PC Gaming

[Fry]

After working pretty much constantly over christmas and new year, followed by an unexpected windfall from student finance lining up with my birthday I am finally in the financial position to get a half decent gaming PC! The last time I bought a PC was when Half Life 2 came out, straight saving my £16 a week from my paper round for the better part of a year and selling loads of my shit.

So, now I have 6 years of PC Gaming to catch up on. What do you guys recommend?  I am just excited I can finally play the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R but I am sure there's loads of shit I am missing.

Is DCU Online worth a look in? I've heard mixed reviews.

(Just in time for BF3 and Skyrim too, squee!)

[El Unicornio, mang]

Do you want recommendations for stuff that's also on console, or just PC-only games?

[Fry]

Well either, I've not really been keeping up on console games either (apart from Skate 3 and Super Street Fighter 4, if you were going to suggest those then don't fucking worry about it son.)

[madhair60]

Cave Story, translated version here

[Fry]

I know you're probably being kind of silly but yeah I've played that game and it is fucking fantastic . Another kind of similar game that I never hear mentioned anywhere but is also cool: Bunny Must Die. (I'd link it but I am at work and can only get on about 3 sites.)

[El Unicornio, mang]

Well either, I've not really been keeping up on console games either (apart from Skate 3 and Super Street Fighter 4, if you were going to suggest those then don't fucking worry about it son.)

In that case I recommend Arkham Asylum (probably the best Batman game ever), Dead Space (very scary with the lights out), Fifa 11 (best footy game I've played once you patch it), Modern Warfare 1 & 2 and Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2. If your PC is powerful enough I'd also recommend GTA IV: Ballad of Gay Tony which is like GTA IV but with better music and more humour

[madhair60]

I know you're probably being kind of silly

No?  It's still one of the best PC games indie or otherwise.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

I'm in a very similar situation, so am interested to see what comes up here. I'd forgotten about STALKER, will have to put that on my list. Crysis is pretty good. And Dwarf Fortress is god.[nb]Not a typo[/nb]

[Zetetic]

If you like RPG's, then The Witcher's pretty good if you can past the first hour or so.

[Benevolent Despot]

I'm in a similar gaming place at the moment - i'm about to upgrade my 6 year old PC to the max it'll take and am currently in a quest to identify and acquire all good PC games (mostly PC-only) from the period of about 1998-2006), as I figure anything after that won't run that well. Plus as far as I can see there are very few great PC-only games after that, due to 360 and PS3 dominance. Well, maybe a few indie games.

I'm in the process of acquiring (but have not necessarily played):

The Thief trilogy
Grim Fandango
Far Cry
Deus Ex
Freespace 2
Broken Sword
World of Goo
Battlezone

err yes I need suggestions too.

[RacialKen]

Hello Fry (and CaB)

I can't recommend Portal enough - a very clever little game, with some good humour
For RTS, my favourite is Company of Heroes - takes a while to patch up the first time you play it
Macinarium is a lovely little point-and-click adventure game - it's not a very long game, but should be quite cheap
I'll second El Unicornio's recommendation of COD: Modern Warfare (can't vouch for the sequal) - an FPS that has a very good single-player campaign

I would suggest downloading and installing Steam - a lot of people hate it though, so you might like to do some research - it's an online gaming store that makes it far too easy to waste a lot of money. They have plenty of special offers, especially at weekends. They were giving Portal away for free at one point, but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

The Top 1000 games thread might also give you some ideas

[rudi]

The best things about Steam are

1. no boxes of games lying about

2. it automatically updates/patches games

The worst thing about Steam is

1. everything else


On balance, I rather like it.

[ThickAndCreamy]

A few things;

Are you buying a PC? If so, stop and realise any idiot can build a computer. It's no different from putting together an incredibly simple puzzle, and with the help of the internet you can easily, and quickly build a computer yourself and it will save you hundreds of pounds and allow you to figure out what's wrong by yourself and replace parts if needed or when upgrading.

Now, onto games;

1) Team Fortress 2 - A game that came out 3 years ago and is only online multiplayer. Yet it still has a huge online community, a constant array of updates with new maps, weapons and patches and is still the most fun multiplayer experience to be had online.
2) Left 4 Dead 2 - I love games online that involve teamwork and real human players, so I love this. It's fun, accessible and unlike other multiplayer online games, over time as the players get better it's beneficial to the game as you need other decent players to do well.
3) Portal - A short, original and quirky puzzle game.

