Ask Slashdot: What Games Are You Playing?

An anonymous reader writes "We haven't had this discussion in a while: what games are Slashdotters playing these days? We've recently seen the latest generation of consoles arrive on the scene. Almost exactly a year ago, Valve brought Steam to Linux, and they've been pushing for stronger Linux adoption among game publishers ever since. Mobile gaming continues to rise (for better or worse), MMOs are still sprouting like weeds, and Kickstarted indie games are becoming commonplace. For those of you who play games, what ones have struck your fancy recently? What older games do you keep coming back to? What upcoming releases are you looking forward to?"

Comments

Skyrim

[aslashdotaccount]

Started Dragonborn recently; just can't get enough of Skyrim. Last new campaign that I managed to complete was Metro: Last Light. Looking for the next exciting adventure. Any suggestions?

(Am still waiting for Spintires to release a proper game)

Re:Skyrim

[aslashdotaccount]

Also, the worst experience I had was with Arma 3. I contribute to a lot to early access games on Steam and this one really felt like a con. Worst game I've ever spent money on (and a whole lot at that!).

Re:Skyrim

[JMJimmy]

Definitely one on my to play list... but for now: Games for Windows Live games - I'm an achievement whore and the service is likely to be shutdown come July 1st so the completionist in me wants to get as much done as possible. 8 of 43 completed so far, 55% overall completion with 5-10 unstarted.

Re:Skyrim

[buswolley]

space empires IV

Re:Skyrim

[cbhacking]

Out of curiosity, any particular reasons you care to highlight as to why 4 and not 5? I've played both (and also 3), but it's been years since I played 4 and I've forgotten what each one did well or poorly. I'm pretty sure at least one of the earlier two versions didn't have the stupid research allocation system that 5 uses, and instead used a research queue like a sane game would... I really like SE5's tactical combat, though. Turn-based tactical fighting has too many limitations and too many ways to game the system.

Re:Skyrim

[Evtim]

Fancy! I am still playing extremely heavily modded Oblivion. I don't think Skyrim will run smoothly on my PC anyway. Also - I am hesitant to play "coded for console, rushed for PC" kind of thing. I mean Oblivion is unplayable on PC without modding; after modding it's one of the best games ever. I lesson to us all, perhaps?

Also - golden oldies like Alpha centauri, Rome total war [extremely heavily modded], Painkiller [when I feel like shooting something], GTA 3 [use it as a substitute to recreational driving - put my MP3 collection on the radio and just drive/float/fly]. I do have an old console - PS2 and use it to play the one and only game that warrants, in my opinion, purchasing a console - Gran Turismo. My wheel gear is twice as pricy compared to the console...

Re:Skyrim

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Amen brother. I'm currently on my 2nd, all mods in playthrough of Skyrim, and I'm afraid I won't be able to stop until I have explored every nook and cranny and cleared out the last mudcrab in every dungeon.

Re:Skyrim

[stjobe]

Just the other week I actually completed the main quest line in Skyrim for the first time - and then I looked at my Steam stats. 330 hours played...

And that's without any of the DLCs :)

Quite looking forward to Elder Scrolls Online now - the PvP looks excellent from what I've seen :)

Re:Skyrim

[Marsell]

On the other hand, I think Arma 3 was and is one of the best games I've ever spent money on. It's flexible, capable and beautiful.

You're not one of those Arma 2 guys who thinks Arma 3 is the worst thing ever because it doesn't have 15 cut'n'paste Humvee variants, are you?

Re:Skyrim

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Skyrim runs smoother on my PC than Oblivion. I think the engine is better optimized. You also get the occasional crash in Skyrim, but not nearly as often as in Oblivion.

Re:Skyrim

[Anonymous Coward]

Definitely one on my to play list... but for now: Games for Windows Live games - I'm an achievement whore and the service is likely to be shutdown come July 1st so the completionist in me wants to get as much done as possible. 8 of 43 completed so far, 55% overall completion with 5-10 unstarted.

You should be able to convert to Steamworks version using the gamecode you have now. I was also able to convert the Gamesaves using some online guides, but you won't have any of the same achievements progress so you'll probably want to play through again anyway.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Batman-Arkham-City-Switching-From-GFWL-Steamworks-59961.html

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=188027765

Re:Skyrim

[PopeRatzo]

GTA 3 [use it as a substitute to recreational driving - put my MP3 collection on the radio and just drive/float/fly].

Absolutely. I do the same thing with open world racing games like NFS Rivals or Most Wanted. I turn down the game music and put Spotify on in the background.

It reminds me of my youth, when I just cruised around with a beer between my knees and a joint between my lips, listening to eight-tracks and underground radio.

Re:Skyrim

[Joce640k]

Wow, you guys are all really advanced! I'm still mastering Space Invaders/Asteroids.

Re:Skyrim

[PopeRatzo]

If you guys are using video games as a substitute for actual recreational driving, you've made some bad choices in life.

Have you seen the price of gasoline?

No, it's not so much just a replacement for recreational driving as it is for recreational driving, plus great unexpected music. A lot of the artists I've come to really enjoy came up on Spotify radio playlists. And with very few exceptions sprinkled through the country, the days of underground radio stations playing new and challenging artists is long gone.

Also, the vehicles. While I enjoy driving my little 4-door, and it's got a lot of pep for what it is, it's nothing like booming down a virtual recreation of the California coastline at 230mph-plus in a Koenigsegg Agera-R, which is maybe a little bit out of my non-virtual price range. Also, running from packs of police out to run me off the road, while great fun in a video game, is a little outside my comfort zone at this late stage in my life. Plus, my wife would be pissed.

Re:Skyrim

[NotDrWho]

Pong: Easy to learn, decades to *master*.

Re:Skyrim

[Gryle]

I had just the opposite happen. I bought Skyrim when it first came out and it was buggy as hell (crashed after I finished the first quest, repeatedly). Months later after all the patches had been pushed out, I still can't get the damn game to get past the first point without crashing. Oblivion runs smoothly, cleanly, and once I added a mod that stripped out the main quest (damn Oblivion portals!) it equaled Morrowind in playability.

Re:Skyrim

[aslashdotaccount]

Plus, all the Formula 1 drivers don't feel like they made bad choices in their lives while their practicing in simulators.

Re:Skyrim

[Travis Mansbridge]

Here's an article by a Microsoft researcher detailing how they can make games forcefully addictive using the same techniques used to keep a mouse pressing a button indefinitely in a skinner box.

Enjoy your box.

Re:Skyrim

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know?

Re:Skyrim

[ninjagin]

I beg to differ. I have a sports car (an S2000) for real life driving, but I found that my proclivities for hooning were getting me in places where the law enforcement consequences would be very serious (see that speed limit? -- now double it -- that's where I used to push myself).

I picked up a copy of GTR-Evolution because of the various tracks and car selection, bought a good wheel, stick and pedals, picked up a couple extra 28in monitors for triple-headed goodness, and it's been pretty good. I found that I enjoy the 3rd person rally games -- Dirt3 is a real hoot. While I've not settled into it, I've been considering a move to iRacing, which is a lot more technically accurate when it comes to terrain and car adjustment.

So, I think that driving games can be very helpful in keeping me out of trouble and yet still very much into the technical driving mindset.

Re:Skyrim

[amicusNYCL]

Yeah that's happening to me too. I think my character is level 58 or so, all major quests completed including Dawnguard, and I'm just going through the miscellaneous quest list looking for things to do.

Re:Skyrim

[buswolley]

I havent played 5.
I originally had III. Loved it. I like the research system where you set percentages to each tech you'd like to concurrently research. IV went to a queue system, which is ok. However SEIV had other improvements over III, and is more compatible. I just generally love the game.
I havent played tactical much since Im playing multiplayer, and the game is not RT

Re:Skyrim

[clubby]

DCS World. The game (with one plane, a Russian Su-25 ground attack aircraft) is free on Steam, with other aircraft available as modules. Although it's still in beta, I recommend the UH-1 Huey module. I just take off and cruise around. Sometimes I'm doing 200kph just ten feet above the ground, sometimes I soar up and over mountains and drift down into canyons at a lazy 60kph and then touch down on a rooftop in a small town. Sometimes I stick some enemy trucks a couple hundred kilometers away, and when I notice them, I tell the gunners to fire at will, just so I can see four miniguns firing before calling it a night. It's very immersive and relaxing. (It has a campaign, but if I just want to chill, I use the mission editor to create a mostly-empty map.)

Re:Skyrim

[Radical Moderate]

I bought Skyrim at release and had few crashes. On the other hand, got halfway through Witcher and had to quit, kept crashing at the same point even when I played my saved game on a different system. YMMV, I suppose.

And yes, those portals are damn annoying!

Re:Skyrim

[Creepy]

I don't recall any issues with Witcher 1, but Witcher 2 and Skyrim both had serious video driver issues on release and not patching them caused relatively quick crashes for some people, includnig me (for that matter, Witcher 2 died on the intro video for me without a video driver patch). Oblivion had a lot less video issues, but was built on top of a very dated engine that was dying a quick death (in fact, it was largely abandoned by the time Oblivion shipped, with most of its programmers laid off).

I had some issues with saves on both Witcher 1 and Witcher 2, both of which were fixed by going back to an earlier save. Backtracking sucked, but was really the only solution.

Re:Skyrim

[Creepy]

I only made it about 75 hours. The cardboard character and repetitive combat got dull. The dragon stuff was amusing for a while, but I got to the point where even the dragons fights were just tedium. It plays too much like its predecessors and all quests are just skin deep with no real overarching consequences. It just reminded me of a quest in Oblivion where if you were female (I played Oblivion through twice, once as male and once as female to see what differences there were... basically minimal, and the game was short if you wanted it to be), a group of female bandits offered for you to join them, but your only option was to betray them and then kill them all. I wanted a choice where I could join the bandits and maybe got to rob a couple of caravans and then maybe faced consequences for it later. If the only choice I get is the one developers made for me, it isn't much of a choice. About the only choice you have in these games in major factions to join, and those have no impact on anything, really. Ooh, I'm a vampire. Ooh, I'm a werewolf. Ooh, I'm bored.

I hate to be cynical, because they are good games, and they did keep my attention for 75 hours (but Morrowind was 300+ for me...), but I feel like I should have some investment in keeping the townsfolk alive rather than just slaughtering them and not feeling bad at all about them. Gothic (the original, the sequels went downhill, probably because the original programming team left) made me feel this way 13 years ago, so I don't think it is too much to ask.

Re:Skyrim

[JMJimmy]

That's all games have ever been. I'm under no illusions in that regard. I still enjoy them, I enjoy the random challenges that achievements present, and I enjoy the statistics of it (trueachievements.com is freaking awesome). I have my limits though - I'll never go after something like "Seriously..." in Gears of War due to the 127 hours required (minimum). Besides the enjoyment factor, it's the cheapest form of entertainment available these days (on a cost to time ratio).

Re:Skyrim

[PopeRatzo]

Hey, thank you my friend. This sounds like my kind of thing.

And no, I don't feel like the fact that I have to practice recreational Huey flying means I have made bad life choices.

Re:Skyrim

[JMJimmy]

I actually did the reverse, I had to unpatch Steam's patches to be able to get GFWL back. Not that I like the DRM, but I stick to Xbox achievements. Steam's lack of value (arbitrary as gamerscore is) and lack of limits on the number/type of achievements makes them less interesting for me. Just like I have zero interest in Xbox challenges - it's no fun to have time limited crap - I've got way too many games and too much to do in my life to add that kind of hassle.

