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Gaming Suggestions For A Non-Gamer?
StephenLegge asks: "I'm a 33 year old computer programmer and I have not played video games since X-Wing came out. My wife is going away to visit her mom for a *month* and I'm thinking about getting a video game or two -- but I hardly even know where to start!" What games out there would you recommend for a non-gamer, especially those must-play-because-they-are-the-greatest games that are out there? We wouldn't want Stephen to miss out.
"If I rent a machine from Blockbuster, should I get an X-Box or a Playstation 2?
What's a killer:
- action game where I can play a spy or a soldier?
- driving game where I can race around in cool cars?
- D&D style game so I can re-live my pubescent RPG days?
Thanks."
Spy/sneak around: Splinter Cell. /Incredible/ game.
Racing/Hot Cars: Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2. Nothing else comes close to the graphics, the cars, or the entire "feel" of the game. Fun, hop-in-the-car and ride.
RPG: Neverwinter Nights. "Pen&Paper sim", TONS of third party modules for more gameplay.
The SIMS. You'll definitely want to pick up a copy.
You essentially control a set of virtual "people" whose personality traits and attributes you define. You create a house, furnish it, etc. You can make the people do things.. you can have them interact with the objects and other people. You can have them form relationships with each other.
Very addictive.
If you read the rest of his comments he seemed more interested in renting a console and obviously also wanted suggestions on what consoles to rent. Now one may wish to suggest rentig a computer, which is possible. But I don't know any good computer games you can rent.. :)
If you want one or two games to occupy you for a month, I reccomend something in the MMOG flavor. EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, or Shadowbane. I'd reccomend one of the first two, personally.
If you're looking to grab a console and you haven't played a game since X-Wing, I'd actually advise the Gamecube. It's certainly got enough games to entertain for a month, if not longer, and its games tend to be a bit more "old sk00l", and will probably be just a bit more familiar in their style and reasoning than a PS2 or XBox game, which are really catered to the generation after those of us that grew up in the Nintendo era. Look into snagging Metroid Prime, the new Zelda, Star Wars: Rogue Leader, or Eternal Darkness.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Any one of the Baldur's Gate games, from Shadows of Amn to the newer additions and such, are well put together and easy to learn. There is freedom if you like that, and also a strong enough plot line so you know what you're doing, and plenty of customization available.
"I only speak the truth"
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It's cool - check it out.
There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
You get all sorts of great games from Zelda to Splinter Cell.
I think Nintendo has the best exclusive games (Halo aside). Outside of that, all 3 consoles have pretty much the same games nowadays.
Pikmin alone is worth renting a gamecube.
You'll probably be familiar with more characters from Nintendo to reconnect to the whole youth thing, too.
The only downside is you can't play Grand Theft Auto 3.
Planescape: Torment is a superb RPG. The New York Times reviewer said "While computer games have not yet achieved Shakespearian quality, this one is perhaps as good as Marlowe." Although it is out of print (so you'll need to check the bargain bins or the web), it is not cobwebbed. This FAQ was updated in February 2003.
Things are a bit more complex now. So given that you like the shootem up, and you want an RPD also, lets get down to the nitty gritty.
Rent and X-box from block buster:
Rent:
Halo: (3 days no stop should get you done with that one. Best game on the x-box)
Splinter Cell(Tom Clancey): Best damn sneak around as a spy, shooting people, wacking them on the head, neato fun game on the market. Ghost Recon is very hot right now as well.
Wreckless: Will give you your driving jones a little run for it's money. Although not that best game in the world.
Not D&D but Knights of the Old Republic is a very fun StarWars game, and if your like anyone else our age nothing is better than beer and StarWars...well ok there are a couple things..but hell we are talking games here!
Only real D&d one is Reign of Fire, and it really is just a simple hack and slash, although very enjoyable.
If I had a week to play, X-box with Halo and Splinter Cell.....get ready to loose a couple shades of tan your going to be hooked.
have fun,
D&d Joes
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Hello Slashdotters,
I frequently game on my Linux PC sometimes 20 hours per week. How do I get my wife to go away for a month so that she'll stop nagging me? I want her come back after a month so that she can clean the house and make some more money for me to waste on games.
I never post here, hence the anonymous coward tag. If you only play one game this month/year/lifetime... you'd better make it the latest Legend of Zelda game, the Wind Walker. It is being called 'the greatest game of all time', and I have to agree.
It sounds like you're talking about getting a console and geeking out on it. I'll offer two recommendations for PS2 games, then.
Grand Theft Auto 3 (or GTA3: Vice City), as long as you aren't offended by senseless acts of violence. There's a certain joy in playing that game for the first time and the freedom you have to just walk up to someone, kick them out of their car, and go for a spin in it. If you're around 30, you'll definitely dig the Vice City vibe for some 80s retro action, and the soundtrack cannot be beat.
This is not a racing game, but you will get to drive around in fast cars. Plus, you can whip out an uzi in a mall, blow away a store full of gangsters, hop in your car, and escape to the beats of Michael Jackson.
Dark Cloud 2: I haven't played this, but a friend whose opinion I trust was totally sucked into it and spent far more time than makes sense playing this game. Great RPG-style goodness, lots to do, minigames, etc. A real great look at where "video games" have gone since you left the hobby.
Have fun with your video game craziness!
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If you wife is going to be away for a month, consider getting one of those cleaning services that does the job in a bikini.
Holy cow, get some p0rn, dude! You can game when the wife is around.
Where are your priorities, anyway? That's right, hanging between your legs!
If this were Usenet, I'd killfile the lot of you.
EA, Maxis, Namco, Nintendo, Sony, MS, etc.
Rent a gamecube and try out zelda, pikmin, splinter cell and metroid.
:)
Those are the best games that have been released in the past 12 months, and all could easily fill a month (unless you have no life that is).
You could try an xbox, but why? If you last played games in the x-wing era, you've already played all the games for the xbox
Ps2 has too high of a quality to crap ratio; you might get burned if you just rent random games for that system.
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
You will no doubt become slathered with suggestion, but for PC....
e x/
First go here:
http://www.gamespy.com/articles/july01/top50ind
This is Game Spy's top 100 games of all time, some may disagree to some extent, but virtually everythign worth playing is on this list.
Personally, my recommended must play PC games of the past 5 years are:
Homeworld
Half-Life
other Great PC games I have played for more than 1 month:
Netstorm (no longer around and virtually unheard of)
Quake2, Quake3
Battlefield1942
Wolfenstein 3d
StarCraft, Red Alert (both)
Duke Nulem 3D
Doom
For console:
N64 -- Legend of Zelda Ocinar of Time
ps2 -- METAL GEAR SOLID.. beats the crap out of splinter cell
ps2 -- Grand Turismo 3
ps2 -- Final Fantasy X
I hope this helps, I can't put them in any particular order, other than this and I hope you get a few more cross matches to pick something and have some fun.
In my home town (Windsor, Ontario) you can rent PC games at a couple of retail stores. I dunno if it's different in the USA, but here in Canada it seems to be Kosher.
The best (single-player) games I have ever played are:
Bionic Commando (NES)
Adventures of Lolo II (NES)
Super Mario Bros. III (NES)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Super Mario World (SNES)
Legend of Zelda III: A Link To The Past (SNES)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation)
The Secret of Monkey Island (PC) (sequel is good too)
Quake I (PC)
Worms: Armageddon (PC, etc.) (also great multi-player)
Pyro II (PC)
Actually, I'm interested in what others think are "must-play" games given these tastes. I don't like these "new-fangled" 3D games much, to tell you the truth...
For the original question: the poster may wish to look at Game Rankings has a way to find out what the concensus ratings on games are, plus you can restrict the genre pretty well.