They're all made by Valve, who are generally an extremely reliable and well respected games developer. This is because they support games for years with patches, add-ons and other exciting things all for free and make high quality, long lasting games. You don't even need a good PC to run them as they use an engine built in 2004.

Sorry if this sounds patronising as it's all very basic and well known knowledge about PC gaming, but considering you haven't done it in so long, it might help a little bit. I can't stress enough just how fun Team Fortress 2 is, at at under £10, I think it's a very bad idea to not buy it.

Also, as for Steam, it's the main reason I don't pirate PC games any more, I wait for the sales and buy. It's a fantastic piece of software I say.

[Consignia]

Are you buying a PC? If so, stop and realise any idiot can build a computer. It's no different from putting together an incredibly simple puzzle, and with the help of the internet you can easily, and quickly build a computer yourself and it will save you hundreds of pounds and allow you to figure out what's wrong by yourself and replace parts if needed or when upgrading.

As fun as it is building a computer (and it is), I found over the years there is no significant cost savings to be had building one yourself, especially if you shop around. You can chop and change with the innards any way if there's something you'd rather have.

The only time I've ever found building a PC useful is when you have an incredibly specific remit, such as the media PC built last year which had no equivalent form factor, spec or price from any where.

As for games, erm, don't really know I'm not really a PC Gamer, but I hear solitaire is pretty cool.

[Ignatius_S]

Fry, are there any types of games that you particularly like or don't?

...I can't stress enough just how fun Team Fortress 2 is, at at under £10, I think it's a very bad idea to not buy it....

Worth getting via The Orange Box – quite easy to get that for a tenner as also includes Portal, plus the HL2 games.

[El Unicornio, mang]

I found that using a "build your own" service on ebay enabled me to get just the right gaming PC for me at a decent price (under $500). You can pick everything from the graphics card to the audio card to the hard drive to the "chassis". I have a 1GB GEforce 9600GT video card, which isn't one of the very best cards around today, but is good enough to play any recent games, most on highest settings (GTAIV excepted) and costs between 70 and 100 quid, depending on which brand you choose.

[Fry]

Fry, are there any types of games that you particularly like or don't?
Worth getting via The Orange Box – quite easy to get that for a tenner as also includes Portal, plus the HL2 games.

I like a little bit of everything to be honest. Really want to get into RTS and Turn Based strategy gaming, also I am also looking for a genuinely good MMO (FPS, RPG, RTS. I don't care) to get my grubby little hands on. Thanks for the suggestions so far! I've been peeking around, trying to find which I like the look of.

[HappyTree]

I don't generally go in for gaming on the PC for reasons I won't bore anyone with here, but I did get Oblivion (RPG) and it was amazing fun with all the cheats, then downloading weird and wacky mods. That's one thing the PC has over consoles.

One of the best games for sheer adrenaline kicks is Burnout 3, I imagine it's just as good on the PC. You may or may not like using the keyboard and mouse, personally if I were to get back into PC gaming I'd get an Xbox 360 controller for it.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I've had Stalker sat on the drive for a bit now and barely touched it, didn't realize it was inspired by the Russian film of the same name, kind of want to see that first now.

Dead Space 2 is definitely worth a look, I also liked SPORE which I had sitting on a disc for an age until I got hold of a computer that would run it faster than a drugged tortoise.

Also quite liking what I've played of The Sims³ seems a bit more robust than previous outings.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I've yet to play New Vegas, so maybe that's the one to go for now, but Fallout 3 is superb stuff.

[RacialKen]

As far as MMO's go, you could do far worse than check out the totally free and completely funtastic Subspace: Continuum.

It's like the old arcade game Asteroids, but with other ships instead of asteroids. Oh and the other ships are controlled by other people.

I can't provide a link because I'm in work, but Googling it should be easy enough. There are a few game-modes to explore - my favourite was 'trench wars', which you should check out, if you do download the game.

[Zetetic]

I've had Stalker sat on the drive for a bit now and barely touched it, didn't realize it was inspired by the Russian film of the same name, kind of want to see that first now.

