Help me find a computer game to play

Oh, also, Mandate of Heaven continues the storyline from Heroes of Might and Magic 2, which was also a great series of games (4 was released a few years back), but is turn-based strategy and might not be as up your alley. Playing HoMM2 isn’t required to get involved in MoM6, though.

Kingdom of Loathing. I’ve been playing for a few months…it’s a pretty fun idle-time game. Lots of humor, too.

I also just started playing Puzzle Pirates, which is kind of a multiplayer online RPG that has puzzles (think Tetris or Bejeweled) as its meat. I’m the dread pirate Poopsmithers (also the name of my KoL character), if anyone wants to challenge me to a swordfight.

Regarding the inability of the Emachine to run older games: do you have Windows XP? That may be the culprit.

Fallout 1 and 2… Fallout Tactics is only fun in the Continuous Turn-Based (basically real-time with regenerating action points) mode, and with no pause takes good reactions or a lot of replaying.

Torment is excellent too, though the combat system gets boring after an hour or two.

Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3, expansions inclusive - probably the most addictive stuff out there aside from MMORPGs.

If you don’t mind outdated graphics, pick up Betrayal at Krondor. One of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard (other than in the HoMM and Final Fantasy series), some painfully difficult fights, excellent storyline. Probably on par with the Fallouts, and arguably better if you take its release date into account.

If you really don’t mind ancient graphics, download Wasteland, Fallout’s grand-daddy.

Some old games worth looking into:

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands — Similar 3/4 top-down interface to that used by Icewind Dale and Baldur’s gate, though limited by 1994 technology. In my opinion, Athas (the game’s setting) is much cooler than Faerûn (BG and IWD’s setting).

Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager — This is the sequel to Shattered Lands. It features somewhat improved graphics and a higher level cap than Shattered Lands had (up from level 9 in a given class to, I think, 14). The plot is a pretty basic “find the gee-whiz wand” deal, but it’s presented in an interesting manner. Unfortunately, there’s a glitch in some copies of the game that makes it impossible to advance past a certain point and complete the game (an event fails to trigger, if I recall correctly). Not as good as Shattered Lands, in my opinion, but worth checking out if you like Shattered Lands.

Master of Orion — A turn based space strategy game bordering on ancient at this point (released in 1992), but still incredibly fun. The graphics are quite dated, but, in my opinion, good enough not to be a distraction. I really can’t say enough good things about this game. Like all of the games mentioned so far, it’s turn based, so reflexes and coordination aren’t an issue. I really can’t say enough good things about this game; if you like turn based strategy at all, give this game a shot. You can even download it for free from The Underdogs.

Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares — A substantially updated sequel to Master of Orion. MoO2 has much better graphics and sound, additional playable races (as well as the option to create your own race), more victory conditions, much larger maps, and, perhaps best of all, multiplayer. MoO2 gets much more micromanagement-intensive towards the end of the game, but usually by that point in the game you can afford to be a little sloppy anyway.

Note: there is a Master of Orion 3, but it’s complete dreck and isn’t in any way worthy of being a Master of Orion game. Its craptacularity especially pissed me off because I’d spent almost two years following its development, hanging on the developers’ every word (subnote: when the lead designer gets canned and replaced by the art director, something’s up.). I bought the thing the day it hit the shelves and exchanged it two days later for a new copy of Master of Orion 2 (my old one was covered with scratches from years of heavy play) and Icewind Dale 2, a sequel that didn’t disappoint on every screen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game’s retail price hit $10 so quickly; I think a new copy of Master of Orion 2 might actually cost more than Master of Orion 3 at this point. Well, I guess that’s what happens when you fire the guy who conceived the game and leave the work of patching critical flaws to diehard fans who refuse to admit that the time they spent watching the development process was a waste.
I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but this is a good start. Of course, if you want snazzy graphics, these won’t really appeal to you.

Wow, some gamers came out during the wee hours of the morning. Go figure :smiley:

I’m running Windows 2K, but the computer has never been happy with it. It came with Windows ME loaded onto it, and my computer guy SO had to cram Windows 2K onto the system. It’s been better able to handle the graphics card since then, but the computer still rejects a lot of games.

If KotOR requires better system specs than Neverwinter Nights, I wouldn’t be able to play it anyway. sigh Time for an upgrade, I guess. It seems like World of Warcraft is a little more resource hungry than I can accomodate, as well.

Is Wasteland the game that has such catchy fight descriptions as (spoiler boxed because it’s graphic) The mutant rat hit Bob the Robot for 32 points of damage, spraying him into a fine red mist. I used to watch my brother play that game a lot. Perhaps I can find it online.

I’ll try out the Might and Magic and Masters of Orion families as recommended here. The Dark Sun games sound good, too. Are they based on the Dungeons and Dragons Dark Sun system?

The generous cluelessnoob is sending me Torment, so I can try that out soon. Maybe I can track down a copy of Fallout and see if it’s only demo problems. Perhaps if the graphics settings are adjustable, the computer can handle it.

To me, some of the best RPGs are those from way back, and they tend to be less bells and whistles and more plot and character development . So I recommend

Master of Magic (like civilization, but fantasy)

Darklands (the single best RPG I’ve ever played, and the most historically accurate, i think)

A bunch of these can be found at the Home of the Underdogs…you might want to google it. Depending on the game, it might be legal to download it. They also have a lot of demos and freeware you can try out.

-stonebow, who is even now playing x-com, privateer, and darklands on his xp machine

Baldur’s Gate 2 actually has a few dedicated “modder” communities out there, producing new party-joinable NPCs, finishing up dropped quests, adding new quests, and so forth. Some folks even came up with a way to retrofit BG1 with the BG2 interface, and add the character classes new to BG2 into BG1. One of the communities worth checking out is Pocket Plane Group.

I’ve also heard major kudos for Planescape: Torment. Even though I own it, though, other games always seem to interfere in my time. I’m sure I’ll get around to it. :slight_smile:

I bought Morrowind but find myself completely unable to play for more than 15 minutes at a time, as I get seriously nauseated. Something about the interface, perhaps, but certain video games make me “motion sick” and unfortunately this has turned out to be one of them.

That is Wasteland, yes. I’m not sure if it would work on today’s computers though. I think you can find it at the-underdogs.org if you want to try.

Yup, same setting (and rules) as the pencil & paper Dark Sun. Shattered Lands seems to take place before the events of the newer of the two Second Editon box sets, and Wake of the Ravager takes place shortly after the death of the Sorcerer-King Kalak.

What was really sad about this was that the game basics weren’t bad. Had they taken more time to balance it, do the ethos system right (and their excuse for dropping it was the most senseless thing ever said by man… go ahead, ask me what they said), speed it up to a playable setting, and actually put in the graphics to make it look nice (because it may be an empire sim, but it gets really dull to look at a star map for hours on end).

Actually, I quite liked M&M 8 as well, although I agree that 9 was a big letdown. Part of the big letdown is that it wasn’t another build of 6 - they redid it from scratch, and (IMO) poorly, at that. It was a failure in interface, game balance, and storyline.

Anyway, start with M&M 6. If you like it, play 7. If you like 7, try 8. Don’t waste time on 9 even if you liked the others.

If you don’t mind the older games, MM4 and 5 were good games for their time, and aren’t a bad nostalgia flashback, although the interface isn’t up to current competition. The neat thing is that the two games combine into one, and you can slip back and forth.

By the way, we have Arcanum, and it worked fine on our 400MHz e-machine when we got it. I vote for the OS change as the culprit. (Hmm… maybe I’ll go play Arcanum!)

I’m always looking for good (non-action) RPG’s also.

I don’t recall exactly why the cut ethos; concern that it made the game “too complex,” no?

Yeah, the graphics were pretty bad, considering the release date. Apparently they were committed to making a game playable on a 266MHz Pentium processor despite the fact that the game was released in 2002 or 2003. Combat graphics were particularly awful. Even though there were like 16 playable races with 12 available ship sizes each (192 combinations, if each species gets one ship model per ship size), they only created 48 ship models.

I think what killed the game for me was how abstract everything was and how distant the player was made from actual game events. For example, in Master of Orion 2, if I research plasma cannons, that means that I get to add plasma cannons to the ships I designed myself. In Master of Orion 3, I tell planet A to enact a research policy, eventually am rewarded with “beam tech 13” or somesuch, then tell planet B to enact a military buildup policy, which eventually yields some boring identical-looking ships with nondescript specs. Maybe I’m just no good at stepping back far enough to see the big picture, but it never felt like any of my actions had discernable consequences. I can understand wanting to give the players tools to reduce late-game micromanagement, but they ended up keeping the player from engaging in anything but the most top-level management.

Too complex (its a frickin’ ethical/religious system your developing! Compexity is the point!) but they also made the inane excuse that it “took too long”. They said it took 100 or more turns to see anything out of it. Given how long a single game took, that was nothing.

And I was really irritated by the diplomacy model. Whenever a new alien species I’d never met before happened to locate on of my colonies, they immeditaely openbed fire and blasted them. Eventually we came into real contact and they decalred war and laid watse to one of mine. I retaliate with total war and aim to wipe their species from the galaxy for the millions they kill, only to see my diplomatic standing crash. How come they never lose status for wiping my colonies?

Research was relatively useless except for a few key techs; production was everything.

Actually conquering planets was boring, pointless, and difficult. The defense so outgunned the offense that the only way to take a well-defended planet was with the most massive armadas. In the mid-game stage I was assembling fleets well over 300 and still couldn’t guarrantee victory. I finally gave up when I realized the AI had decided I was evil incarnate and had to be destroyed, no matter how bad their position become and no matter the fact that it had started the atrocity war. I could win against any two enemies, but was basically even with all three. It eventualy degraded into a stalemate because neither of us could take planets.

Galactic Civilizations was more fun, came out first, and looked nicer. So what if it didn’t have some nifty 3-d starmap?

It doesn’t have a fancy interface, but Nethack is an acclaimed, nearly infinitely replayable single-player fantasy game with an active user community - and it’s all free.

Might And Magic(another vote)

Darklands. It’s a little quirky, and buggy at times, but you can spend days just making new characters and exploring the lifepath system.

The Ultima Series, all 8 of them(1-6, plus 7 and 7 part two… there were no others!)

Arcanum, NWN, KOTOR… all have been mentioned.

If you like Arcanum, you’ll probably agree that Planescape: Torment is the best RPG ever made.

Wasteland probably isn’t at Underdogs, but can be found floating around the net and on plenty of magazine CDs. I probably have several legal copies. It has a problem on fast computers though, I think anything 486 or above gives it fits and lockups. I don’t know if there’s a fan-patch for that or not, I think I’ve heard rumors of such.

Nobody’s mentioned X-Com yet?

Privateer is back, bay-bee!

Privateer was good, but I realized something wierd. The AI could shoot you no matter what. Enemy fire (including lasers and dumbfire mssiles) homes in you.

I think I’ve managed to mention X-Com in every single video game post I’ve ever made. :slight_smile:

I don’t consider it an RPG, more of a strategy, but it remains one of the best games ever made and probably the best in its genre…though it incorporates several genres into gameplay.

I also LOVE the lifepath system in Darklands…sure, you can have a starting party with fully trained and armored knights…but they’ll all be 60 year old when you start, and their strength will low enough that they can barely carry their armor. :slight_smile:

Also, the prayer/alchemy/ politic stuff was great.