Looking for some new games...

I've grown tired of my collection of games and am having trouble finding something that will hold my interest. As of late I've been playing TF2, L4D2, Trine and Anno 1404. I've been tempted to get Starcraft 2, but the price puts me off (never played SC1).

What are your current favorites, what would you recommend FPS/RTS/Indie wise?

Have you tried picking up another hobby?

Mirror's edge was good for a few hours. get TES3:morrowind if you haven't yet, should probably go on sale on steam eventually since they're doing the quakecon sales. It was a very cool high fantasy setting, much more interesting than Obvlivion, though the magic system and combat can be annoying if you're not used to spells failing and hit detection relying on skills and armor ratings instead of 'did you hit this guy y/n?'. Alien swarm has been interesting, but the pub gamers are getting kind of meh. Free game though. You've probably already played age of mythology, but if you haven't you should. Great singleplayer campaign, though multiplayer could suck - haven't actually played it online. Slightly related to RTS, try pharaoah. Great city building game, flavorful. I've Caesar 2/3 is good, but I haven't played them. Red faction is pretty fun to just blow crap up, but I haven't gotten too far in. Kind of occupied with TNT evilution since I just got it from the quakcon pack, heh. And then there're the might and magic games. I love 7 and 8, and 6 was pretty good though a little basic. 9 was pretty bad but you have to play it to see how bad it was. I saved a link to a page that had guides on how to play pretty much every M&M game (earliest require DOS and the 'newest' need special compat modes from vista and 7) but I can't remember where I put it ... Heroes of M&M is also good, check out 2,3, and 5. 4 was pretty meh, and 1 is so basic that the only way I'd play it is on my GB color version, heh.

That about does it I think. Might find some more somewhere.

Technician said:

Have you tried picking up another hobby?

Have you tried not replying?

Gaming is not a significant part of my life. I like to play from time to time, just as I like working on my car, mucking about with engines and various other things.

ArmouredBlood said:

Mirror's edge was good for a few hours. get TES3:morrowind if you haven't yet, should probably go on sale on steam eventually since they're doing the quakecon sales. It was a very cool high fantasy setting, much more interesting than Obvlivion, though the magic system and combat can be annoying if you're not used to spells failing and hit detection relying on skills and armor ratings instead of 'did you hit this guy y/n?'. Alien swarm has been interesting, but the pub gamers are getting kind of meh. Free game though. You've probably already played age of mythology, but if you haven't you should. Great singleplayer campaign, though multiplayer could suck - haven't actually played it online. Slightly related to RTS, try pharaoah. Great city building game, flavorful. I've Caesar 2/3 is good, but I haven't played them. Red faction is pretty fun to just blow crap up, but I haven't gotten too far in. Kind of occupied with TNT evilution since I just got it from the quakcon pack, heh. And then there're the might and magic games. I love 7 and 8, and 6 was pretty good though a little basic. 9 was pretty bad but you have to play it to see how bad it was. I saved a link to a page that had guides on how to play pretty much every M&M game (earliest require DOS and the 'newest' need special compat modes from vista and 7) but I can't remember where I put it ... Heroes of M&M is also good, check out 2,3, and 5. 4 was pretty meh, and 1 is so basic that the only way I'd play it is on my GB color version, heh.

That about does it I think. Might find some more somewhere.

Okay... SEPARATE YOUR SENTENCES, CLUTTER! Bah!

But onto reason of Quote-
The TES series is pretty good, Morrowind was okay, I liked Oblivion more, especially the mods you can add (I have mine with increased enemy count and what not) and having new spells.
I never really like the general "Age of ---" games, I liked Empire Earth.. Or what ever it was called, been too long to remember the name.
I never liked the Might and Magic series, but the Heroes of Might and Magic I can agree, 2 and 3 (3 is Complete version) are the best, 3 when it comes to its editor. And 3 doesn't have much of a Compatibility issue, it has a very rare crash (non-lethal), Auto-saves are nice for this reason.

Nice you play the Anno Series, I have Anno 1602(AD).
But I got nothing for true recommend.

Mithral_Demon said:

Okay... SEPARATE YOUR SENTENCES, CLUTTER! Bah!

I was thinking about it ... but then I remembered this a forum not a job so I said w/e.

The TES series is pretty good, Morrowind was okay, I liked Oblivion more, especially the mods you can add (I have mine with increased enemy count and what not) and having new spells.

I tried getting some mods, but when I first played them I didn't care too much and now there're so many I don't want to take hours to look through 4 (like 7 for TES3) years of mods.

