I lost my Medieval: Total War CD and now I have nothing to play. Can someone recommend me some hot games.
A few guidelines:
- No MMORPGs ( unless the game is super awesome and deserves a recommendation)
- No XBOX games (I don’t have XBOX)
I lost my Medieval: Total War CD and now I have nothing to play. Can someone recommend me some hot games.
A few guidelines:
If you want a game/games that consume a lot of time then here is a list…
Sim City 4000 (or 3000 if your comp is not so good)
Black & White.
Empire Earth (not so new, but very goo)
Freelancer (It’s Microsoft, I know, but it’s actually quite a lot of fun until you’ve done all the story missions)
You have money and time though! Go get an Xbox and Halo and Knights of the Old Republic :D.
If you don’t like at least one of those two games then you don’t like video games.
I’ve played Halo and loved it, and I’ve heard good things about Knights, but is Xbox worth buying for any other games?
Have you ever played “Buy Eve Dinner at 21 and a Pearl Necklace?” It’s one of the hottest games out there, and lots of fun.
Hell yeah, if you also get Xbox Live. Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow/Crimson Skies are two very awesome online games. Then in just a matter of months, Halo 2 will be released, and that game should have both an outstanding 1-player mode and multiplayer mode.
Knights of the Old Republic plays well on the PC (I’ve not seen the Xbox version).
Thrones and Patriots is a nice addition to the original RTS game Rise of Nations. Puts a premium and resource gathering and management with a great variety of troops and weaponry to employ. The original game is required to install the expansion.
I’ve had a great time with the FPS Far Cry in the last few weeks. The limited, linear style of most FPS games has been a pet peeve of mine for a while. This one features full outdoor island maps with little more guidance than “you are at point A, get to the objective at point B.” You can use patrol boats, land vehicles, hand gliders or stealth it on foot through the jungle.
Yeah, if you like FPS’s (they’re almost the only genre of games I play), then Far Cry is a must-have.
The ending is really stupid and weak, but hey, the game started life as a tech demo for the CRYengine!
Tell me more about this Rise of Nations and Far Cry
You need a fairly decent computer to play Far Cry - recomend a GeForce4 or higher.
It’s considered the first of the ‘Next Generation’ FPS games, like Half Life 2 and Doom 3, so graphically it’s a major step beyond anything before it. There are several things that Far Cry does very well.
The AI. The mercenaries are smart and generally behave intelligently. This does not mean they can tell exactly where you are - if they hear a gunshot, they’ll go investigate the general area where they heard it. If they hear a second, they’ll go pretty much right to where that shot came from, but you should be gone by then. They vary considerably in intelligence - you can lure some guys into the bushes by throwing a stone and making noise, but the smarter enemies will go for help first. If they know where you are, they WILL eventually figure out how to get to you, even if they have to walk a half mile out of the way and take an elevator. If there is an officer around, he will order the other mercenaries to work together - instead of them all poking around randomly where they suspect you to be, he’ll send some to flank you, and have them advance in stages covering each other. I’ve played a lot of FPS games with advanced AI (i.e. SWAT 3) and I’m still very impressed with the AI in Far Cry. There are non-human enemies as well, and they behave differently from the mercenaries - they are not as cautious usually, and generally have far more acute senses.
The level design. The levels are HUGE and open-ended, yet you rarely feel at a loss as to where to go next. There are almost always multiple paths to any objective. The exterior areas are beautiful and realistic. There is a lot of trees and bushes to hide in, and unlike many FPS games it’s practical to hide and sneak around the enemies - they cannot magically see you if you are well hidden. There are a lot of places built into the game where you can interact with the environment using the game physics in interesting ways - for instance, pushing barrels down hills at mercenaries, jumping your jeep off of a cliff and jumping out of it just before it crashes into a helicopter, etc. The game gives you the feeling of being in a big-budget action movie.
The graphics. I already mentioned this, but they are truly amazing. On my mediocre gaming rig (2.4Ghz, 512MB RAM, GeForce4 Ti4400) I can play it with the settings from Medium to High and get very playable game rates, but even at the lowest settings the game looks nice. There are a lot of special lighting effects in the game I haven’t seen in anything else - for instance, very bright things (like sand in bright sun) have a glare effect to them - if you look down at the sand all you’ll see is a white glare for a moment before your ‘eyes adjust’ and you can see the graininess. Steam and water has a refraction effect, there’s even enemies that are mostly invisible that you can only see by the refraction effect, similar to the alien in ‘Predator’. If you look at a flashbang going off, you will see an afterimage of whatever you were looking at at the time that lasts for several seconds. The screenshots don’t do it justice.
The sense of humor. The game has a kind of wry self-aware feel to it. The first time I played I started to sneak up on a hut which had a mercenary in it, and as I got closer I heard bongo music like in the action scenes of certain 70s and 80s movies, which I thought was kinda neat. Then, when I got in the hut, I realized the music was coming from the mercenaries radio. ALL the mercenaries radios play that music. You’ll frequently get to overhear the mercenaries conversations as you sneak around, and they are often very funny. The mercenaries frequently use corny taunts during combat, and in one overheard conversation I heard one mercenary berating another for thinking ‘I’ll fix your little red wagon’ is a good one. Another time I heard a mercenary telling another about the Atkins Diet. Another time I overheard a mercenary trying to teach a ‘slow’ guy to go get help when he hears a strange sound instead of investigating on his own. Frequently they talk about you, and the attitude they have towards you changes as the game progresses.
I would strongly recomend Far Cry to any fan of FPS games.
I also liked ‘Rise of Nations’, which is odd for me as I usually don’t like RTS games. It has a very well-thought out and streamlined interface, includes a lot of elements that you usually only see in turn-based strategy games (attrition, borders, diplomacy, etc.), and does away with a lot of the micromanagement that a lot of people hate. You generally choose one of many different factions, each with their own unique strengths and military units - these aren’t minor differences, your playing strategy will be much different playing the Mongols than when you are playing as the British. You start in ancient times, and over the course of an hour or so (longer if you adjust it that way) you advance to modern times. The game is very customizable, so you can adjust the tech advance rate, amount of wealth, etc. Random maps, tons of replay value.
Hearts of Iron. Until Hearts of Iron 2 comes out, it is quite possibly my favorite game of all time. And, it is generally ~30 bucks, as opposed to ~50 for some others.
Far Cry was pretty amazing, but until the mods come out, I wouldn’t recommend buying it. And the system requirements are pretty high. I don’t plan on upgrading until Doom3 comes out, so I couldn’t play it on higher than ‘Medium’ reliably. (AMD 3000, 1gb ram, GeF4 4600)
And there is always IL2 Sturmovik, if you are a flight sim-er. Incredible game.
So much has been written about Far Cry, FWIW I think the reviews at Gamespot and ActionTrip are solid, there are a number of reader comments at both sites. Though the designers tried to have some fun with the storyline, it is laughably bad and ultimately a bit annoying. I’m with SPOOFE on the throwaway ending…where DID that friggin’ antidote come from? I’m running it fine at 4x anti-aliasing with an Athlon XP 2600+, 1 GB PC3200 RAM and an ATI 9800 PRO, all running at stock speed.
The guys over at IGN.com have what I consider a good overview of Thrones and Patriots. The review of the original Rise of Nations at ActionTrip is worth a look.
pearl necklace?
what’s that wooshing sound?
Ewwwww!
Have you got a dirty mind! I meant as in Audrey Hepburn, not Linda Lovelace!
Sure, if you’ll play “Buy Governor Quinn Plane Tickets”.
Has Paradox got it all fixed up yet? I ask because I got it when it first came out and there were a fair number of issues. This didn’t surprise me since EU and EU2 had been the same, but I told myself I wouldn’t play it again until it was ‘done’.
Right now, I’m playing…
Civ 3-It never gets old. The only problem is it takes entire days to play.
Natural Selection-A Half-Life mod (why do I uninstall Half-Life? Every now and then I do it, only to find something else I want to play) that’s basically Aliens vs. Predator, with some cool semi-RPG elements. Like if you’re an alien, you can evolve your character from your basic anklebiter and make him into, say, a giant, Marine-eating beast. Only downside is the HL engine is seriously showing its age. but the game is pretty cool.
Thief III-This is my new favorite game and I only just beat the first mission. I love me some Thief III.
Dark Age of Camelot-But you said no MMOs.
Diablo 2-Another in the “never gets old” category. Morelin and I are doing a Barbarian/Sorceress team and fighting ee-vil.
City of Heroes-But you said no MMOs.
1.06 has been released. Granted, I play using the CORE mod, but I have not had any issues since 1.05. 1.06 is also stable for me. Better late than never…
X2: The Threat Is going to have a MAJOR patch released sometime soon. It’s a great game mired down by a few problems hopefully this patch will fulfill it’s potential.
I second Star Wars:Knights of the Old Republic
I just played back through Warcraft the Frozen Throne that tower defense map and the prison break map (downloadable from Blizzard) is just good old fashioned frantic fun.
My caveat to that is: Though I loved the game on the Xbox (replayed it as soon as I finished it the first time), my friends who have played it on the PC give it less-than-stellar reviews. Maybe the controls get goofy when porting from console to PC?