, but it's not everybody's cup of tea.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Kopachris on November 07, 2013, 01:57:00 pm: Thanks, everyone. I've also been getting some good recommendations from #hard-light, too.

Nakura, Half Life is already on my list. Thanks for the other recommendations, though. :)

Mika, about Sturmovik, what kind of learning curve are you talking about? As far as handling an aircraft goes, I've been playing flight sims since I was five years old, and if IL-2 makes any effort towards aerodynamic realism, I'll be fine in that regard. I've heard from others that the AI is extremely difficult, though; is that what you meant? Thanks for the other recommendations, too. :)
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Mika on November 07, 2013, 02:07:52 pm: Well, I wouldn't say the AI is difficult in Sturmo. It is the moment when you decide to go against HI (human intelligence)... who have been practising several years, and fought hundreds of skirmishes against other humans. That's where the learning curve starts. I have a couple of friends who have been flying it for three years, and now manage to be about average, which apparently means one or two shotdowns and ending the mission by landing successfully. :D

Though, I'll readily admit that I haven't done a lot of WWII or WWI flight sims. The earliest I can recall was Delta Wing on Spectrum ZX, then F-19 on Amiga, both of them jet engine stuff, and from there it went on.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Patriot on November 07, 2013, 03:16:21 pm: I can whole heartedly recommend IL-2 Sturmovik, but get 1946 instead, last i checked(not recently) that's the most used version of the game right now.
Also the Ultrapack mod is great, unlocks a lot of AI Only craft and adds some new aircraft i think. Many people used it for online play and handily marked their servers as such :)

Also, if you like sims or sim-esque flight games, WarThunder is an excellent F2P game that has aircraft ranging from pre-WWII to Korean War era.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Herra Tohtori on November 07, 2013, 04:57:06 pm: Sturmovik mentioned

Yes, the version to get is the 1946 at the moment, it still has official patches being developed for it and tons of user-created content.

As for choice of mods, I would recommend starting with updating the game to its latest version (4.12.2m) and then installing either SAS ModAct 5.3 or HSFX 7.

If you plan on doing mostly single player, go for HSFX 7. If you plan on flying on multiplayer servers, well, it depends on what servers you're flying on. If you want to fly on stock servers, either keep the game stock or install SAS ModAct. If you want to fly on servers that use the exclusive features of HSFX (such as more realistic flight models for some planes), you'll need to install HSFX for obvious reasons.

UltraPack 3 is another option but it's getting outdated, doesn't support the latest patches (so it's already lagging behind on features) and, as far as I can see, doesn't have as much support on multiplayer servers.

Also, you might feel that it's unnecessary waste of HDD space to keep unmodded, stock versions of the game around. It isn't. Every time the patch rumba starts, you'll need to install new official patches on top of clean game configuration - this game's moddability is not as simple as with FS2 Open, it's a lot more messy. Installing mods? Works fine. Uninstalling a mod pack to return the game to complete stock configuration? Not so easily done, and most of the time not worth the trouble - it's easier to make sure the game is really stock version by re-installing it, than to make sure you've gotten rid of all the relevant files that a mod pack had added in.

So whatever you do - best way to keep your game stable is to always install things on top of a stock game.

You can probably guess that I'll give a recommendation for this game as well. It has reasonable graphics, although the limitations of the engine are becoming more obvious compared to new titles. It has good performance, being a pretty old game all you really need to run it is a mid-range modern GPU (anything past GeForce 8000 series will do just fine with this game) and a CPU with good single-core performance. If you want to do other stuff like use FreeTrack or FRAPS/DXTORY/OBS while flying, then you need some more oomph (as always).

My opinion is that using this game for single player is a waste of potential. The AI is now better than it used to be, but on the other hand it now pulls some ridiculous stunts like shooting at your with precise aim even though you're clearly behind the enemy pilot's engine cowlings (in multiplayer with closed cockpits, you can actually look at the enemy plane and estimate whether they can see you or not...).

