Last three PC games you've tried?

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz

Originally posted by: Bateluer
...

What I'm looking for: A good simulation or strategy type game that will let me lead a colonization attempt to uninhabitable worlds of varying types, the ability to terraform the world would be a major plus. Don't think it actually exists, but it would make it a wicked cool game.

You might want to check out Alpha Centauri, it's the closest I've found. It was made between Civs II and III. With some of the higher tech, you can use your 'workers' to terraform the land - raise mountains, lower into oceans, etc. Personal favorite method is to use the Planet Buster missiles (what the 'nukes' should have been in the Civ series), which literally reduces a block of squares (cities!) into a water filled crater.

This game also pioneered the social engineering (Civ IV civics) gameplay aspect. I was vexed that Civ III lacked that feature.

Other notable improvements include a custom unit builder.

Played it, not quite what I am looking for. SMAC is an awesome game, but I'm looking for somethinig a bit more in depth.

In my game, you would arrive on an almost lifeless planet, say Mars type. Very thin atmosphere, no plantlife, almost all water frozen at the polar caps. You'd have various methods at your disposal to begin the terraforming process, but the first step would be to raise the planet's surface temp enough to melt the ice caps. You could do that by making factories that produce greenhouse gases, drilling a hold in the ice caps and dropping a nuke in, directing a comet (composed of the proper gases) into the planet or near enough to the planet to release its gases into the atmosphere. Each would method would have its upsides and downsides.

After that you'd have to introduce some sort of plantlife to begin using the CO2 in the air to make oxygen, possibly lichen or algae. And so on. Odds are a lot of the terraforming process would be underway before your colonists even landed on the planet. And if this was a planet like Venus or a moon like Titan, the process would be completely different.

You see where I'm going with this? It'd be a massive undertaking, drawing heavily from our current scientific knowledge about terraforming a planet. See Red Colony.com Not a game, but very interesting to read.

 

[mundane]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
...

Played it, not quite what I am looking for. SMAC is an awesome game, but I'm looking for somethinig a bit more in depth.

In my game, you would arrive on an almost lifeless planet, say Mars type. Very thin atmosphere, no plantlife, almost all water frozen at the polar caps. You'd have various methods at your disposal to begin the terraforming process, but the first step would be to raise the planet's surface temp enough to melt the ice caps. You could do that by making factories that produce greenhouse gases, drilling a hold in the ice caps and dropping a nuke in, directing a comet (composed of the proper gases) into the planet or near enough to the planet to release its gases into the atmosphere. Each would method would have its upsides and downsides.

After that you'd have to introduce some sort of plantlife to begin using the CO2 in the air to make oxygen, possibly lichen or algae. And so on. Odds are a lot of the terraforming process would be underway before your colonists even landed on the planet. And if this was a planet like Venus or a moon like Titan, the process would be completely different.

You see where I'm going with this? It'd be a massive undertaking, drawing heavily from our current scientific knowledge about terraforming a planet. See Red Colony.com Not a game, but very interesting to read.

I see. I've never seen terraforming in a game on quite that scale. SMAC had micro, changing individual tiles and features. Stars! (or some similair game, I can't recall) had macro, where you'd manufacture large planet wide facilities to gradually change the environment and make it more hopsitable to your race.

If anyone would tackle this, it would have to be Will Wright, or an open source community effort. It sounds like a fun premise; possibly having to return some sponsor mega-corporation's investements within X centuries.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: diegoalcatraz
...

Played it, not quite what I am looking for. SMAC is an awesome game, but I'm looking for somethinig a bit more in depth.

In my game, you would arrive on an almost lifeless planet, say Mars type. Very thin atmosphere, no plantlife, almost all water frozen at the polar caps. You'd have various methods at your disposal to begin the terraforming process, but the first step would be to raise the planet's surface temp enough to melt the ice caps. You could do that by making factories that produce greenhouse gases, drilling a hold in the ice caps and dropping a nuke in, directing a comet (composed of the proper gases) into the planet or near enough to the planet to release its gases into the atmosphere. Each would method would have its upsides and downsides.

After that you'd have to introduce some sort of plantlife to begin using the CO2 in the air to make oxygen, possibly lichen or algae. And so on. Odds are a lot of the terraforming process would be underway before your colonists even landed on the planet. And if this was a planet like Venus or a moon like Titan, the process would be completely different.

You see where I'm going with this? It'd be a massive undertaking, drawing heavily from our current scientific knowledge about terraforming a planet. See Red Colony.com Not a game, but very interesting to read.

