University PC Gaming

[Jibar]

So, journeying off to University my gaming now becomes restricted to my lovely laptop, and being somewhat ignorant of recent turns in PC Gaming (I'm still gushing over 2004 games) I turn to you playground to suggest some games.
As long as it wasn't released this year I should have no problems running it or acquiring it.
I have a preference for roleplaying or strategy games but I'm up for trying anything really.

[Tavar]

Gratuitous space battles is awesome, and it's only in beta. Costs 20 to preorder a copy of the game+get into beta.

I still sometimes play the Original DoW games, though I never got Soulstorm, and have heard nothing good about it. On the other hand, there are several Mods for the other versions of the game that are really good.

Supreme Comander and Forged alliance are pretty fun RTS, but they can be pretty graphically intensive.

I've found Sins of a Solar Empire to be very fun, though it's not up everyone's alley: it plays like a combination of 4x and RTS. You should get the entrenchment expansion pack, it adds several options.

[Erloas]

As long as it wasn't released this year I should have no problems running it or acquiring it.

Well thats not true at all. Crysis is 2 years old and it still one of the most demanding games out there. Knowing Valve, when Left 4 Dead 2 released in a few months its still going to run a lot better on a very wide range of systems compared to many games that are older.

If you actually want to give some usable information on narrowing suggestions down to what you can run take 2 minutes to post your video card, processor, and RAM.

Also a list of games you have played would help too so we aren't suggesting things you've already tried.


For an RPG I would probably suggest Mass Effect. It is one of the few games I've played lately that really grabbed my attention. It is very much an Action RPG, but its hard to find anything else these days.

[warty goblin]

I'll second the Gratuitous Space Battles recommendation.

Sins of a Solar Empire+ Enetrenchment is also disturbingly good, if you like games where most of the strategy is in fleet disposition and location.

Elven Legacy came out this year, but is pretty easy on the computer, and I find it quite a delightful little TBS game, so long as one doesn't object to most of the strategy actually being tactics.

Galactic Civilizations should be required for anybody considering playing games on a PC. How it manages to be so completely hilarious and yet deep at the same time never ceases to amaze me. It's like Civ 4, except deeper and actually fun.

[Flickerdart]

Mount & Blade (and the Warband expansion coming out soon) should have no trouble running on anything and is awesome.

[Vic_Sage]

The Touhou games are fun shumps that aren't demanding at all when it comes to specs.

[warty goblin]

Mount & Blade (and the Warband expansion coming out soon) should have no trouble running on anything and is awesome.

Mount and Blade is another good suggestion.

Also, as somebody who's been playing games while taking college classes for far longer than I care to admit, I've found it very important to have some game that plays in fairly distinct, short rounds. Fifteen minutes is perfect. This way when my brain is feeling absolutely overstuffed, I go commit henious acts of virtual violence for a while. This clears the system, so to speak, and renergizes me for another five to eight hour slog.

Games that don't have discrete rounds or short levels also work of course, but not as well, since then one has to fight the 'just one more checkpoint' syndrome. Also for story based games, playing them in fifteen minute bites is frankly unfair to the game. My suggestion, some big, stupid shooter ala Unreal Tournament, that takes a lot of concentration, but not neccessarily a lot of thought.

[Mando Knight]

Age of Empires II. Full stop.

Also, look into Republic Commando, the Orange Box, KotOR, NWN, Alpha Centauri...

[factotum]

Jade Empire...unusual setting for a western RPG.

[toasty]

Mount and Blade really is quite fun.

I'm not sure when Civilization IV was released, but that game (and its expacks) is made of win. Very, Very fun.

Other than that I will reccomend the two greatest PC games of all time: Starcraft and Counter-Strike (Source if you want, but 1.6 is also fun).

[revolver kobold]

MDK & MDK 2 recently came out on Steam. I highly recommend both.

[toasty]

MDK & MDK 2 recently came out on Steam. I highly recommend both.

They've been on GOG.com for quite some time as well.

[Oslecamo]

The Touhou games are fun shumps that aren't demanding at all when it comes to specs.

And where do you get them? I swear I've looked over half the internet and never found any clue on how to actually get them.

[Brother Oni]

And where do you get them? I swear I've looked over half the internet and never found any clue on how to actually get them.