Also, doing static campaigns has novelty value (flying some of the more exotic planes on less well known frontiers), but you probably don't want to fly those more than once if even that.

Dynamic campaigns are an endless series of very similar missions where, depending on the campaign settings, you can spend most of your flight time in transit even with time acceleration (which only goes up to 8x). There are some systems which actually make campaign missions dynamically so that there's some level of persistence and your efforts can affect the course of "war", but even so I don't really see the appeal of doing single-player missions against AI.

Multiplayer Co-Op mode against AI is another thing altogether; although with same system you can just as well have multiplayer team vs team co-op AND dogfight matches.

The game has two multiplayer modes: Dogfight is more popular, Co-Op is more sophisticated and usually used for more realistic missions. Dogfight missions allow re-spawns and are thus much easier to organize. Co-Operative mode gives you one life, one aircraft - if you die or crash, you won't get another. The advantage of Co-Op mode is that you can do stuff like multi-crew bombers.

DF matches are more open-ended random dogfights although nothing prevents you from teaming up with other pilots, and designing a mission goal to complete. Some servers encourage this behaviour more than others.

COOP matches tend to be more mission goal oriented although there's no gameplay mechanisms that force players to do any single thing, so the individual pilots have to stay focused on the mission and not go chasing enemy fighters, for example.

I am an admin at Skies~of~Valor, which is the server I spend most of my IL-2 flying time in. It is a server with a sort of middle ground of realism. All the flight model oriented difficulty modes are enabled, but while we use closed cockpit setting, we allow use of external views. Server is running stock game but allows joining with modded game client, as long as it doesn't modify the flight models or weapon damage or such things.

The server lives on a collaborative server with another popular server (Warclouds), though we have a little site of our own. We offer stats tracking for each month at a time, then the stats are reset (barring technical issues that sometimes force us to reset stats earlier).

You're all welcome to join there.

War Thunder... well... you'll probably find that most IL-2 pilots have a pretty clear opinion on that game.

(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9832/2aym.gif)

Honestly speaking though, it clearly isn't even designed to compete with IL-2, its appeal is mostly on a different crowd. Aside from splendid graphics, War Thunder in its current state has nothing to offer to experienced IL-2 pilots - they would need to completely fix the Full Real mode and make more planes immediately accessible on Full Real mode; the Grind to gain planes really isn't very appealing idea to me at all.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: StarSlayer on November 07, 2013, 05:12:12 pm: Herra, that A6M gif. I haven't laughed that hard at the internet in a long time.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Cyborg17 on November 07, 2013, 05:43:28 pm: If you ever decide to dabble in strategy games, I recommend you pick up a game from the Total War series. I've only played Rome Total War, and I've heard some aren't as good as that one is. But a short campaign with the computer micromanaging cities for you can be a lot of fun. It's like being a general without having to be the recruitment office, which many games force you to do.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Klaustrophobia on November 07, 2013, 10:14:34 pm: Crysis and Crysis Warhead are must haves for any FPS player. I recommend Far Cry also for historical value. Remember it was released in 2004 when you play it and hopefully you'll get at least some sense of just how incredible it was. Crysis 2 was decent enough as a standalone shooter, but pretty far from a must-have, and really isn't much in line with 1 or Warhead. The nanosuit (in name) and prophet are really the only connections to the original. I haven't played 3 due to origin and the reviews stating single player was extremely short.

Also must-play is the first F.E.A.R., unless you don't like horror games. I liked the expansions for the original in that they just gave more of the original gameplay and atmosphere. Extraction Point has what I think is the best scare sequence in the series. The stories are crappy though, and in fact were removed from canon. Not that matters much anyway, because like Crysis, FEAR 2 and 3 are decent enough shooters (2 a little less so) but pretty much sequels in name only. Come to think of it, I never even did return to 3 and replay as Fettel.

