Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi all,

Tonight I rejoin the PC gaming master race after over half a decade in the wilderness. The last game I bought was Hitman Bloodmoney back in early 2008, so it has been a very long time since I've looked at new games. I've not played any Dawn of War since Dark Crusade. I've never played a Crysis game. Mass Effect has passed me by. Now, granted, about a year or so ago I bought a PS3, and I've found that it's great for many things (especially open world games like Red Dead Redemption, Sleeping Dogs, Just Cause 2 and Arkham Asylum/City), but I won't play FPS' on it (like Fallout 3) and some games are just to difficult for me on a controller (Skyrim).

In light of that I have a 'catch up' list of games that I'm going to get and I wanted to know if anyone had any reccomendations. I like FPS and RTS games (the later of which is a dying genre of course, but still).

The list so far is:

Fallout 3 Game Of The Year Edition (GOTY)
Max Payne 3
Borderlands Game Of The Year Edition (GOTY)
Crysis 1
Crysis 2
Crysis 3
Hitman Absolution
Tomb Raider
XCOM Enemy Unknown
Fallout New Vegas Ultimate Edition
Spec Ops: The Line
Dishonored
Far Cry 3
Mass Effect Trilogy Compilation
The Elder Scrolls V 5 Skyrim Legendary Edition
Bioshock Infinite

This order also includes The Last of Us and Arkham Origins, but they're on PS3 so don't worry about those. Tomb Raider I'm not 100% on. I'm going to get it, but I'm not sure about either console or PC for that one.

So what am I missing? Clearly there are no RTS games there, but I'm completely out of the loop when it comes to those games other than Starcraft II and I can borrow those from a friend. And as much as I want to play them, as long as Diablo III and Sim City remain online always I won't play them.

So who can help me? What do you all recommend?

Shouldn't this belong down on video games?

Yes I've posted this in completely the wrong forum. That's what you get for having multiple tabs open. Sorry about that.

I highly recommend FO3 and Skyrim; they are my favorite games.

Skyrim and Farcry 3 are great on PC for the mod community. I don't know if you like MMO's but Guild Wars 2 is great and of course I play WAR.

Yes, Far Cry 3. I'll add that one in.

I have Skyrim on PS3 already, but I'm going to trade it and Max Payne 3 in and get the PC versions of both.

And don't worry, Fallout 3/New Vegas are definite musts.

I've been playing defiance and enjoying that, also swtor is fun and free

Ok, I probably should have put this into the OP, my bad, but:

No MMO's please.

I don't like multiplayer gaming. Never have. Destiny intrigues me (and looks gorgeous), but that's as far as it goes.

Do you like turn based strategy? Perhaps a silly question on a wargaming forum

If so, what about Empire, Napoleon & Shogun 2 from the Total War series? There's also Medieval 2, but I'd get the steam version because the discs were released before widescreen and you'll likely have to do some faffing around with 3rd party patches etc, whereas I'm pretty sure the steam version has widescreen support.

I have one of the Total Wars. Medieval I believe. I actually didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Inquisitors kept killing my commanders and I didn't know how to stop it. It was a little overwhelming.

I mean I love Star Wars Rebellion and that games is about as counter-intuative as it comes, so I don't know why Total War never grabbed me. Shogun 2 does look great though. I have to admit that. Friends have recommended that one.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I have one of the Total Wars. Medieval I believe. I actually didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Inquisitors kept killing my commanders and I didn't know how to stop it. It was a little overwhelming.

Haha! Yes, I remember that. If you got on the wrong side of the pope, they did have a tendency to massacre your faction's family without mercy. I'm pretty sure it was bugged actually. Sometimes I'd evacuate my generals to a fleet off-shore if I saw an Inquisitor near.

The later TW games don't have annoying things like that happen as far as I can remember, but granted, they are a bit complicated.

Well it was enough to make me want to abandon merry old England and convert to Catholicism!!!

Civ 5 with Gods and Kings is pretty awesome.
Human Revolution
From Dust - lil indie god/puzzle game
Supreme Commander still has a reasonably active community last I looked, check out mods/new units
Transformers games -
Tropico 4 is pretty good, too.
UFO Alien Invasion - a free homage to the original XCOM, been gradually made for years now, and it's not finished, but what they have is pretty awesome.


The newer Total War games are a lot easier to wrap your head around, movement and what have you is a lot less abstract.
Oh, check out the King Arthur roleplay/wargame thing, an arthurian RPG mixed with a simplified version of a total war game. Plus you get to kill the sidhe, and who doesn't like that? Although it does get pretty nuts towards the end, I fully endorse cheating if and when you have to.

Yeah about those Transformer games (not the movie tie-in ones obviously). I’ve heard they’re pretty decent and they look quite a bit of fun (and, y’know, Peter Cullen - OMG!). I imagine they’d be quite cheap now.

Fall of Cybertron and War for Cybertron are fantastic single player games.

The multiplayer is "meh".

Strong single player is certainly my aim here. I've been anti-multiplayer ever since LucasArts "betrayed" me by releasing X-wing vs TIE Fighter rather than X-Wing 2 or TIE Fighter 2. Yeah, it's an old grudge I admit.