I also don't really have interest in gamerscore so much as I do TrueAchievements. The ratio (rarity) of an achievement relative to it's gamerscore assigns a more meaningful value and a layer of statistical interest beyond "1king a game".

Re:Skyrim

[1arkhaine]

Strongly recommend you try Euro Truck Simulator 2 if you enjoy driving. You basically complete long haul trucking assignments across Europe. If you don't want to do that, you can just drive forever, as long as you can afford the petrol.

Re:Skyrim

[PopeRatzo]

Others have told me the same thing. But driving alone isn't my thing. I like driving fast, and racing and running from the cops and doing stunts.

But now enough trusted people have recommended Euro Truck Simulator 2 that I'm going straight to Steam to give it a try. Driving around Europe might be just the thing to cure my Chicago cabin fever.

Re:Skyrim

[riT-k0MA]

NFSU2 / GTASA. Both are beloved games that I discovered at just the right time. I still love taking a 'drive' through both from time to time. Getting them to work on widescreen was a pain, though.

Re:Skyrim

[Anonymous Coward]

"one of those Arma 2 guys who thinks Arma 3 is the worst thing ever because it doesn't have 15 cut'n'paste Humvee variants"
I've played the second one, but not the third, what is this you speak of?

Re:Skyrim

[_BrianMahoney]

GT6 too. Just Platinum-ed it so I 'm back with GT5 until the Seasonals get more regular.

Re:Skyrim

[trog69]

I really should go back and play Oblivion again. The last time I played it, my computer was so lame that even at the very lowest resolution, the big battle with protecting a certain high-level NPC towards the end was unplayable. Now that I'm getting 130fps in Skyrim, at ultra settings and on this 1440p monitor, I think I'd have better luck. hehe. The problem is that I'm still in the middle of playing Morrowind with the Overhaul mod collection making it look incredible.

FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't recommend FTL enough. You're basically trying to pilot a ship crew through space, from one side of a universe to another, while being chased by enemies. It's fantastic! It runs on old and inexpensive hardware, and it's coming out with a big-time free update soon. It's a great game with lots of varying gameplay depending on your ship, luck, etc. and has lots of achievements and unlockable ships to keep you replaying it over and over. http://www.ftlgame.com

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[simplypeachy]

Advanced Edition coming out soon! Because what we need is a hard mode...

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[TheRaven64]

Don't start playing FTL unless you have a lot of spare time. It's about as addictive as Civilisation was back in the day - one of those games where you think you'll just explore a couple more systems and then realise that two more hours have elapsed. It's periodically on sale on GOG: I got it for $2.50, and it's been $5 a few times. I probably wouldn't have paid full price for it based on the screenshots, but based on the gameplay I'd say it would definitely be worth it. I think they priced it a bit too high though - at $2.50 it was an impulse purchase and I didn't care if I only played it a couple of times, and I suspect a lot more than four times as many people would have bought it on the same principle than would pay $10 for it. At $10, you most likely won't buy it unless you're pretty sure you'll enjoy it.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[allcoolnameswheretak]

I like the game, it's a great concept, but sometimes I wish it were a little less random. You often get into a bad luck situation that you have no hope of winning, abruptly ending a session in which you felt you were doing quite well.
But I suppose some people enjoy this unpredictable "rougelike element in the game.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[vux984]

FTL choices remind me of this classic riddle:

You are in a room, the exit by which you came in is blocked, and the roof is slowly closing down on you. You cannot leave the way you came, and you cannot stay here. The far wall has two doors on it. In between the doors is a table with a frog on it. A sign above the frog says this:

"One door leads to certain destruction, the other to Riches and Power. You can ask the frog one question, but it will always lie."

You look at the frog, with a smirk, you know this riddle and how to solve it, but your face falls. The frog has been dead for some time. Someone should have fed it it from time to time. In any case, it won't be answering any questions today.

Choose your door.

This is too often how I feel when I play FTL. :)

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you enjoyed it more than I did, I felt the randomness ruined it entirely. Strategy helps, and I guess that's the "game" half of it, but really you're just rolling a die and hoping it comes up in your favor. If the game feels like throwing a particularly difficult enemy or event at you before you can gather equipment, you're dead with skill never entering into it. I played it for an afternoon and never came back to it.

The music was nice though.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[TheSunborn]

Really?

I think I can win the game 80% of the time, and the rest of the time i die due to mistakes. Yes random effects changes the difficulty level, but there are no cases where you don't have a change.

(At least for the standard start ship. Some of the other ships without shields and/or weapons are much much more difficult).

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Maury Markowitz]

> I can't recommend FTL enough.

Meh. After 90 hours or so I still hadn't won once.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

I paused in my reading of your post after the setup explaining the Frog will always lie, because I was trying to think of the phrasing to ask the frog which door before it was possibly given away in the post. After I came up with a satisfactory question, I continued to read, and then I understood.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

I was playing a game based on the same concept on the air traffic control computers 37 years ago on an aircraft carrier. How little things have changed.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[phishen]

I have spent over 100 hours playing this game. It has two modes: Easy and Normal. When I started off, "Easy" seemed like "Extra Hard," but after a while I kept making it further and couldn't stop trying to get to the next sector. I loved the feeling of getting farther than I had ever been and starting over again never seemed to be a burden. Then, I reached the end and got that feeling in my stomach like I used to once I reached some of the Dr. Wily bosses as a youngster. I love how this game scales up because once you reach a goal there is a much wider scope than you realized and it happens again and again. You beat the game and then unlock another ship. You realize there are 9 ships to unlock and each one with two configurations. There are many types of weapons and strategies to master, and many combinations of each will bring you to victory. This is one of the few recent games that I just couldn't put down and couldn't wait to play again every day. On top of all that, I felt that the music was absolutely perfect for this game. It has that nostalgic, 8-bit feel topped off with a bit of modern complexity, and somehow nails down exactly how I want it to sound like to be lost in space. Every in-game situation has the perfect soundtrack, and I've only experienced that a few times, but there is no orchestration here. The music was made by a guy named Ben Prunty, and I have listened to the soundtrack over and over again while working many times. Here is a good blog post by Ben on the music he created for the game: http://benprunty.com/2013/07/1... Also, as a BSG fan, I won't deny that I always pretended my ship was the Galactica =)

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[drinkypoo]

I got bored with playing it over and over. I wanted more stuff to do. I'd pay for a sequel, though, with more scope.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

In the line of rouge-types, you can't go wrong with the classic NetHack. One of the finest games I've ever played.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

I beat it without cheating on my 26th or 46th try, I don't remember or can't distinguish.

My kids love it too.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[rar]

You can ask the frog one question, but it will always lie.

This makes no sense! If you know the Frog always lies, just ask him "Where are the Riches and Power?" and be on your merry way through the opposite door.

Shouldn't the phrasing rather be something like "You can ask the frog one question, but every second day it lies, and every second day it tells the truth."

Now it is possible, but non-trivial, to formulate a question that tells you which door to use. (But not if the Frog is dead, though.)

I suppose the plot twist may be that both doors open to the same room, and the puzzle was designed by someone wanting to teach you the lesson that riches and power leads to certain destruction :)

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Bill Dimm]

I think the riddle he/she was trying to remember was this one:

There are two people, one always lies and one always tells the truth, but you don't know which one is which. What would you do?

The answer: Pick one, and ask him/her which way the OTHER person would tell you leads to riches and power, then go the opposite way.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[amicusNYCL]

What I need is to finally unlock the goddamn crystal ship.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Andrio]

FTL is great! You will lose on your first playthrough, though. In fact, you'll very likely lose on your first few playthroughs. But you'll get an awesome story out of it.

My first playthrough ended when I jumped to a star system where a star was emitting these major solar flares, which cause different areas of the ship to catch on fire. At the same time, there was a pirate ship there that seemed oblivious to the danger. They attacked, and I defended myself.

While the two ships duked it out, the solar flares kept going off, causing both ships to have rampant fires. Finally, the pirate ship contacted me, requesting to call off the battle. Ordinarily I would've ignored their request and finished them off as punishment for trying to rob me in the first place. But given the situation, I agreed.

Unfortunately for the pirate ship, right after our ceasefire their ship exploded from the combined damage of the solar flares and my own previous attacks. I knew I had to get out of there immediately, but there was a small problem: the bridge of my ship was on fire. You need someone manning the bridge, or you can't do FTL jumps. Most of my crew had died from trying to put out the fires, so I had just one crewmember left. He desperately tried to put out the flames on the bridge so he could man the bridge and FTL out of there, but it was not meant to be: he died from the flames.

With my crew gone, my ship was doomed to drift alone, until the fires and solar flares undoubtedly destroyed what was left.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[vux984]

Yeah I botched the riddle. It doesn't really matter though, since the frog is dead and the whole situation boils down to a completely random choice, which was the point.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[hermitdev]

as addictive as Civilisation was back in the day

Back in the day? I have over 1500 hours logged to Civ 5. Thanks, Steam, for reminding me of that...

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[cbhacking]

My issue with this kind of randomness is that it reduces the skill depth of the game. Consider, for example, a variant where you could choose which crew member to send on a likely-suicidal mission. You'd have the same chance of somebody dying, but now there'd be a bigger incentive to have redundant crew. Or lacking that, you could choose which of your trained crewpeople, or what racial bonus, you least need.

Of course, what I'd also like to see is a smarter enemy. The AI's standard tactic of "fire at random as soon as each weapon charges" is ludicrously bad, and only the fact that you're often fighting ships much more powerful than yours can make the end-game battles any fun at all. Even then, there have been times when I wandered around blowing up rebel elite ships (the ones that drop no loot, that you get after they "catch" you) just because I could. A weapon pre-igniter and carefully sequenced fire can destroy such enemies easily.

Multi-ship combat would also be great. Potentially nigh-impossible, but great.

Multi-player, please? I want to duel my friends.

So many things this game could add or improve on...

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[war4peace]

Exactly why I stopped playing it.
I'm a winner and I don't need a stinkin' game to prove me wrong :)

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[jxander]

FTL was fun for a day or two, but the skill cap is extremely low, and it very quickly becomes you vs the random number generator

If you want to recreate the experience, get a quarter (or any heads/tails coin), a piece of paper and a pencil. Write the number 5 on the paper, and then flip the coin. If you get heads, add 1 to the number. If you get tails, subtract 1. Continue to flip and add/subtract in this way. The game ends when you get to either zero or ten (zero being a loss, ten being victory)

If you'd like to try on Hard Mode, it's the exact same, but heads is +1 and tails is -4 (recently patched from -6)

And when you're done playing, you keep the quarter.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[cbhacking]

I actually never played Easy at all. It took me a while to make it to victory, but it's doable. Getting to the final boss wasn't even that hard, honestly, though it then took me a little while to figure out the right tactics to defeat it. It's entirely possible to reach the final boss with a ship fit that *cannot* beat it, which really sucks; there's usually nothing much in the way of opportunities for refit at that point.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Qzukk]

I kind of gave up on the current run of rogue "inspired" games. You end up doing the same stuff over and over and you keep losing not because you aren't playing any better, but because the RNG decided to take a shit in your face. NetHack and the like usually gave you enough resources to feel like you could get somewhere (unless you decided to stick to a conduct like illiterate vegan atheist) but the current generation feels like the first three floors are populated with a handful of newts and maybe a rusty dagger, then the 4th floor has an army of mindflayers.

