Cnote, have you played Halflife’s expansion Opposing Forces? Aliens vs. Predator was very well done, in my opinion. For the best effect in that game, play as a terran marine at 1 AM with the lights off. Are you just looking for FPS? Unreal is really good, I had fun playing that. I think you will be hard pressed to top Halflife though.
More games I forgot to mention that are just plain fun and addictive are Grand Theft Auto I and II. Thos games are great for either the person who’s mindset is death and destruction, or for the person who actually wants to beat the missions.
No, I haven’t tried Opposing Forces. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even heard of it. I kind of got out of gaming after HL because nothing seemed to compare. Too bad, I was really into that game. I didn’t like Aliens because the graphics seemed sub-par. I’m using a Vodoo3 2000 and would like to have some games that take advantage of that card. So far, nothing.
sailor, if you like flight sims, but don’t actually want to to have go to flight school to learn to fly the damn things, you can try US Navy Fighters '98 or Advanced Tactical Fighters (both by Janes). These are very easy to learn (the flight models are fairly simplistic, but accurate enough to be challenging), and provide lots of action. They also have the advantage of being a couple years old, which means a) they are cheap, and b) they don’t require supercomputers to run.
If you like space sims, Freespace or Freespace II are the way to go. Freespace should be fairly inexpensive, though it may require that your system have a few guts if you run it at full detail. You might also want to check out Independence War.
If you like flight sims that aren’t terribly complicated, but loads of fun to play, then any of the Star Wars titles X-Wing, Tie-Fighter, of X-Wing Vs Tie Fighter will give you many hours of fun flying around blasting the Imperial goons or Rebel scum. Plus, they’re all cheap now, $10-$20 tops.
For a good shoot-em-up in the low dollar range, nothing beats Duke-Nukem. It has a tongue in cheek attitude that brings me back for a round or two long after the graphically superior Quake series got stale for me.
Strategy: Age of Empires is good, but I actually like Age of Wonder better. Fantasy armies of undead, mythical creatures, elves, dwarves, and so forth battle it out against one another in a turn-based or real time manner. It is really a revamp of MicroProse’s Master of Magic from even further back. Another couple of simple yet engaging turn-based games I remember fondly were Warlords and Warlords II. I doubt you’ll even be able to find them anymore, but if you see a compilation CD out there that has one of these on it, they were great fun.
RPG: Too many decent RPG’s out there to name really. Baldur’s Gate is a good one from not too long ago, Planescape Torment if you like things a bit darker. One favorite is also DungeonKeeper 2. In this game, you create and build dungeons, stocking it with your evil minions who repel the invasions of the good guys and invade their strongholds. It has a darkly comic twist to it, and it is LOTS of fun to play.
Homeworld. Fallout2. SystemShock2. Mechwarrior 3. Roller Coaster Tycoon. Diablo2. Age of Empires2. Descent3. Icewind Dale. Close Combat 3. Total Annihilation.
I’m a big fan of the tactical sim games, so I’d recommend any game from the Rainbox Six series, Delta Force 2, and SWAT 3 (no multi-player in that one though). Also, Half-Life and Age of Empires 2 are great games. The Sims and Sim City 3000 are totally addictive games as well.
This is the first time I’ve actually salivated while reading a thread. I used to be a pretty big gamer. Not many flight sims, as I just didn’t like them for whatever reason. Got BIG into doom, duke nukem, etc, and civ ii etc as well.
Hover was soph and jr. years of HS and was way cool. The part I found most interesting was that one could go ten levels and win them all perfectly, and not get as high a score as someone who started on level 15 and finished in 1/2 way.
If Descent sounds interesting, you should be able to download the entire original game from somewhere. I have seen it released on computer gaming magazines’ CDs.
If you want to fly a dragon, try Drakan! It’s a third-person perspective game, something like a combination of a role-playing game, Tomb Raider, and Quake or Doom, plus the dragon flight. There’s ground hand-to-hand combat as well as combat with other dragons in flight. Server-based team play is also available. There are also forums at http://www.actionxtreme.com/forums/ and http://www.surreal-news.com .
Try the demo! If you decide to buy it, it was $20 at Best Buy last time I checked prices (a number of months ago). The gaming magazines’ average score for it was about 7.5 (out of 10), and the reviews seemed pretty accurate to me.
OK, AoE is a strategy game, but how is it like/different from, say, CivII or Alpha Centauri? Could you folks give more details about how the game plays and why you like it?
I know I could just go to a store and pick up a box and read what it says, but of course the box (or the web site) just goes on and on about how great it is without really giving much detail.
I’m especially interested to know more about HomeWorld, AoE, Startcraft, etc.
Is there a more souped-up version of a game like Master of Orion?
