# What’s new in PC games since ‘03? (or recommend some…) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 22, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934 "2009-02-22T10:03:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alienhand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Alienhand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alienhand)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/1 "2009-02-22T10:03:42Z")
So the short story is I switched over almost completely to console games since about ’03 and have ignored the goings on in the PC game market. I’ve got about three months to kill before I go back to work and it seems like a good time to get back into it. I’ve been poking around review sites and mostly I come up with PC versions of games I’ve already played the console versions of or the four I already have (Civ IV, Simcity 4, Caesar IV and Rome: Total war). What are some new titles or reinventions of old titles you would recommend to someone who has been living under a rock for the past six years? (ones that are substantially different from their console brothers would be good too…if that still happens) ---
**Author:** ![Danger\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Danger\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Danger_Man)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/2 "2009-02-22T16:12:13Z")
Get Civ 4 with Beyond the Sword. It´s much better than the console version. ---
**Author:** ![Marjorie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5ac83/32.png) [@Marjorie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marjorie)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/3 "2009-02-22T21:07:04Z")
Maybe Galactic Civ II or Sins of a Solar Empire? Both are PC only and available from [Stardock](http://www.stardock.com/). ---
**Author:** ![Alienhand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Alienhand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alienhand)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/4 "2009-02-22T23:21:27Z")
> [@Marjorie](#): > > Maybe Galactic Civ II or Sins of a Solar Empire? Both are PC only and available from [Stardock](http://www.stardock.com/). Definitely picking up Sins of a Solar Empire, thanks. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/5 "2009-02-23T00:55:17Z")
In a couple of weeks Empire: Total War will be released. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/6 "2009-02-23T01:47:43Z")
World of Warcraft. But be warned: you might get addicted and not want to quit after three months. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/7 "2009-02-23T02:00:33Z")
What genre? Any? ---
**Author:** ![Alienhand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Alienhand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alienhand)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/8 "2009-02-23T02:35:59Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > What genre? Any? Anything you’d like to suggest…I play just about every type. > [@winterhawk11](#): > > World of Warcraft. But be warned: you might get addicted and not want to quit after three months. 🙂 Holy crap Batman, people are still active in WoW? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/9 "2009-02-23T02:42:04Z")
Is The Orange Box PC-only? I don’t buy many games, but that’s the one I’ve gotten the most fun out of in a really long time. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Vox\_Imperatoris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Vox\_Imperatoris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vox_Imperatoris)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/10 "2009-02-23T02:45:30Z")
> [@Alienhand](#): > > Definitely picking up Sins of a Solar Empire, thanks. Just to chime in, although both games are good, GalCiv II is absolutely amazing, and Sins can get a bit dull. GalCiv II also has the best AI of any strategy game ever made, in my experience. Valete, Vox Imperatoris ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/11 "2009-02-23T02:57:09Z")
[Dwarf Fortress](http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/) is a freeware game with an ASCII graphics – Wait-don’t-leave-it’s-awesome-I-promise – engine and several great user-generated tilesets that make it look as good as anything on the N64 ever did. It’s an amazing hybrid of a game, combining the basics of SimCity, Oregon Trail, the Sims, and Civilization; there is no “winning”, there is only maintaining an increasingly-bizarre kingdom of drunken surly dwarves with very particular demands. “Why on earth,” you’re asking yourself, “would I want to play a game with N64 graphics on my PC?” Let me outline a quick example of the depth of play and I think you’ll know whether it’s for you. I dug out a bedroom for one of my dwarves in granite because I knew he liked granite. I had one of my engravers carve murals into the walls and floors, and then I placed a nice bed, a cabinet, and a chest into the room. Making the bed alone required the services of a woodcutter, a lumber-hauling peasant, and a carpenter. The other two pieces of furniture were slightly easier to make. Anyway, so I finish engraving the room, and a few (game) days later I notice that my dwarf is unhappy. He’s been drinking good booze (brewed from plants which I grew, into barrels made in my carpenter’s shop…) and enjoying his job as a mason, but he’s very upset nonetheless. I can’t find anything obvious in his likes and dislikes, but then on a hunch, I examine the engravings in his room. One of them is an engraving of him fighting a bunch of cave spiders. I check his likes and dislikes again – ack, cave spiders? He hates 'em! I move him into an adjacent room of similar quality, and hire a different engraver (who is not infatuated with cave spiders) to do the artwork. I double-check that the murals are cave-spider-free. His mood improves measurably, and a few days later the items created at his stoneworking shop show a marked improvement in quality and value. In short: you grow food, you brew booze, you mine stones and ores, you train and equip an army, you trade with caravans, and you begin to earn a reputation abroad for the decadence of your fortress. You attract migrants (and their pets), nobles, and invading armies as your reputation grows; feed the migrants (and keep their kittens from overpopulating the fortress), satisfy the nobles’ capricious demands, and slaughter wave after wave of goblins & kobolds. The silliness that happens along the way will have you laughing, wincing, and tearing out your hair. (ETA: I recommend getting the latest Mike Mayday graphics pack and spending an hour or two at the Dwarf Fortress Wiki, the user-maintained user manual - jumping right in is sure to confuse and frustrate you.) ---
**Author:** ![Silophant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Silophant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silophant)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/12 "2009-02-23T02:58:28Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Is The Orange Box PC-only? I don’t buy many games, but that’s the one I’ve gotten the most fun out of in a really long time. > > Daniel You can get it for 360 and PS3 as well, but they play a lot better on the PC, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/13 "2009-02-23T03:16:54Z")
The easy way is to just look at [Metacritic’s list of PC games released after 2003, sorted by aggregate review score](http://apps.metacritic.com/search/process?ty=3&ts=&tfs=game_all&sb=5&game_platform=PC&release_date_s=01%2F01%2F2003&release_date_e=&x=30&y=9&metascore_s=&metascore_e=). From that list, some personal favorites (\*ed games are PC-only): First-person shooters: [ul] [li]Orange Box[/li][li]Bioshock[/li][li]Battlefield 2\*[/li][li]Chronicles of Riddick[/li][li]Left 4 Dead[/li][li]Mass Effect[/li][li]F.E.A.R\*[/li][li]America’s Army\*[/li][li]SWAT 4\*[/li][li]Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy\*[/li][li]Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas series (especially 2)[/li][/ul] RPGs: [ul] [li]Mass Effect[/li][li]Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion[/li][li]Knights of the Old Republic series\*[/li][li]Neverwinter Nights series\*[/li][li]The Witcher (never played but supposedly decent)\*[/li][/ul] Strategy: [ul] [li]GalCiv 2 and Sins (mentioned already)_[/li][li]Rise of Nations[/li][li]Company of Heroes_[/li][li]Command & Conquer 3 series[/li][li]Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth series[/li][li]Empires: Dawn of the Modern World\*[/li][/ul] Puzzle: [ul] [li]World of Goo\*[/li][/ul] MMORPGs: [ul] [li]The Lord of the Rings Online\*[/li][li]City of Heroes/Villains\*[/li][/ul] Adventure (old-school!): [ul] [li]Sam & Max\*[/li][li]Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit in some parts of the world)[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![kevlaw](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kevlaw/32/2281_2.png) [@kevlaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kevlaw)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/14 "2009-02-24T02:51:43Z")
+1 for Oblivion. Assassin’s Creed ---
**Author:** ![Alienhand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Alienhand](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alienhand)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/15 "2009-02-24T09:16:35Z")
Thanks guys, especially **Reply** , that was very helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/16 "2009-02-24T14:52:55Z")
> [@Alienhand](#): > > Definitely picking up Sins of a Solar Empire, thanks. If you like Civ and Sins sounds appealing, you’ll probably like [Sword of the Stars](http://www.swordofthestars.com) better. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-new-in-pc-games-since-03-or-recommend-some/486934/17 "2009-02-24T17:20:34Z")
> [@Alienhand](#): > > Thanks guys, especially **Reply** , that was very helpful. Heh, sure. Nobody believed me, but I KNEW all that gaming would pay off someday 😃