[squeek]

Recently I've started play computer games again.  After an obsession with online Counter strike and half life many years ago through xbox games, MAME 2 player games I then had a slump and didn't play any games for a while bar a few on my girlfriends Nintendo gamecube.

I've now got a laptop with a graphics card that can run new games and have revived my love for all things polygony.  So here's a run down of what I've been playing:

Age of Empires III : Despite now liking one of the prequels as it seemed like a farming game with a bit of fighting I really enjoyed this.  The gameplay is good, the interface is quite clean, it's pretty stable, graphics are good.  It's maybe a little short on the single player, and the difficulty doesn't seem progressive as you work through it.  ie the last level isn't very difficult.

Half life 2 : Excellent game, varied, very polished, lots of thought put into the structure, lots of little touches.

Max Payne : Not that impressed, 'bullet time' seems like cheating when you use it, and seems very samey and the film noir theme doesn't really keep me interested.

Total Annihilation : Old game, but it seems pretty good I haven't played enough to get a good opinion of it yet.

I've just got darwinia which looks lovely and quite innovative and have ordered Chronnicles of Riddick: Butcher Bay, which is about a running a meat stall I think.

So what else is worth having a dable at or leaving well alone?

Anyone played any MMORPG I keep on hearing about?

[andy_e]

transport tycoon still amuses me, despite being at leats ten years old.

older, and better, are:
Lemmings- obviously
Commander Keen series- original platform game
Xenon 2 Megablaster - Chees music and fantastic blasting for the angry
Italia 90- the world's worst football game is good for a laugh, and you can easily make crap teams win the world cup.

</nostalgia>

[squeek]

I've not got round to playing CS Source yet through fear of losing half my spare time like I did with CS.  I enjoyed UT, is 2004 the same, but with new guns/levels/graphics?

Andi-E - suggestions that I don't have to dig legacy hardware out of the loft to play might be more useful!  Xenon 2, was featured in one of the PC mags a year or so back for a how-to-make-your-own-game feature.

[andy_e]

Andi-E - suggestions that I don't have to dig legacy hardware out of the loft to play might be more useful!  Xenon 2, was featured in one of the PC mags a year or so back for a how-to-make-your-own-game feature.

you could download them probably

[Fiend]

Ah squeek, a man with impeccable taste in hobbies. Well, apart from liking CS  :x get a grip, honestly. Anyway, games yes...

Newish:

Far Cry - excellent game, just get it. One of the few FPS games where the design of the game and technology involved makes a notable difference to the gameplay.

Quake 4 - good game, decent sequel to Q2, nice style and plenty of action.

Doom3 - good game, very atmospheric and downright scary in a few places, nice monsters.

Dawn of War - great if you like Warhammer 40k toy soldiers, but even if you don't it's an objectively good, functional, and stylish RTS.

Riddick - good choice, another good game, good graphics, stylishly done, control system can be a bit ass but the atmosphere and style is well worth it.

MMORPG:

Guild Wars - this is what I did all summer following the foot debacle. Nice graphics, some very nice settings, well controllable, it's the first MMORPG I tried and I think it's a pretty damn good one. Can be a HUGE time-sink if you explore lots tho (I've clocked up triple figure hours  :shock: )

Older games:

Blade Of Darkness - excellent, underrated 3rd person hack-em-up. Strong style and very interesting combat.

Enclave - good fantasy 3rd person hack-em-up, good and varied settings and good controls.

RTCW - good FPS, nice balance of straight-up shooter gameplay and good designs.

Undying - good FPS, interesting gameplay and some great settings and atmosphere.

Battlezone 2 - well old now but the graphics were astounding at the time, and the combination of FPS and RTS gameplay is almost unique and very well done.

Can post more if you want. If I had to narrow it down to a few suggestions it would be: Far Cry, Q4, Blade, BZ2.

Oh, finally, UT2K4 is alright, not as good as UT though, doesn;t have the same elegance.

[andy_e]

this week, oi arve been mostly playing:
http://www.commander-keen.com/

[squeek]

you could download them probably

I could probably download most things!

My brother's back home tonight for a few days and he's bringing Far Cry back for me, I'll see how I do.

Fiend - Can you play guild wars offline? Or is that I missing the point?

I've actually got Blade of Darkness at home, but have never played it, think I bought it with some Christmas vouchers I got.  I suppose I should install it, especially as it comes recommended.

[Bubba]

My recent/current games.

PC
F.E.A.R - very good FPS but a real system hog.
Quake 4 - pretty boring, generic shooter - can't even be bothered finishing it.
Swat 4 - Excellent tactical shooter - hard but realistic....ie you die easily!
Far Cry - Very good, but I prefer the Xbox version really.

Xbox
Halo 2 - The definitive shooter - online is still probably the best game around.
Far Cry - very good, but no Halo beater.