If you like the third person shooter/rpg hybrid type games, Red Faction Guerrilla and Mass Effect are great. I think pretty much the rest of the world would disagree, but I think ME1 is miles better than 2 and 3. It's a little rougher on the edges, and if you don't like repetitive grindyness (I don't mind, and even kindof like it) you'll probably hate the side quests, but I like the gameplay mechanics soooooooooo much more than what they were changed to, and again it's a lot more atmospheric. 2 and 3 I played more for story and completion than gameplay.

The STALKER series is another great FPS/RPG hybrid, although as stated before they are REALLY buggy and pretty poorly performing, requiring mods/user bugfixes to really play right. Once again I find myself saying the original Shadow of Chernobyl is the best for atmosphere and story, but the gap is actually quite small this time to the sequels. There were some pretty neat mechanics added in Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat to make up for it though. And just because it needs to be said again, for the love of god don't try to play these without bug fixes. SoC could be played first time with the Complete mod without changing the core of the game too much and it includes all the bug fixes, but I did find some parts of it undesirable. For example it made nighttime pitch ****ing black and pretty much unplayable without a night vision upgrade. Some of it's changed effects I also didn't like compared to the original, but all in all it stayed pretty well true. If you're not a stickler for "the way it was meant to be" you should probably just skip playing through vanilla. For Clear Sky and CoP though, the Complete mod is inadvisable.

I know you said you're not really into strategy, and I'm not too big on it either if I'm honest, but I'd feel remiss if I didn't say I thought Command and Conquer was a must play. Particularly Tiberian Sun through 3/Kane's Wrath. Because everyone knows that's the last one that existed. I find the very early ones tedious to get through, but I played them once. But you get them anyway if you pick up The First Decade pack, and then all you need is 3/Kane's Wrath.

Also in my library that is certainly worth playing is Bioshock, though I can't really call them MUST plays. Good gameplay and environment, not fantastic story. Infinite's was actually pretty annoying and nonsensical. I again got the feeling that Infinite wasn't really in the same series as 1 and 2.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Hobbie on November 07, 2013, 11:44:35 pm: The Knights of the Old Republic games are excellent. The first reminds you what it's like to be in a sweeping Star Wars space opera. The second takes that and grinds it into tiny pieces to make you question everything. There's a bit of patching involved if you want to play KotOR2 at its best, but it is well and truly worth it.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Klaustrophobia on November 08, 2013, 01:09:42 am: i've had the first one installed for some time now. yet to even run it. :/
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: TrashMan on November 08, 2013, 02:02:34 am: Crysis 1. I didn't personally like 2 or 3.

World of Tanks. Can be fun when it isnt' grindy.

Fort Zombie. Deep and fun, but graphics are nothing to write home about.

Drakensang - beautifull RPG. Drakensang: The River of Time is even better.

Tehre are good indy title to play
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: deathfun on November 08, 2013, 03:35:44 am: Journey for PS3

It's short, but a great experience

EDIT: And obviously not for PC which was ultimately the point which I completely missed somehow
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Mikes on November 08, 2013, 08:21:14 am: Quote from: Klaustrophobia on November 07, 2013, 10:14:34 pm
Crysis and Crysis Warhead are must haves for any FPS player. I recommend Far Cry also for historical value. Remember it was released in 2004 when you play it and hopefully you'll get at least some sense of just how incredible it was. Crysis 2 was decent enough as a standalone shooter, but pretty far from a must-have, and really isn't much in line with 1 or Warhead. The nanosuit (in name) and prophet are really the only connections to the original. I haven't played 3 due to origin and the reviews stating single player was extremely short.

Heard the same thing about Crysis 3 but am really enjoying playing it right now..... gets points for having a story that dabbles with posthumanism and being overall thoroughly enjoyable.

Gameplay / Levels are not as open as Crysis 1 used to be ... but way more open than Crysis 2 and a quite large open area with multiple objectives later on.... and it works well for the structure of the story.

