I don’t think I was ever more content than when I was either debugging code or working my way through a good one-player PC game such as quake, quake II, Fade-to-black, etc…
Either I have grown out of them or there are no good ones currently available. If anyone can suggest one I am open to that.
I have a colleague/friend who keeps pestering me to rack up time on the MMRPG game ‘EVE’, and I always oblige, but I really can’t muster any real enthusiasm for it and I am basically humouring the guy.
I not-so-long-ago installed a megadrive emulator and ‘flashback’ one of my all-time favourite games, but I was disappointed with the resolution and would prefer it if I could play the PC version (better res, and all the right keyb controls)
I absolutely adore god games. Another one of my all-time faves is ‘populous the beginning’ I believe that was also a creation of Will Right (correct me if I am wrong. It could have been him or Peter Molyneux or someone else)
In fact I was thinking to myself yesterday, how long will it be before someone creates the ‘sim everything’ game.
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to Spore’s release, as well.
Until then, I don’t have any suggestions for Lobsang, but I thought I’d piggy-back on his thread to solicit some suggestions for some good recent platform games. They tend to be single-player so maybe he’ll be interested, as well.
Unfortunately, they’re a niche market nowadays, but some of my all-time favourite gaming experiences have been platformers. Old favourites range from the Commander Keen series, Abe’s Oddworld, a creepy “Aliens”-inspired industrial game who’s name I can’t remember (Paranoia? Rabid?) and, more recently, Prince of Perisa: The Sands of Time (but not it’s successors).
Successors, no. But predecessors, yes. In the spirit of naming old faves that I have started with this thread I must name the original prince of persia game. If I could replay this game on my laptop I would be made-up and happy as larry.
The Populous series is a Molyneux creation. And it’s Will Wright, by the way – the “sim” guy.
If you like turn-based strategy, the Civilization series has some good recent entries. If you are up for buckling the occasional swash, try out Sid Meier’s Pirates – it’s wonderful fun.
Oh, and I must put in a plug for my favorite coffee-break space conquest game – Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space. There’s a demo, and if you spend the $25 for the full version, it’s easily moddable to add more fun stuff.
You might be thinking of Abuse , known for first introducing the keyboard-mouse control scheme for side-scrollers (keyboard = movement, mouse = aiming).
When you mentioned Abe’s Oddworld I immediately thought of Wik and the Fable of Souls because the visual style is similar. It was one of the IGF winners a few years back, and it’s also got an interesting control scheme. Definitely worth checking out.
Thats it!! Many thanks. Very cool that it’s public domain, now. I’m off to download and re-live some memories (and maybe finish the damn thing this time).
Definitely looks worth checking out. You’re right about the art design similarities.
The best single-player PC games I’ve played recently have been Lego Star Wars 2 and yet another obsession-time with Civ 4 when the expansion came out. I’m very much looking forward to NWN2 - the ridiculous lack of non-MMO-pure-RPGs for the PC over the past several years has not made me happy. I love to play casters, hate how spells work in D&D, and I STILL played NWN for a ridiculously long time just playing through different campaigns with different characters.
Really, most of my single-player stuff lately has been on my DS. MMO games are fun, but I definitely would like a few more good single-player games to come out.
As for getting back in touch with the classics, there’s the old Marathon games (predecessors to Halo), which you can now download and play for free (The games were made open source right before Microsoft bought Bungee, and there is a program called Aleph One which lets you play the games on modern computers). Also get a copy of ScummVM and play some of the old LucasArts adventure games (from back in the days where the LucasArts writers were a bunch of sick, brilliant bastards).
And of course, take a look around for “The Ur-Quan Masters”, the open-source Windows port of the 3DO version of Star Control II, complete with spoken dialogue and a couple of cinematic cutscenes absent in the PC version. Various mods available, including remixes of all the classic SC2 songs that you can plug into the game or just enjoy on your PC (I especially love the industrial rock remix of the Thraddash theme).
As for more recent games, Star Trek: Bridge Commander is a fun game, though with a plot not much better then your typical TNG/DS9 filler episode, and some of the combat will bug you if you’ve watched enough DS9 to “know” how a Klingon Bird of Prey is supposed to perform in combat. It’s apparantly easily modifiable, with mods ranging from music packs to graphics upgrades to new ships, bridges, and character models. Not sure how much more moddy the game has gotten since I played it.
Half Life and Half Life 2 are both rather good SP games, with lots of fun mods for them (though many of the original Half Life mods stopped working once Steam got involved). Half Life 2 can be lots of fun just for the physics engine (nothing like being able to fire saw blades with the Gravity Gun to make you look forward to zombie attacks)
If you haven’t, try Fallout and Fallout 2. They’re old, and not exactly state-of-the-art, but the plots, gameplay and layouts are absolutely fantastic, and they have some of the funniest dialogue of any game ever created.