Right now I'm writing this with a trusty old Matrox G200 8MB PCI Video card...

Reason being :
I have nothing left to feed my Gaming machine.
So instead of wasting 50W of power for nothing (a Radeon X1900XT displaying a Desktop), dug though my old stockpile and played around with the old Hardware.

Anyway, I tried many recent Games but they're either completely buggy, totally boring or plain old stuff packed in new Graphics.

So... The big Question is :

What Games do you have that rock, bring cool new Ideas or give outstanding Gameplay ?
And if so, why? What does it have that makes you play it with joy?

PS.
Nothing wrong with a 8MB G200 actually, I think it could run Quake 2 at acceptable speeds ;D
(its 2D Image Quality actually rules, just like in the old days... excellent 1280x1024 from a 9 year old card isn't too shabby)

What kind of games are you into?

First person shooters? Unreal Tournament!
- Doesn't need much explaining now does it? ;)

Real time strategy? Command & Conquer Red Alert!
- This will run decently, it's more reliant on CPU power.
Best RTS game ever. Fun, easy and helps you get rid of aggression :P

With your G200 you can play well Jedi Knight, Requiem, Shadowman, Soul Reaver, Mdk, Rogue Squadron, Incoming, Heretic 2, Thief, G-Police, Dungeon Keeper and sequel, Rayman 2 etc etc etc... Add a V2 Sli and you'll enjoy these and more others!

Hm, Unreal Tournament I've played for years and eventually got bored, so that's out of the question.

I used to be a 1st person shooter guy, but got disappointed by just about all recent shooters.

C&C Red Alert 2 I just completed (incl. Expansion Pack) *g*
So that would be a bit boring as well.

All the extremely old Games mentioned I either already played through or was never really interested in.
(that's the problem with having played just about everything in the past)

What I'm hoping for is this :
A recent, modern Game that simply rocks by its design but didn't get much media coverage, sort of an Insider Tip (i.e. like Battlezone and Battlezone II were many years ago)

What about Baldur's Gate serie? :P

I've found some innovative titles but for sure you cant play them with G200. These titles are Scrapland, Beyond Good & Evil and Psychonauts :) Another good game is Anachronox: it uses Quake2's engine and probably with G200 is fully playable...

So you're looking for newer games mainly?

This weekend, I saw a good friend of mine playing Lost Planet -> seems to be real fun and has awesome graphics :o

Perhaps worth a look? Sadly, you'll have to have a really decent graphics card (as well as a CPU) to run it at aceptable speeds and visual quality...

Another great game when you're into RTS games, is Company of Heros. I played it first time this weekend and it's been a blast. Nice graphics, excellent gameplay and it's so much fun! Sadly, I don't know, if the singleplayer mode is as much fun as the multiplayer mode too. Perhaps worth a rental at least?

Of course I will return a much faster Card into the System, as soon as there's something worth it.
(Athlon64 3700+ should do the job, will soon be replaced with a faster Dual Core as well)

I'll check out Lost Planet and Company of Heroes (although I've seen too many WW2 clones already)

Baldur's Gate seems more like Role Play, not my style unfortunately.

Red Alert2 is the best RTS ever made heaps of mods out there, games like Generals as C&C3 are 3D which sux in a RTS, Red Alert2 never bores my mates as my self.

games like Descent & Descent2 rule as well, they are the best FPSérs of their time norries there even Gamma742 has done some great work with Descent2 mapping ;)

man your maps are still the most demanding Gamma742, they really pwn big time, espeacially the very hectic ones haha, pack ém with a few hundred bots and the try to get out of that alive haha exellent! ;D

Blood
Blood II: The Chosen
King Pin [ a real Class!]
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division
Duke Nukem 3D
System Shock
System Shock II
Skynet [a real classic game with the terminator!]
Strife.
Whichaven
Whichaven II: Blood Vengeance

Dune
Dune II: The Battle of Arakkis
Dune II:The Building Of A Dynasty
Dune 2000
Command & Conquer Gold: Tiberian Dawn
Command & Conquer 2 Tiberian Sun
Command & Conquer 2 Tiberian Sun: Firestorm
Command & Conquer Red Alert
Command & Conquer Red Alert: Counterstrike
Command & Conquer Red Alert: The Aftermath
Command & Conquer Red Alert2
Command & Conquer Red Alert2: Yuri's Revenge + Purple Alert Mod
Starcraft
Starcraft: Broodwar
Total Annihilation  
Earth 2140
Earth 2150
Earth 2160
Diablo
Diablo II
Diablo II Lord Of Destruction
Heroes Of Might & Magic 1
Heroes Of Might & Magic 2
Heroes Of Might & Magic 3
Heroes Of Might & Magic 4

Velocity JetFighter II
Velocity Jet Fighter III Gold
Velocity Jet Fighter IV
Falcon Gold 3.0
Falcon 4.0 + SupaPack 3 + FreeFalcon 3.2
Flanker 2.0 + 2.51 patch
Mig-29 Fulcrum
Janes F-15 Eagle
DiD  F-22 Air Dominance Fighter [the best F22 Sim I have done]


These Games are good examples of games with good action as they can get very adictive also.

1) I wasn't talking about RA2, I was talking about the original, which is simply called RA.

2) RA2 is not the best RTS, not by a long shot.

The original Red Alert I already have :)

Blood 2 is IMHO illegal here in this country. Played it once and quickly got rid of (it's just sick beyond repair)

The only REALLY awesome FPS I have played lately has been... ;)

THE DARKNESS 8) 8)

...problem is that it's only console bound ATM (X360 and PS3). ::)

Out of choice - the X360 version is better (less blurry). ;)

Let's hope the nice folks at Starbreeze port this over to PC like they did with Chronicles of Ridd!ck. ;D
[note, the game uses an ENHANCED 'Ridd!ck' engine to do some pretty awesome shiznit - and the storyline is actually rather good for an FPS] :)

P.S. - try posting Ridd!ck with an "i" instead of a "!"... ;)

...LOL forum filters! ::) ;D

wrote on 16.07.07 at 02:18:22:

Dune

Dune is an adventure style game. Nothing comparable with Dune II of C&C-style games. Though the version of Dune with spoken languages is very cool. (I think that every adventure should be with spoken languages. Only the best adventures (Monkey Island II for example) can 'make' it without voices :P.)

Quote:

Dune II: The Battle of Arakkis Dune II:The Building Of A Dynasty

Both are practically identical (few things not, gameplay is the same). This game rocks and runs very well with DOSBox.


Quote:

Command & Conquer Gold: Tiberian Dawn Command & Conquer Red Alert Command & Conquer Red Alert: The Aftermath

IMHO the best series of Command & Conquer.

Some other old games with good gameplay (in my opinion of course :P) (and some in a different way then Dune II, C&C and stuff) are Death Rally, Flashback, Ultima Underworld II, Little Big Adventure (1 and 2) and Terra Nova. Of course Warcraft II, Z and The Settlers II must not be forgotten.

If you like platform games you might give Abe's Odysee and Abe's Exodus a shot.

A game in a total different direction is Blast Chamber. If you're looking for something new (assuming you never tried it :P) you might give it a shot.

I play alot of RPG, first person, some driving and flying games so I hope some of this list will be ok to work off of.

Very very old games:

Duken Nukem Atomic eddition (fp)
Shadow Warrior (fp)
Ultima 8 (very very long and rpg)
Nox was ok (rpg)

more recent 98se+

Crimson Skies was pretty cool. Good alt story line. (flight)

Baulders Gate-Icewind Dale-Never Winter Nights series (rpg)

Temple of Elemental Evil (with the third party mod packs that people have fixed from the original) (rpg)

Roller Coaster Tycoon series- Daughter loves the 3rd one when I hook it up to the tv (32 inch) and have her sit in a chair in front of it and move the chair like she's in the ride (shows the ride-in screen now)

{...Most of the Rainbow Six Series (fp)
Delta Force series from Nova Logic (fp)
Ghost Recon (fp) haven't played GR2 yet...}
Army based modern warfare games. Solo play is fun, multiplayer and internet play is sweet since alot of maps are co-op and not just kill each other for a flap. Co-op is what I prefer.

Thief series is always a fav. Always seems to be a new way of doing things.

In solo play, I find that the replay value is a little better in RPG's just because there doesn't seem to be an end to classes, but that's just me.

Anyway, hope this helps out with some ideas.

yeah its funny  Blood II: The Chosen was banned here but they sold the expansion pack  ::)

great game but that version of the lithtech engine was
very average

I think I'm going to replay the whole thief series (including T2X,the massive unofficial expansion),as soon as I turn that heap of hw back there in the corner back to 2 functional shader capable pcs.

and prehaps some hitman stuff as well (still havent played blood money,shame on me),I really need to let off some steam.

Alright, got some time to spare, got me two brand new Games and tossed the X1900XT back in...

Here's what I got :
"The Hell in Vietnam"

Seeing that the Game was released in 2007 made me wonder, because what I saw (Graphics) and heard (SFX) sure doesn't fit...
The GFX is (at best) mediocre, seen far better and much more dense vegetation in FarCry. Same holds true for the SFX, the weapon effects are flat and - considering the Text on the Box promises historically accurate models - outright wrong.
Add to injury that the Engine has highly visible workarounds for its very narrow limitations (including clipping and hitbox errors, allowing to run "into" Terrain), the Framerates are nowhere near where they should be, considering how simple the Graphics are.

Basically a downscaled "Call of Duty" with worse Graphics, painfully linear Gameplay and poor Weapon Modelling.

...another 40$ disappointment.

Warpath

A 2006 release, but it's built upon the Unreal Engine and the files rushing by when Installing the Game all are very familiar to the Unreal veterans. Fun begins when the Installer asks you to shuffle both Install CDs multiple times during installation - whoever mastered these CDs obviously screwed up the MSI installer script.

Anyway, after some shuffling the Game is ready to go.

Good news is that the Framerates are naturally almost independent of what you set as Detail level with a X1900XT.

Playing the first Mission is quite striking, however :
This game quickly turns out as something that is best described as a UT2003 Mod.
Second  Problem: it's not a good mod.

I've seen better freeware mods for UT2003

The entire Gameplay is visibly limited to what UT2003 and its engine can offer.
The Graphics, Sounds, Gameplay, Textures, Levels.... are all below average for a 2003 Game.

And that's where the next, big Problem comes in :
Had there never been an UT2003, all these things would be acceptable - in the year 2003...
But as we know, there was UT2003, and it beats "Warpath" in all aspects all by itself, being a well-polished product it was.

Now we have 2007 (!) and I have to look at a sub-average Mod for UT2003 being sold as a retail Game at the local store.... That game is poor now, and it wasn't any better last year.

Another 40$ for the bin...

------------
Both Games broke a personal Record for me :
Uninstalled after less than an hour of Play for being such an excessive waste of money and time.

Quote:

considering the Text on the Box promises historically accurate models - outright wrong.

Based upon those words, you could try to get your money back. 'Failure to deliver the promised product'

Well don`t get Sin episode 1

its got the works bugs , bugs and more bugs

shame could have been good

Got so bored of games i bought another guitar amp
an old classic from the music world 70 s Guyatone

cost me as much as a game $99 much more fun !

And another two Games tested and uninstalled :

Starship Troopers

Basically not a whole lot a 3D Shooter could do wrong there. The story is already there, the Artwork is already there, the Devs just had to get things going in gear basically.

Tragically, they chose a 3D Engine which (in 2005 !) does not even run smooth on a fast Dual Core PC with a X1900XT with all Details set to maximum.

Arguably, they realized how buggy their Game initially was and estimated it to be Bug-Free (literally) by the end of 2007.

The only Problems with this game are :
Bugs...

Again, ironically, both of them (in-game enemies as well as Code bugs).
There are levels which look good, play well, but are either equipped with far to less Bugs or completely swamped with them to insane proportions.
So through some levels, you'll be able to walk with an entire Arsenal of Weapons onboard, only to realize you never tested them when the Level ends.
In some levels, however, the difficulty is such skyrocket high, you'd wish you have Unreal2-type Plasma-fences and Auto-Turrets and a 30mm portable chaingun... Simply because you'd need them!

Add to injury that the supply of Bugs is virtually endless in these levels. You could (if you had enough health and ammo) fire at bugs for hours and hours, with no chance to succeed.

All this may sound like fun to some, but that's where the code bugs come in.

Friendly forces (Troopers, alone, in groups or manning stationary turrets) are less useful than inviting your pet (dog or cat) into Coop Play. They simply die fast because they don't use their weapons and generally show an AI less sophisticated than your average pet.

Additionally, enemies can "cloak" if you let them near enough. The 3D Engine simply sometimes blanks them out at a certain min. distance. That leaves you fighting invisible enemies close-range, while the remaining hordes run towards you.

All in all : nice try, but not worth 10$.

------------------------------------------
Red Orchestra

To keep things very short :
Battlefield 1942 meets UT2003.... In the year 2006.

And that's what the games does. Not less, not more.
What Red Orchestra nicely converted from BF1942 to UT2003, is the catastrophic, non-existing AI.
This is significant, as the average UT2003 Bot has about 100x the abilities of your average BF1942 Bot. They somehow managed to kill all that.

Had there never been a BF1942 and all its own Mods, Red Orchestra would have introduced an interesting Gameplay.

As it is, it simply copied BF1942 and failed to bring UT2003's advantages into the play. So why buy Red Orchestra, when (at this time) there was already Battlefield 2 (?!)

Noteworthy, the Game forces you to install and use Steam, which gets it another 2 downgrades, already before you play it.

...Another 10$ wasted on a failed, miserable Battlefield rip-off....
(it should have remained what it started at : a free UT2003 mod)

yeah tried red orchestra

liked some of it ( maps , ballistics )
unless you play it online

its a total dud

i was looking for a day of defeat replacement

Suprisingly i installed redfaction started a multiplayer game and people started joining , wierd i didnt know it was still popular , i wondered what was going on !

So i set up my old server and ran a few games on the weekend for a while , a bit of fun , still a nice engine .

Let me recommend something: don't buy games, you don't know. First, find some reviews if u dislike using dark channels of torrents across the internet. It's a shame that there are no games as in the old days...

Nowadays, I have a Core 2 Duo system paired with a GF8800 GTS and I am still playing only one single game: Warcraft 3 - DOTA. If I am correct, an overclocked Duron Spitfire 700Mhz with a Voodoo 3 should be enough for that game...

..bioshock is coming today,that should give your card a nice spin.stalker looks good too,just started to play and I'm really enjoying it.

Stalker I already sold again, after seeing how buggy it was and how little of what was originally advertised was actually in the Game.

...seems to be slowly improving with the patches though, but too late for me.

I wonder if Bioshock will run under Win2000, hopes are slim though.

Falcon, what you need is some good ol' fashioned Shadow Warrior.  ;D

wrote on 21.08.07 at 20:43:07:

Falcon, what you need is some good ol' fashioned Shadow Warrior.  ;D

Or Duke Nukem 3D ! Now, those were the days!

Remember the phrases the Duke used? "Aahhh... Much better"; "Your face, your a$$, what's the difference?" ...

Yah, Duke was one of the better FPS of it's day... :D

As for the catch phrases:

"Shake it baby!" - I liked this one because of what accompanied it... ;)

LOL! ;D

LOL oh yeah I remember those! Or "Who wants some?!"

Sorry for going off subject Falcon but you seemed like you needed a flash back.   :)

Yeah, those were the days :)

I tried a couple of older Games, but replaying them doesn't seem to give me back the thrill I had when playing it the first time.

e.g. HalfLife 2, despite all the Eye-Candy (4x FSAA, 4x HQ Aniso, HDR)...

It feels like...
....an old veteran rushing through the old Levels, routinely finishing off enemies just as he walks by.

It just keeps going on like that, even harder enemies that originally got you busy, plain curious or the creeps.
Now it's just "Oh, you wanna take me on...?" *BAM*".... "Next!"

wrote on 22.08.07 at 23:42:32:

Yeah, those were the days :) I tried a couple of older Games, but replaying them doesn't seem to give me back the thrill I had when playing it the first time.

True... True... Have you played F.E.A.R. ? It is the only game that gave me creeps... Maybe because I started playing at 2 AM and with maxed volume on 5.1 system... Maybe because there is something in that game. Anyway, after finishing the game - it is as you say, not interesting any more.

I know what you mean though, it is hard going back once you've completed a game. Even some of the games that I've never completed gets really hard to go back and play because there seems to be always something that you miss from another game that's close to it or after a little bit you remembered why you quit playing in it in the first place (Pool of Radiance for me was being stuck at 800X600 res and couldn't go higher- didn't play long with that one- on a 15 inch monitor it might look just fine to play at that res but on a 21 inch screen it looks SOOOOOOO bad I just can't do it. The characters are big that I feel like I could crawl in the screen my self and start casting fireballs.  :P).

Icewind Dale series and the Baulders Gate series for instance. I haven't completed either Icewind Dale game yet but after completing the BG series it just seems....I don't know... to a certain degree almost pointless. I loved the games when they came out and are based off books that I generally read but still can't get into them again.

Trying to find that one game out that will blow your socks off is always hard because you don't know what your going to like about a certain game that might get you hooked.

Max Payne is one that I love, I still go back once in a while and play a chapter or two. It's a game that surprised me. I generally hate playing a game in third party view, so I wasn't hoping for much when I picked it up but the story line was good, the way the game actually told the story was awesome and the over all game play was cool. Alot of people didn't like it for some reason or another though and part three never came out. You just never know what is going to get you hooked on a game to keep you playing until 4 in the morning and you have to get up at 6:30 for work.    :o

Games are alot like movies in a way, very few are both original and done really well.

@elfuego

Yes, played FEAR and loved it... One of the very few highlights of the recent releases :)

@jandarsun

Indeed.
Still, I'll slowly get games over time, hoping for that lucky shot. Takes some review nowadays to find new Games still running on Win2000.

Aah, F.E.A.R. - awesome game! 8)

Me and @Gary had a chat about it a few weeks back... :D

It's just a shame that the "expansion pack" called Extraction Point SUCKED so much. >:(

The storyline of F.E.A.R. had a lot of twists and turns... ;)

...but Extraction Point was ::):

Player starting the expansion pack =
"Hmm...I wonder if everyone who survived the original F.E.A.R. ends up dead?" ???

Player finishing the expansion pack = "Oh look, they DO ALL DIE! LAME!!!" >:(

It's good that a "proper" sequel to F.E.A.R. is being done by Monolith...even though they don't have copyright to the F.E.A.R. name - all the other stuff will be in there. ;D

(oddly enough, F.E.A.R. 2 is also rumoured to be in production...but not by Monolith...) :-/

And another quick test...

Code of Honor: The French Foreign Legion

Navigating through the first time in the Game's Options Menus appeared strikingly familiar.

My worst fears were soon to be proven true :
Another game using the acclaimed "Chrome Engine", structured, feeling, navigating, handling and playing exactly like "Hell in Vietnam". Even Icons and alike are absolutely identical.

Turns out the "Chrome Engine" isn't just the 3D Engine, it seems rather a "3D Shooter Construction Kit - for beginners"...

...because this game fails just like "Hell in Vietnam", for the exact same reasons.

Another 10$ wasted, lousy engine, lousy concept, boring.

My advice :
If you see any Game with the "Powered by CHROME Engine" Logo... Ditch it, because they're all the same.