After spending the last 6 years with a machine that had 256 megs of ram, I just plopped down 1,300 dollars for a custom machine built for longevity and moderate gaming.

Assuming that I can run any game from today and going backwards, which ones are the most highly recommended? I've gotten excellent recommendations from DSF in the past, including Freedom Force, Deus Ex, and Jagged Alliance 2.

My all time favorite genre is first person shooters. I really love military sims like Rainbow Six, America's Army and Soldier of Fortune II. However, I've also enjoyed quality FPS titles such a No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, and Deus Ex.

I also like RPGs. I really enjoyed Planescape: Torment. I haven't tried Baldur's Gate yet. I'm a big fan of retrogaming and really liked Fallout, and even made a relatively simple mod for Fallout 2.

Thanks in advance! I've always gotten such great advice from my fellow gaming enthusiasts here.

I was a big fan of F.E.A.R., though I can't speak for the expansions. Everything just feels good—enough so that I played through the demo alone upwards of twenty times, just varying how aggressively or cautiously I advanced and with what weapons I did so.

(On the topic of "how big a fan", it's the only game that has gotten me to break my otherwise-absolute boycott of games targeted at Windows.)

~J

I...can't help but see a lack of Ghost Recon in your initial post (for a supposed fan of realistic FPS games).

F.E.A.R, Max Payne 2, Rainbow Six : Vegas is a credit to the license, The last couple of Splinter Cells have been pretty damned good. Team Fortress 2 is a really fun wacky FPS- not militarily realistic like you seem to like, but fun nonetheless.

That's about it for now, if I can think of others I'll post them later. How do you feal about RTS games?


Critias, Ghost Recon games are, if I remember correctly, third-person military shooters, not first,

Chris

Half-Life.

Which one? all of them.

Ghost Recon and Splinter Cell aren't too bad.

I like the later Recons because the command interface is greatly improved.

Most of the game I play tend to be at least 5 years old. So I hope you don't mind getting recommendations about game older than 5 years.

*look at his games*

If you liked Jagged Alliance 2 (hope you played the 1st one too), you might like to try Brigade E5 : New Jagged Union. I couldn't try the full game, but the demo was interesting, especially with the time-based system (instead of a turn/action point system) even if it was a bit hard to get into it. But sadly, as most of these russian JA-like games (such as COPS:2170, for example), it has an unpolished feel.

Mount&Blade is a really interesting indie game. It's a mix between a RPG and a medieval FPS/TPS. Think Pirates! or Elite in a medieval (not fantasy, even if fictional) setting. It's done a lot of progress since I bought it, and it has a good community support with some quality mods.

Star Wars Jedi Outcast was good. Jedi Academy's single player campaign was quite bad but it added dual saber and staff saber. There are a few real good community made single player campaigns, though.

SWAT3/4 are excellent tactical shooters. They are a bit like Rainbow 6, but much closer to real world operations: you ask suspect to drop their gun before shooting and you only shoot if the suspect is shooting or clearly threatening to shoot you or an hostage.

I've already recommended Unreal Tournament with the Infiltration mod. If you still didn't try it out, do it now.

Operation Flashpoint was an interesting realistic military shooter. The developers recently released Armed Assault, which also looks quite good.

X-Operations is an excellent japaenese freeware FPS. The graphics are extremely simple, but the gameplay is terrific. There's also a multiplayer version.

Outcast is an excellent action/adventure game. It may have aged a bit, but the atmosphere is excellent.
Omicron/the Nomad Soul is quite the same. There are some rather bad FPS sequences, but other than that the game is really interesting.

Bloodnet is really old (DOS game), but I think you might enjoy it. It's an 80's cyberpunk point&click RPG with some vampires inside. The interface takes a little time to get used to (well, actually the whole game does) but it's worth it. Just get something to write down your progress to avoid getting lost with all the quests.

Dreamweb is also a cyberpunk DOS game. It's not a RPG but an unusual point&click game. The atmosphere is excellent and extremely gritty. Just refrain from taking everything that isn't nailed down, or you won't get very far.

Hope that helps.

OMG . I almost forgot to mention Dystopia, which is another mod for Half-life 2. Team-Fortress style gameplay, cyberpunk feel. extremely well done, even for something in v1.

