I’m not an avid gamer, but I do occasionally enjoy playing video games. I sometimes have time to do so over the holidays, so I’m looking for suggestions. I have a PS3 and a PC available.
Thinking about what I like, most recently it seems to be immersive world games: Oblivion, Dragon Age, Mass Effect 1 & 2, and GTA. I’ve also enjoyed simulation games, such as Civ, SimCity, FreeCiv, and Railroad Tycoon in the past — and could again. Some of the Star Wars games (Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy, Force Unleashed) I’ve enjoyed, though the ones that have essentially no plot I didn’t really.
What suggestions do you have?
Turn off your ad blocker and refresh reddit.com a couple hundred times until you get one of their pixel jam games in the ad spot. Those are surprisingly good.
Moar oil!
I haven’t played Dragon Age Origins, but I heard that its story is as marvelous as Baldur’s Gate II or Planescape Torment.
If you want to try a good indie RPG, I loved Geneforge 1 from http://www.spiderwebsoftware.com .
Lord of the Rings Online or Dungeons and Dragons Online, both are free to play and run flawlessly in wine.
Lucky you :)
I would recommend Mount and Blade Warband – a beautiful, horsey swashbuckling open-ended game. X3 Reunion: Terran Conflict – it is one really good spiritual descendants of Elite, and Minecraft. All of them have one thing in common – quite open ended explore the world and create your own story style games – no real ‘end goals’, in the first two there is an occasion quest or task available for you if you choose.
Not sure if you will consider the first two ones without plot. They do have a back story, and some plot, but it is not forced on you too hard. Minecraft – sorry, no plot there, but a big sandbox for your imagination.
If you like GTA, then Red Dead Redemption should be a blast for you. GTA on horseback in the Wild West…
Check out Uncharted 2 — very strong on plot
The Force Unleashed II was released a few weeks ago…
In the “immersive world” category: God of War, or Okami.
I pretty much don’t play video games at all anymore*, however one recent exception was Valkyria Chronicles for the PS3. It could reasonably be described as half movie, half video game, and the gameplay is unusual, kind of like a modern version of X-COM. Probably the worst thing about the game is that it’s single player, and you pretty much have to commit about an hour per sit-down.
* To give an idea, the next most recent game I put any amount of time in is the original Halo, and before that the original Aliens versus Predator.
Somewhat different genre, but Batman: Arkham Asylum is really enjoyable (PS3)
I concur in the recommendation of Mount&Blade Warband. Great sandbox RPG/Battle/Simulation mixed genre game.
King’s Bounty: The Legend makes is a great RPG/Strategy game with many humorously insanely twisted ideas :)
The older but still easy to acquire Divine Divinity RPG is a great mostly forgotten gem. One often hears it described as an action RPG in the Diablo mold by those who played the demo or the first hour or so of the approximately eighty to a hundred odd hours offered. After the first village the world expands enormously and has more in common with the old Ultima games.
The successor Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga is also an expansive RPG that compares favourably to the much hyped Dragon Age. It might not have the most original plot but is full of wonder, action, novel mechanics and you get to play as a dragon too!
simutrans is not bad.
I highly recommend anything by Paradox Interactive. Very high level grand-strategy games. Think of a more detailed Civ in pausable real-time. Europa Universalis III (with all expansions, very important) is my current favourite. Victoria 2 has a more detailed economy and Hearts of Iron 3 is great for the more detailed combat mechanics.
All work in Wine.
http://www.europauniversalis3.com/
http://www.victoria2.com/
http://www.heartsofirongame.com/
Craig
I’m playing through Bioshock again to complete the achievements, and if you haven’t tried them they’re pretty good. This one is multiplatform, but the vast majority of my game collection is Nintendo / Xbox 360.
I hear Civ 5 is out and has changed gameplay quite a bit. And I quite like Civ Revolution’s multiplayer that can be completed within a lifetime.
ubuntu has openttd packaged. If you enjoyed Railroad tycoon, you might enjoy a different take on the transport business genre.
Plenty of interesting games in Debian, I package/suggest these:
warzone2100 chromium-bsu krank btanks hex-a-hop primrose transcend cultivation passage gravitation between nethack
I’m surprised people didn’t suggest more FLOSS games.
The Debian games team needs more people, please join us!
Thanks everyone for all the suggestions! I haven’t had the chance to look at all of theem yet, but I will. It is much appreciated.
A very cute game, and Free Software, and in Debian, is Widelands, a clone of the Settlers II game. Very good for occational relaxing gameplay.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is my new standard for immersiveness. It has a realistic first-person viewpoint, instead of the traditional floating camera behind your back.
Assassin’s Creed 2 has beautiful environments (the first one is also very nice, although the second has better gameplay). Overlord II is a fun poke at high fantasy tropes, and fun gameplay as well (I recommend the first one too, but the second is nicer).
Speaking of humour, DeathSpank takes the heroic fantasy way over the top, to good effect, but its cardboard-cutout style graphics aren’t exactly immersive.
On PS3 I have played only two games and enjoyed them both. 1) Call of duty: Modern Warfare 2) Resistance: Fall of Man
On PC I have recently enjoyed ‘Osmos’ game from Hemisphere Games. It is a simple but interest phycis based game.
And of course my long time favorite is Battle of Wesnoth. It is a turn based game but I enjoy it very much.
Heavy Rain. I love this game so much. The latest patch adds Move support to it. I’m thinking of buying a Playstation Move for the sole reason of playing this game with motion controls.
Nobody has suggested Fallout yet? What the heck?
Fallout 3 and/or the extensions (all thrown in with the game of the year edition) and/or the new “New Vegas” (I haven’t played that one). Fantastic. Ticks all the boxes you have listed.
Heavy Rain. Get it!
Also worthwhile plays (I’m omitting the FPS category since you seem less interested) are God of War 1-3 (the first two are available as a single game remastered for PS3), Red Dead Redemption (if you liked GTA. the ending of this game is awesome BTW), Uncharted 2, Little Big Planet, and Katamari Forever.
A few more suggestions.
‘Space Rangers 2: Reboot’ combines space combat, questing in 2D turn based action as well as 3D real time tactical ground combat and text adventures. Highly entertaining.
‘The Witcher’ is one of the best written RPGs I’ve ever played with several shades of gray as well as having an entertaining real time combat system where timing unlocks combinations and effects.
Seconding the Fallout games. If you like Bethesda’s work, you’ll enjoy them; all of them. Fallout 1 and 2 are available at gog.com (a great site, by the way, I’d highly recommend everyone sign up).
They’re old, but still quite good if you can overlook archaic graphics, and I’m guessing you can since you play FreeCiv. Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas (their plots are completely unrelated, so if you want to jump straight into NV, feel free, but I should warn that it’s a Steamworks game, so DRM-ho) are both great games, as well.
Speaking of older titles, you should try Planescape: Torment and Arcanum if you haven’t.
On the newer front, and in a completely different vein, I’d suggest giving Minecraft a try. It’s one of the more addicting games I’ve played in a while, only costs ~$15 (currently, the price will go up before too long), and is written in Java, so completely cross-platform.