So, it’s been about six or seven years since I did any serious PC gaming. I’ve now ordered a gaming-capable laptop (the Alienware m11x discussed in an IMHO thread), and I’m very much looking forward to its delivery.
In the meantime - what should I plan to play on this? I’d prefer recommendations for games without an Xbox 360 port. I generally like games with well-written stories and strong single-player campaigns. Everything Bioware makes is gold, of course, so far as I’m concerned. I also loved the Bioshock games and Dead Space. I wasn’t that crazy about Fallout 3, though.
Well how not-crazy were you about Fallout? Fallout New Vegas does everything Fallout does but better…Obviously if you hated one though you won’t fall in love with a better version of it.
Metro 2033 is good on story and decent gameplay if you can get over a slower pace in some sections
Do you like RTS’s? If so Starcraft 2 is the obvious choice the story is a bit silly but the gameplay is solid. And Shogun Total War 2 will be out soon (though there won’t be much single player story in Shogun)
The Witcher 2 also will be out soon and if it’s like the first one it will have a good story and interesting world to explore.
The m11x doesn’t have a chance of running Metro 2033. Metro 2033 defeats full-powered desktops. Low-voltage CPUs and 48 shader GPUs just doesn’t stand a chance. Probably games older than 2008 on med-high or 2010 on low are plausible.
Hmm… playable story-based non-port… World in Conflict.
No you’re right to hate on it. FONV is FO3 in a desert, with fewer interesting characters, no humor, fewer missions, almost no music, lame central plot and did I mention you’re in a desert.
What game developer thought walking around in a desert would be fun?
Picking between factions might have been cool if it really mattered at all in the story arc. But at least you get to put bullets together…great innovation. :rolleyes:
As if GTA would be better if you had to do a mission filing your taxes.
In terms of pure PC exclusives that meet your criteria I’d recommend:
Star Craft II - Great single player!
Stalker - Call of Prypiat
Drakensan river of time
Neverwinter Nights 2
Star Wars: TOR - by all accounts it’s single player in an MMO.
Witcher 2
Nevewinter
In case you like strategy:
Dungeons
Civ V
Napoleon Total War
Shogun 2 Total War
Dawn of War 2 Chaos rising
Sins of a solar empire
Settlers 7
DOTA 2
In case you like FPS:
Natural Selection
Red Orchestra 2
ARMA 2
Atmospheric/Terror
Amnesia Dark Descent
Cryostasis
Some of those games are coming out in a month or two.
Not sure why you’d want to ignore multi-plats, at the very least they’ll perform better than the console. And that’s what you can expect from even the poorest of ports.
So ignoring that I’d add to that list
Mass Effect 1 and 2
Dragon Age 1 and 2
Deus Ex
Mafia II
I’ve tried a few servers, but I’ve spent most of my time playing single player (building and exploring)
I heard from here (SDMB) that the reddit server was a good one… so I went searching. I can’t seem to find a ‘reddit server’. My search-fu isn’t great.
Having said that, I am still willing to play in a server if I do find a good one.
To answer Kinthalis, the main reason I prefer to avoid console game recommendations is simply that I already have a pretty good idea what the good console games are. I’m more interested in learning about games or series that would have eluded me on the xbox.
Do me a favor and shoot me a PM if you find a nice one. There are listings for them all over the Internets. I’d much rather get in a server with Dopers/decent folk, though.
That has to be the single strangest complaint about NV I’ve ever heard. Every Fallout game is in a wasteland. It’s not like FO3 had lush landscape or anything.
Fewer interesting characters? Boone is great, the factions are interesting, and people have more motivation beyond save the world/screw the world. No humor? One of the first things I found was Indiana Jones in a refrigerator you may not have found the humor funny but if you think there’s no humor you weren’t looking. Fewer missions? Honestly I couldn’t say but considering I’m surrounded by missions all the time I don’t think I’m hurting for them. No music? What are you talking about? I don’t really remember any of the music from Fallout 3 aside from 3Dog’s Endless loop which is basically what you get in NV.
The desert comment really makes me wonder what game you played when you booted up Fallout 3.
At least picking a faction effected the ending of the game and the choices you made had a consequence unlike Fallout 3 which boiled down to ‘You were an evil jerk’/‘you were a self sacrificing god’. The bullet thing can pretty much be ignored if it bothers you so. I never really used it and I wasn’t hurting for ammo.
Now I can understand if you disliked Fallout 3 that NV wouldn’t do it for you but sheesh it’s a better game unless you’re remembering the original after the DLC or something (or if you liked Fallout 3 but were kinda sick of it by the time NV came out).
Fallout 3 was desert, then city. I found the city to be a heck of a lot more interesting than the desert.
FONV is desert, and more desert.
I don’t dislike FONV. I’m just not loving it as much as I loved FO3, but FO3 was a ‘new’ experience. It also has a decent amount of DLC.
I might put FONV on hold until it has four or five sets of DLC.
Edit: I know almost nothing about the real Vegas, but when I found out about FONV I was expecting Vegas itself to be FONV’s equivalent of FO3’s Washington. It turned out to be some baron , boring streets, and a handful of casinos. I was disappointed.
I realise that this is the opposite of your request for single player games with a strong story, but I have that preference too and still love the Left 4 Dead games. From my point of view they have many of the things I like about single player games and lots of things I like about multiplayer games. Admittedly the game has a 360 version, but… everyone I know who’s tried both says the PC gives a very superior experience.
I’ll also second Amnesia: The Dark Descent as a great game, but unless you consider yourself a pretty hardcore horror game fan, I’d recommend against it. I’ve seen seasoned gamers flat out refuse to keep playing it because they were too freaked out, and they were playing the game with friends in a well lit room and they hadn’t even encountered any enemies yet. Seriously, you will lose sleep.
And since someone already brought up Minecraft, and in order to tie it in to the thread we’ve got going on over in the games room, I’ll put in a plug for Dwarf Fortress. Single player (mostly), story driven (sort of, but in an awesome way), no XBox port (hell yes), and totally awesome. The lack of a number pad on the m11x might mean you need to tweak the controls slightly but it’s not that bad.
I’m not so sure about that. Certainly the game scales up very far indeed, but given that they managed to port it to the 360, you can probably set the graphics down to Crap and it’ll run on an m11x pretty okay.
Congrats on the purchase by the way. Very nifty machine you’ve got yourself there.
Almost all third party devs are going multi-plat. The only devs staying on a single platform are ones that get paid millions by Sony or MS, or indie devs on the PC with the exception of Blizzard and Valve, still making PC exclusives.
Torchlight and (coming in a few months) Torchlight 2 if you like Diablo-style games. If you’d like a medieval setting there are Mount & Blade: Warband and the upcoming Sims Medieval.
