I've been in a cave for the past ~7 years.

[hydrobr]

Originally posted by: kuba
whoa must be nice having all this time to yourself lolllll

I wouldn't know about "having all this time" to myself. I work full-time and I haven't really had a free weekend all to myself in while. So, between anime and a few TV shows that I like to watch I only get 5-15 hours of gaming time per week.

Originally posted by: kuba
and you're gonna buy them? $$$???
geeezus lol

Well, here I have two options. 1) Scour ebay and bargain bins for the older games and play them while the newer games get old and so the cycle continues paying about $10/game. Or I can "buy" them at 40-100KB/s, in which case the only problem is the online games.

I'm convinced that if I start playing online games I'll never ever stop and never ever do anything else and have little control over how long I play at a time (since other people are involved). I also don't want to be in a position where I have to choose between people in real life and game people - either I piss off real people because I ditched them for a computer game or I resent them because I wasted mission time and lost out on gold or whatever. Anyway... I like being able to choose how long I play for and saving and getting back to it later. I no longer have days/hours at a time of nothing to do but sit on my ass and play computer games. Tragic, I know. Because of this I am avoiding things like WoW.

 

[hooflung]

Originally posted by: ockky
buy yourself a joystick and get freespace 1 and 2 while you're at it

I have to install my freespace 2 compalation CD set again ... you just reminded me... never did beat that hard game!

 

[jcovercash]

Outta that list and the ones I have played heres the ones i like......

Grim Fandango --- THIS IS A MUST PLAY! I would LOVE to have a copy of this again....
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne --REg. Warcarft is a given with this.
Black & White - Ok different style of play worth playing though
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter - Gonna be GREAT!
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - Great game, So is its counter part. and hopfully the 3rd will be...
Halo: Combat Evolved/2 - Given...
Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne - AWSOME GAME! #1 is good too.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - AHH!
Far Cry - Beautiful eye candy!
Half-Life 2/CS - Currentyly Addicted Badly to CS:S
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay -- So Beautiful, SO FUN! ?Best game I have played in a long time as far as story line/graphics, all around GREAT PACKAGE!!!
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords - Good but not as good as the original
Grand Theft Auto: Series --- This is a Given, great games.
Fable: The Lost Chapters ----GREAT game also.


Have fun playing that long list of yours, should last you the next 7 years of your life

 

[Fingolfin269]

Grim Fandango is one of the best games ever created. Anyone who doesn't agree with this statement probably never played the game or even knows what it's about. If you were a Monkey Island kid like me then Grim is for you.

 

[klah]

Just go here: http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simpleratings.asp

and select 'PC' and '200 results'.

 

[Elcs]

If you are into RTSes here are some essentials:

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War + Winter Assault expansion pack.

IMO, it does with 5 races what Starcraft did with 3.... amazingly well balanced although Chaos may see it a little different as Winter Assault changed them heavily. Good graphics and neat touches.

Homeworld 1, Homeworld Cataclysm and Homeworld 2.

Exceptional games. Fully 3D space-based RTS combat with compelling storylines which will take you from 1 side of the universe to the other whilst taking your heart through a rollercoaster ride. Good graphics for being a couple of years old, bargain-bin stuff now which is a bonus

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: ockky
buy yourself a joystick and get freespace 1 and 2 while you're at it

does freespace 2 have any online play, and do people still play it?

because it looks like the space combat sim has gone the way of the dodo.

 

[Stretchman]

Quake 3 was pretty fun, even in single player. Have you tried that one?

 

[hydrobr]

Originally posted by: klah
Just go here: http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/simpleratings.asp

and select 'PC' and '200 results'.

Oh wow! That's an awesome resource! Thanks! And thanks to everyone else for there suggestions. I'll make various revisions, but it looks like one definite thing I'm missing is Deus Ex.

 

[dummy2001]

I've been in a similar but far less severe situation. I call it trailing edge gaming, buy hardware on the downslope and used games, play top reviewed games at max settings for a fraction of the price of doing it when they are the current buzz. The only thing you miss out on is online play.

One thing you should keep in mind is that as you try to catch up new "classics" are going to continue to come out and tempt you, and once you jump ahead its hard to go back. My advice is , for the most part, to skip most originals and start with the sequels or similar games closer to today (assuming they have good reviews). So skip Baldur's Gate I and II and start with Neverwinter. Skip Medal of Honor and start with Call of Duty. Skip all of the Half Life I games. In my personal opinion all of these were severely overhyped and just aren't enough fun to warrant the time sink. BG2 for example, was lots of fun to start but by mid game I was superpowerful, the limited environments were starting to feel really cramped, it was boring. MOH is really cartoonish in its gameplay and generally incoherent in the mission design. Generally I would say that FPS's age like fresh seafood, they aren't classic movies, you aren't missing any great story telling arc or anything by skipping most older shooters.

For reference, my current queue roughly goes:
Undying (starting now)
Deus ex
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
No One Lives Forever 2 (maybe)
Hitman 2
Max Payne 2
Splinter Cell
Call of Duty
Farcry

Plus Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord, Medieval Total War, and their sequels. Strategy games age a lot better, like cheese (I don't like wine). I'm sure Rome: Total War will be better, for example, but Shogun: Total War remains fun to play and doesn't seem that dated, while with Half-Life it got tedious about 1/3 through and I was drudging along telling myself "it's a classic, it's a classic". YMMV.

 

[ITPaladin]

Originally posted by: VIAN


Thief II: The Metal Age Windows XP doesn't support a codec to make this game functional, so unless you want to buy it.

Kinda old thread but was searching for something and had to comment on this...

Obviously you know nothing about the command switch to make it run on NT-bases systems.

http://www.ttlg.com/

More specifically:

http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75031#install