What I've been playing (Steam):
1. Van Helsing: a D2/torchlight clone with a pet ghost that has my sense of humor and is actually useful in battle, though I'm on the fence on whether to recommend to anyone else since it's currently buggy as fuck and every patch has broken as much as it has fixed (last patch broke the tower defense portion of the game: the "towers" don't do anything), and not everyone has a sense of [my] humor.
2. Electronic Super Joy, platformer to get the blood boiling.
3. Exceed 3rd Jade Penetrate Black Package: danmaku shooter that satisfies my need to get a little farther each time (I'm this close to being able to 1CC easy mode... hey, I never said I was good at the game)
4. RingRunner: top-down 2D space shooter with a ton of customization capability. It has someone else's sense of humor so I end up skipping a ton of dialog (peanut butter cups get old).

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[cbhacking]

Different ships and starting gear add a bit to the skill cap, but in general I agree with you. I beat the game in the Zoltan ship the very first time I tried; what a joke. On the other hand, I *still* haven't beaten it in the Engi alternate layout (the default layout was easy, and I think was my first win); one crew member (who isn't even any good at combat) is just not sufficient.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Remus Shepherd]

I've beaten FTL using every ship -- both configurations -- except for the Crystal ship which I've never unlocked. But even so, I still get into unwinnable situations now and then. The game sometimes gives you a death ship opponent specifically designed to take your ship apart. I can't believe that's completely random. But it's a roguelike, so you can't expect to win every game.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[acid_andy]

Shouldn't the phrasing rather be something like "You can ask the frog one question, but every second day it lies, and every second day it tells the truth."

Now it is possible, but non-trivial, to formulate a question that tells you which door to use. (But not if the Frog is dead, though.)

I'd ask the frog "If yesterday I had asked you behind which door are the Riches and Power, what would you have said?" and then go through the opposite door.

Fuck beta as well.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[bluefoxlucid]

Road Rash 3D on PSOne has been eating my time. What is FTL?

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Creepy]

I'm glad Civ I didn't keep statistics. I played the mac version probably 1500 hours straight (yeah, I'm kidding, but I did log insane hours on it). Mac Civ I was closer to PC Civ 2 than PC Civ 1 (especially graphics-wise), and I logged a lot of hours on both mac and PC Civ 2, as well. I didn't buy into Civ 3+ as much, only about 180 hours on Civ 3, 120 on Civ IV, and 155 on Civ V. Civ IV and V include expansions. The Total War series has a similar trend for me, and while I was late to the party and missed Shogun, I logged thousands of hours on Medieval.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[darkwing_bmf]

While you're pondering what question to ask a dead frog, the ceiling squashes you. Your life and your adventure end here.

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[cmdr_klarg]

My issue with this kind of randomness is that it reduces the skill depth of the game. Consider, for example, a variant where you could choose which crew member to send on a likely-suicidal mission. You'd have the same chance of somebody dying, but now there'd be a bigger incentive to have redundant crew. Or lacking that, you could choose which of your trained crewpeople, or what racial bonus, you least need.

FTL does do that, as when you make your choices during a certain scenario, such as the space station that has a fire. Normally you have the choice to go in and help, which will randomly let you know if you are successful or not. But, if you have a Rock crewmember, you get a blue choice that automatically succeeds, as the Rock crew are immune to fire. You can also get a blue choice if your ship has the correct equipment, such as a repair drone, improved sensors, or the correct weapon mounted.

Very fun game, you will tend to lose more often than you win, but that is part of the fun.

Re: FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll thank you later if I ever get that as an interview question

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[rar]

I'd ask the frog "If yesterday I had asked you behind which door are the Riches and Power, what would you have said?" and then go through the opposite door.

Plot twist: The frog says: "I would have said: I have no idea what you are talking about". Explanation: the puzzle was created today. The every second day rule only applies starting from the day the puzzle is created.

Actually, asking "if tomorrow I ask you" is equally unsafe, since it could be that this is the final day before the puzzle is dismantled. To be safe you need to go with something more creative like "true or not, if we pretend this puzzle is still active tomorrow, and I were to ask you ..., etc."

But perhaps a more elegant solution is just "if the days you are lying and telling the truth had been reversed, and I asked you ...., etc."

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

So where does the "awesome" story part come in to play?

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

NINTENDO STARTED WAR!!!! I did NOT finish buying GBA games when the console was obsoleted and the same happened with the Game Boy. I STILL NEED THOSE GAMES, THEY ARE MEMORY I NEED TO REFRESH. Some 200 of my GBA cartridges were STOLEN FROM ME, but I managed to recover somewhat by repurchasing the last cartridges I was interested in from diverse sources. NOW it is happening with DS cartridges. HAVE NOT FINISHED BUYING TITLES. I am still interested in a few tities, but SOME I realize I need MORE THAN ONE for future multiplayer... plus backups, accidents, thefts, etc. I can STILL find most of the titles but INCREASINGLY from different and far awar sources; if this follows the trend... even LIVES can be at stake! New versions/consoles are NOT the same nor are republishings. I can no longer find Populous III for PC... HOMMII does not run in W7... Simcity and Civilization for DOS and Windows are NO LONGER AVAILABLE for download or purchasing. Atari for DS is almost crap, as well as the Intellivision games. If Nintendo follows the trend imagine exorbitant prices in the future and lots of crimes around them when it is just a matter of FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING. You ll see once you grow, and remember that in CHINA videogames were FORBIDDEN. DID YOU UNDERSTAND???

Re:FTL Faster Than Light

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an easy one. I ask the frog the questions anyway, confident in the knowledge that it will somehow give me a false answer even though it is dead. Because the sign said it will ALWAYS lie, and everything printed in words is always true. Failing that, I will just open both doors and look through them, since it was stated the roof is coming down so slowly. I'll look at which one I see destruction through, and which one I see riches and power through, and go through that riches and power one.

Also I'll take the frog with me. 'cause you always take anything that's not nailed down in these games. Also I take the table.

Darksiders II, Skyrim and CS 1.6 (yes even in 2014

[Chankey Pathak]

I'm playing the above 2 alternatively. And I play CS 1.6 daily. God I love this game.

Wargame: Airland battle

[Anonymous Coward]

Runs great on linux, with x86-video-radeon of course.

Adventure games

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm on my second round of Broken Age, just finished Psychonauts for the nth time, and I'm replaying Telltale's Sam and Max series after first playing them when they came out (07-09 I believe). I also played through Beyond Good and Evil again not so long ago. All wonderful games, and the stylized 3D, which is more cartoon-like than photorealistic, ages really well.

Re:Adventure games

[aslashdotaccount]

Last best stylized 3D game I've played (and still do from time to time) is Borderlands 2.

Re:Adventure games

[mindwhip]

Currently playing Harvey's new eyes... tons more content and more sadistic humour than the slightly disappointing/obvious/short Broken Age (Act1)

Re:Adventure games

[F. Lynx Pardinus]

I also played through Beyond Good and Evil again not so long ago.

If you like Beyond Good & Evil, you should try Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, which was ported to Windows in October. I really enjoyed both.

Re:Adventure games

[NotDrWho]

Agreed on Adventure games. Been playing The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, and have found them to be my favorite games in years.

There are several good indie titles

[vidnet]

There are some good indie games these days, like Gone Home; Papers, Please and Sir, You Are Being Hunted.

Gone Home does a very fine job of interactively telling a story by searching through an abandoned house.

Papers, Please is a puzzle game about ethics and paperwork, which is much more interesting than it sounds.

Sir, You Are Being hunted is a procedurally generated stealth/survival game, in which you're trying to sneak under the noses of armed gentlemen robots.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[stms]

Check out Rogue Legacy it's one of the best games I've played recently.

If multiplayer is more your thing I've been playing Loadout it's one of the first free-to-play games I've actually enjoyed.

I had access to the Titanfall beta if Call of Duty with Mechs sounds cool to you then you'll probably like it. The whole game is much better implemented than COD.

The Dolphin Emulator Devs finally fixed some major problems with Wind Waker in the latest snapshot so I've been going back to that.

For upcoming games the two I'm most anticipating are The Witness and No Man's Sky. Though I'm highly skeptical of No Man's Sky. It's incredibly ambitious for the small team working on it.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[glavenoid]

My pc can't handle Gone Home so I watched a let's play video to check it out, and damn, that was one touching story. Major nostalgia trip for me. I'd say it's more of an "interactive nostalgia storytelling" than a game though.

Re: There are several good indie titles

[Anonymous Coward]

On the indie side I'm playing
Factorio - interesting game about logistic with a strategy element about defending. Imagine nottium and industrygiant fused.

Starmade - currently my favorite of the minecraft but in space theme

Robocraft - freemium but interesting game with third person view about custom built tanks fighting.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[marsu_k]

If we're talking about more interactive fiction indie titles like Gone Home (don't get me wrong, I really liked it), I'd like to add To the Moon. Brilliant writing and soundtrack, if you don't mind the classic JRPG look.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[Anonymous Coward]

Add to that, maybe not "Indie" but The Wolf Among Us brings adventure games to the good story, minimal gameplay end of things quite awesomely. Speaking of story, The Banner Saga is a fascinating and oddly told story wrapped it gorgeous artwork and a nice turn based tactical game.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[aliquis]

If I get an order in for a new PC which I should had been doing for long I would be up for playing Starbound with someone/someones from Slashdot.

I'd also be up for playing through all the Serious Sam games with someone who isn't pro in them / FPS games already (I've played quite a bit of Quake but I've never been able to time and time successfully strafe jump even less played the game exploiting it =P, I tried to learn for a short while but it just didn't happened normally.)

I've got a hell of a lot of bundle games and X-com and such too. But Serious Sam has always been something I've really been looking forward too and I would be ok with wasting time in Starbound too :)

I also have Magica with all the expansions if that's something anyone would be interested in playing.

Maybe we could set up a group or something. My e-mail address you can find above, I kinda have no games added on Steam and obviously isn't in there playing but my user name there is the same but with an extra "e" at the end (this one was already used and an extra e make it end in "se" which work for me from a logical standpoint.)

Re:There are several good indie titles

[RogueyWon]

I'd agree on Papers Please. It's absolutely no fun whatsoever, but it is also an absolutely fascinating experience. It has a real moral depth and complexity that really does show up how shallow the morality systems in the average Bioware RPG are.

It's slightly more traditionally game-like, but if you liked Papers Please, I'd urge you to try The Banner Saga. It does a similar thing about forcing the player to make difficult and morally ambiguous decisions without clear-cut consequences. Plus it has vikings, which is always a plus.

I disagree, however, on Gone Home. When I was in my first year at university, one of the guys on my hall was a member of a film club. One night, I got dragged along to see the film that they'd been working on for the last six months. I will never forgive him for the 90 minutes of my life spent watching people walking around slowly without saying anything and staring meaningfully at loaves of bread in a baker's window. Gone Home struck me as a similarly undergraduate pile of hipster rubbish.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[CreatureComfort]

You can throw The Novelist into that bin too. The only trouble with The Novelist was that it touched too true to life a few times.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[anethema]

I actually found its not really like Cod at all.

There are similarities, like there would with any shooter. But there is parkour like running around (Like Assassins creed, but first person), jetpacks (due two these two, you have to think very vertically, or get killed very often), cloaks, "burn cards" which grant cool abilities, plus the obvious very large titans running around.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[RJFerret]

Speaking of stealth games, Slashdot recently had an article on, The Dark Mod, which has totally sucked me in, as much to play, as create thieving missions (of which there are over 70 already, averaging a couple released monthly), which is kind of like a puzzle in itself, figuring out the best way to implement your desired game-play elements.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[ESRB]

If you want a survival-themed game that takes a bit of a different tack, Banished was just released... It's a sort of city builder, though it's nothing like sim-city (maybe a little bit like dwarf fortress). If you do try it, make sure to watch some guides on youtube (I recommend Quill18's, video #5 in particular). It's really not very forgiving at all and even after the tutorials, without a few tricks you'll probably die pretty quick.