I see. I've never seen terraforming in a game on quite that scale. SMAC had micro, changing individual tiles and features. Stars! (or some similair game, I can't recall) had macro, where you'd manufacture large planet wide facilities to gradually change the environment and make it more hopsitable to your race.

If anyone would tackle this, it would have to be Will Wright, or an open source community effort. It sounds like a fun premise; possibly having to return some sponsor mega-corporation's investements within X centuries.

I could see Will Wright tackling this after they finish with Spore. I should copyright the idea now.

Edit - Looks like Wright tried with SimEarth

Still, a major graphical and scientific revamp would be great.

 

[Waylay00]

Oblivion - Two Words: The Best

Battlefield 2 - Not a big fan of vanilla gameplay, but the mods are what keep me into it

Rome Total War - Same with BF2, the mods really allow this game to shine

 

[microAmp]

Red Orchestra - WWII FPS. Germany vs. Russia, team play is required.
TES Oblivion
Hearts of Iron 2: Doomsday - WWII RTS game. Be any country during that time, set your own path or follow the timeline. Or just go with WWIII (World vs Russia)

 

[xboxist]

bump to see if there are people that missed this thread -- and thanks for the ideas

 

[apoppin]

1) Oblivion . . . i bought it the day it came out and have over 600 hours into it . . . beyond amazing and my game of this Millenium
:thumbsup:

2) HL2 EP1 . . . more of the 'same' . . . boring, didn't hold my attention - at all . . . "worth" the $7.99 i paid for it, i guess.


3) FEAR Great particle effects and awesome enemy AI . . . that's all

 

[Ika]

1) Counter-Strike: Source - excellent game; sadly, I am addicted to it
2) Half-Life 2: good game, but got boring after a while, not to mention motion-sickness-inducing...
3) Far-Cry- didn't patch the game, so the graphics were screwed up on my 6800; also, i hated how the vehicle controls worked, so I just stopped playing.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: apoppin
1) Oblivion . . . i bought it the day it came out and have over 600 hours into it . . . beyond amazing and my game of this Millenium
:thumbsup:

2) HL2 EP1 . . . more of the 'same' . . . boring, didn't hold my attention - at all . . . "worth" the $7.99 i paid for it, i guess.


3) FEAR Great particle effects and awesome enemy AI . . . that's all

600 hours and you stil;l aren't bored yet? ....

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Oblivion - The RPG to end all RPG's. Never have seen such a vast world.
Condemned - Underrated and creepy
BF2 - Quick fix for fun.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: apoppin
1) Oblivion . . . i bought it the day it came out and have over 600 hours into it . . . beyond amazing and my game of this Millenium
:thumbsup:

2) HL2 EP1 . . . more of the 'same' . . . boring, didn't hold my attention - at all . . . "worth" the $7.99 i paid for it, i guess.


3) FEAR Great particle effects and awesome enemy AI . . . that's all

600 hours and you stil;l aren't bored yet? ....

actually it's 610 . . . and 'no'

otoh, just ONE hour of HL2 Ep bored me to tears
:Q

still crying
[or i would be if i paid $20 for it]

. . . and the $3 Oblivion Plugin - MehrunesRazor has more content than all of Ep1.
[the best plugin, so far]

 

[Modular]

Area 51: I think this is an older FPS, but I got it new for < 9.00 so it was worth the try. It started off a little slowly, but the action is picking up. It' s a decent time waster that keeps you involved. I would say that it is everything that Doom3 should have been in an FPS. Area 51 is semi-scary, but the environments are playable (unlike Doom3) and the story is ok. The voice acting is terribad (David Duchovney sould like he's had too much Nyquil).
Grade: B

FarCry: I play MP for this game almost nightly. The Single player campaign is pretty addicting as well. I have to say that the mods for this game (Particulary the Matto series of mods for single player and the Obsidian Edge mod for multiplayer) really make this game shine. The graphics are also a huge plus. I've not seen a game that rivals FarCry in the graphics department when all the settings are maxed out. Gameplay is superb: there is a story line that you follow, but the game allows you to go about the mission in whatever way you want. There is nothing that says you "must" walk this path to get here, etc. Instead you can climb a mountain and swim across a river to get to the objective. This was my first CPU game and I'm addicted and biased <3

*Be sure to patch the game from vanilla 1.1 to 1.3 and then to 1.33*
Also if you play multiplayer, be sure to go to farcry-maps.com and get the mappacks and install them. There are a few general map packs and then there are the new American and European map packs.

The only game that can top this one is Crysis.

