Getting a brand-new, semi-state-of-the-art desktop shortly, and I’m damned excited to be getting back into some hardcore gaming. I haven’t been able to afford an upgrade for about five years, so I’m way behind on the gaming scene.
I bought a few issues of what used to be a couple of my favorite magazines – Computer Gaming World and PC Gamer – to reacquaint myself a little, and these are what I’m excited about:
Knights of the Old Republic
Half-Life 2
Total War: Rome
City of Heroes
Sims 2
Any Dopers play and enjoy these? I’m a little wary of City of Heroes, because even though it sounds awesome, I’ve never played one of these newfangled MMORPGs before. Hell, this’ll be the first time I have a faster connection than dial-up.
Any other recommendations? FPS, strategy, other? I used to be pretty knowledgeable about games and PCs (I’ve built several) but as I said I’ve been out of the loop.
Phenomenal, though I played the Xbox, not PC version. Among the best RPGs ever.
Graphically amazing, and outstanding gameplay, though you may have Steam problems (I did not, but I hear of many Steam problems), and the ending is a bit of a WTF!!??! moment.
Let me recommend Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth. It’s a psuedo-Warcraftish game, but among the best of that genre that I ever played. Little tweaks (your surviving units carry on from battle to battle, and gain experience and upgrades), along with amazing graphics and sound make this one a winner. Real system hog, though.
I like it. I’d like it even if I wasn’t making money on it.
Which reminds me, I need to play more of it. It’s an awful lot of fun.
I’ve heard good things about the other ones, just not played 'em.
Any Dopers play and enjoy these? I’m a little wary of City of Heroes, because even though it sounds awesome, I’ve never played one of these newfangled MMORPGs before. Hell, this’ll be the first time I have a faster connection than dial-up.
Any other recommendations? FPS, strategy, other? I used to be pretty knowledgeable about games and PCs (I’ve built several) but as I said I’ve been out of the loop.
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Far Cry. I’m a bit of a shill for it. It definitely has significant problems, like Bad Anime-level dialogue and voice-acting, and an absolutely gag-worthy end that makes HL2’s conclusion seem like “Rosebud is his sled” in comparison. However, the game play is - if I may be black for a second - DY-NO-MI-I-I-ITE!!! Excellent, gorgeous environments, 1.2 kilometer draw distance, absolutely GARGANTUAN game levels, rather open-ended and free…
Not bad for a game that started as a tech demo. It should be about $30 by now.
KOTOR is brilliant. I can’t wait for the next one; it sucks that they release the X-box version first.
HL2 is great too. I love the way the game engine handles physics. CSS is a blast too.
Total War, in all its incarnations, is a large part of what makes me a PC Gamer instead of a console jockey. Just try finding something with that depth outside of the PC platform. Rome is fun; I believe there’s a patch due this month that should improve it quite a bit. Some little things like squalor can ruin the game in the current version, unfortunately. But Medieval is still the best one, IMO. Lots of mods out for it; it never gets old.
I played COH for awhile, but MMORPGS get old after a while. Might check it out again when city of villians comes out.
Nothing to say about the Sims games. Never really liked any of them. But that’s just me.
There are lots of WWII shooters out, and more on the way, but Call of Duty is the best one so far. Great fun.
Far Cry was interesting for awhile, but I got frustrating with the way saves are handled. Great graphics, though.
I bought Half-Life 2 just so I could play Counter-Strike: Source. In fact, I haven’t played HL2 at all yet!
I haven’t played Doom3 yet, but I have the demo. It looks very nice indeed. I’ve only just started playing so can’t tell you about the gameplay yet. And sadly, it seems the demo doesn’t have God mode. Bugger! :smack:
I enjoy the Command and Conquer series. I’m currently working my way through Command and Conquer: Generals, but I’m getting a little bored with the entire concept. The game isn’t quite as challenging for me as it used to be.
Any recommendations on FPS apart from CS: S and Doom3?
Max.
Wah, wah, turn the lights back on, I have a cutting-edge gaming rig and actually want to see the game you craptasic level designers oh ya triggering a teleport behind you every damned time you have an enemy or medpac in front of you isn’t suprising or shocking just annoying, wah!
Though Doom3 does have its purpose: Play it for a few hours, then launch Far Cry. It’s like stepping off a plane in the Bahamas, I tell you.
A second for City of Heroes. (Hey, LPNinja, long time no see. How’s GMing? Got any good stories?) If you get on, choose Virtue as your server, Galaxy City as your starting site, and swing by Gemini Park. Say La Pucelle sent you.
Thanks for the replies, everybody. The last computer I got (the one I’m typing on now) was a laptop, and therefore not exactly the best gaming computer. The last desktop I had I built in 1997 or 1998. I did borrow a copy of Freedom Force a few years ago, but it tnded to stutter on my machine, so rather than face more heartbreak I just eschewed games altogether (except for the occasional Civ II).
I’m very psyched about KOTOR. Jedi Knight and the sequel are some of my all-time favorites but I’ve heard that LucasArts has dropped the ball quite a bit in the last few years WRT Star Wars games. I’m glad this doesn’t seem to be the case with KOTOR.
I’m getting a 3.4Ghz Dell Dimension 7400 with 512MB of RAM and an ATI Radeon. Anyone think I’ll have trouble with any of these games? Keep in mind that even if I have to turn off some of the detail, it’ll still be light years ahead of what I remember.