As far as the Civ-type games go, I thought the Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire extensions were great. They added complexities which I enjoyed (different races have different capabilities, so you need to learn to play to your strengths, and also the new way of handling what gives you strengths/weaknesses), but did not care for the direction that Call to Power took the game in (seems like they tried to over-simplify the game play - for instance pooling various resources civ-wide instead of per city - decreasing the “fun” factor, while throwing in bells and whistles to boost the “flash” factor. Eh.)
AoE (and AoE 2) are real-time strategy games, versus the turn-based games like Civ2 and Alpha Centauri. Real-time is fun when you are playing against someone, as you are constantly playing and never have to wait for your turn. This can get very stressful and frenetic, however, and the games become increasingly difficult once the number of pieces you control grows too large. AoE 2 has a new feature allowing 2 players to control the same civilization, thereby splitting the duties. This is a very cool innovation.
I prefer turn-based games, since they allow a more leisurely style of play and provide more depth in strategic/tactical manuevers. Civ2 sucked huge quantities of my so-called life into its void of unproductivity, and I highly recommend it. My current favorite is Heroes of Might and Magic 3, and I doubt anyone here could take me <<devilish grin>>. I nearly always have an open window with a game in progress. Well, at least I am not addicted to crack!
I also second the recommendation of the id first-person shooters (Doom, Quake) and others of their ilk. Diablo and Diablo 2 are definitely worth the money, just like all games from Blizzard.
More good strategy games would be StarCraft or the WarCraft series. System requirements are very low, and the cinematics/music that come with the game are of top-notch calibre.
By the way… we’re gonna be picking up a new joystick at some point in the near future, which means we’ll also be getting back into flight sim games (our current joystick bites, and resulted in glitchy flight). Probably gonna snag XvT (just 'cuz it’s Star Wars), but may go with Freespace or Freespace II.
If you want a simple flight sim try Terminal Velocity. It’s easy to get going (Just hit enter past all the opening BS and your flying) Your craft can take alot of ground hits and its easy to learn.
I also recommend “Chuck Yeagers flight Simulator” You can test fly alot of planes and after you get the hang of them you can fly “Historic Missions” and strut your stuff. It takes some learning to get used to but then it’s a blast!
Forget about all those evil shoot-em-up games. I recommend ** Pajama Sam **. Yes, yes, it says it’s for 5-8 year old kids, but I have to admit that I couldn’t put the damn thing down.
Of course, this from the chick who wandered thru Myst for about 10 minutes, got bored and left.
Microsoft Combat Simulator is a WWII style-airplane game that I like. It’s very simple; you can just fly around and shoot and yet if I put my plane’s handling on “realistic” and the enemy skill on “ace” I get nailed pretty quickly every time. There’s also missions and campaigns (included) that involve set tasks and more/different weapons, if you want.
A good way to get an idea of a game is to ask how many controls it uses at once. Flight simulators of modern aircraft often try to be as realistic as possible, and so they’re not something you can just pick up and start playing. Many of the “best” flight simulators available force you to learn dozens of controls just to get the airplane/helicopter in the air - I bought a couple that I never played because they were just too hard to bother with (MS Flight Simulator is pretty complex, and I don’t know if you get to shoot at anything). One $10 helicopter combat simulator I bought (but never played) used all but eight of the keyboard keys, plus a joystick with eight buttons and a hat switch!
I’m surprised that only one person has suggested the Master of Orion games. Master of Orion 2 is one of the best games I’ve played. It’s a strategy game, about 5 years old. You can still find it in stores without too much trouble for about 5 or 10 dollars. The AI can be a pushover at times, and multiplayer games often can’t be finished in one session, but it’s got lots of replay value and is incredibly addictive.
Another good (and inexpensive) game is Dark Legions by SSI. The S&H cost me more than the game itself.
Thanks to all who contributed. I stopped by a store today and looked at a few titles. I was inclined to buy MS Combat Simulator which looked quite attractive and being MS i tend to trust will be more “compatible” but it was $30 and I saw Jane’s WWII fighters for $15 and got that instead.
I wish i hadn’t as I have wasted many hours and still cannot get it to run. The intro, museum etc display correctly (although somewhat slow) but the actual flight simulation part does not and after many hours (I am posting this at 5:20 am) I am giving up. I have updated ActiveX etc and the game just will not go. I might try to return it tomorrow or exchange it for the MS one (although $30 is more than I was willing to pay) if they will do it. I am under the impression that they will not accept returns to prevent kids from simply copying them.
So… big waste of time and disappointment.
I have reinstalled Red Baron and it does work but it is very complicated to learn. My main complaint is that the field of view is tiny and you lose sight of the enemy and cannot find him. Maybe I’ll give it a bit more time tomorrow but I feel it will take too much effort to get to the point where I can enjoy it. maybe if it had an easy level for beginners…
Microsoft Combat Simulator sounds like what you want. It has “easy” skill level settings, and it has “training missions” and “instant combat”, both of which place you already flying in the air so that you don’t even have to learn to take off and land right away. Mine installed into Win98 without any problems. - MC