Grade: A

BF2: I guess I should try some of the mods for this game before I completely uninstall it...basically the worst current gen FPS IMO. Constant vehicle, infantry, aircraft, and claymore spawn killing really ruin this game. The point system doesn't work as it seems it should. You can be in control of all the points on the map except for one and the points don't decrease any faster. Joining a squad is highly overrrated as the majority of people online playing this game are <15 years old and don't really understand what your objective is. I have been getting shot by medics who then drop me a health pack in order to gain more points pretty much since the day I first logged in. People have found ways to exploit everything in this game. I have about 80 hours into vanilla BF2 and I'm not sure I'll ever log in again...
The game does look good on a decent machine (but not great). If your looking for a visually exciting game get FarCry and crank up the HDR, set everyhting else to max and go enjoy!

Grade: C-

 

[Hadsus]

Oblivion....superb
FarCry.....ditto
SiN Episode 1.......waste of time, but fortunately not alot of $$$$

Now going retro with Diablo 2/Lords of Destruction....never played expansion but it's lookin good.

 

[gorcorps]

Oblivion - absolutely brilliant like everyone else said
Call of Duty 2 - really fun and decently tough, you actually have to take cover every once in a while
FEAR - Good enough, though once you play it through all the suspense is gone. Multiplayer was alright for a while, but didn't hold my attention.

 

[lozina]

Oblivion - Played it for a pretty solid 3 weeks after it came out and then the novelty of the graphics engine and physics engine wore off and it became apparant that there wasn't really much innovation, immersion or just plain fun to the game. Just another hack n slash.

Civ 4 - the series redeemed itself after it's dreadful Civ 3 release. Civ 4 brought back alot of the fun that made Civ series so popular

Hearts of Iron 2 : Doomsday - It doesn't really offer much of anything really from the original HEarts of Iron- but the original is so damned good I just gotta say I love the expansion. Most in-depth, addictive and intelligent strategy game for WW2 bar none. Graphics freaks need not apply.

 

[pontifex]

Originally posted by: lozina
Oblivion - Played it for a pretty solid 3 weeks after it came out and then the novelty of the graphics engine and physics engine wore off and it became apparant that there wasn't really much innovation, immersion or just plain fun to the game. Just another hack n slash.

Civ 4 - the series redeemed itself after it's dreadful Civ 3 release. Civ 4 brought back alot of the fun that made Civ series so popular

Hearts of Iron 2 : Doomsday - It doesn't really offer much of anything really from the original HEarts of Iron- but the original is so damned good I just gotta say I love the expansion. Most in-depth, addictive and intelligent strategy game for WW2 bar none. Graphics freaks need not apply.

i'm glad i'm not the only one who feels the same way.

 

[Davegod]

HL2: Episode 1 - some improvements but they all felt minor to me, this just came across like a more condensed HL2 which hence also removed the large-scale atmosphere and sense of adventure. The traps wont test an average intelligence, at most the occasional quickload required to beat anything. A by-the-numbers cash generator but a decent day's gaming (literally 6 hours at most) but TBH I'd expect something much more exciting and interesting (if much less polished) if it'd been made by some freebie modding team.

FEAR - fun game and they at least tried to be a bit inventive. AI heavily overhyped but still above average.

Civilization 4 - people either love it or wonder wtf. Very, very good game - to say I think it's the 3rd best in the series does not by any means give it a bad score, as I count the original Civ and Alpha Centauri as two of the all time greatest. For the uninitiated, a gross simplification would be to describe it as a turn-based god game where you lead a "nation" to global domination of one kind or another.

 

[Hadsus]

Originally posted by: lozina

Hearts of Iron 2 : Doomsday - It doesn't really offer much of anything really from the original HEarts of Iron- but the original is so damned good I just gotta say I love the expansion. Most in-depth, addictive and intelligent strategy game for WW2 bar none. Graphics freaks need not apply.

I need to get back to HoI2.....dam* thing is pretty inpenetrable at the surface. I fooled around with it for a few days and still didn't know what I was doing.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: lozina
Oblivion - Played it for a pretty solid 3 weeks after it came out and then the novelty of the graphics engine and physics engine wore off and it became apparant that there wasn't really much innovation, immersion or just plain fun to the game. Just another hack n slash.

i'm glad i'm not the only one who feels the same way.

actually quite a few people feel this way . . . check the bitter complaints at the Official Oblivion Forums . . .

the Ob haters tend to fall into 2 groups [imo]:

1) the died-in-the-wool hardcore FPSer who finds the RPG elements an annoyance

2) the true "morrowind" [D&D style] fan who feels it is too dumbed down

there is no pleasing everyone . . . i think they tried to appeal to the mainstream and especially the FPSer with the style of fighting . . . . but at it's heart - Oblivion is very much a fantasy RPG

 

[Spydermag68]

Oblivion
Neverwinter Nights
BG2

 

[flashbacck]

Psychonauts - I was really surprised by this game. One of the best action/adventure games I've ever played. Excellent dialog, voice acting, story, level design, artwork and gameplay.

