Good pc games?

[Ferodaktyl]

wonder why no one mentioned Mount&Blade, it's my personal favorite now, esp. with mods.

[mferrr]

Undying

Thief 3

blood omen II

 

all from a while back but still damn good games. I highly recommend Thief 3 as part 4 is set for this year i think.

[csb]

Mass Effect 1 and 2 (but not 3, because of the ending)

 

you cant discount ME3 just because of the ending. in fact, thats opinion. many people didnt mind the ending. on top of that even people who didnt like the ending never said dont buy the game. they game as a whole, is freaking amazing. it can still give you many hours of gameplay, and its still an epic game. some people just didnt like the ending, well many people didnt. but dont discredit ME3 as a game to get just because of the last 10 minutes, which is your opinion anyways, and he may not share.

 

There are many reasons for discounting ME3 because of the ending. Any second-year college student who has taken Creative Writing and slogged through Elements of Fiction can tell you why the last 10 minutes are a mega-fail -- Bioware had 4th-and-one at the goal, a trifecta gaming victory well in hand and then BAM ... fummmmmmble... then they have the temerity to announce the release of "DIrector's Cut" DLC that may (or probably not) fix the horrid ending.

 

In short, they committed the ultimate cardinal sin of writing: they broke the faith (and thereby the whole immersive experience) with that travesty of an ending. What? I get to choose Red, Green or Blue? Not that the color choice matters ... they all have the same ultimate result: squandering all their success for some touted "twist of an ending where all the previous choices matter" ... Huh? Can I have some of that Kool-Aid you're drinking?

 

All that said, the Mass Effect trilogy heads my list of games to like. The story (discounting that horrific-in-a-storytelling-sense ending) did so much right, for so long with action, character deveclopment (NPCs and even Shepard herself), pacing of action, etc., that it's hard to hate the whole franchise for that last 10 minutes. The shame of it is, I was looking forward to doing in ME3 what I had done in ME and ME2, replay and replay and replay. Sadly, ME3 is a one and done game ... which, when you think of the fan base, the investiture of time of the player, is a tragic lapse on the developers' part. And I hope and pray that the "DIrector's Cut DLC will fix it approach" isn't a trend in the gaming industry.

 

Dragon Age Origins and Awakening both were really great RPG-style games. Dragon Age II fell short in a lot of aspects but is still decent. Central story arcs are all linear from a design standpoint, no matter which game. It's how you present the choices on when and how that arc is accomplished that you've done something great in gaming. Immersive world-mileaux like Elder Scrolls, Neverwinter Nights (and to a lesser extent NWN2) get you sidetracked by the breadth and depth of side quests, crafting and just general fun exploring -- which IMHO is what makes open sandbox-based games generally better than their fixed-area counterparts.

 

Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. There was a lot in both of them to not like vanilla. But Bethesda (unlike Bioware since falling under EA's thumb) has a singular saving grace in its two major franchises (Fallout and TES) ... they cater to the modding community by providing tool sets for customized content. One can still find Oblivion on store shelves or for direct DL ... talk about longevity! Why? Because even now on the Nexus site, new content for Oblivion is still getting released. Have we jumped into Bethesda's bed? Hmm. Maybe, but it is sooooo comfy and custom-made ... or maybe I'm siubconsciously a Bethesda-ho. lmao Way back when, before Evil Arts ... errr .. Electronic Arts got Bioware under their thumb, Bioware was big on moddability. Somewhere along the way they lost that vision.

 

 

I'm not a huge FPS fan, but there's some I've liked. I generally dislike the genre because gender is forced on you. Sorry, it takes away from my immersion when I'm forced to be male. Though I have tried male characters ... DAO dwarf noble comes to mind (just to experience that whole "gee, I have a kid" moment when returning home). That said, Crysis 2 I found to be quite immersive despite the gender bias.

 

 

RTS-based games aren't generally my thing, usually because most of them give no compelling plot or other reason for me to invest all that time in building whatever it is I'm supposed to build over time. RTS appeals to some and I like RPG and other games that incorporate RTS-type elements in their design. They aren't bad, just not my thing.

 

There are a ton of other games across many genres that I've liked along the way for various reasons. From the original Wolfenstein and Doom to the recent and "failed" Hydrophobia: Prophesy (the patched PC version) ... the most mind-boggling water physics you will see in gaming -- it truly is worth paying the little bit it's going for now just to see how water can be a major environmental (and game) factor.

 

Left 4 Dead, Saints Row (1 and 2 ... 3 not as much so). Mount and Blade ... mostly because it has mounted combat that TES and other sandbox-type RPG games leave out. I also give a thumbs up to the Still Life franchise. Nice point-n-click adventure series, same with The Longest Journey. Borderlands is enjoyably different for those that share a sort of bent humor. Mirror's Edge. Most of the Tomb Raider series. (I know, it's reverse-gender biased ... but guys don't seem to mind playing a character in tight shorts and top that barely encase big boobs.)

 

Vampire: Masquerade surprised me, because I'm not a big fan of vampires in games or movies ... they are usually so horridly portrayed.

 

Oh, Mafia II I enjoyed (despite the gender bias) if only for some of the historical moments (especially the WWII Italian front beginning).

 

A ton of games I've played in a number of genres that fall into the so-so and not so memorable category, but were entertaining enough for a play-through. A boatload of games that bombed ... either overall or with just me personally.