Must Have Games (PC)

Dacelonid

Haven't bought any games recently and am looking for something new to play. The last game I picked up was Dragon Age Origins, and I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed it, which was surprising as I thought NWN2 had put me off RPG's altogether, so a rundown of what I have and what I like
Fallout 3 + all addons
One of my favourite games of all time. Can't wait for New Vegas

Bioshock 1&2
Loved both of these and am not happy with a sequel outside Rapture. The art-deco style and music made it for me

Crysis, Crysis Warhead
Didn't care for Warhead as much as the original, but still still loved them

Thief Series
1 & 2 have aged badly, but Deadly Shadows is deadly

Fear
Loved how this played and felt. In my mind one of the finest games to be made. Didn't think the add ons added anything though.

All Spliter Cell exceot Conviction
I liked Double Agent, but is Conviction any good.

All Hitman
Loved the later ones, Blood Money and Contracts

Farcry 1&2
1 was brilliant, 2 was crap

Stalker + COP + Clear Sky
Loved COP, but the other 2 were Meh!!

Oblivion
Loved it, but wouldn't play it again

KOTOR
Kinda like Oblivion, I enjoyed them, but wouldn't want to play them again

All Command and Conquer
Newer ones have lost that spark that made the originals so much fun

Diablo 1 & 2 + Expansions
So long since I played them, I don't know how I feel about them anymore

Supreme Commander
Meh!!!

All Half-life
Loved these games up until the Gravity Gun, have hated them every since

All NWN and NWN2
NWN2 soured the taste for me

Total War Series
I like them, but they just take too long to play

ArmA II
Didn't like it. It just didn't feel right

There are some other odd games here and there in my collection (eg Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines or World in Conflict) but the ones listed above would be the most popular ones shall we say. Now the list above is not just a list of my games collection, but rather I ma hoping based on the list above that someone can suggest a few games that they think are missing, and would be worth my while picking up.
As you can see there is a lot of FPS games and I've noticed over the last few years that I am more interested in games that I can just pick up and play.
The comment about Total War is the most telling. I haven't got hours to sit down in front of a game build armies, or micromanage a society (ie strategy games).
Neither do I have the emotional interest to invest in developing a character from scratch(ie RPG). Granted Fallout 3 and Dragon Age have soften my stance on the latter point.

So great people of boards, please help me fill out this collection with games you think shoud be included

Retr0gamer

System Shock 2, Deus Ex and the Thief series. Fallout 1,2 and Tactics. Planetscape Torment.

Creamy Goodness

total annihilation.
starcraft.
monkey island.
maniac mansion.
grim fandango.
tie fighter.
system shock 2

you dislike the gravity gun? :eek:
wouldn't really class crysis, bioshock and farcry series of games as must haves tbh.

Sephiroth_dude

company of heros

RolandIRL

Total Annihilation

/thread

cherryghost

Trackmania Nations Forever. It's awesome and it's free

Kiith

World of Warcraft - Cant have a 'must have' pc games thread without this.
Baldurs Gate 1/2 - Probably the best RPG i've ever played. Fantastic games.
Homeworld - The 1st fully 3d strategy blew my away when it was released. Space Opera at its finest.

Gummy Panda

Starcraft brood wars

Pugsley

Kiith wrote: »

Baldurs Gate 1/2 - Probably the best RPG i've ever played. Fantastic games.

You really want to play this game! Best RPG there is from what I've played. I enjoyed the NWN games (the 2nd one was pretty good after it was patched and fixed), but there were no stand out characters and the plot was instantly forgettable. It was mostly just a fun combat game on the AD&D ruleset. Baldur's Gate had both the combat and the characters sorted, BG2 especially had some fantastic characters, anyone who doesn't like Minsc is just wrong! "Butt kicking, for goodness!!"

Also BG2 had some great character development and enough side quests to last you for weeks, but you can also pick it up for an hour or 2 at a time. The first Baldurs Gate hasn't aged so well, but you can gets mods (Baldurs Gate Trilogy, or Tutu/Easytutu) that allow you to play both games as a single continous story. I played through BG Trilogy and it was a refreshing new way to play BG1, worth replaying both games for. But at this point I've finished BG2 4 times, quite a lot of time put into that one

ps: Also +1 for Deus Ex, best FPS/RPG hybrid I've ever played, even ahead of System Shocks imo. Bioshock just pales in comparison to Deus Ex or System Shock imo.

Sarky

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Planetscape Torment.

This. A couple of handy patches bring it up to today's resolutioins, they're easy to find. Much as I enjoyed the Baldur's Gate series, Torment blows it clean out of the water in terms of plot, immersion, characters and ingenuity. I bought it again on Amazon recently to relive the nostalgia. Dragon Age and Mass Effect could learn a thing or two from this one, as far as I'm concerned. An under-appreciated gem that really should have been made mandatory for all gamers interested in RPGs.