Spoiler:
Also the fact that Prophet/The Suit kind of ate the protagonist of Crysis 2 who jumped into that suit. ;)

In any case... I'm quite surprised, after the reviews, how much there is to the game, now that I am playing it - especially after the snoozefest that was Crysis 2.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Lorric on November 08, 2013, 11:01:09 am: Quote from: Cyborg17 on November 07, 2013, 05:43:28 pm
I've only played Rome Total War
Good. It's the best one.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Kopachris on November 08, 2013, 12:24:37 pm: Quote from: Lorric on November 08, 2013, 11:01:09 am
Quote from: Cyborg17 on November 07, 2013, 05:43:28 pm
I've only played Rome Total War
Good. It's the best one.

That brings up the question, is Rome Total War a must-have, or is gameplay similar enough that one should go for Rome II first?
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Lorric on November 08, 2013, 12:31:14 pm: Quote from: Kopachris on November 08, 2013, 12:24:37 pm
Quote from: Lorric on November 08, 2013, 11:01:09 am
Quote from: Cyborg17 on November 07, 2013, 05:43:28 pm
I've only played Rome Total War
Good. It's the best one.

That brings up the question, is Rome Total War a must-have, or is gameplay similar enough that one should go for Rome II first?
There was talk on here that Rome II is... bad.

These games always take a very long time to get bugs fixed, if they actually do, and there were other problems with it.

Get Rome. If you don't like it, you know you don't have to bother with any of these games. It's dirt cheap these days. There are excellent deals for Rome and it's two expansions dirt cheap also.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Grizzly on November 08, 2013, 03:05:27 pm: Quote from: The E on November 07, 2013, 11:50:43 am
As for serious games: I heartily recommend Spec Ops: The Line (but beware that this is the amateur game designer/storyteller in me speaking, I like it because it deconstructs the plots and tropes of the modern military shooter, not so much because of its gameplay)

Youa re not really supposed to enjoy the gameplay ;)
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Veers on November 08, 2013, 07:03:39 pm: As Nakura mentioned with Arma,

ArmA is mostly the only game I play regularly, for multiplayer and it's editor. It's an interesting game, but is a Military Simulation. Unlike Battlefield or CoD though, which are FPS, ArmA aims to be more 'realistic', it also has a learning curve.

Not an overly difficult one I'd say, just unforgiving. As nearly every key on your keyboard is bound to something. ArmA 3 was released this year, and compared to ArmA 2's release. It's rather solid and definitely takes the game to new heights.

But you do need to be playing it in Multiplayer, I play Vanilla with a clan, but there are other game types out there. Such as Wastelands (post-apocalyptic) and DayZ (Zombies.. don't think they've released it for A3 yet though).

Otherwise, get used to taking a bullet and not getting back up again :)

Edit: Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (1&2) were very good, if not getting a tad older now. Fallout is great, I first played 3 and have 1&2 here to play. Just have not had a chance. Other than ArmA and any FreeSpace-based game. I don't play much more, into Simulators and well... lets not comment on them.

Plenty of great options mentioned though!
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: MP-Ryan on November 08, 2013, 09:05:29 pm: System Shock 2 is a must play. BioShock and Bioshock Infinite are its spiritual successors and also well worth playing (though BioShock 2 should only be picked up if on sale for less than $5).

The Half-Life and Portal series should be played in order.

The Deus Ex series should be played as follows: Deus Ex, Human Revolution DC, Invisible War (which is not terrible, just nowhere near the quality of the other two).

A glaring omission from your list is Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel.

And the Mass Effect trilogy.

And Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition, though be prepared to lose over a hundred hours of your life if you really get into it.

If you don't ordinarily care for strategy games, I still recommend Company of Heroes because it is nothing like a traditional RTS.
Title: Re: Must-haves?
Post by: Mongoose on November 09, 2013, 03:14:52 pm: Loyalties demand that I highly recommend the Descent series, or at the very least the original.