I'd suggest you start with Halo (XBox), but then you'd probably never get around to the other games. Here's two Halo tips: If 2-3 buddies are going to come visit while your wife's away, play multi-player. If one buddy comes over, play co-op mode. That's the best! In regular Halo when you die you start over from the last saved spot. In co-op when one of you dies the other keeps playing; when the coast is clear, the dead player re-spawns. My only complaint with co-op is at the very end; one of you is just a passenger on the warthog, with nothing to do.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
If I rent a machine from Blockbuster, should I get an X-Box or a Playstation 2?
And this is why the Gamecube is in 3rd place -- Nobody knows that it exists. The smothering ad placements of the PS2 and XBox completely drown out anything that the big N puts out there, and the only people that know anything about it are those that actively 'educate' themselves.
This is truly a shame, as some of the best games ever made are being missed by a large portion of the game-playing public.
Oh well. I've already consigned myself to liking non-mainstream music, TV, books, and movies, so I guess it was just a matter of time 'til it happend with videogames, too. Let the drooling masses have their Madden '*, I'll quitely enjoy Eternal Darkness.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
If no one else has mentioned it, X-Wing came out in 1993. That's right - ten years ago! There have been a ton of great titles that have come out since then.
Here are some of the highlights, as I see them:
Quake (1995)
Quake II (1997) (only for multiplayer, though)
Baldur's Gate (1998)
Half Life (1998)
Unreal (1998)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire (the best civ-type turn-based strategy game ever)(1999)
Unreal Tournament (1999)
Baldur's Gate II (2000)
NeverWinter Nights (2002)
I don't do driving games or real-time strategy, so I'll leave them for others to recommend.
I hope these help and don't cause you to lose your job - all nighters do not make for easy work days!
A previous thread covered a lot of games that moved players.
Still, if I were to recommend for a month of gaming freedom, the main constraint would be games you can play and be done with in that time. After all, this is kind of assuming life has to go back to normal.
Max Payne - The writing is so beyond noir it's laughable but it's actually an incredible story, great graphics, the excellent implementation of bullet time and, most importantly of all, it only takes about 10 hours to complete. You'll get a great gaming experience that, even for someone who's out of practice, is completable in the time.
Ghost Recon - If you want a feel for how much first person shooters have advanced since Doom, this is the one I'd recommend. Half Life, Deus Ex, etc. are great games but, as a newbie, you'll be bogged down in them long after she gets back. Ghost Recon is a great game with small enough missions that you can complete it in a week or two.
Civilisation 3 - If you have no twitchy reflexes left but are older and want something that's absorbing, Civ 3 is an incredible game. It'll just keep you sucked in long after she gets back.
The Sims - Cheesy as it may sound, everyone loves The Sims for the first two weeks. It takes most people about that long before it all starts to feel samey. During that time, you'll actually have a fascinating, also non-twitchy, gaming experience.
Grand Theft Auto 3 - Possibly too immature but then it's strangely satisfying for its immaturity and you can get a pretty good fix in the time you have.
All of the above are old enough that you can buy a current $100 graphics card (Radeon 9100, GeForce 4200/5200 etc.) and play them well, even if you haven't been keeping up to date with gaming hardware.
Ones I'd argue against...
Any MMORPG - You'll either not get in to it enough or be so hooked you'll never leave. Either way, it's not a good one month only idea.
Any major RPG - The Baldur's Gate series are incredible but you'll likely not finish them. Same goes for Neverwinter Nights.
Quake 3, Unreal Tournament etc. - They're probably way too twitchy for someone who's out of practice. It'll just be depressing playing them against hopped up 13 year olds.
Speaking of Neverwinter Nights, does anyone want to nominate some top modules to d/l so he can play shorter games?
Otherwise NWN can suck you in for quite a while if you just play the core module...
Trolling-putting a rubber c0ck down your pants and cutting it off with a chainsaw: noisy and it makes you look d1ckless