Besides that, I've been playing FFXIV, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It does a few things well, like the holy trinity, but it's all very linear... dungeons are really a grind with only one path and so on, you never really have to find your own way around or make your own adventure like it's predecessor...

Re:There are several good indie titles

[Travis Mansbridge]

Indie games Terraria, Risk of Rain and Hotline Miami are pretty incredible for a truly decent price point.

Hotline Miami was probably my favorite game of 2013.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[Anubis IV]

If you have an itch to play a relatively straightforward sim game, give Prison Architect a look. The game is exactly what its title would suggest: a prison simulation in which you're the architect designing the prison. New alpha releases come out about once a month, and they're actively soliciting feedback from players, but it's already entirely playable and very enjoyable. It's surprisingly addictive to go through a quick cycle of building a prison, identifying issues in your design, selling it, and then using the proceeds towards a new prison that fixes that design issue.

I've already lost a few dozen hours playing it.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[Anonymous Coward]

Papers, Please is a puzzle game about ethics and paperwork, which is much more interesting than it sounds.

I tried "Papers, Please", and it seemed interesting enough at first. But a few game days in, someone came up with all valid papers except a visa I think. I brought it up, the person replied with "it was stolen", and then the game dropped some sort of temporary visa thing on my screen, implying that it would be ok for me to issue it to this person and let them in. I did, the person entered the country, and I was hit with a penalty for letting a person in without proper paperwork.

Maybe I'm too harsh, but I have enough games to occupy me that I do not need to, at best, deal with such bugs, or at worst, try and guess when the game is trying to throw me for a loop by suggesting an action that I should not be doing.

Re:There are several good indie titles

[vidnet]

try and guess when the game is trying to throw me for a loop by suggesting an action that I should not be doing.

So a game about making decisions should not present you with decisions you shouldn't make? Have you considered watching a movie instead?

Re:There are several good indie titles

[jxander]

I'd agree on Papers Please. It's absolutely no fun whatsoever, but it is also an absolutely fascinating experience.

Reminds me of "Spec Ops : The Line." At times, it was decidedly NOT FUN, which is kinda the opposite of what you expect from a video game, but it was always engaging as a character driven drama, akin to Godfather or Apocalypse Now (with which is shares source material, "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad) Plus it has great "moral choice" elements that put to shame every game that pops up and asks you "Would you like to be a jerk or a nice guy here?" The game just lets you do what you think is right, and usually recognizes your choice.

It's pretty short (8-10 hour campaign, absolutely worthless multiplayer) so look for it on sale, or through red box, game fly, etc

Re:There are several good indie titles

[pslytely psycho]

Kerbal Space Program, State of Decay and Outlast are my favorite indie games (especially KSP 730 hrs) and on the AAA side Medievel II (The new Rome II sucks) Civilization V Brave New World, (any Civ game actually) F1 2012, Grid (II sucks), Skyrim, and Driver SF are what I have been playing recently. (Layed up with a back injury so I have ridiculous amounts of game time, and don't care for TV)

Oh, Jebidiah's awaiting rescue on Gilly, and he's nearly out of O2, Got to go....

Re:There are several good indie titles

[stms]

Yeah there are lot of mechanics stacked on top of the COD core of the game but the shooting itself (which is the core of any FPS) feels like COD. Which isn't a bad thing the core mechanics of COD feel very good. Stacking all those extra mechanics on top of the COD mechanics makes them slightly interesting again.

MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citizen

[WilliamGeorge]

Apparently I'm nostalgic for my childhood in the 90s - I loved both the MechWarrior / BattleTech and Wing Commander / Freelancer franchises. MWO has been somewhat disappointing, but still fun enough, while Star Citizen looks to be coming along very well.

http://mwomercs.com/

https://robertsspaceindustries...

Wordfeud

[gr8dude]

I'm playing Wordfeud (an online game of Scrabble), I like it because of its pace - I have 72h to complete a move, so I can take my time. The game allows me to play with multiple opponents simultaneously; I've made some good friends and we keep playing for several years now. This game brings people together, if you let it :-)

If anyone could recommend a similar, turn-based, online multiplayer game for Android - I'd greatly appreciate it.

Re:Wordfeud

[aslashdotaccount]

These games hold no meaning for me because people cheat with tools like http://www.scrabblefinder.com/

Re:Wordfeud

[gr8dude]

Play against people you trust, so you don't have to worry about cheating.

Re:Wordfeud

[Anonymous Coward]

I like Wordoid. Wasted lots of time on that.

Re:Wordfeud

[Anonymous Coward]

ChessTime. Same idea only chess; 3-6 days to make a move. Android/Apple. Love it.

Re:Wordfeud

[Anonymous Coward]

Word Skill is similar to Scrabble, but has a twist: all players use the same tray and only the highest scoring word stays on the board. (But you'll still get your points even if your word doesn't stay.) Also, you only get 3 minutes (I think) to pick your word once you start your turn, but you have (I believe) 24 hours to start your turn. Might be the sort of thing that you're interested in.

Warp Life for iOS

[IgnorantMotherFucker]

Warp Life is a particularly fast implementation of the Conway's Game of Life Cellular Automaton.

However it is not in the App Store yet. I'm the only one who can play it at present because I wrote the source.

I hocked my iPad when I needed the money. Someone stole my iPhone 4 when I left it on the table at McDonald's while using the can. I've been out of work for a long time so now I don't have the $99.00 for the Apple Tax, nor to buy a new iDevice.

If you gave me like four hours of consulting work I could buy a used iPhone and renew my IOS ddeveloper program membership. Then I could get Warp Life into the App Store in short order.

If I had but one App in the App Store, then I wouldn't be out of work anymore. There is a huge demand for iOS coders, but no one wants to touch me because I don't have an App in the App Store yet.

I have already started the Android build but have put that on hold until the iOS version ships.

There are some competitors presently in the App Store. Golly may be faster but due to its more complex UI it only runs on iPad. Warp Life runs on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, with a very simple, minimalist UI.

When it actually hits the App Store, the source code will be bundled with the App, and published under the Affero General Public License v3. I'll be providing a git repository, that after I set it up, will be here.

Re: Warp Life for iOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, sure, take our money, retard. You want a Mercedes Benz too maybe ?

Re:Warp Life for iOS

[Anonymous Coward]

But there is nothing fun about Conway's game of life.

Why the fuck would you leave your phone on the table anywhere? Especially a McDonalds?

Re:Warp Life for iOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you should have considered a better nickname when you came to /. to try to find a job ...

MMOs take the main part

[Neva]

Tablet, stationary: Clash of Clans
Tablet, mobile: Ingress
With friends in Steam: Killing Floor (Linux), Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Alien Swarm
Solo in Steam: Star Conflict, War Thunder
Would play if had more time: Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Linux)

I have loads of Humble bundles bought, waiting to be discovered. They have been a great catalyst to release more games on Linux.

Game types are mostly co-operative FPS shooters with friends, tower defence with tablet, flying with planes or full 6 degrees freedom when solo. A mouse is a pretty essential controller in most games.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[BananaBender]

Civilization IV (on Windows) is one of my guilty pleasures and surely the greatest time killer for me. It is amazingly addictive.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the Civilization games. Been playing them since the first one and they continue to get better. I started playing Civ5 at the end of last year and it's fun to spend a lazy Saturday afternoon on it (some weekday evenings too). Being turn-based let's me go AFK for any amount of time to do things around the house and not have to worry about things getting blow skyhigh while the opponents can continue to play, it'll be there waiting for me when I get back.

Compared to RTS games where I would have to pause. I also like RTS a lot, I have been playing C&C Generals ZH quite a bit lately, mixed in with some C&C3 every now and then, and RA3 on more rare ocassions. Yes, I like the C&C series.

Aside from that I have a Neverwinter Nights 2 campaing ongoing, and started playing KOTOR2 just because I, finally, downloaded the Restored Content Mod and wanted to see what was in it.

On the MMO front, 2 or 3 nights a week I put in some SW:TOR time to run a couple of ops with the guild and other solo stuff.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[cbhacking]

That's true of all the Civs (and honestly of most decent 4X games). I still play Alpha Centauri...

Star Conflict is a lot of fun to kill a bit of time in, too. Team-based space dogfighting. The physics are a bit wonky (of course), but the game itself plays very well.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[dj245]

Sanctum 2 - Tower defense PLUS co-operative FPS. I had it on my steam wish list forever until it went on sale but I regret not buying it sooner. It is a little rough in places but still a great game.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[Bugamn]

Sid Meier's Civilization IV (Linux)

Where can I have this? I'm ready to kill anyone, just say the name.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[TobinLathrop]

Yes this quite a bit, tried on a Steam free weekend and then paid the $4 and change sale price to get the game and all DLC. Now I am a little sad I didn't splurge and get the 4 pack and give it away to friends.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[jxander]

Check out Dungeon Defenders. Similar concept, but with a Fantasy element instead of Sci Fi... plus a little more team work required, as each class has different "Towers"

Just be careful, Dungeon Defenders is chock full of DLC. Probably 30 or 40 different things, each a dollar or two ... but it can add up, and it's a pretty ugly business model, imo. Game is still fun though.

Re:MMOs take the main part

[mythosaz]

Hundreds and hundreds of replies, and you're the only person who mentioned Ingress.

I enjoyed my mostly-solo climb from 1-8, but then I found I didn't like my local group of level 8 players. The people who got their first set the "atmosphere" for the rest of the people who made it to where coordinated group play was necessary. A shame.

RE:MMOs take the main part

[EmeraldBot]

Oh, yes! I second that. Civilization IV is a game that you start at 3 in the afternoon, and soon it's 3 in the morning! An amazing game, but very easy to lose time over.

2 Regulars For Me

[Scarletdown]

Currently, I am splitting my gaming time between EverQuest Next Landmark Alpha and Guild Wars 2 (still trying to recruit for the Skrittsburg Foreign Legion, because... Shinies!)

Re:2 Regulars For Me

[AmiMoJo]

What about Slashdot? It must be the longest running MMORPG on the net, even if it is dying...

Re:2 Regulars For Me

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard that its community is even dumber than the brazilian mob of any MMO.

Re:2 Regulars For Me

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from dumb and I'm not brazil, you insensitive clod.

Re:2 Regulars For Me

[Anonymous Coward]

It's better than google.news or youtube, the players there can be quite scary. I'd have to agree with other players here that the Slashdot sequel doesn't live up to the original.

Fez

[deek]

Just started playing Fez. On a Steam Linux client. Nice game, and very clever. I like the twist it gives to 2D platforming.

Also, playing Sine Mora on my Vita, when I'm travelling on the train to/from work. Tough side-scrolling shooter! Only a few chapters in.

Re:Fez

[Anonymous Coward]

Fez is a completionist's worst nightmare.

Re:Fez

[Qzukk]

I played Sine Mora for a bit on steam, but I suck too hard at it to get anywhere (the foreground parallax in the tunnel stages make it impossible for me to tell when I'm going to hit the walls, so I do. Repeatedly.) and the time mechanic just drives me up the wall (I'd rather something like Hitogata Happa where when time runs out everything goes hardmode and you have 0 lives left to finish the stage).

Re:Fez

[Anonymous Coward]

Fez is basically a knockoff of Super Paper Mario. If you liked the former, you should check the latter out.

Nethack

[red_erik]

Nethack - 10 years from the last release, and still the best :)

Re: Nethack

[Anonymous Coward]

If like nethack, stone crawl is pretty awesome too.