Dreamfall-Longest Journey 2 - just started this one, seems pretty good so far.

HL2 - episode 1 - Really enjoyed this one. I love the Gordon/Alyx interaction.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: lozina
Oblivion - Played it for a pretty solid 3 weeks after it came out and then the novelty of the graphics engine and physics engine wore off and it became apparant that there wasn't really much innovation, immersion or just plain fun to the game. Just another hack n slash.

i'm glad i'm not the only one who feels the same way.

actually quite a few people feel this way . . . check the bitter complaints at the Official Oblivion Forums . . .

the Ob haters tend to fall into 2 groups [imo]:

1) the died-in-the-wool hardcore FPSer who finds the RPG elements an annoyance

2) the true "morrowind" [D&D style] fan who feels it is too dumbed down

there is no pleasing everyone . . . i think they tried to appeal to the mainstream and especially the FPSer with the style of fighting . . . . but at it's heart - Oblivion is very much a fantasy RPG

Yeah, there's always reasons to not like certain games. I for one am running a 9800pro so can't tell you how breathtaking the graphics are... but I can tell you from a FPS lover's standpoint that this is the only RPG that I've really enjoyed. The mod base does it more for me than other games. Only other RPG I've finished was KoTOR, and it got boring pretty fast. I see myself finishing this one as well.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: flashbacck
Psychonauts - I was really surprised by this game. One of the best action/adventure games I've ever played. Excellent dialog, voice acting, story, level design, artwork and gameplay.

I was very surprised with this one as well. Great game and a steal at today's prices. Unfortunately not too much replayability and it was kind of short.

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: pontifex

Originally posted by: lozina
Oblivion - Played it for a pretty solid 3 weeks after it came out and then the novelty of the graphics engine and physics engine wore off and it became apparant that there wasn't really much innovation, immersion or just plain fun to the game. Just another hack n slash.

i'm glad i'm not the only one who feels the same way.

actually quite a few people feel this way . . . check the bitter complaints at the Official Oblivion Forums . . .

the Ob haters tend to fall into 2 groups [imo]:

1) the died-in-the-wool hardcore FPSer who finds the RPG elements an annoyance

2) the true "morrowind" [D&D style] fan who feels it is too dumbed down

there is no pleasing everyone . . . i think they tried to appeal to the mainstream and especially the FPSer with the style of fighting . . . . but at it's heart - Oblivion is very much a fantasy RPG

Well I'm not so much an Ob "hater", just somewhat disappointed.

I would fall kind of into the second category, though I wasn't too happy with Morrowind either. You see my love of the series started from Arena and especially Daggerfall. that game was simply amazing! At that time they did not have to spend so many resources on nifty graphics and state of the art physics, so they spent more time making the most out of the game itself. They had all the great features of random quests, random dungeons, home ownership and I'm pretty sure even ship ownership, horses (And you can fight from a horse), magical item creation without silly restrictions, NPCs on schedule so they go sleep at night and you can break in... etc etc... alot of these little things which made the game fun were cut from Morrowind simply because they wanted to use the latest and greatest graphics technologies so it made all those features so much harder and more time consuming to implement.

There was absolute freedom in the game and since then they just started putting more and more arbitrary restricions on character creation and skill usage which may have pleased the "oh I want everything to be super hard and no semi-exploitive skill perks because I cannot refrain myself from using them" crowd. For example how some people can so bitterly complain about how you can stack chameleon effects from multiple armor peices and become for all intents and purposes- invincible. Well gee here's a great idea- don't do that! Just because you can do it doesn't mean you have to! It's a single player game for God's sake you're not up against other people online... err sorry for getting off track there...

The good thing is Oblivion managed to bring back some of the fun features of Daggerfall and so I actually thing Oblivion is more fun than Morrowind and a step in the right direction. I'm definitely not an Oblivion "hater"... it was alot of fun for the 3 weeks I played but it got boring pretty fast...

 

[imported_zeddex]

World of Warcraft: How original, eh? My guild's making progress in BWL now...

FEAR: I loved the SP campaign, great sound, ambience, very good graphics that my crap GPU can't handle at all (I'm gonna replay it again when my 7800gs arrives)

Manhunt: Fun for a while, but nothing spectacular.

I'm looking forward to try the new X-Com. I remember the first part, UFO: Enemy Unknow, playing till the wee hours of the morning with my crappy 386 DX-40, making a cup of coffee between turns while the PC was taking ages to calculate the stuff....ah, brings a tear to my eyes.