PS2
Darkwatch- Fun shooter
Resident Evil 4 - Superb puzzler/shooter - my current game
Sly 3 - Nice platformer - a real fun game.
Tony Hawk AW - to be honest I'm pretty bored of this game now, and the latest one doesn't offer much to interest me again.

[Palomides]

Meanwhile, back in the late nineties...

I am somewhat limited by old hardware, as I only have a PC with a 650Mhz Athlon and a 16MB Voodoo3 vid card.

I've played and enjoyed a few good FPS (I don't really go for RTS games) like

Halflife (duh!) and derivatives - Opposing Forces, CS, Gunman Chronicles
Deus Ex
NOLF
Jedi Knight
UT
Serious Sam
QuakeII
(also played Thief but never got into it.)

Can anyone recommend any good FPS that I've overlooked that will run well on my creaky ol' hardware??

The only ones I can really think of are Soldier of Fortune and maybe Blue Shift.

Upgrading isn't really a priority - to run more recent games like RTCW or Farcry I'd have to upgrade both processor and graphics card - so tha'd be a new PC then
 :roll:

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Xenon 2 Megablaster - Chees music and fantastic blasting for the angry

What are you playing Xenon2 on Andi? Me and my brother used to be well into that game, think it was on his Atari ST. Groundbreaking at the time, especially with it's use of 'proper' music, well 'Bomb the bass' anyway.

....

Found this copy of the original http://takegame.com/shooter/htm/xenon2.htm

and this http://www.bitmap-brothers.co.uk/downloads/games/xenon2000/index.htm which is an more modern version, only 5 years old!

Watch the original, couldn't get the sound to work then it crashed my machine. Hmmm. New version is quite fun, not quite as frantic as the original, pity.

[Jonboy]

I'am still trying to complete Horris goes skiing on the spectrum.

[Fiend]

Squeek... You have to be online to play Guild Wars, the way it works is there is a network of cities/towns where everyone hangs out online, then you play missions/quests from those towns - and the missions/quests are generated just for the party you are in (i.e. you don't get the whole bloody web wandering in). You can play the missions/quests with bots (henchmen) instead of real people - I mostly do that as you can explore a lot more and people can be knobs sometimes - but you still need to be online to play.

Give Blade a try - it's quite hard but it's rewarding, the combat is kinda like a fighter game, you find key combos and they perform specific attacks whose suitability depends on your weapon/opponent/circumstances. Makes a good change from snore-a-thons like Rune. Nice and violent too. The Amazon is the easier character to start with, BTW.

Bubba... no offense but your perception must have been addled by too much radiation from console games if you think Halo > Far Cry! Maybe Halo 2 was vastly better but it's not on the PC anyway. And okay, Quake 4 is generic but it does what it does - standard FPS in pretty engine with Q2 atmosphere - pretty well IMO.

Palodimes... You could get a better GFX card really cheap these days. Like £30 for something half-decent. Hell I have an NVidia Geforce GF2 I could swap you for a pint of Hoegaarden . But in the meantime...

Battlezone 2.

Blade Of Darkness.

Undying.

Return To Castle Wolfenstein.

....are what you need in your life, in that order. All should run reasonably, maybe not at the very highest setting but they will still look nice. I played them all on a P3 600 with either Voodoo3 or GF2. Oh and good to remind people of Deus Ex - squeek and anyone else, you really should play that. Dated graphics and kinda cliched idea but top-notch exploration and sneaking and stuff and one of the very few games to really deliver what it promised.


Gruff... just me being arsey really, I just really don't like the style of CS and it's derivatives - realistic multi-player only stuff, bletch. Games are good to escape from the mundane real world and other people...

[Carnage]

For the Xbox collection I would add Ninja Gaiden. Awesomely hard (the difficulty level a la those old arcade games is set at 'smash the controller against the wall in a tantrum') but very rewarding.

And whilst Doom 3 is good, the 'expansion' Resurrection of Evil sucks balls.

Roll on March next year when the Xbox 360 comes out (here anyway). Some fantastic looking stuff on that (Dead Rising, Resident Evil 5 etc)

[squeek]

Oh and good to remind people of Deus Ex - squeek and anyone else, you really should play that. Dated graphics and kinda cliched idea but top-notch exploration and sneaking and stuff and one of the very few games to really deliver what it promised.

Well it's funny you should mention that because at the same time I bought Blade of Darkness and didn't play it, I also got Deus Ex, and didn't play it!  So I'll get on both those cases, or at least into them and remove the CDs.

Gruff... just me being arsey really, I just really don't like the style of CS and it's derivatives - realistic multi-player only stuff, bletch. Games are good to escape from the mundane real world and other people...

Ah, I like CS because I don't run round killing terrorists or taking hostages and planting bombs in the mundane real world    I really like CS because it's one of the few multiplayer FPS online games (at least back when I played it) where dying had any consequence when you were playing.  In all the others your died count only goes up one, whereas in CS you can't play until next level, lose money, etc, instead of just respawning.