I love the Orange Box. I mean, I realize Half-Life's reputation is such that even bothering to bring it up almost feels kind of silly-- really, its reputation speaks for itself-- but it really is a great value for your gaming dollar. The best thing about Half-Life 2 is that despite the fact that it's a good looking game, it actually was surprisingly easy to run when it first came out. A $1,000 modern PC with a decent GPU will run that baby flawlessly and put a smile on your face.

NWN1.

No, really.

Go get the latest edition. Platinum or Emerald or whatever the hell it is. The one with the original campaign, Shadows of Urdentide, Hordes of the Underdark and the other expansions (whatever they may be).

Then, go to http://nwvault.ign.com and mod the hell out of it. Do whatever. And play.

Or don't mod.

But play.

Especially play the following usermade mods (after playing at least Hordes of the Underdark): Shadowlords, Dreamcatcher, Demon (in that order); Penultima, Penultima ReRolled, Elegia Eternum (first two in that order, third whenever -- first two are hilarious, third is absolutely wonderful storytelling).

My favs: Battlefield 1942, Knight of the Old Republic (1 and 2), Bioshock, Civ 4, STALKER.

Lets see, Crysis is a great game if your computer can handle on medium or high settings (which you should be able to do.. some settings on high at least). The play isn't always the best, but it looks amazing.

Got to agree with Orange box, great deal with plenty of great games.

You might like Vampires: Mascerade. It is a bit of an old RPG. Make sure you download the unoffical patch. You can find the actual game on Steam for like $15 or something so won't set you back much.

Overlord was fun, kinda like the evil version of that pikmin game for the gamecube.

Lets see... what else...?

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Great graphics, great gameplay, great overall game.

Oh, also have to restate Bioshock. The game looks great, and is fairly chalenging if you don't rely on constant respawning to beat it, at least your first times though.

That is all I can think of off hand. Enjoy your computer and games.

In case you're interested in Real Time Strategy I can only recommend the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War series - consisting of Dawn of War (core game), Winter Assault (add-on) and Dark Crusade (standalone add-on).

The first actually good video game implementation of the WH40k franchise and IMHO the best RTS game since StarCraft (disclaimer: I don't play fantasy- or WWII-themed RTS games so I can't comment on their quality).

Speaking of NWN, is #2 worth getting?

Fortune, now that its been patch and patched and expanded, yes. For a while it was one of those "Why is this so buggy?!" games.

1500 buck today will get you a pretty respectable rig, so Im going to assume it will run Crysis and the other newer high end stuff.

Orange Box: is by FAR and away the best bang for your gaming buck. Now where is my damm cake.

TES: IV Oblivion: Literally DAYS of game play and a modding community that makes it all that much better.

Prey: Older now, but still fantastic.

WH 40k: Dark Crusade: Since its stand alone, if you dont intend on doing much multiplayer its a great buy (you need the other game to play most of it online). I assure you, you will be adopting at least one teams battle cry.
M¥ST1C is right, its odds are the best RTS since Starcraft.
Bioshock: Such a good game.

Max Payne (1 & 2): Old now, but the story line and art style are just too good to pass up. Plus it plays far better on PC then it ever did on the console.

Call of Duty 4: Eh, it depends. I found the single player game FAR too short, and since I have the orange box (and thus TF2) I dont care that much about the multiplayer. But its got some great stuff in it.

JA 2: If for some amazing chance you can find the boxed edition insted of the steam edition, get it. I still play it even nearly 10 years after it was released.

And pretty much everything Black Isle ever did. Long Life the Kings, or something like that.

Ah! Again, thanks.

i haven't played Portal yet, but from what i've seen and heard... wow. and F.E.A.R. is good--fun, and it actually manages to be pretty scary.

Thanks, guys. I'll probably be getting this stuff soon from amazon.com. I am applying for overseas jobs so it makes sense to cram in all the gaming goodness I can while I'm in the US and can easily recieve shipments from amazon.

I'll add that the UFO:AfterX series of games isn't really worth it. and that UFO: Extraterrestrials is worth even less.

Silent storm and the expansion are ok, at least until the power armor shows up.

