I’m making my pilgrimage to Electronics Boutique and might buy a game. What should I get?
I have Half Life (with all the mods), Max Payne, Fifa 2002, Medal of Honor. I was thinking Diablo 2 and expansion. I want a game with multiplayer capabilities that takes skill and has it’s fun too. I have a hoarde of friends who currently play D2 so can anyone sum it up for me in non-I-cast-magic-missle-level-5-with-class-restriction-bonus-times-5-because-my-amazon-is-in-the-order-of-the-jungle-ferret language?
The skill is primarily figuring out how to organize your unbalanced skill progression in order to maximize your mouseclicking effect.
Thirdly, despite point two, it is a good buy–multiplayer is quite fun if it’s with a known group of friends, and is even passable over a modem when it’s connecting to a direct IP number (battle.net is hopeless without broadband, in my experience). It just doesn’t age well past a certain number of hours put in–but that number of hours will probably more than make the purchase price worthwhile.
If you have friends that play it, any RTS should do you as well. Starcraft is still, by far, my favorite. Thing is, though, I got into it a little too late, so if I go on Battle.net, I get smoked like good weed in a frat house.
If you have friends who are around your own skill level (even the computer’s pseudo multi-player is good practice), it’s a great game, however. There have been SDMB Starcraft games, I believe, but I never participated. Seeing as how this is the SDMB, I probably would have died embarrassingly rapid death.
Oh, btw, I agree with Drastic’s summary of D2. I got over my addiction after I passed it one summer (played some multi-player with a couple friends, but nothing too hardcore) and moved on to Baldur’s Gate II.
BG2 is one of my favorite games ever (D2, btw, is not). It’s more strategic by far, has a significantly better story (not that it’s hard to beat D2 in that department) and is plain fun. It also has multi-player capability and if nobody in your group has played it, it could be a very good investment.
It also has 120+ hours of gameplay (if you do a decent chunk of the side quests) and a 40+ hour expansion pack, so it’s not as if you’re going to finish it in a week, or anything.
There’s a game coming out this week called “Dungeon Siege”, which is basically an action/adventure 3rd person RPG. While concept is similar to Diablo 2, the graphics are better, the interface is better (not a click fest), and there is going to be a great editor for free download which will allow you to make your own world, items, spells, etc. and play with up to 7 other friends online.
www.planetdungeonsiege.com has some good info. Not to mention your party can get a pack mule to carry all your goodies in
At the beginning of May comes out Morrowind, which will probably be the greatest RPG of the year. (www.elderscrolls.com)