Bubba - does Farcry not look at lot worse on the Xbox compared to the PC version, and does playing with a crappy joypad after playing with a mouse not infuriate you?  I hate playing FPS on consoles now because joypads feel so clumsy compared to using a nice mouse.

[Bubba]

Bubba... no offense but your perception must have been addled by too much radiation from console games if you think Halo > Far Cry! Maybe Halo 2 was vastly better but it's not on the PC anyway

Halo 2 over Xbox live is the best shooter ever imho - the single player is probably worse than Halo, but XBL lifts it above everything else. To put it into perspective, Half Life 2 multiplayer is shit in comparison.

[squeek]

Halo 2 over Xbox live is the best shooter ever imho - the single player is probably worse than Halo, but XBL lifts it above everything else. To put it into perspective, Half Life 2 multiplayer is shit in comparison.

Why? I'm not questioning your judgement, just wondering as I've not played Halo 2, and only played Halo briefly and only in multiplayer mode (which is shit because you get a quarter of an already low res screen and you can see where everyone else is).

[andy_e]

Xenon 2 Megablaster - Chees music and fantastic blasting for the angry

What are you playing Xenon2 on Andi? Me and my brother used to be well into that game, think it was on his Atari ST. Groundbreaking at the time, especially with it's use of 'proper' music, well 'Bomb the bass' anyway.

quality music. i was (and still would) play it on a knackered old 386 that went to join the big motherboard in the sky last year  :crying:

[Palomides]

Andi - I have just downloaded Commander Keen.
Old school like whoa. But in a good way!

Fiend - I assumed that I wouldn't be able to run RTCW, as the free online version (Enemy Territory) needed higher specs. I'll look out for it   . I won't pursue you for a beer-technology swap, as I now live a long way from Sheff.

Following gruffs revelation of his xfire user id, I feel compelled to share that I used to play internet UT with the name "mistake".
I found it amusing that someone, somewhere would be playing against me and see the words "You were killed by mistake" on their screen.
Note to self: acquire life.

Oh and Squeek - if we're talking about games from a few years ago don't bother with Daikatana. So bad, so very very bad.

[andy_e]

Andi - I have just downloaded Commander Keen.
Old school like whoa. But in a good way!

in my youth (earlier on before you poke abuse) i completed 4, 6 and keen dreams.

i just found this database for mega oldschool madness on the game front:
http://www.victorclaessen.nl/files.asp?section=games

[Bubba]

Why? I'm not questioning your judgement, just wondering as I've not played Halo 2, and only played Halo briefly and only in multiplayer mode (which is shit because you get a quarter of an already low res screen and you can see where everyone else is).

Halo was only designed for LAN, not online multiplayer like H2 is.

You'd only have a quarter of a screen if you've got 4 controllers plugged in - i'd never play like that coz you wouldn't see anything. Most people just play with one person per xbox over live.

And H2 looks way way better than H1.

[Bubba]

Anyone getting an Xbox 360?

I've pre-ordered but might not have the cash for it...

[squeek]

Might do, if a nice software hack comes out like for the Xbox, I quite like the idea of Microsoft subsidising my hardware.  I'd like to have the whole mame collection running again if they get a working port of it.

[Carnage]

Anyone getting an Xbox 360?

I've pre-ordered but might not have the cash for it...

Maybe. Still waiting to see the price tag here before comitting. But then Huxley (the 'Halo' thats gonna sell the machine) does look pretty fucking awesome. Check the movie thats available - I can't remember where it is.....

[squeek]

I don't think I'll bother with a 360 now, I'm going to stick with my laptop and maybe get a Nintendo Revolution as they sound great.  Nintendo always seem to think of better ideas for the next generation of consoles rather than add twice as many buttons and sticks to the controllers and try to make it run twice as many polygons (which admitedly can be very useful).  It's a shame they seem to be lagging behind at the minute.

I've completed HL2 now (last level's great) and have moved onto Riddick (I've only played it for 20 minute though) which looks very nice all the armed guards have really good textures bumpmapped onto them, although the menus are a bit overdone. I've got a new high resolution mouse that's really good too, especially as I have a few more buttons at hand now.

[moose]

I don't think I'll bother with a 360 now, I'm going to stick with my laptop and maybe get a Nintendo Revolution as they sound great.  Nintendo always seem to think of better ideas for the next generation of

from what I've heard the Xbox360 is still plagued with problems in spite of its iminent release.  Several of the anticipated killer apps are still incomplete - not forgetting that appearance at the big trade show (E3?) recently where the showpiece Rare games were incredibly slow and glitchy.  No backwards compatibility except with a very small number of selected games either (Halo's 1&2).  Plus that shit over it being available in a version without a harddrive so that most games won't be able to take advantage of what was one of the original Xbox's main plus points.  Still, couldn't happen to a nicer company....

The Revolution on the overhand sounds pretty intriguing - motion/tilt senser based controllers etc.  Shame the usual Nintendo thing will happen - incredibly poor marketing, no sales, bugger all games availability... hey ho