Besides Sims, I've been a fan of Medieval Total War, Medieval Total War 2 for ages.

And of course, the Civ series, even though CivIV somehow fell flat for me.


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AIM: Ysselt

>Starcraft 2
>Mass Effect 2
>Dragon Age
>League of Legends
>Batman - Arkham Asylum>

Of these I've only played DA:0, but I'm currently finishing God of War II after I put it down for a year and a half, and that's fun. I have GoW III sitting on my table which I look forward to playing as soon as the summer semester ends, and I'm already dying to play Portal 2 because Portal was super-addictively fun, so I'd add those to the list.

~player of Gulphphunger

I'm enjoying this one:

http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=120283

Also playing FF XIII at the moment.


Solomon


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I'm addicted to super street fighter 4 - but i know that's not for everyone.


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An old cranky ogre with no legs says, "Naarg wives all this Naarg wives now."

Sid meiers pirates!


On a whim...: http://www.lostonawhim.com/

The Zoluren army asks, "We're um.... really sorry about the clubhouse and all... so uh... are we cool?"

>>I'm not quite sure how this thread has gone without mentions to Assassin's Creed or the new Fallout revitalization. Especially with both these hits getting new releases in the next few months.

I picked up Assassin's Creed during the Steam sale last month. Mixed feelings about it, though it was overall enjoyable.

Assassin's Creed was polished to a mirror shine, but soulless. The plot was uninspired and the gameplay intensely repetitive -- once you've done your first assassination, you basically repeat the exact same procedure seven more times, only getting relief from the formulaic gameplay during the endgame.

Despite that, the combat is enjoyable, the plot's framing device left me more interested than the plot itself, and the middle eastern setting was done better and less offensively than I imagined.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Assassin's Creed 2 is a major improvement over the first one, primarily in dumping those information gathering tasks, or making them into optional side quests.

The mechanics are still great, with some new ones added, and still a good story. (Even if it gets kind of crazy.)

Also, Fallout 3 is awesome, and I'm looking forward to New Vegas. Got my preorder of the collector's edition ready and waiting.

- Miskton

Borderlands is awesome as well, a good blend of RPG and FPS. The Best Co-op shooter ive ever played, too.

Starcraft 2 I picked up mostly for the solo campaign, since I'm not really an online RTS kinda guy... and wow. Just wow. It's SOOOO far beyond my expectations. The constant use of good looking video, the story, the mission set ups, the clever new twists for each mission, the RPG elements. Just... wow. It's killing me that I gotta wait another year for my next hit of it.

Fallout 3 I was SUPER hyped for, it came, I played the crap out of it for awhile and then just... stopped dead. I felt really let down by the main plot. I had intentions to play it a lot more but just never had. I don't think it's Fallout 3's fault, I've done that with Daggerfall, Morrowind and Oblivion too. At least Oblivion and Fallout 3 I managed to make it through the main plot.

Not sure what it is - on paper I should love Bethesda games. I think it's just that I'm someone who likes to do everything in a game and in some ways the Bethesda games are too big for me.

Deus Ex 3 is the one I got my eye on now. It looks awesome, but I've seen no game play of it and Deus Ex was one of my favorite games ever but Deus Ex 2... well, let's not go there.

-Raesh

I had the same issue with Oblivion. Finished the main plot and entered the expansion. About 3 hours in I quit it. I'd just had enough by then.

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Grixlek says, "Courage is dangerous, it leads to attempts at heroics..."
Vegas asks, "What like dating?"
Grixlek says, "Nothing that dangerous I believe, but still crazy stuff."

>Deus Ex 3 is the one I got my eye on now. It looks awesome, but I've seen no game play of it and Deus Ex was one of my favorite games ever but Deus Ex 2... well, let's not go there.

I feel the same way. The second I shot someone in the head in Deus Ex 2 and they didn't die I was pretty disappointed. Pretty sure I didn't play more than half an hour of that game.

Halajar

Deus Ex 2 wasn't actually that bad of a game, though the physics were wonk. It just didn't even come close to living up to it's expectations and if you dig around on the web enough (Which I don't have time to do right now, sorry) you can find some of the people behind it talking about the bad decisions they made making the game - Bad Juju going on IRL, listening to their indie game developer friends instead of the masses and so forth.

The only comment I really recall offhand was a discussion on removing the skill system. Basically:

Indie game designers - Skills and Augs are redudant. Why have a skill that lets you swim better and an aug that does that too? Why not combine them into an aug that does the same as both?

The Masses - Having a skill that makes me swim better and an aug that lets me swim better is cool, because it lets me take both and be THE FROG MAN. Clicking one button to get the same effect isn't nearly as interesting since then I'm just a swimmer (even if the end numbers are exactly the same).

It's a subtle thing, but something I agree with.

The one thing I will give DX2 credit for is the fact that they managed to put the vision aug (mostly useless in DX) against the Regen Aug (The most OP'ed aug in DX by far. Why take ballistic armor, or aqua lung or chem resistance etc when you can just regenerate through all of it?) and make me pick the vision aug every time.

Oh and for people who have no idea what we're talking about - Go play Deux Ex even though it's like a decade old. It'll do you good. Then read a plot summary somewhere of DX2. Then watch this:

http://www.deusex.com/

It's been extended since last time I watched it. Wow.

Have I mentioned the last few years have been Really Good Years for both fantasy literature and video games?

-Raesh

>>If anyone is looking for a cheaper older game (2008) that is pretty good, I'd say try The Witcher. I recently bought it on Steam when it was on sale and was surprised with how good of a game it was.

A lot of the best PC games in the past few years have come out of eastern European developers.

Coincidentally, I recommend playing The Witcher in Polish, with the English subs turned on.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

Oh! I played Broken Sword I and II and Space Quest II and III a little while ago. Those were a ton of fun. I miss point and click based adventure games.

Nikpack

I honestly don't miss Space Quest - Most of them you'd be at the end of the game, and you didn't find the right plug in a bin way back 20 minutes into the game, for something you were supposed to look at 5 minutes in to the game. It was fun to play, but got a hell of a lot more annoying than King's Quest, for the whole multi-save game. Quest for Glory series all the way though, as far as old school Sierra games.

The Witcher looks kind of neat, I might have to check that one out.

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An old cranky ogre with no legs says, "Naarg wives all this Naarg wives now."

along the same lines as witcher, Risen was amazing. The fact that you actually had to earn the ability to wear armor. Amazing.

Death Gate is an awesome game. It's very old, I think early 90s. I always hoped for a sequel.