Re:Nethack

[Zimluura]

My best NetHack story: had a cat that got polymorphed into a succubus. Since my character was chaotic (elf class from old version) i could gain alignment points by sleeping with her. also got to walk her around on a leash. It's great when B&D comes from emergent gameplay.

Dwarf Fortress is one to check out too. City building and Adventure modes. the next version looks like it's almost ready. Should be a _big_ feature update in a month or two.

Re: Nethack

[doti]

Angband too.

Re:Nethack

[fisted]

came here to say that

Very old games

[Sique]

I'm still playing Alpha Centauri, the successor of the original Civilisation. And I am playing Simutrans, a free transport simulator. Call me whatever you want, but I never got the hang of the more recent games.

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering its stratospherical replay value, Alpha Centauri has long been my dark horse nominee for best game ever made. And another oddity: after 15 years and (easily) thousands of games, I still learn something new about the gameplay every time I play.

Recently I also dusted off two old PopTop games, Railroad Tycoon 3 (~2003) and Tropico 4 (~2010). Loads of fun, check them out if you haven't already.

Re:Very old games

[boristhespider]

Hell, I still sometimes play Elite 2 and Grand Prix 4 more than anything other than Perfect Dark (N64 or XBox 360 remake, I'm not fussy) and Time Splitters: Future Perfect. More recent gaming has kind of passed me by.

Re:Very old games

[TheRaven64]

I should try it again. I found it frustrating on my 400MHz machine that gameplay became really slow when the map became complex (2-3 minutes for all of the AI turns to run really breaks immersion), but on a modern machine it's probably quite a lot faster.

Actually, thinking about how long I spent playing it, maybe I shouldn't...

Re:Very old games

[Sique]

I prefer Simutrans to Railroad Tycoon, and I have Tropico, but for some reasons I never get very far in Tropico.

Re:Very old games

[Sique]

And I should add, that I play Alpha Centauri in a VMware. As it insists on Full Screen mode, it just looks bad on a recent display which does not fit the game's 1024x768 resolution. Thus I finally have a windowed Alpha Centauri ;)

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree, aside from where the bottom informationbar can't be stretched across the screen in 1920x1080 everything else looks just fine (then again, I'm running it with wine so your mileage may vary), and 1024x768 really is too cramped for the amount of information they squeeze into most screens in that game.

Re:Very old games

[JonnyCalcutta]

I'm playing OpenTTD (http://www.openttd.org). I played Simutrans a few (many?) years back and it was good, but the concepts are so different from Transport Tycoon that I find it hard to pick up when ever I try - it hurts my head because its similar yet so different.

I love the optimisation aspects of openTTD - maximising the throughput on busy lines and stations - the money aspect I couldn't care less about and always give myself a few hundred million when I start. I think I'll be playing it till the day I die.

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

enable directdraw in the ini file to enjoy desktop resolution

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

Question, how does the goods economy in Simutrans compare to RT3's? I found RT3's pretty realistic and complex. It adds a lot of gameplay, but can be a chore to get into. Which is why the campaign forces you into it, otherwise it's much easier to be lazy and ignore it, and just carry passengers and mail.

Re:Very old games

[Sique]

It depends on how you are playing. The goods economy is complex, and many factors are playing a role. Goods have different requirements when it comes to speed of transport. Earnings will fall if you transport some goods too slowly, but other goods will yield the same revenue independent of transporting times. Factories have suppliers and customers, they change them during the gameplay by adding new suppliers and new customers, new factories pop up, the supply chains can get quite long and diverse. Two similar, neighbouring factories can have different suppliers and customers, but can also have shared ones. Factories have to a) find a customer willing to take the goods (if production is stalled at a customer, it will not request new goods), b) have enough supplies, c) have a working connection to the customer and d) being able to unload their goods on a station with enough capacity. If goods are piling up somewhere on the way, it can also happen that the production stalls, and some suppliers have a periodic production profile. There are more general transport vessels which can transport several kinds of goods (e.g. coal, ore and sand), and specialized ones for a single type of good (like car transporters). Different transporting vessels have different maximum speeds and maximum load, so you can optimize e.g. the locomotive and the type of rail/street you build on the kind goods you are transporting. It often makes sense to built different tracks or streets for different types of load, even if they are running in parallel, because you can better saturize them if the vehicles have similar speeds. Simutrans has a quite extensive signalling system, which allows you to operate very complex networks.

You can operate ships, cars, streetcars, trains and airplanes, some graphic paks also include monorails and subways. Not all types of transport support all goods. You can add supply chains (including the necessary vehicles) as separate paks. You have different graphic sets with different resolutions. A nice add on is the energy system, where some power plants need goods (coal plants, oil plants), others don't (solar plants, wind wheels). Cities will grow faster, if their mail and passengers have good connections. Cities will also grow faster if you build roads, as they grow along them. Stations only cover a fixed area (which is configurable), if a town grows, you have to expand the traffic network. Stations itself can be expanded which also increases their area of coverage. Stations can also be built in tunnels and on bridges, allowing for ever increasing capacities of them if necessary even in crowded areas.

Re:Very old games

[jones_supa]

Call me whatever you want, but I never got the hang of the more recent games.

Have you tried the more recent games, then?

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

Very old? Come back when you're still playing C=64 games in an emulator then we'll talk about old games. Still not exactly "very old" even at that.

Re:Very old games

[Ken_g6]

I still play Unreal Tournament from 1999. Its graphics are simple, but sufficient, and it has so many mods.

Re:Very old games

[twocows]

If you like SMAC, may I recommend Planetfall? It's an attempt to do SMAC in Civilization 4. It's pretty good, it's missing some of the better parts, but I do like it.

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still playing the original Civilisation - I believe in finishing one game before moving on to the next.

Re:Very old games

[yenic]

Alpha Centauri was a 'new' game for me, and was mostly burned out on that formula after countless hours in Civ1 and 2. A strategy based game only goes so far till you burn out (though I may need to revist AC, as 15 years is healthyI still fire up mostly 90's games but also some 80's adventure games. Namely the Quest for Glory series and Space Quest, both of which I feel held the test of time a little better than their contemporaries (from Sierra that is, the LucasArts games hold up as well). I also revisit Heroes of Might and Magic 1 once in a while. It's simplicity and graphical style appeals to me. What's missing from modern games is good storytelling that doesn't read like many RPGs do (Planescape Torment, BG etc). I like to be able to be immersed in the story and environment without reading a book's worth of text. I read books but like to keep the mediums separate methods of story-telling. The success to Half Life is because it tells a story without turning your computer into a book. That's what I feel people are looking for, at least I am. And it's a lot harder IMO to write a good story than action based game, and to a lesser extent a deep strategy based game.

Re:Very old games

[Bucky24]

Ah that's a good idea. Was trying to play AC the other day and ran into this exact problem. I'll have to look into your solution.

Re:Very old games

[BobMcD]

Best competition shooter ever made, honestly.

I buy it on Steam for anyone who will play it with me, and run a server off and on to this day.

The bots are even worth a go on most maps.

Re:Very old games

[travisco_nabisco]

I have had Alpha Centauri on every computer I have owned since it came out. Such a fun game, you can play at a high difficulty and fight for a early finish, or play a lower difficulty and just tech to the hover tanks for a late world domination.

Currently I am playing Sid Meir's Railroads, thanks to the Humble Bundle. I can't believe I never played any of the Railroad simulators before.

Re:Very old games

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is other than the graphics, not a whole lot seems to change over time. They added vehicles, but so did most other games. I've found it kind of interesting to go back and play older games with all the settings maxed out, which in most cases will cause very little or no slowdown. Makes me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_saUN4j7Gw

Re:Very old games

[Yeechang Lee]

I have never played it, but have enjoyed other Civ-style games. Should I play the original, Alien Crossfire, or both? Opinion on the latter seems mixed; half loves it and the other half thinks it unbalances the game.

EVE Online and some other F2p MMO's

[Choc_Salties]

I'm a big fan of EVE Online, and for the longest time, they used to have a native Linux port, and then they made it go away. I'd love to see it return, especially if tailored to SteamOS. SWTOR, STO, TERA and a couple of others would also be great to see, but by and large, a good chunk of the indie titles on Steam also work on Linux, so there isnt a real shortage. Also, plenty of Humble Bundle titles work natively under Linux as well, so this is also a good thing!

Re:EVE Online and some other F2p MMO's

[aslashdotaccount]

I'm looking forward to getting on EVE Online myself. Currently waiting for the relocation to a more Internet-friendly country (happening soon :) ).

Re:EVE Online and some other F2p MMO's

[cbhacking]

Eve never had a "native" Linux port. For a while, you could download from them a copy of the Windows client custom-wrapped in Cedega (which you were supposed to only use for Eve, since CCP had to pay them for it). The Cedega wrapper was big, the performance and graphics were nothing special, and there weren't that many people using it. The real reason they dropped it, though, is that Wine (that thing Cedega was forked from to poduce a gaming-focused version, ha!) was actually doing better than Cedega at running the Windows client. For example, Wine could run the DX9 graphics update on Linux before the official Cedega-based client could.

Plenty of people still play Eve on Wine, and CCP has a semi-official guide to setting it up. They may no longer officially provide a Linux client, but Eve is still playable on Linux.

New stuff, for me at least

[CTU]

I got Disguea D2 from Gamefly today so I been playing a bit of that since then, other then that just Minecraft

Kerbal Space Program!

[Hackysack]

KSP, which is quite fun.

Civ V, which I just can't seem to take the needle from my arm.

EQNext, which I just started; and very looking forward to.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[glavenoid]

I just got into Civ V recently and got the monkey on my back too. To make it worse, Civ 4 complete was the humble bundle last week so I picked it up for cheap expecting to play it when Civ V lost its luster but now I'm engrossed in that game as well...

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[smallfries]

Yup. I didn't get much time to play it over the past year, but now that my schedule is finally calming down Civ 5 is proving to be a bit moorish. I need to beat it a few more times on Vanilla before I get the two expansions.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[glavenoid]

The expansions enhance the gameplay to such a degree it's practically a new game. If you're enjoying vanilla Civ V then you're in for a real treat should you get the expansions, though you might want to wait until they have the (most likely forthcoming) "complete edition" upgrade which contains all the content rather than buying via the piecemeal approach.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[cbhacking]

Nah, get the expos now. At the very least get Gods and Kings (should be cheap these days even if you missed the Humble Bundle). The sheer number of stupid things (like the 10-HP bar, that means you always take at least 10% damage even if you run over a barbarian warrior in modern tanks) things that were fixed are incredible.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[Anonymous Coward]

You should look into Alpha Centauri as well.. (only two complaints tbh, 1) the research is ...opaque.. compared to other Civ Games. 2) Units can only auto-go to cities. Both SMAC and Civ IV were so much more enthralling than Civ V, to me.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[dugrrr]

Can't recommend KSP enough!
I had never played a sandbox game (although now playing in career mode).
This game takes game/simulation into the realm of hobbyist/enthusiast. I've now had a crash-course (pardon pun) in astro-navigation in Newtonian physics.

You will want to install the Scott Manley list of mods to get the full effect- which is beautiful btw.

The community is active, the developers commited and it looks like the push is for deep space.

I also still play Enemy Territory: Wolfenstein, a game now over ten years old(!) still great FPS fun.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[TheBilgeRat]

This! :/

I had still been playing some civ 4 in concurrency with civ 5, but the biggest draw for that bundle was civ 3. I can't put the Civ smack down, ever since civ 1 on the Amiga. I still have a copy of civ2 floating around somewhere...

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[pslytely psycho]

Absolutely! 740+ hours since it went on Steam (I bought it about a month earlier at v0.18 (I think)) Only the Civ, TW and a few racing games have garnered that much playtime, It was the first Indie game I ever bought after playing the v0.13 demo. And worth much more than the list price. And the MODs, Heroin, sheer computer killing heroin. I keep expecting the Crash notification to say "One more mod, you just had to have ONE MORE MOD didn't you?!?"

Currently on indie: KSP, Outlast, State of Decay and Don't Starve

AAA: Skyrim, Civ V BNW (with the gigantic real world map mod and epic gameplay), GTA IV (modded as much as my pc will bear),Warbirds, TW Medieval II, Racers Grid, F1 2012, and Driver SF. (I have a Skuderia f430 wheel)

A back injury has left me with ridiculous amounts of game time this last year, and I prefer games and books to TV (With some very few exceptions)

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[mjwx]

I just got into Civ V recently and got the monkey on my back too. To make it worse, Civ 4 complete was the humble bundle last week so I picked it up for cheap expecting to play it when Civ V lost its luster but now I'm engrossed in that game as well...

Civ V was terrible compared to Civ IV.

Civ V is the first Civ game I have played that made me go back to the previous Civ game. Sure the graphics are good but they ruined the gameplay, the AI is completely neutered.

With any luck, Firaxis is scrapping the whole Civ V and going back to Civ IV for inspiration on Civ VI... but I'm not counting on it.

Re:Kerbal Space Program!

[jwhitener]

EQNext Landmark alpha?

Still kinda trying to figure out the difference between just eqnext and when they refer to it has eqnext landmark. Two different clients, but functioning in one world? Landmark lets you build things, regular eqnext just lets you play?

Humble Bundles

[Engeekneer]

I'm quite a big fan on the Humble Bundles (one going on now). Many have at least 1 or 2 very nice games. I also try out some AAA titles on Linux, it seems like the new X-Com is being ported, which is nice.

I don't

[roc97007]

At all. Ever. I had a bad experience with Warcraft, forgot to bathe, was missing appointments, people thought I had died. I finally gave the disk to daughter and told her to hide it. I still don't know where it is.

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

you dont need a disk to play.......

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

you. evil. bastard.

Re:I don't

[Dunbal]

He said Warcraft. Not World of Warcraft. Noob.

Re:I don't

[CadentOrange]

And ... have you seen your daughter since you gave the disk to her?

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll help you : it's here : https://us.battle.net/account/download/

Re:I don't

[Ottibus]

He said Warcraft. Not World of Warcraft. Noob.

Warcarft III (at least) could be made to run without a disc by copying all the data files into the install directory.

Re:I don't

[Dunbal]

You're grasping at straws now. Hell I can play almost any game "discless" too, all I need is an ISO. AC obviously confused Warcraft with WoW. You're just being pedantic.

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Score:5, Funny - seriously, mods?

This is pretty much what I came here to say, too (substituting "daughter" with "brother"). MMOs can be powerfully addictive to some people. As weird as it may sound, gaming addiction is very real, and it can ruin lives.

Re:I don't

[Ottibus]

AC obviously confused Warcraft with WoW.

Or the AC knew that you could play Warcraft without the disc.

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

...but is daughter now addicted?

Re:I don't

[UnknowingFool]

He's not talking about MMOs. Warcraft not World of Warcraft was a RTS. Lighten up.

Re:I don't

[roc97007]

Well, no but... waaaaaait a minute!

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

It's in your computer.

Re:I don't

[Boronx]

I think you guys just wrote an XKCD

Re:I don't

[roc97007]

You're right. It makes for a good story, but I wasted a lot of time on that game where I really should have been doing something productive. It's so easy to fall into the pit. Games are designed so that the easiest thing to do after you finish a level is play the next level, and the next. For awhile now Wife has been hooked on Candy Crush. We don't see much of her. High scores posted on Facebook are proof of life.

I'm sure there are people out there who can play these games sparingly and not be addicted. But clearly for many of us they're a powerful addiction. I can't play them at all.

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

Warcraft should have taught you: if you don't know a thing is, just ask barrens chat.

Re:I don't

[gl4ss]

you noobs and your stupid cd's.

you could copy warcraft1 on floppies to your hd and play it... piss poor route planner on it though.

Re:I don't

[cbhacking]

Sigh. Shut *UP* you idiot, and stop calling people "a fucking dick" when you don't know what you're talking about. You can download the entire game as a disk-free installer from Blizzard directly. That applies to everything since about WC2 (Battle.Net Edition is still available in their online store I think). WC1 was already fully installable (no disk required), if you had the requisite 90-ish megs back in the 90s...

Re:I don't

[kesuki]

to be fair warcraft iii the frozen throne is discless playback on battle.net all you have to do is run the updater and it runs with no disc. people still play it, and i know i was missing showers, sleeping 4-6 hours a night and playing virtually the rest of the day and night.

Re:I don't

[Dunbal]

A floppy what? DISC? Oh. Thanks for playing.

Re:I don't

[roc97007]

to be fair warcraft iii the frozen throne is discless playback on battle.net all you have to do is run the updater and it runs with no disc. people still play it, and i know i was missing showers, sleeping 4-6 hours a night and playing virtually the rest of the day and night.

This.

I actually didn't know you could play the game without the disc. That's probably what saved me.

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll say anything to "not be wrong." Presumably you're like that in real life, and you can't understand why people don't like being around you.

Re:I don't

[CreatureComfort]

I'm certain Penny Arcade already covered this somewhere.

Re:Darksiders II, Skyrim and CS 1.6 (yes even in 2

[aslashdotaccount]

The continuous cheating on online CS put me off of it. It was great 15 years ago, when cybercafes were the in thing and when no one bothered to play these games online.

Starbound

[ArcadeMan]

It's like Terraria, but much better and available on all three platforms*.

* Linux, Mac OS X, Windows. Were you thinking about something else?

Re:Starbound

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess OpenBSD is too much to hope for...

Re:Starbound

[Whorhay]

I liked Starbound enough when I tried it but last I checked it was still far behind Terraria. It has the potential to be better but I wouldn't say it's even on a level with it yet.

My WoW replacement

[Zynder]

Since the stupid panda crap pissed me off, I dumped World of Warcraft and switched to Rift Now before I hear the F2P hate, be aware that this game is absolutely NOT pay to win. I am very conscious of such things and I've seen no aspect of it that you just had to shell out real money for. I have spent some real money, but just on stupid shit like a giant squirrel mount and of course "Patron" time which is what the monthly sub turned into (still $15). I'm fairly happy with it and the graphics blow WoW out of the water.

Re:My WoW replacement

[rossz]

Ditto. The Panda bullshit was their last chance. They failed. I jumped back to Warhammer Online for the last couple of months of its life (which turned into a horrid cluster fuck so I bailed on the last week), then finally fired up Rift. I'm enjoying it. I played it over a month before I finally decided they deserved some money, then bought a three month patron pack.

Re:My WoW replacement

[seebs]

Why I like Rift:

Rift has had some issues with chat and ability lag. So they've overhauled their chat server. Predictably, it's been broken a lot. But Trion being Trion, this meant that we had actual devs (not "community reps", actual people who work on code) posting on the forums saying what was wrong, what they had fixed internally, and that they might try that if they had another crash, then putting that live, then reverting when it had problems... Actual information about what was wrong.. They seem to have fixed the worst of it now, so of course they are sending out freebies to all the players. Note: Not all the paying players. All the players, period. They are pretty good about compensation for problems.

Also this patch, they decided to make some mounts account-wide; if you get them on any character, all your characters get them. This will, of course, be retroactive, although it'll take a day or so for the updates. And of course, people asked what happens if you already bought one of these for two characters. Answer: They already thought about this, they checked the logs, this will affect very few players, but if you're one of them, file a ticket and customer support will make things right.

Basically, they are a company whose devs are active and engaged, who talk to people, and who try to make things right and are not afraid to admit their errors. They have consistently gone far above and beyond what you'd expect if you were familiar with more traditional MMO customer service. Excellent company in general. And they do make mistakes, but because they're willing to fix them, I am okay with that -- and I find I actually prefer it a lot to companies that refuse to take risks, and then don't fix things that were just bad ideas to begin with.

Re:My WoW replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

I was playing this before f2p and must say their customer service was stellar, every problem I had was solved with one ticket fairly fast, even when I fucked up and bought the wrong mount before they had an option to refund they manually refunded very fast.

Re:My WoW replacement

[jxander]

Reminds me of City of Heroes (moment of silence)

They had a few community managers, but the actual devs posted frequently, up to and including the C level guys. (CEO, COO, etc ... it was a fairly small company)

Re:My WoW replacement

[Anonymous Coward]

Amusingly, the Pandarans were actually featured in the original Warcraft series. They made appearances in Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. So it's not like somebody at Blizz was getting high one day and said, "I know, let's add Panda people!" Rather, they are actually a part of the Warcraft lore. Of course, I wouldn't expect all the kids playing WoW today to know that since they never actually played Warcraft.

Re:My WoW replacement

[seebs]

The customer service is by most accounts still excellent. I've heard many people report quick and effective resolutions of problems. Certainly, that's been my experience.

Re:My WoW replacement

[seebs]

Yeah. At one point there was a Rift forums thread on favorite community reps, and I said that much though I liked the Rift guys, I had to give the nod to Zwillinger, and one of their community reps agreed with me. :)

Skyrim

[poolmeister]

Skyrim (Linux/Wine)
Diablo 3 (Linux/Wine)
Gran Turismo 6 (PS3)
Metro Last Light (Linux)

Not really looking forward to anything, Star Citizen looks promising but another total time vampire and I already got Skyrim for that.

BSG?

[Zynder]

So you're playing a video game version of Battlestar Galactica? I shall have to learn more....

Re:BSG?

[cyborg_zx]

This is Galactica Actual. Spool up.

Re:BSG?

[Xelios]

Might be the Diaspora mod for Freespace Open, which is really good.

Some back story for those that don't know, Volition (the developer behind Freespace 2) released the source code to the game about 10 years ago when it became apparent that they weren't going to be able to make a third installment. Since then the FS2 community has enhanced the game engine, fixed bugs, overhauled the graphics, added support for all kinds of new peripherals and created several new games, like Diaspora and a Babylon 5 conversion.

If you're a fan of space combat sims you really should check out Freespace Open. Besides playing through the original campaigns I'd recommend Blue Planet (included in the installer) and the subsequent War in Heaven campaigns.

Re:BSG?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea!

If you know what 33 means in the context of the modern series, you will LOVE FTL.

Re:BSG?

[nmb3000]

So you're playing a video game version of Battlestar Galactica? I shall have to learn more....

There's more truth to this than you might think :)

But I agree with the OP; FTL is a lot of fun, especially if you enjoy space + rougelikes.

Falcon BMS

[BeTeK]

I have recently started playing again Falcon 4 BMS with my friends... It's such a blast. Granted learning curve is really steep in that game but the multiplayer is such fun and still there is no dynamic campaign like that in any modern game.

The Witcher 3

[loufoque]

is the only game I'm really waiting for.

Re:The Witcher 3

[Anonymous Coward]

The Witcher rocks! W1 and W2 are some of the few games I actually played until the end.
Lot's of fun, erotic/adult gameplay for non-US versions and high quality content without DRM, almost a perfect game (series)!

Hope they hurry up so I may purchase it from GOG.com

Re:The Witcher 3

[Anonymous Coward]

The Witcher 2 was not censored for the US version. While W1 was originally censored, I have heard that the censorship was removed, but I haven't played it to confirm.

Re:The Witcher 3

[JazzLad]

Fallout Detroit. MoTown has an awful lot of potential in a FO game.

