I was pawing through my daughter’s pile of games and found a bunch that I’ve never played that looked a little promising. Keep in mind that in the last couple years I haven’t played much outside of Bioshock and Fallout. The list:
HALO 3
Mass Effect
Fable 3
Viva Pinata
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Lost Odyssey
GTA IV
and for the Wii, which we seldom play,
No More Heroes I and II.
I personally didn’t care for Mass Effect but I know I’m in a minority with that experience. Most people rave about it.
I don’t know your system but Sacred 2 supposedly has a lot of issues running on Win 7. If you’re still using XP, you should be okay.
I really liked Mass Effect (played it through 5 or 6 times).
I thought GTA IV was okay once I got into it.
I liked Halo 3 well enough, but the story didn’t really grab me.
(I played them all single player on the Xbox and I value story more than challenging gameplay, for what it’s worth.)
If you liked Halo 1 and 2, you’ll like Halo 3.
GTA IV, on the other hand, was not nearly as good as San Andreas.
That’s all I’ve played from your list.
Serious Mass Effect fangirl here.
I’ve heard good things about No More Heroes but haven’t tried it.
Fable III is worth your time. Lots of replay value.
With the possible exception of Sacred 2 (which to my understanding was not well received overall) I don’t think there’s anything on that list that hasn’t been found to be worthwhile by people who like the genre the game is in. Obviously people who don’t like FPS games won’t care for Halo, and people who dislike JRPGs probably won’t enjoy Lost Odyssey.
Without more understanding of your tastes, it’s going to be a little bit tough to tell you what’s worth YOUR time, however.
Really, they’re all pretty damned good games. I don’t know anything about Sacred 2 or No More Heroes, although people here have raved about No More Heroes.
Sacred 2 was the buggiest game I ever tried to play and that was on XP at the time. That was a shame because Sacred 1 was a good game.
Daughter has Sacred 2 for Xbox 360.
Instead of GTA IV you should play Saints Row II.
If you like Tarantino movies and/or 80s anime; you’ll probably like No More Heroes. It’s a fun game, not too cerebral and very cheesy. Tongue-in-cheek, but engagingly so.
Mass Effect is great if you like space operas. It’s chock full of little things that will probably annoy you (clunky controls and camera at times, some odd battles, unpredictable dialogue choices, awkward inventory system), but the POINT is the story and the universe, and they are done very, very well.
Viva Pinata is great if you like old Maxis “Sim” games or “Tycoon” games and can look past the cartoony atmosphere (or like supercute cartoon animals).
GTA IV is a visually amazing open world, but the gameplay isn’t top-notch. Worth screwing around with a little; not sure it’s worth “playing” for more than a few missions.
No More Heroes is good, but it has serious flaws between the main story missions. The over world isn’t the best thing conceived. It’s kind of like an easier God Hand without the over world (though Bitter mode is by no means easy).
I have to dissent about Mass Effect. What it does well, it does really well. The story, atmosphere, characters, they’re all top notch. If you want to 100% it (and you might if you plan on playing the trilogy) you’ll run into the problem Bioware had with Dragon Age 2 where they had about three base layouts that they recycled a billion times, with only mildly varying enemy types. The Mako controls poorly when you get to the planets. The combat is a joke after you level up enough to get a few talent points on your characters, assuming you have the right squad members of Shepard class.
Mass Effect was a great game for its time, but I really think it failed at aging gracefully in any department except story presentation. I’d recommend it 100% if you really like Sci-Fi or Space Opera, or if you want to play Mass Effect 2 I’d heavily recommend playing the first. But aside from that I’d be hesitant to recommend it.
Fable 3 and Lost Odyssey are both a waste of time. Haven’t played Sacred 2. The others are all top tier games, among the best you’ll play.
Lost Odyssey is a good game, provided you like JRPGs and don’t mind a rather hammy English translation. It’s basically what filled the void between FF XII and XIII-2 in my book, when Square was busy shooting themselves in the foot with their MMO flops.
I think none of the games above are worth playing when there are newer ones out there.
I guess maybe GTA and Halo are worth it by those games don’t appeal to me…
I’d say play Mass Effect 1, don’t play Mass Effect 2 or 3.
And I’d recommend against GTA 4. It’s a good New York simulator but not a very good game, IMO.
Man, I drew so much flak for saying this in the original GTA IV thread…
But yah. Lost Odyssey is a good game. Not great, but good. If you like JRPG’s, that is. IF not, skip it.
Halo 3 is okay, I guess. For FPS I’d much prefer something like World at War, but I guess I’m old skool.
Mass Effect 1 is only ‘bad’ in the way that people are used to all the things that Citizen Kane did and think it’s played out. For the record I prefer the combat from ME1 to 2 or 3.
I would go with Mass Effect and Viva Pinata for sure.
The others depend a lot more on whether you’re really in to that specific genre.
Eh… Pinata is a total genre game itself. If you don’t like farming animals and feeding them stuff to breed them (even if they are colorful, candy animals) there’s really not much game to the game.