Unfortunately the legitimate ways to acquire them outside of Japan (a number were distributed via CD at various conventions) are extremely limited if you don't read Japanese.

Running them can also be a bit of a pain if you're not very computer savvy as it requires setting the locale to Japanese and downloading certain dll files if you don't have a copy of Japanese Windows.

I managed to acquire mine via torrent - I'm sure a more suitably worded google search will be fruitful.

[Gullara]

Since I don't know your system specs I don't know if you can runs these but I'll say them anyway. A couple of my favorites are Neverwinter Nights 2 plus expansions and Fallout 3 plus expansions. :smallsmile:

[Miss Nobody]

I'll second Jade Empire and Dawn of War.

The Witcher is also a very good game. For something a bit more different, check out Overlord.

[Fredthefighter]

Dawn of War (I've only played DoW II, but I thought it was good).

Black and White (http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/601720/Black-White/Product.html?ptsl=1&ob=Price&fb=0) - Strategy and complete control.

Impossible Creatures - RTS, the strategy part comes in deciding how to specifically build your creatures and how you use them to blow up the enemy base.

[BRC]

THREADRREZ!

Okay, so it's time for me to pick up a new PC game. I will probably do this VIA Steam. I like games with story and I like strategy games. I'm the guy who buys an RTS for it's campaign mode.

Current games I'm looking at

Dawn of War II
Red Alert III
Majesty II
Empire: Total War
Medieval Total War

Concerning the Total War games, i've played Rome Total War and found it enjoyable, but as I said, I like stories (Even if they're not much, I like it when the game gives me goals to work towards).

Edit: Though I'm considering Mass Effect. How system-intensive is that?

[Erloas]

Edit: Though I'm considering Mass Effect. How system-intensive is that?

First... don't really think you need to rez a thread thats only 8 hours old.

Second, if you think you can run Dawn of War 2 then you should have no problems running Mass Effect. It has about the same requirements as Red Alert 3, and Empire: Total War as well.


For a campaign based strategy game you might want to look at SpellForce 2. Its a strategy RPG. I'm not entirely sure if I have 1 or 2, I would have to check, its been a while since I played it. I liked it well enough, though I never finished it because I got distracted by other things... like so many RTSs it has very long missions. My cousin likes it a fair amount too, I just lent it to him. Its also available on Steam. Pretty light on system requirements too.

[BRC]

Well I noticed Mass Effect was only $20, so I went with that.

[Kudaku]

Scanning through the list of games you mentioned, this is what came to me:


Dawn of War II - cannot be recommended highly enough, it is an absolutely amazing strategy game. Find a friend and team up for twice the mayhem!

Red Alert III - I've been a huge Westwood fan, I played pretty much every strategy game they've launched since the original Command and Conquer. RA 2 was a big favourite of mine, and I was really really looking forward to Red Alert III. Yet strangely... It doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's the fact that they went overboard with the cartoonish graphics, maybe they just went all out for wacky and wound up in crazy land, but RA 3 struck me as monotonous, boring, silly (in a bad way), and very very forgettable. I played through the campaign mostly out of nostalgia and haven't touched it since.

Medieval Total War - Not sure which version you're referring to so I'm going to assume you mean the latest in the series, Medieval Total War 2. Personally I love this game, but I found it a bit frustrating. Once you get past a certain amount of provinces the micromanagement gets very frustrating, while the auto-management settings live alot to be desired. That having been said, MTW 2 is an amazing piece of gaming, though as you probably know there is no campaign or story to speak of.
If you are getting Medieval I'd strongly suggest picking up the expansion pack in the same go, the alternate maps it offers can fix the monotony of conquering Europe and strike a blow against the micro-management issues mentioned above at the same time.

[Dr. Bath]

Since we're talking laptops, games and specs. Would it be possible to play the orange box on only 64mb graphics card? I'm thinking no, but the chance to play, even on lowest settings would be great.

[Myatar_Panwar]

Thought Id throw this out there (http://www.direct2drive.com/d2dturns5).

Basically Direct2Drive is having its 5 year anniversary sale. Currently awesome titles such as Bishock, Assassins Creed, and NWN2 are a mere $5.

Next Monday some more titles will roll in.

Might see some stuff there you like.