SeantheMan

-Assassins Creed 1+2
-Batman - Arkham Asylum
-Left4Dead2
-Portal

Fnz

- Left 4 Dead (whether you prefer the original or the sequel is a matter of taste).
- Portal
- Osmos
- Red Faction: Guerrilla (or wait for the sequel)

tman

Dacelonid wrote: »

Diablo 1 & 2 + Expansions
So long since I played them, I don't know how I feel about them anymore

Install Steam.
Get Torchlight.
Reminisce.

humanji

All Spliter Cell exceot Conviction
I liked Double Agent, but is Conviction any good.

Conviction is a Splinter Cell game in name only. It's a very dumbed down version with an emphasis on combat rather than stealth. That said, it's an entertaining game, but I definitely wouldn't class it as a "must have".

I'd add Fallout 1 and 2 to the list, but they haven't aged particularly well. And the control scheme fairly sucks. They're still fantastic games though and Fallout 3 really suffered by not using any of the humour of the originals.

Canis Lupus

Sarky wrote: »

This. A couple of handy patches bring it up to today's resolutioins, they're easy to find. Much as I enjoyed the Baldur's Gate series, Torment blows it clean out of the water in terms of plot, immersion, characters and ingenuity. I bought it again on Amazon recently to relive the nostalgia. Dragon Age and Mass Effect could learn a thing or two from this one, as far as I'm concerned. An under-appreciated gem that really should have been made mandatory for all gamers interested in RPGs.

Didnt know about the patches to update the rez. Got the game and couldn't play it. Will reinstall and have a look about now.

BG2 was one of the greatest games I've ever played.

Dacelonid

Hmmm must reread post before hitting submit to make sure it says what I want it to say.

What I was hoping for was some reccomendations on modern games that people think I would like based on the list of games I already own.
Having said that, there is some in that list that pique my interest.

Re Assassins Creed & Batman. I have those on PS3, but thanks for the suggestion.

Have the orange box and didn't like Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress. Not into multiplayer games to be honest.

WOW, I refuse to buy a game and then spend more money every month to keep playing, and also haven't got the time to get into something like WOW. Didn't like homeworld either. I thought I would, but it just didn't grap me.

I saw a Fallout pack in Game (Fallout 1 & 2 & Tactics), must pick it up

As for the rest, I have played some of them, but to be honest I was more looking for suggestions on fairly new games, ie within the last 2 years or so. Not really looking for a trip down memory lane.

Thanks for the suggestions though

Dcully

Starcraft 2 is a must have as is Mass Effect 1 and 2.
I agree with the rest of the suggestions.

Shiminay

QUAKE!

Grimebox

How about we do this thread except with post pictures of the games we like! :P

Kiith

Kharn wrote: »

QUAKE!

Pft, if Quake was good then people would have created a forum to follow it, and that forum would have then turned into Ireland's biggest and best discussion forum....

Oh wait :P

Sephiroth_dude

world in conflict.

Skerries

I love World in Conflict, and funnily enough i only watched Red Dawn which i had never seen before while i was playing the game which really enhanced it

Valmont

Age of Empires II

The Curse of Monkey Island

Full Throttle

Mafia

Quake

Morrowind

Sephiroth_dude

Men of war is a good game too,can be a frustrating at times though.

gizmo

Finally got around to playing Warcraft 3 recently and it'd certainly be on my list of favourite RTS games.

stevenmu

For an easy to pick up and jump in and out of FPS, Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare, and then if you enjoy it there's Modern Warfare 2 for more of the same.

For slightly deeper gameplay the Ghost Recon/Rainbow 6 games are good too, the newer ones aren't a patch on the original versions which were much more tactical sims, but they're still good fun.

Monotype

Unreal tournament. Great multiplayer. Especially the '99 version. Completely different style to the usual CS/war type multiplayer games.

About half-life, I didn't really like the gravity gun until the later parts (i.e., green/blue/turquoise gun - that was cool). It was fun, but a bit annoying when you were forced to use it by having no ammo around.

RolandIRL

how could i forget UT99? :eek: absolute legend of a game. mods/mutators are class for it. though it's kinda a multiplayer game to make it really fun (OP doesn't like mp)

Overheal

Orange Box

Half Life 1

Fanny Cradock

Not an exclusive PC title and already part of the Orange Box but I have to plug TF2. It's just damn good fun.

Overheal

190 Hours of Flaming, Stabbing, Shooting, Wrenching good fun.

Fanny Cradock

233 hours for me. In my defence, that's over 3 years and I often don't bother to quit the game. Oh, and I'm also unemployed

Overheal

Ah, I got hired again about a year ago before that I dropped out of college.. I blame Pyro.

Drakar

That "time spent as each class" graph thing they used do on the loading screen in tf2 was really depressing.

I'd like to have one of the UFO games in here, but the old ones really havent aged well and the new ones dont have the same feel.

Overheal

Incoming was awesome and with respect I think it will have aged well. I've got to go find it again in the ether. The sequel however seemed like crap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBEGvEz8H3Y

Retr0gamer

It hasn't really aged well. It looked amazing when it came out but now that it looks awful it's a very shallow game.