And now it dawns on me that I've never played KOTOR2, and while I've finished KOTOR about 3 times I don't own that either. I know the guys doing the restoration of all of KOTOR 2's lost content finished, but does it work with any version of KOTOR as I'd like to get the all-in-1 bundle that comes with KOTOR 1 and 2?

Honestly...I'd say skip KOTOR2.

Even with the "lost content", it just is such a letdown that it was hideously disappointing.

Did you play the "Syndicate" title a few years back?

Where they took a ancient and beloved isometric real-time tactical game and turned it into a generic FPS? No. And I don’t think I will.

It was actually surprisingly fun, despite not being the original Syndicate.

I had got it as a bundle deal with another game I'd had preordered and was surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did. The only downside was that nobody really ever played the multiplayer.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

And now it dawns on me that I've never played KOTOR2, and while I've finished KOTOR about 3 times I don't own that either. I know the guys doing the restoration of all of KOTOR 2's lost content finished, but does it work with any version of KOTOR as I'd like to get the all-in-1 bundle that comes with KOTOR 1 and 2?

I'd imagine they'd be installed in separate directories with a unified launcher, so I don't think there would be a problem.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Honestly...I'd say skip KOTOR2.

Even with the "lost content", it just is such a letdown that it was hideously disappointing.

Seriously? Even though the ending was a bit crap (I haven't played through the lost content myself) I really enjoyed the game. Some really interesting characters, particularly Kreia. I'd go so far as to say she's my favourite character out of any book, game or film actually.

Strong single-player your aim huh?

Do you want it to be heavily story-based, or is that not a prequisite for you?

Having a story is certainly preferable to no story. What did you have in mind?

Grimrock is a fantastic old school dungeon crawl. It really keeps you on your toes.

I completely forgot this title; but it's multiplayer only (or at least at this point)

Titanfall is releasing on PC, if that looked interesting to you HBMC.
It comes out next spring so you certainly have time to look into it and make a decision, but just thought I'd mention it while I was thinking about it.

Deus Ex Human Revoultion and Wasteland 2 when it's released.
M.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Having a story is certainly preferable to no story. What did you have in mind?

I was going to suggest Mount and Blade: Warband. There isn't much in the way of compelling narrative, but it is an insanely fun and addictive black hole that devours your free time, combine hack and slash gameplay, army-based strategy and tactics, and political maneuvering.

Distant Worlds. It all but ruined the genre of 4x space games for me, because it does every part of it better than any other game I've found. Unfortunately, it's published by Matrix Games, so it's rather expensive.


Seconding Mount and Blade: Warband. Best game I've had so far was starting as a female commoner: I focused on slaving, tourneys and trading, so basically was running around with a large band of elite heavy cavalry with a massive income from owned businesses and the best gear that had shown up by that point before any faction would even let me join, I eventually went with the Vaegirs and proceeded to singlehandedly break a Khergit invasion that broke the Vaegir army (<3 heavy cavalry so much), then singlehandedly took the Nord cities and several castles, several times (I couldn't really hold onto them, but soon enough the Nords ran out of troops; I also half-cheated by dropping the max soldiers in game at once down to the minimum, so my elite heavies ate everything alive even when outnumbered three to one, in addition to not bottlenecking so stupidly at the tiny breach). By the time I grew bored I owned most of the former Nord lands, was the Vaegir marshal, and had 100 rep with the king of the Vaegirs, which annoyed me because I wanted him to deny me lands so I could rebel and become my own faction.

I allied with the Nords, and proceeded to Huscurl everything to death.

Nord Huscurls too strong.

I'd gone Nord with my previous character, but I eventually decided heavy cavalry is where it's at. Also the slaving bit is fun, once you recruit enough manhunters; the key is only using blunt weapons: I had a two handed mace or flail or whatever, which lasted quite a while for sheer damage output before being replaced by a 20,000 or so gold greatsword (really lucrative playstyle - captives, particularly sea raiders, are a goldmine, and the better businesses give a crazy good income (silkworks at Rivacheg, particularly)). Heavy cavalry hits like a dozen tons of pointy horses in the open field, tears up everything on foot, and lets you zip around the map like a much smaller army. I did replace my slaver chiefs with knights, eventually, and once I ruled the Nord lands I started dragging huscarls along when I could. This is making me want to pick the character up again and try to conquer everything with her...

It did annoy me you couldn't marry claimants, though. Faction leaders make sense, but when you singlehandedly cut out a state for someone? It would make a more legitimate claim for you then going with a more minor noble house...

Dark Souls. Yes, I know there's a console version. Yes, I know it plays better with a controller. But the PC version is the definitive way to play the game, once you've installed DS fix. What's more, you can easily use your PS3 controller on your PC. So get Dark Souls. Play Dark Souls. Live (and die, horribly) Dark Souls.

FTL: Faster Than Light
Bastion
Hotline Miami
Mark of the Ninja
Metro/Metro 2 (could never get into the first one, but the reputation is sterling, so it's at least worth checking out)
Portal
Portal 2
Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP
The Witcher
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings