Fair enough, I guess, but how can you have an “old school run around shoot em up” with “a great story and environment” (as specified in the OP)? DOOM had a lot of things going for it, but its story wasn’t one of them.
I can deal with what you describe in Metro 2033, sounds Fallout-ish.
I can totally dig that, my rig should run anything currently (without being super expensive) and at that price, it’s like getting a bottle of beer that sucks or isn’t for me, oh well.
$50-$60 for such a game is a lot bigger deal.
Thanks a lot for the tips, everyone.
Sounds like I need to do Serious Sam and this Metro 2033 for now.
/tiphat
I would be happy with a shooter with any atmosphere where I am not on rails.
As I said, I enjoyed Crysis and I am a long time Half Life fan, both have a good mix of atmo and “shooterishness”.
Just want something that lasts more than a few hours and isn’t just a tacked on single player campaign.
Thanks for all the ideas, I’ll drop back in and let you know how it goes.
Is there a way to play original doom and quake on a current PC, without being a master at jiggerypokery?
Keep your eye on digital distribution sales thread then. Pretty much all PC game sales have gone digital - almost no one buys anything retail - and they’ve figured out that without distribution costs, you’re better off selling at all sorts of price points to maximize your profits. So new games still cost $50, but they very quickly become available in cheap sales.
I would generally recommend not even buying anything above $20 (or even $10, really) unless it’s a game you’ve been waiting for and really really know you want. There’s an entire backlog of great games that you haven’t played that will all sell for $5 or less at some point. Instead of buying any games at $50-60, buy 10-20 of them at $2.50 or $5. There are daily and weekly sales - and if you can hold out until Christmas, a giant sale that will blow your face off.
Yeah, I’ve been doing the Steam thing lately for most purchases, unless it comes with some sort of collector items I want, or if it is a game I want right on launch day.
Thanks again for the tips, I will have to take a look at that thread.
I’m gonna have to check out that THQ bundle for $50.00. Shadow of Chernobyl, Red Faction games alone seem like they’d be worth that price.
Yeah, that bundle is absolutely loaded with stuff. Company of Heroes is my favorite RTS game ever, it’s got metro, Homefront is kind of generic COD style but decent single player, STALKER is a very cool game, Titan Quest is an action RPG that you could get sucked into - if you’re willing to branch out and try stuff other than shooters that pack could give you hundreds of hours of gameplay easily.
Oh I play it all, about the only thing I have never enjoyed much is RTS. I have tried and tried, but it just doesn’t do it for me.
Cool games, looks like a bunch of the Dawn of War games in there, too.
Definitely gonna take a good hard look at that bundle.
When you purchase something like that, you can download the games as you play them, right? Don’t have to all be loaded on the system at once?
Never run into this yet, but does Steam have unlimited downloads, such that if you buy a game, you can download it anytime onto any system, or is that restricted somehow?
Yeah, you can install as many or as few games as you’d like at once. One thing to watch out for is that it pauses download of one game if you’re playing another (so if it’s a multiplayer game, it doesn’t flood your connection and slow your performance) - but you can get around this by alt tabbing out and manually resuming the download after you launch one game.
There are no restrictions on the number of times you can download something on steam, and you can have it running on multiple computers (just not simultaneously).
Thanks again, you’ve all been a really helpful bunch.
I totally forgot about it, but Borderlands is a great game. The sequel is coming out some time soonish, but the first one is very good.
Borderlands sounds like it would be up your alley definitely. It’s more sandboxy, RPG-like than the old school shooters, but to me it all felt like an evolution of the old Unreal Gold-Box sort of games. It’s not Quake 3: Arena, no deathmatches or anything, it’s campaign and co-op vs AI based (though the co-op is very, very much optional). You’re rarely starved for ammo past the beginning, while some of the levels are a bit corridory, they’re open enough that you can move around pretty well. The console interface takes a bit to get used to, but it’s only a problem in the menus and they’re really not THAT bad.
If you want something more like Arena, I think there was a browser based game that took significant cues from Open Arena recently, not sure if it had bots or not though, or even if it still exists.
Closes today I believe. Yeah, it is really sweet.
Borderlands is awful, just awful.
For the OP, I’d suggest Modern Warfare 3 if you’re looking for a storyline or quick arcade style multiplayer.
Battlefield 3 if you have a large good tv and want a slower more involved multiplayer experience.
On the cheaper side Fallout 3 is certainly worth a look, though I prefer it on PC.
Why must it be released on PC too?
There’s no reason to get MW3. It’s going to be the exact same thing as the last 4 call of duty games, only worse because it’s going to be a cooperation of 3 dev studios that all don’t know what they’re doing. If you want the call of duty experience, grab cod4 - still the best in the series, still way better than anything that came after it, and only a fraction of the price.
Especially if you compare it to getting it over BF3 - that’s crazy.
I assume he’d have a difficult time playing a game that wasn’t made for pc on his pc.
I’m surprised so few others have played them, so I’ll give the first-hand: the Serious Sam games have the closest to the old Doom style gameplay, in that you’re plunked into an area and your main focus is making the health and ammo pickups stretch across the boatload of enemies you’re up against. The series’ signature is its set pieces where you find yourself in a huge plaza/valley/courtyard holding off immense waves of enemies - the climax of the first game is literally about 20 minutes of straight combat with a kill count over 1000. There’s also an amusing meta-game with the loot pickups, which are so frequently booby-trapped that you start to become suspicious of anything powerful, obvious, or in an odd-looking area. Since the traps always follow the general play themes of the level, it leads you to trying to guess what it might be.
It’s not entirely Doomlike, it’s more like a first person shmup game, but it’s certainly closer to a pure action FPS (shoot, dodge, repeat) than anything else in the last 5 years.
Yeah, the “also” in “Needs to be on the PC, also” means “there’s this requirement in addition to the others,” not “it needs to be on the PC as well as console.”
And while I like Fallout 3 and New Vegas well enough, they’re not run-and-gun shooters. They combine the best elements of FPS and RPG, but that means there’s as much or more talking and problem-solving as there is combat. They’re not necessarily the best games for when you want to jump in and start shooting shit.
Right. Pesky commas.
In that case BF3 by a long shot.
Sorry about that, it is a bit confusing the way I worded it.
I ended up grabbing the THQ bundle. After spanking Namir (finally, whew) I loaded Metro 2033 up and played for a bit.
What a great game, so far. I also checked out a few of the others in that bundle that I wouldn’t have normally checked out.
Specifically, The Warhammer and Military RTS games that are included.
Definitely gonna check out the Serious Sam games, thanks for the info Mekhazzio.
Thanks again for all the tips. Lots of gaming to do now. 
Metro 2033 may be one of the most intense games I have played since the original Resident Evil games.
Also really enjoying Stalker.
Thanks again.
Painkiller is right up your alley if you liked Doom.
Serious Sam is great mindless run and gun with large levels and lots of enemies.
Hard Reset and Rage are supposed to be good if somewhat linear old-school shooters. Haven’t played them but both have plenty of fans.
Metro 2033 is definitely intense, I’m not hugely enthusiastic about it but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far. I wish the guns were were effective and the ammo more plentiful.