Chaos Marine

X-Com. The first three in any case. The following space-y ones weren't that good.

F##k 2K for their rape-magining of this classic.

Fallout 1 to 3.

Anything from Relic and Valve.

Freespace series.

A good idea is to head over to www.gog.com and pick up some of the titles there. They're dirt cheap.

Niska

No mention of Civilization yet? Civilization IV is a definite must have, and Civ V is out soon. Some big changes over previous iterations, most obvious being the change to a hex-map system.

Also Frontier: Elite. It's shareware now, and a bit long in the tooth, but it still manages to steal time from me.

Drakar

Xcom really didnt hold up for me, graphics and gameplay wise the industry has moved on so much.

X3 might be worth a look if you like Elite type gameplay (or of course Freespace if you dont mind skipping out on trading).

muppetkiller

For the Flight SIm fans...
il2 1946 ( The most complete ww2 flight Sim ever made)
B17 The Mighty 8th (Brilliant Bomber Sim and still looks great today)

Wolfe Tone

Niska wrote: »

No mention of Civilization yet? Civilization IV is a definite must have, and Civ V is out soon. Some big changes over previous iterations, most obvious being the change to a hex-map system.

Also Frontier: Elite. It's shareware now, and a bit long in the tooth, but it still manages to steal time from me.

Civ 3!!!
Wow obviously.
Mafia 1


Any other lowspec games anyone can recommend for the crap laptop gamers amongst us?

Single Malt

Civ IV: Beyond the Sword expansion is my most played pc game
Rainbow 6 to Raven Shield are some of the greatest tactical shooters out there.
Operation Flashpoint Cold War Crisis
Championship/Football Manager
C&C Red Alert and Tiberium Sun
Doom
Half Life series

Single Malt

Oh yeah, forgot these
Oddworld, Abe's Odyssey and Strangers Wrath.
And Serious Sam

Sandvich

Touhou 6: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
Touhou 7: Perfect Cherry Blossom

Higurashi Daybreak
Sengoku Rance

:O

micktrim

fallout
football manager
company of heroes and world in conflict for me

ShadowHearth

gizmo wrote: »

Finally got around to playing Warcraft 3 recently and it'd certainly be on my list of favourite RTS games.

ah WC3... completed that game like 10 times from start to beggining... plus multiplayer...

The only reason i got in to wow is wc3...

so a few games:

Mafia 1 ( yes 1, not 2)
Fallout 2 ( yes 2, not 3)
Starcarft 1 & 2 ( yes bouth :P)
Warcraft 3 +tft
Fear 1
Warhammer 40k DOW2
Hitman ( all of them)
Black and white 1 and 2
Settlers 3 and 7
Stalker ( stfu with your bug reports, moust of patches allready out, dont make one or two buggs to get you thick and dont play it)

DaceX

Ok a different genre from what you have, but if you dont mind losing your job or failing in school. Losing your girlfriend/ wife and kids. It has to be Football Manager.

However you MAY lose a significant portion of your life.

ShadowHearth

DaceX wrote: »

Ok a different genre from what you have, but if you dont mind losing your job or failing in school. Losing your girlfriend/ wife and kids. It has to be Football Manager.

However you MAY lose a significant portion of your life.

i bet you newer heard of wow

strangly enought it actually gave me loads of friends. i am leaving today to northend ireland to our ussual meet . WOOT WOOT!

Jazzy

www.quakelive.com
www.heroesofnewerth.com
ut2004


oh, football manager too. lots of others.... i dunno, just whatevers on my harddrive atm thats all ya need

Dave_The_Sheep

Note its all personal preference, from the ones I've played. I tried to stick to 3 each, but I couldn't with Strategy.

Shooter:

• The Half-Life series, with the possible exception of Episode 1.
• Doom and Doom 2. Even now, they scares the **** out of me and haunt my sleep.
• CoD 1,2,4. Haven't played any of the rest, but they were unreal for their cinematic scope and intensity. Beats the Medal of Honor series, though they're worth a look.

RPG:

• Deus Ex. Needs no explanation. Even now, beats most games out of the park.
• Diablo 2. Simply an incredibly addictive game with great gameplay. Also, co-op.
• Oblivion/Fallout 3. Hard to choose between the two, Fallout 3 maybe edges it.

Strategy:

• The Civilization series. Nothing comes close, Civ 2 is my all time favourite game with an insane number of hours put in. I'd easily say a thousand.
• Total War. If Civ didn't exist, this would top the pile by a long way. Now though, its just a poor second.
• Dawn of War series. Beats CoH for me, but then I like Warhammer 40K. Real time violent fun.
• Total Annihilation/SupCom. Awesome fun, explodey robots, massive armies.
• Starcraft. Haven't played 2, but the original was great.

Other:

• The X-Beyond series. X3 being the culmination, you can sink years into this sucker.
• Pro Evo. Sadly declining these days, but back when it was good, it was damn damn good.

Sephiroth_dude

Star wars empire at war is a good strat game.