Empire Earth.

Awesome game. expansions campaigns were meh, but the space age was nice. And the extra civ point bonuses.

I never liked the Might and Magic series, but the Heroes of Might and Magic I can agree, 2 and 3 (3 is Complete version) are the best, 3 when it comes to its editor. And 3 doesn't have much of a Compatibility issue, it has a very rare crash (non-lethal), Auto-saves are nice for this reason.

M&M6-9 are not for everyone, they take a lot of time and don't have quite the pop like TES3/4 do, but their stories are just as interesting. And you can't forget inventory jenga x) When I was talking about compats, it was just for M&M, HoMM 2 and 3 work fine with xp compat.

Quake Live is kewl for a laugh

ArmouredBlood said:

HoMM 2 and 3 work fine with xp compat.

I don't even have to mess with compat for 3, 2 maybe but i'm okay as is.

I'm playing Age of Empires II while my wife is playing Heroes Chronicles. A basement flood prompted me to move these to higher ground so...we're playing 'em.

Lords of Magic, Disciples II, all my original boxes got destroyed in the flood. :(

I've been enjoying Alpha Protocol in spite of it's lack of polish.

It's an RPG and Third person shooter hybrid (more enjoyable as a RPG) in a spy setting. It's one of the few games that allows a violent, sneaky and pacifist solution to most (but not all) levels in the game. More importantly; characters will treat you differently depending on what approach you take (some folk compare it to Deus Ex for this reason but I think they are being a little generous). It also has an interesting dialog system where you can choose Professional, Aggressive and Suave (Borne, Bauer and Bond) responses that also effect the way characters treat you. I thought this was a particularly cool idea as it makes it less about 'meta gaming' and more role playing. What's more, it's an Obsidian game, so you know they gave a damn about the writing; so unsurprisingly it's good.

It's not perfect. The lack of polish becomes blatant very quickly. There are some serious clipping problems, and it's not as balanced as it should be. Also some boss fights require you to use shooting skills, which is a problem if you're playing the pacifist or sneaky type, however, the biggest gripe I had where the mini games. Hacking is AWFUL on PC and not much better on console. the best advice I can give is to put two points into sabotage which allows you to bypass hacking with EMP grenades and to make sure you always carry plenty of EMP grenades with you.
It reminds me of Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines in that it's a well written and well voiced game with lot's of cool ideas, but it's got a lot of silly little problems that cheapen the whole experience. It's a lot less broken then Bloodlines however, so If you found a fun game in Bloodlines then you'll definitely like Alpha Protocol.

People compare it to Mass Effect, which is understandable, but I actually enjoyed Alpha Protocol a lot more.

Technician said:

Have you tried picking up another hobby?

Sure thing cool guy. Any other life tips you want to share while posting on a forum for a sixteen year old video game?

I am playing Oblivion as we speak. The thing about TES games is Morrowind and Oblivion have so many mods it's not funny. The trick there is to head over to the forums and find a recent thread with recommended mods (or start one). There will be a few that 90% of the crowd agree you must have. Then there will be some that are up to personal preference.

The problem is setting up a giant stack of mods can take a whole day if you're not familiar with it. Both games have script extenders and graphics extenders, mod managing tools, levelling overhauls, texture replacers, item replacers, quest mods, NPCs, companions, dungeons, etc.

I hear all the Fallout games are good. Only played the third one. Fatal calls it Oblivion with guns. He has a point, but I really loved that game.

I haven't played any RTS games in ages. Supreme Commander was ok. Red Alert 3 was garbage. I gave the newer games in those series a pass.

Just played this:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Edmund/aether

Dwarf Fortress

Borderlands is still holding my attention, but then I'm playing it over LAN just once a week, so that probably helps. Having a second playthrough on the harder difficulty. Some of the early bosses seem decidedly weak and go down too easy the second time around, but it soon gets more difficult again.

Also slightly addicted to Minecraft as per the other EE forum thread floating around. Just waiting for coop survival to get fixed up a bit and then it'll be even better.

I'm just biding my time until Elemental is out.

My current favourites are Fallout 3 (still), Just Cause 2 and I suppose the odd bit of Minecraft.

Have played both Morrowind and Oblivion, never completed them. Morrowind I lost interest, Oblivion I kept hitting show stopping bugs which prevented me from completing certain missions. I gave up after the third or so run through.

Might and Magic for some reason I always assumed was a card dueling game so always avoided it.

Alpha Protocol is one I haven't heard of, so will check that out.

Dwarf Fortress is nuts.

I've played a bit of Minecraft - I've been playing on my own server, must remember to find some populated alpha servers to have a go on. Haven't played it for about a week.

I've watched some friends play borderlands, do love the cellshaded graphics, but thats not enough to entice me. Any more thoughts/opinions on it DooMAMADMDMADD?

And finally, Fallout 3, got bored after ten minutes, spawned a freedom ray or something (not a player weapon, ie no weapon sprites, but gibbed anything it hit), lots of fun for another 20 minutes :)

Mithral_Demon said:

Nice you play the Anno Series, I have Anno 1602(AD).

I have 1602 as well, still play it from time to time, but it takes forever to progress. I remember playing LAN games with my brother, 4-5 hours long and we would only just start producing weapons by the time one of us got sick of it. He never worked out you could bribe the pirates and tended to rage quit every now and then because I'd never be attacked heh

Planky said:

Might and Magic for some reason I always assumed was a card dueling game so always avoided it.

If you do decide to take a look at it, I found that Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven was the easiest to get into. The games before that are kind of brutal.

After making a short break for Starcraft 2 and replaying Starcraft and BW I came back to Mount & Blade. Best sandbox game ever.

With all the talk about older HoMM games I'm surprised noone's mentioned King's Bounty. It's one of the best remakes of a classic title I've ever played.

M&M6 and Swords of Xeen are the only M&M games I've played, loved them both.

Besides SC, the RTS I liked the most out of the ones I've played recently was Red Alert 2. C&C: Generals was okay too.

Alpha Protocol is on my 'to do' list.

Red Alert 2 and Yuris Revenge were a lot of fun. I've never got IPX working properly in Windows 7, so haven't played it a long time (yay for laptops with no XP drivers).

Jurassic Park Operation Genesis might hold your attention for a while. I elt a bunch of friends play it and now they all want a copy lol. Despite being like 10 years old, its still rather an expensive game pretty much any where you look, eBay, game stores, anywhere.

Planky said:

I've watched some friends play borderlands, do love the cellshaded graphics, but thats not enough to entice me. Any more thoughts/opinions on it DooMAMADMDMADD?

It's kind of hard to put my finger on what it is I really like about the game. The RPG elements blend in quite well, but it's also fair to say that some of the "skills" (used in a very loose sense) are completely useless.

I still haven't found any redeeming purpose for the Lilith/Siren character class, aside from the fact that she's good with SMGs. The other 3 are all pretty awesome though, with Brick/Berzerker being my personal favourite (mainly for the manic laughter and screaming when using his special, heh).

Also it might suffer from Left 4 Dead syndrome in that it may be a bit hollow in just single player. It's definitely better in coop. I like the "Second Wind" feature where you don't die instantly when you lose all your health. You get back up if you can kill an enemy before you bleed to death, which is quite handy.

Planky said:

Red Alert 2 and Yuris Revenge were a lot of fun. I've never got IPX working properly in Windows 7, so haven't played it a long time (yay for laptops with no XP drivers).

Not sure about Win7, but we were playing that in #legacy a while back over Hamachi. Took a bit of fuckery but we got it working in the end.

Planky said:

Red Alert 2 and Yuris Revenge were a lot of fun. I've never got IPX working properly in Windows 7, so haven't played it a long time (yay for laptops with no XP drivers).

There's a TCP/IP patch for it that I've been using for quite a while which adds native support in both Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Sun. Check it out. There's also a patch available for Command and Conquer 95 and Red Alert 1, though I haven't tried them.

Planky said:

I've watched some friends play borderlands, do love the cellshaded graphics, but thats not enough to entice me. Any more thoughts/opinions on it DooMAMADMDMADD?

Borderlands in single player was a lot of fun, but after one playthrough you've really just seen and done everything. The different characters don't offer variation enough to entice me for a second playthrough. I suspect that it's more fun to play with a few friends though.

A lot of the fun comes from the loot. Better guns and better armor (or shields really) = more fun. The landscapes could do with more variation, but it has a very nice and different atmosphere compared to most other games of it's age.

bytor said:

my wife is playing Heroes Chronicles.

That's a fun if somewhat predictable game. I've played three episodes so far, only five more to go.

They hunger will undoubtably keep you occupied for a while, though it's a hlf 1 mod. (assuming you haven't played it already)

Serious Sam.

New games? I went for the crack ones. Peggle, dammit.