I play Go online or team cooperative games

[Thanshin]

When alone I play Go online (at KGS, DGS or online-go.com) or KSP.

When some friends are online, we still play Diablo3, Torchlight, Borderlands2, ... We'll try anything cooperative.

Re:I play Go online or team cooperative games

[qtp]

Go is still the best game online. I play at KGS and IGS. (KGS has better tools, IGS is easier to find an (apropriate) opponent on short notice.)

Re:I play Go online or team cooperative games

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for Go. I play on KGS as well.

BraiNnNz ...

[meuhlavache]

DayZ !

borderlands 2 and Quake Live mostly

[CavemanKiwi]

Those are the two games I spend most of my time on, but I do play other Dirt 3 and grid 2.

Re:borderlands 2 and Quake Live mostly

[morari]

Good 'ole fashion Quake III Arena for me, with the Generations Arena mod installed. I really wish they'd update the mod. It's supposedly still in development, but I haven't seen an in years. At this point, it still needs weapon animations!

Quake Live is nice, but the lack of custom maps, models, skins, and game-modes is a huge downfall for me. Plus, having to pay to host matches hurts. I'd rather see an updated Q3A on Steam, kind of like they did for Xbox Arcade... I'd want it to be fairly compatible with the original title however. No need to remake all of those awesome mods and maps!

I have a Killing Floor and Minecraft server that my friends and I play on fairly frequently as well.
Been trying to get into Payday 2, but no one I know seems as interested in it as they were in the first title.
I still wish I could get enough people together for Team Fortress 2.

Yeah... I hate playing with strangers. :P

Re:borderlands 2 and Quake Live mostly

[pslytely psycho]

I was a little dissapointed with Grid II, Great game on its own, but not really what I expected from a sequel, I really miss tuning my wheel to perfection and I used to run Grid I on extreme with no assists. I miss those options the most. (Maybe someone will mod them in?)

Fast and slow

[chrylis]

Local friends got me playing WC3 DotA, and I moved over to Dota 2 when Valve got the native Linux client working reliably. I also keep Civ 4: BTS around when I really have to be unproductive but can't sign up for an hour-long game.

Re:Fast and slow

[cbhacking]

For what it's worth, Heroes of Newerth (started as a DotA clone, still basically is aside from some heroes being replaced with S2 Games' own ones or re-worked a bit from base, and even fewer item differences) is completely free to play (there is no way to get any in-game advantage by paying) and has had a Linux client since beta (back in 2009). I prefer it over DotA2, although I play both (and played DotA Allstars from 05-09).

Re:Fast and slow

[chrylis]

I'm trying not to pick up any extra bad habits, and I figure having one MOBA is plenty. ;-) I like the completely-free-to-play model, which Dota 2 also uses, and Valve's legitimate efforts to support their products on Linux.

Re:Fast and slow

[HaZardman27]

From my experience, Dota 2's Linux client is superior to HoN's (at least while using an AMD GPU). The developers of HoN also have a new MOBA in beta called Strife, and it also has a Linux client, though I haven't tried it out yet. I like HoN's hero movement more than Dota 2, and I still miss some heroes like Electrician, but overall I prefer Dota 2. It simply has a better matchmaking system, but I wish it would implement something like HoN's public game system. Plus none of my friends play HoN anymore, so Dota is where I have to go if I don't want to solo-queue.

Superhero MMOs

[Chas]

Played City of Heroes till shutdown (still angry at NCSoft).
Barely playing Champions Online. Cryptic and its various owners have pretty much screwed the pooch there.
Kickstarted City of Titans. But probably won't really see anything for 3 years there. Keeping my expectations there realistic.

Re:Superhero MMOs

[Remus Shepherd]

I miss City of Heroes sooo much. No other game is like it. Tried Champions Online years ago and it didn't appeal to me.

Since CoH died I played and finished or dropped Borderlands 2, Guild Wars 2, The Secret World, and Bioshock: Infinite. Only ones that I'm still playing are League of Legends (I dabble; nothing serious) and FTL.

I still hunger for an MMO as sweet and exciting as CoH. Might try Everquest Landmark someday, if I can get over my hatred for all things Sony.

Re:Superhero MMOs

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife and I were casual/daily players of CoH - basically about 30-90 minutes per day except during special times (Halloweeen, Winter Fun, Double XP, etc.). We really miss the ability to jump into a game and play just a few minutes and actually accomplish something. We tried DDO (paid for 1 year), WoW (paid for 1 month), Rift, Star Wars (smattering costs), and a few others that appealed even less to us.

Finally we settled on Neverwinter. Its got a bunch of problems, but at least we can get on, have some fun, and get off after accomplishing something.

Re:Superhero MMOs

[Anonymous Coward]

Marvel Heroes is great! It's free to play and has a huge roster of heroes to play as. It's an ARPG the guy at the top is David Brevik (co-creator of Diablo/Diablo II). When the game was release in June '13 the reception was pretty awful as the game was released WAY to early. Now it's been out for several months and has added tons of content. Definitely worth checking out if you're in to super heroes.

Re:Superhero MMOs

[Chas]

While I'm sure Marvel is okay and all, I don't want to play as "Spiderman-12,432,927".

I want to play my OWN hero with my own build-out and setup.

Basically Marvel Heroes is the antithesis of CoH and pretty much holds zero appeal to me.

Recently?

[RogueyWon]

I own pretty much every gaming platform around (other than an Android platform, I suppose) and tend to manage to play a fairly good selection of releases.

The big pattern over much of 2013 for me was my declining use of the old "home" consoles, edged out by the PC and Vita. The PS3 still got some occasional use, spurred by a few decent late-cycle exclusives (Ni No Kuni, Disgaea 2 and so on), but the last game I put any serious time into on the 360 was Forza Horizon, way back at the end of 2012. MS really let the 360 twist in the wind for the final 12 months before it got replaced. I probably used the 360 more than the PS3 for most of its cycle (it was generally better for multiplatform games), but I felt few regrets when I traded it in against a new Xbox One the other week, while I couldn't yet imagine trading in my PS3.

The growth of importance of PC gaming has been a real trend recently. For much of the last console cycle, "multi-platform" meant "360 and PS3". These days, it's a brave developer who doesn't include the PC in their line-up. This was also, I suppose, a big part of the reason behind the decline in my use of the 360. It may have been better than the PS3 for most multiplatform games, but it had no chance against a modern gaming PC. On the PC, I've mostly been playing Borderlands 2, Final Fantasy 14 and I still go back for the odd blast of the superb Rayman Legends.

The Vita, for me, is the best little console that nobody owns and I regard its lack of success as a great shame. There are some fantastic games on it and I've put a lot of time into Persona 4: The Golden, Dragon's Crown, Soul Sacrifice and the many, many smaller and indie titles on the platform. The 3DS, meanwhile, I still find a hard platform to love, though I did quite enjoy Bravely Default until its later sections.

I now own both a PS4 and Xbox One. Neither has really produced a game to wow me yet - but then, that goes with the territory for early adopters. Killzone: Shadow Fall on the PS4 is much better than I had expected from previous Killzone games (having some fairly open levels and a better graphical style). I've also been enjoying Assassin's Creed 4 on the PS4 (more games need sea shanties). On the Xbox One, Dead Rising 3 is fairly good and Forza 5 has mostly been fixed after a disaster of a launch. Other than that, both platforms are currently fairly barren for traditional games - though Xbox Fitness is really impressive if you like that kind of thing (I do).

At least the PS4 and the Xbox One have the excuse of being new. The Wii-U remains a crushingly poor platform, with tired Nintendo exclusives being the only real releases of note. Zelda: Wind Waker looks fine at first - but then I remembered just how tedious I found it the first time around. Super Mario World 3d has some good moments, but is spoiled by poor 3d controls and level design that gets quite repetitive in the later stages.

And on iOS... ugh. I've almost entirely stopped using the iPad for gaming. I still fire it up for the odd session on a plane or train, but its games these days seem to split between paywalled crudware (generally not even games by any reasonable definition) and worthy-but-slightly-lacking ports of games better played on PC, like XCom and Baldur's Gate.

Re:Recently?

[Dahamma]

I've also been enjoying Assassin's Creed 4 on the PS4 (more games need sea shanties).

IMO the land-based part of the game is pretty repetitive at this point, and the Abstergo sub-plot (super-plot?) is as usual pretty bizarre.

But I think I could just sail around the Caribbean listening to the crash of waves and singing of sea shanties for hours. And the ship combat/boarding mechanics are near perfect - it's what you always wished you could have seen in Sid Meyer's Pirates.

Re:Recently?

[RogueyWon]

Yes, I'd agree with that. AC4 would have been better still as a pure "pirate" game, without the Assassin's Creed trappings. The fact that you still have a stealth-based combat system at the heart of the game feels odd, when something a bit more swashbuckling would fit the bill better. And yes, the modern-day meta-story needs to die. It was always boring in the earlier AC games but really is outstaying its welcome now.

Re:Recently?

[N3x)(]

There is one ios game that i recommend everyone to play and that is Starbase Orion. It's a Master of Orion II clone that has gone above and beyond the original. Cloudsync, multiplayer, lots of settings and no dumbed down gameplay. Fully playable on both iPhones and IPads. And if you join the forums and the community they really listen to your feedback.

Re:Recently?

[Daniel Hoffmann]

While I agree the land based parts of the game are lackluster (specially the tailing missions) compared with the naval adventures I have to say that a full game with only the sailing and naval battle part would feel very repetitive after a while. The alternating gameplay made me see it through the end while a lot of other (good) big games make me lose interest around 3/4 of the main storyline.

Re:Recently?

[WeeLad]

I really liked the modern-day meta-story throughout all the previous AC's. I played all of the ones released for PS3. But I thought AC3 pretty much wrapped it up and I thought any attempt to keep it alive with another AC game would be just to trade on the Assassin's Creed brand. If AC4 was billed as just a "Pirate Game, from the maker's of Assassin's Creed" instead of an actual Assassin's Creed sequel, I would've probably bought it. But it seems like a desperate attempt to keep the franchise churning out money at the expense of ruining a neatly-wrapped story.

Re:Recently?

[tepples]

For much of the last console cycle, "multi-platform" meant "360 and PS3". These days, it's a brave developer who doesn't include the PC in their line-up.

Does this apply to games intended to be played by players holding gamepads and looking at the same large monitor, or did you mean only single-player and online games? Case in point: the PC version of Mortal Kombat (2011) was delayed for two years, and a lot of other fighting and party games seem not to get a PC port at all.

[iOS] games these days seem to split between paywalled crudware

Paywalled in what sense? Are the majority of PC games free-to-play now?

Re:Recently?

[RogueyWon]

Fighting games make it to PC pretty well, by and large. Certainly, the big titles (with the exception of Street Fighter) do. Party games tend to be limited to the Nintendo platforms. If you want them, go there. Most people are happy without them.

By "paywalled", I meant pay-to-win, or free-to-start-playing-but-pay-through-the-nose-if-you-want-to-play-for-more-than-ten-minutes. See the recent Dungeon Keeper "remake" (or rather, butchery) for mobiles - and many other examples as well.

Re:Recently?

[RogueyWon]

Sorry, that should have been "with the exception of Mortal Kombat".

Spelunky

[kav2k]

Nobody mentioned Spelunky so far.

Procedurally generated, "roguelite" platformer requring skill and metagame knowledge to succeed in.

Contains "daily challenges" (a one shot at playing s specific seed) for those playing it on Steam, which brings highly competitive elements to the game.
Also, recently a tool for it emerged that allows to lock seed generation to a particular value, enabling competition outside dailies.