On NWN2:

The default campaign is ok. But from what I remember, it pushed you toward lawful good or chaotic evil in its offered choices. Also, the game is basically impossible to play on 'full realism settings' where AOE spells damage friendly targets. Your AI team-mates spam AOE spells at their own feet (Qara is especially bad about this, as she is a sorcerer, so you can't control what spells she casts), and even if you could, the camera and ranges involved means that you are almost always fighting at point blank range anyway. I'd assume that they fixes the AI AOE spell problem in one of the patches. Some of the companions are pretty good, and you can leave the worst of them in a hole somewhere. There are some balance problems, in the magic items you can make for yourself are about 3x as good as any of the items you can find.

I liked Dawn of war and it's spin offs, but didn't like is spiritual successor Company of Heroes. In Dawn of war you can put down around 100+ guys with something like 4-0 vehicles in support. In CoH you can put down around 20 guys with a pair of tanks in support, in addition the single player campaign of CoH has some blitheringly stupid missions.

Since I don't think anyone has mentioned it Republic Commando is worth a look, mostly because it's a squad based FPS [b]that actually makes your squad useful for something[b]. Your mates are not just useless noise makers that issue you one suicidal suggestion after another. If you manage them well, you can spend most of the time hiding behind the a crate, letting them do all the work, which gets a big thumbs up from me.

I'll also recommend against hellgate: london. It seems that just before the demon apocalypse, London received a massive shipment of breakable crates containing goodies and barrels that explode when shot.

WinSPMBT and WinSPWW2 are both worth a look, and both of them are available free (paying for them gets you higher resolutions, map and scenario editors, and some other bells as whistles).

As for RPGs, the pickings are slimmer. Jade Empires was pretty good. Oblivion and Morrowwind probably both fit into your timeline. I think Morrowwind was probably the better game of the two. But I still enjoyed Oblivion, though a very large part of that enjoyment was basically spent walking in the woods picking flowers. The storyline in Oblivion is pretty weak. The art direction in Morrowwind is much much better.

Soldiers of Anarchy might be worth a look, I've seen some positive reviews, but I couldn't find a copy of it.

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions! I've bought a bunch of these games and I'm gradually working my way through them.

Swat 3 is magnificient! I haven't installed SWAT 4 yet, but SWAT 3 has a beautifully working command system, lots of realism, and extra documentary information about the SWAT team which appeals strongly to someone like me who likes to study and learn things. I find it challenging and cool that when you confront an armed perp you must first demand his surrender before wasting him. THat's unusual for FPS type games and it actually adds a level of challenge because I have to reign in my FPS twitch reflexes which have been honed towards fast headshots/body shots over many years of gaming.

I'm kind of confused about STALKER. I've got version 1.0. I know there's patches but I'm confused about whether I need to find and apply all of them or if I can just jump to the latest patch. I've stopped playing since I know that patches will make savegames incompatible. From what little I've played so far, though, I have to say that it seems to manage immersion very well, and I'm impressed. Plus, it's always classy to shoot someone with a makarov. In case 9x19 had too much stopping power for you, it's time for DEATH IN 9x18 BITCHES! My character's testicles are the size of the Tunguska explosion by default for wading into firefights with the makarov.

Naturally, I've really been enjoying Max Payne 2, as I've made another post thinking about it.

I started writing about FEAR but the paragraphs got longer and longer and became a discussion of fear and imagination in general, so I'm going to insert some spaces and seperate that out from the rest of my post here.





FEAR, suprisingly, isn't scary to me. I aboslutely love the work that the Monolith dudes have done with NOLF and NOLF2 (I even went back and installed SHOGO and Blood 2) and was thrilled to install their latest product so my expectations may have been unusually high. However, even though FEAR uses all the cinematic techniques of contemporary horror, it scared me less than earlier horror FPS titles. I distinctly remember Clive Barker's Undying was MUCH scarier to me. I believe this is because FEAR has such good graphics that it actually leaves less to my imagination, whereas with Undying the relatively clunky graphics plus the diary that game with the games written from the point of view of the family members before they became perverted actually left quite a lot to my imagination.

Undying was a truly visceral experience. I was suspended on the adrenal edge between terror and fight, a coiled spring of reflex and mental tension. When the enemies appeared I assaulted them with the best of my FPS ability and I have to say there was quite an emotional edge to it; I felt driven to exterminate all the monsters and not just successfully proceed through the level. I didn't die very much in the game but that's probably because I had such an emotional investment in what I was doing that the only time I failed repeatedly was with the very last boss who could only be defeated by doing a specific and kind of strange set of actions. When I encountered the other level bosses I was on this heady cocktail of immersion and determination and I think that I actually defeated each of them on my first try although it wasn't easy to do so. So while the game certainly wasn't easy I was so spooked that I really rose to the challenges with almost a level of desperation. That's how into the experience I got.

However, with FEAR, it doesn't feel that way. I think there are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, you don't really sympathize or identify with your character. There's no character background given at the beginning of the game so you have no idea who you're playing except that he has bullet time, firearms virtuosity, and Matrix kung fu, but besides for that there's nothing. At least in Soldier of Fortune even though your character was a ubermensch there was a lot of detailed backstory (John F. Mullins of Oklahoma, 3 purple hearts, 3 tours in 'Nam, Pheonix Program, consultatant in Columbia re dealing with Escobar) and cutscenes showing your character so you could get into the role of your character. In Undying, Clive Barker actually had the game staff change the main character from an omnipotent badass mage into an Irish ex-military paranormal investigator circa World War I so that you could identify more with the character. There was lots of voice acting from the character, cutscenes, and the game opens with a cinematic from the history of the character so that again you know which role you're playing. But in FEAR your character might as well be played by Keanu Reeves what with the total lack of characterization.

Secondly, FEAR is filled with cliches. Scary little girls? Check. Dead bodies falling down from above? Check. Scary man walking across your field of vision up ahead but just out of reach? Check. Storm troopers? Check. I feel like everything I've seen so far is a cliche. There's nothing really new or compelling in terms of the ideas behind FEAR.

Thirdly, I dunno, on the default difficulty level at least, it doesn't seem as difficult as earlier Monolith titles were on their default difficulty levels. SHOGO and Blood 2 were *hard*! I was dying all the time in NOLF 1. The demands on your reaction time and your accuracy in all these games was really high. In SHOGO a single missed shotgun blast could spell disaster as the enemies ripped into you almost as soon as they could see you. Everyone is talking about how FEAR is so hard because of how the enemies use squad tactics, but to me it just seems like that just gives you more ways in which to screw the enemies over. I deeply and truly respect and admire that the programmers wrote up a nice AI and I immensely enjoy playing with it, but in effect it just adds some predictable behaviors you can use against them. If you hear them shout "he's trying to flank us!" you know just to double back and attack them from the original way you were attacking them. If you've got them bottlenecked you know they're going to try and flush you out with grenades so you just have to back away a little bit and then paste them as they run up the corridor after they've used the grenades. It's like the grenades are your siginal to get set up to paste them. While this is a lot of fun I guess the predictability of it makes it easier to mess with these routines.

I guess that I have learned a few things about immersive horror in video games:

1.) It's the imagination of the user, and not your beautifully rendered graphics, that are really scary. Graphics are secondary to leaving the mind gaps to fill in.

2.) As a corollary of number 1 above, cliches are bad. Cliches are not scary since the imagination will not fill in any novel or uniquely horrifying details.

3.) To nurture a feeling of horror with the player the game must be tough but survivable to create the feeling of a fight for survival. If the game is either too easy or if the deaths are too constant this feeling is lost.

4.) The player must sympathize or identify with the character. This means that for the purposes of horror the character probably shouldn't be an ubermensch or arcane master, although IMO the character shouldn't be weaker than the player is in real life, which is how I felt Silent Hill dropped the ball; the hero of Undying was the perfect balance between a non-superhuman level of combat ability and still being menaced or threatened by the events of the game. This also means that cutscenes with good voice acting and detailed backstory is good. Zero backstory besides for Matrix badassery is just not mentally engaging for the purpose of a horror game.

From the Realistic FPS department:

Battlefield 2 with Point of Existence or Project Reality mod.

I've only played PoE (and haven't played it much) so I can't really provide an endorsement, but they seemed worth mentioning as this is a pretty small genre (and shrinking, as the consolization of PC gaming continues)

the Warhammer 40.000 Dawn of War Series is in my opinion one of the best games in the last 5 years *g*
other than that Crysis is pretty sweet . . gives the whole nice holidays-feeling ^^