I finished the bar exam last week. So, for the first time in four years, I have Free Time. Time to spend with my wife. Time to take a trip. Time to spend a whole weekend zombie-ing out in front of the computer.
I have a Wii and a Windows laptop. My favorite games of all time, in no particular order are:
[ul]
[li]Fallout (all of them)[/li][li]Baldur’s Gate (both)[/li][li]Zelda: Twilight Princess[/li][li]Goldeneye (the original)[/li][li]Half Life 2[/li][li]F-Zero[/li][li]GTA 3 and its offshoots[/li][li]Syndicate[/li][li]Sim City[/li][li]Civilization 2[/li][li]Super Mario 64[/li][li]WCW/NWO World Tour[/li][/ul]
The only Wii games I own are the Zeldas, the Goldeneye remake and various Wii Fit/Sports incarnations.
Seeing as I haven’t played either of the last two GTA games, I suspect I need to look at GTA4 first. I’m not entirely sure my laptop will run it, though (it’s one of these).
Integrated graphics is always a bit iffy with laptops; without doing some research into exactly what AMD Integrated Graphics we’re talking about, it’s going to be hard to say how well most PC games will run.
That said, Divinity: Original Sin seems like the easy recommendation in the Baldur’s Gate genre, if you can run it. I liked the Saints Row games (… really the last three of them) better than GTA 4 or 5, but YMMV. There’s a relative ton out there in the Civ genre right now (or Sci-Fi Civ, or Fantasy Civ, or…); Civ V with all expansions is kind of okay, Civ IV with all expansions (and potentally mods) was really awesome but is a bit more dated, if you haven’t played it. Though with the laptop that might be a good thing. I’ve heard really good things about Shovel Knight, though I haven’t played it; it’s reportedly somewhat Zelda-ish.
My favorite two games on the Wii were Xenosaga (J-RPG) and Fire Emblem (tactical RPG, very long series). That may or may not be helpful, but I like a lot of what you like otherwise so I figured I’d mention them.
What’s Divinity like? The Wiki article isn’t very informative and it seems like there are endless slight variations on the swords and sorcery stuff that can make all the difference (I didn’t like Oblivion at all, FTR.)
It’s third person overhead view, with tactical turn based combat, party-based, quite a bit of dialogue. Very much closer to BG than Oblivion, an attempt to update that sort of game to current standards. They get… most of the way there. Inventory management is clunky; items in general are kind of a pain, but that’s at least partially a cost of just having so much stuff in the world you can interact with. The humor is kind of dorky. The combat is really deep and hard in a good way, and there’s sooooo much to do. I wouldn’t recommend it unreservedly to any gamer, but to someone who was a big BG fan, it’s a pretty good bet.
I don’t have the DLC pack and haven’t really missed it so far, hopefully someone who has it can chime in. It was 20% off in the Steam Summer Sale (when I grabbed it; I wasn’t an early access backer), so I’m sure it’ll be that or more come winter, but yeah: it’s both designed and priced at the “full game” level.
I don’t actually know a ton about the earlier Divinity games, but I do know that the series was more Diablo-style prior to this game. I have heard good things about the Dragon Knight Saga re-release of the second one, but it’s in my (large) own-but-haven’t-played pile.
Dump the terminal and go and buy some cardboard and wood German board games and actually sit down a play socially with your wife and friends over a few beers and snacks.
Oooh! As a giant BG2/Ascension/Tactics fan, this sounds great! As soon as I get done with all the DLC for New Vegas + Project Nevada, I’ll have to take a look.
OP, I was going to recommend DA too, based on what I’ve read, but have you tried STALKER? I too was in the old laptop ghetto and I remember that it worked well enough. At least the first one did. Will the first Mass Effect work, do you all think? Oh, and how about KOTOR 1 or 2?
Edit, I also remember the first Neverwinter Nights working on my old laptop. Hated, hated the interface coming from BG2, as well as the DnD 3 ruleset (f$×# you, Evasion!), but I did like the story once I got used to things.
I picked up the original about three or four months ago. It’s a really good game - if I’d gotten it when it was new, it’d probably rank as one of my all time faves. It’s Diablo-esque combat with BioWare style plot and character interactions. Worth buying on the cheap if you’re looking for a good bargain. I got about 2/3rds of the way through before Original Sin came out, and I switched over.
So far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no plot continuity at all. I don’t think the games are even set in the same world. Unless you need to be especially frugal right now, I’d skip the first one and go straight to the most recent release.
