Author Topic: Must-haves?  (Read 6987 times)

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Offline Kopachris

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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
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Offline Ghostavo

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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?).
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Offline Kopachris

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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.
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Offline headdie

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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:
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Offline The E

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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.
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Offline StarSlayer

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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.
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Offline NGTM-1R

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The recent Tomb Raider reboot is also highly recommended.

Seconded very strongly. The reboot is amazing.
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Offline Ghostavo

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Oops, didn't see the or...

Anyway, Batman Arkham Asylum and City 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.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2013, 12:03:21 pm by Ghostavo »
"Closing the Box" - a campaign in the making :nervous:

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Offline Polpolion

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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.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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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.
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schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

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<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Polpolion

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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.

 

Offline AdmiralRalwood

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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 and a thread about the Shock Community Patch (yes, the "SCP". Cue laugh track).
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Codethulhu GitHub wgah'nagl fhtagn.

schrödinbug (noun) - a bug that manifests itself in running software after a programmer notices that the code should never have worked in the first place.

When you gaze long into BMPMAN, BMPMAN also gazes into you.

"I am one of the best FREDders on Earth" -General Battuta

<Aesaar> literary criticism is vladimir putin

<MageKing17> "There's probably a reason the code is the way it is" is a very dangerous line of thought. :P
<MageKing17> Because the "reason" often turns out to be "nobody noticed it was wrong".
(the very next day)
<MageKing17> this ****ing code did it to me again
<MageKing17> "That doesn't really make sense to me, but I'll assume it was being done for a reason."
<MageKing17> **** ME
<MageKing17> THE REASON IS PEOPLE ARE STUPID
<MageKing17> ESPECIALLY ME

<MageKing17> God damn, I do not understand how this is breaking.
<MageKing17> Everything points to "this should work fine", and yet it's clearly not working.
<MjnMixael> 2 hours later... "God damn, how did this ever work at all?!"
(...)
<MageKing17> so
<MageKing17> more than two hours
<MageKing17> but once again we have reached the inevitable conclusion
<MageKing17> How did this code ever work in the first place!?

<@The_E> Welcome to OpenGL, where standards compliance is optional, and error reporting inconsistent

<MageKing17> It was all working perfectly until I actually tried it on an actual mission.

<IronWorks> I am useful for FSO stuff again. This is a red-letter day!
* z64555 erases "Thursday" and rewrites it in red ink

<MageKing17> TIL the entire homing code is held up by shoestrings and duct tape, basically.

 

Offline Polpolion

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Sometimes I forget I'm using Duck Duck Go instead of Google. :nervous: But yes, thanks.

 

Offline Nakura

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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

 

Offline Mika

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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.
Relaxed movement is always more effective than forced movement.

 

Offline Kopachris

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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. :)
« Last Edit: November 07, 2013, 02:01:25 pm by Kopachris »
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Offline Mika

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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.
Relaxed movement is always more effective than forced movement.

 

Offline Patriot

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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.

 

Offline Herra Tohtori

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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.



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.
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Offline StarSlayer

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Herra, that A6M gif.  I haven't laughed that hard at the internet in a long time.
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