Don't bother with that order of things. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (the games) draws a fair bit from Roadside Picnic (book on which the film Stalker was very loosely based) and much lesser extent on Stalker (the film).

The games stand very much on their own. Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat are both very good, ShOC being considerably harder to get into. Don't bother with Clear Sky.

(Stalker 2 looks likely to be lovely, if not really revelatory.)

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

I don't generally go in for gaming on the PC for reasons I won't bore anyone with here, but I did get Oblivion (RPG) and it was amazing fun with all the cheats, then downloading weird and wacky mods. That's one thing the PC has over consoles.

Have you ever played Morrowind (the previous game in the Elder Scrolls sries), HT? It can be a bit of a pain in the arse to play compared to Oblivion (which I also really like), but has a fair bit more depth as regards plot, background and character creation. I think you'd like it.

[HappyTree]

Yes I got Morrowind on the original Xbox. It was very engaging, if a little too brown everywhere. But the atmosphere it had was incredible. I found a cheat to boost my stats and had great fun levitating around for ages. I was on my way to becoming a big mage. The game was so big that when I moved on to other games I felt a bit lost. Maybe I'll go back to it some time, I do want to try to become the head of the mages.

So many unfinished games! Morrowind did feel a bit overwhelming at times, but I foud that Oblivion suffered from not having a flying spell. Surely flying about a sandbox world is everyone's dream?!

[cptwhite]

If you like real-time Strategy then Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is an absolute must.  Search for Supreme Commander Gold (which is the original game + the forged alliance expansion).  The expansion is very superior and re-balances the game in a big way, but the original is still worth playing the single player for).

[Fry]

I'm going to need to pick Oblivion up again, give that game another shot. What I am looking for is a mod that makes levelling something that isn't shitty and broken. And also perhaps some other mods that make other aspects of the game not be shitty and broken no more. Any suggestions?

[HappyTree]

I last played it 2 laptops ago, but I remember a great mod for moving stuff I'd hoarded so I could place it nicely around the room. Also a weather mod to make it more exciting, and then the best mod of all which gave you a spell that summoned up disco lights and made everyone dance around :D

I presume Oblivion has been h4ck3d to...oblivion by now. There's bound to be a cheat that gives you full powers or something.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I really never understood why people moaned about Oblivion's leveling up malarky, not once did I feel I was being fucked over because of it, oh there were times when I was unprepared but that was my fault. If a rat manages to kill you at level 20 or whatever it's because you've still not learned how to play the game not that said rat is 'overpowered' or some shit.

If it's the skill leveling though that was a bit annoying at times, I found myself running in a circle, jumping and casting restoration around the main city for aaaaages to get them high enough, I'm pretty sure you could screw that with Cheat Engine or something similar though.

There is (was) also a thriving pervo community knocking up new skins for bodies and faces for the characters, you'll be hard pressed to miss Better Bodies, or EyeCandy on any mod site you happen upon.

[Eis Nein]

I'm out of the loop of Oblivion modding. I performed a full FCOM install with all textures, Wrye Bashed and darnified a year or two back and by the time I'd finished I couldn't be bothered to play. It's easier to install Linux.

But here's a guide and here's a modpack with install sequence.

Can't vouch for either, but I can for the bethesda forums, have found help there in the past.

[Mister Six]

I really never understood why people moaned about Oblivion's leveling up malarky, not once did I feel I was being fucked over because of it, oh there were times when I was unprepared but that was my fault. If a rat manages to kill you at level 20 or whatever it's because you've still not learned how to play the game not that said rat is 'overpowered' or some shit.

It's more that the game loses any sense of progression. Watching your character develop from an amateur who cowers in the face of petty goblins to a brave hero who leaps into Hell itself to kick some arse is both satisfying and narratively appropriate. If my guy's just walked out of his tenth Inferno Gate only to get taken down by a lowly wolf then it just looks bloody stupid.

There's also a sadistic pleasure to be had in, once you reach a high level, pasting all of the monsters that harangued you at the start of the game that is lost to Oblivion players. Likewise, there's something crushing about knowing that trolls will always be abominably hard to kill no matter how good your character gets (especially if, like me, you elect to play as a thief archer).