Website: http://spelunkyworld.com/ and gameplay videos are aplenty on YouTube.
Has a free "original" version with low-res graphics to get a taste of the gameplay.

Re:Spelunky

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Spelunky is way too punishing. Enjoyed the hell out of every minute of it.

It's also available on consoles and Vita.

OlliOlli is really good as well.

Bravely Default has been pretty darn good in terms of JRPGs go too.

Re:Spelunky

[Whorhay]

Two things in spelunky really killed it for me.

A. The ghost time limit mechanic pisses me off. The game, with an archaelogical setting, makes me want to explore each level to see what all is there. Instead I have to rush to try and find the exit.

B. I found the controls unworkable. There was some wierd key combo for picking up an item, like prone and something else. There was also no way to just let go of a ledge and drop, combined with the character automatically clinging to any ledge within reach. That particularly ill thought out bit makes it nearly impossible to drop down through a 1 block wide hole.

Re:Spelunky

[kav2k]

(A) used to turn me off too. It's not a classical roguelike where you're free to ponder your next move. But, it's part of the game that you can't explore every nook and cranny and are hurried up so you've got bigger chances to screw up. In fact, it's just a skill barrier - once you're better at it it doesn't bother as much. Also, this leads to bite-sized gameplay sessions, which I find as a plus.

(B) I tried it using both keyboard and a controller, and I'm sticking with a controller. The controls are all in one tight key block, and logically laid out. As for picking up and dropping down - they both use a universal "use" key. And in both, you need to press down. It's not illogical: you bend down to pick something up, and you indicate your intent to drop down.

Actually, it's highly recommended to watch other people play it. It builds up knowledge how the game works to the point of it being enjoyable.

Re:Spelunky

[Whorhay]

Thanks for the tip on how to release from a ledge, I'll have to give the game another go around some time.

Re:Spelunky

[kav2k]

Correction: I'm sticking with the keyboard.

geneforge

[slothman32]

I just played Geneforge 1 again, this time with a guardian, though only on tricky diff - 3/4. :(
I play "mini games" from a guy named Simon Tatham.
He just reprogrammed older games he didn't invent.

I don't play MMPORGS or whatever.
I have installed Civ4 but didn't play it for a few months.
I also got Braid and Witcher from Steam.

I am not playing as much since I am programming as well.

Re:geneforge

[cbhacking]

Geneforge is great. Deep, well-developed storyline, good tactical gameplay, and huge worlds to play in. The early versions show their age somewhat, but the gameplay is addictive enough that I keep going back anyhow. There are five of them, and I haven't even completed the second yet...

Frozen Potato

[Anonymous Coward]

something something clear polythene bag, shaping something something

APP V SOUTH

[Anonymous Coward]

APP wins but the SOUTH, sometimes called Joe, is the orignal game people play. He dead.

Moving on to the next MMO

[Crashmarik]

Was Playing The Secret World but it looks like Funcom has killed the development budget, replaced content updates with insane grinds for gear and made false promises about delivery dates to string along the subscribers. Still recommend it. Buy it for $10 when it goes on sale and play it like a single player game, just be prepared to be disappointed by the largely nonexistent and very tedious endgame.

So now it's Star Wars The Old Republic. It's surprisingly good, especially if you aren't expecting it to be star wars galaxies. Good engine, beautiful graphics, and solid play backed by excellent story and dialog. Thumbs up.

Beta tested ESO, Looks good but hasn't grabbed me.

Going to give Wildstar a try as well.

Re:Moving on to the next MMO

[Remus Shepherd]

Was Playing The Secret World but it looks like Funcom has killed the development budget, replaced content updates with insane grinds for gear and made false promises about delivery dates to string along the subscribers.

This is my impression about The Secret World as well. I played through the main story line, looked at the outrageous time requirements for the high level game, and walked away. A neat game, but not something I'd recommend for long-time play.

Older Games

[xwildph]

I find myself playing what are now older games these days. I tend to play stuff like X-Plane, GRID, F1. I replayed Halflife2 recently. I don't like what the industry are doing, it's very dishonest to sell part of a game and then require DLC's or in-game purchases. There's plenty of good, existing content out there, I'll plan to stick with that for the time being.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Planetside 2 .... the only F2P game that has quite the fair system for those (like me) who don't want to pay for virtual items.

Sure, I'm not "boosted" to BR 100 yet, after playing for 2 years, but I don't care, the game is totally playable and my character is not underperforming against those who have subscriptions or buy "station cash".

And then I play Lego Star Wars on Playstation 2 with my 4yo son. If I just found a decent priced SNES console somewhere I'd swap the Playstation imidiately! Got loads of child friendly SNES games stored from the 90's :)

Re:Meh

[Warma]

Seconded. Planetside 2 is the most fun multiplayer game on the market right now.

As the scale is truly massive, this is the place to go for both good, organized clan/outfit action and chaotic screamfests in TeamSpeak. If you want, you can really work as a part of or lead a whole platoon of people. I really enjoy it.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

People still use TeamSpeak? That laggy staticy PoS. Really, I get better audio quality from someone's home-ran Mumble server with 100ms ping and slight packetloss than a 20ms ping datacenter hosted TeamSpeak server.

Re:Meh

[Control-Z]

Thirded. I've been playing Planetside 2 very regularly since last it came out back in Nov 2012. The game is a bit like Battlefield 2142 but imagine taking 100 Battlefield maps and putting them all together, spread out on 3 different continents. And the battle/gameplay is continuous, no downtime and no end-of-matches.

I have also been playing Civ5, Fallen Enchantress, Operation Flashpoint Red River (got it cheap in the Humble Bundle, playing co-op with a friend), ARMA3, Fallout NV, and Skyrim.

Angband

[StupiderThanYou]

Still. Of course.

I kick it old school

[Anonymous Coward]

Lords of the Realm II. Screw realism.

Re:I kick it old school

[WeeLad]

Awww, heck yeah. I just looked at my LotR2 box the other day and considered re-installing. (Also, whenever I'm feeling like playing in a game of the same mood, the original Mount & Blade is fantastic.)

Anything I can play in DOSBox

[chthon]

and which does not take too much time

1. Railroad Tycoon
2. A-Train
3. Master of Magic
4. SSG Battlefront games

GTA Online & Arcane Legends

[hack slash]

In the past year I've quite gotten into the online gaming thing, with two games that are almost polar opposites.

Games played now

[Anonymous Coward]

Hawken seems to have been a fav of ours lately! A far faster and deadlier Mech battle than Most.. Just saying!

Re:Games played now

[NoZart]

Yeah, Hawken is good fun. The ambience is right, the mechs are fun to steer and the fighting can get pretty intense.

Only thing i despise is the weird mouse deceleration they use to mimic the mass of the mech - this is especially pronounced for a former Q3 twitch shooter guy like me....

browser games

[hooiberg]

Gladiatus, Travian and the like. Then playing brain games on web interfaces, like go and sometimes chess.

It is payday

[simplypeachy]

Dungeon Keeper, which GOG.com gave away free the other day. How did this ever manage to fly under my radar? Love it!

Re:It is payday

[Pete (big-pete)]

Dungeon Keeper, which GOG.com gave away free the other day

Don't remind me - I paid $5.99 to GOG for Dungeon Keeper Gold just five days before they announced the deal...argh.

-- Pete.

Re:It is payday

[Jamu]

I picked that up too. Had lots of fun playing it when it first came out. I'm currently having fun with DK2, which I also picked up from GOG. A quick warning about Dungeon Keeper Mobile: It's pure EA with a DK polish.

Re:It is payday

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask them for store credit

Re:It is payday

[mitzoe]

GOG.com is my go-to for games now. The only non-GOG game I have installed is Sims 3 and I never play it (by the time I get through all the loading screens to actually play the game, I don't want to play anymore). Other games I still play regularly are RCT2 and 3 and Torchlight 1.

Re:It is payday

[Punko]

Get evil genius from GOG. It loses steam in the mid-play , but the start and the end are fantastic. don't bother with the surface buildings (hotel casino, etc.) Pros don't bother with traps, either.

Re:It is payday

[simplypeachy]

When Steam screwed me over and I found out how disgusting Valve's technical support policies are, I swore I'd never buy a game with DRM in it ever again. Yay for GOG!

linux games

[dimko]

Heroes of Newerth Natural Seleection 2 Dungeons of Dreadmore Torchlight (first game) Wargame: AirLand Battle All are great games for linux users. Only third doesnt have good graphics, but it has damn good game play. And 2d graphics is kinda rich. So I play it anyway.

Re:linux games

[HaZardman27]

Did they ever fix the texture issues on the Torchlight Linux client, or are you just running it through wine?

Re:linux games

[Anonymous Coward]

yep, they did

Bali Murah Tour

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello My Brother , I'm permitted to share and joint
Nobody mentioned Spelunky so far.

DotA 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Started playing this about a month ago, same with Starcraft II Ladder and Hearthstone, but daily i only play Dota these days. It is a Huge Bucket of fun for me.

As a comparison finally bought Kingdom of Amalur and Witcher 2 (both on sale recently) and barely touched either of them. They are great games, but Dota just has me in its clutches right now.

Guild Wars 1

[TheLink]

Yes - still playing the first one. I prefer the game mechanics - not so much of that skill tree and gear grind stuff you get in many other MMOs (including in a way Guild Wars 2).

I find Guild vs Guild fun even when my team loses (as long as I don't make too many stupid mistakes :) ). Just don't take it so seriously like some - after all nobody is handing out huge prizes for winning anymore.

Nowadays there's even a group starting Fort Aspenwood matches at about 10pm EST. But not enough players for round the clock nonstop matches so it's far from a full blown revival.

But who knows - the game is still decent for an 8 year old game, so more old players might come back and maybe a few new players join too.

Maybe there might be more players if Anet sold a more affordable and sane PvP package with full PvP unlock (e.g. you get to play all the PvP matches/missions, no need to grind faction to unlock skills, weapon modifiers etc).
compare: http://www.guildwars.com/produ...
with this:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/PvP_Access_Kit
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-...
https://secure.ncsoft.com/cgi-...
So getting everything unlocked for PvP will either cost you a fair bit of $$$ or a lot of time.

Or you could go instead play games like TF2 where you only need to spend money for silly hats ;).

Re:Guild Wars 1

[Salgat]

I'm still bummed how how disappointing Guild Wars 2 is. It's nothing at all like Guild Wars 1. I spent thousands of hours in GW1 and loved that game to death. It's a little depressing logging on every now and then to a mostly empty district. :(

Re:Guild Wars 1

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Guild Wars. It was my first MMO. I started playing about 9 months after it came out, on a low-end machine still running Win98SE.
It chugged along at low graphics, but it was still compelling, gorgeous, fun. I remember the old days before hard mode when the end game
content was Tombs of the Primeval Kings, and we did 8-person Barrage/pet runs for green weapons.

I started a small guild to help train new players, joined larger guilds only to get kicked out later because I called out some members on
their childishness and crudity. Made friends that disappeared after a while - Koalla Su Chan, I'm not sure I ever really believed your stories
about martial arts training in Japan, but we made a hell of a monk team for Thunderhead Keep. And ImASmiteMonk, you owe me 14K plat
for that superior protection rune I helped you pay for to complete your 55 set.

From the monks in identical obsidian armour sets hanging out in Marhan's Grotto, which was fairly difficult to get to because of Mursaat),
to the semi-permanent newbie party in Pre-Searing Ascalon, Guild Wars had it's faithful community. Fanboys going wild over Gaile Gray
making an in-game appearance. Players with their impossibly rare minipets following them in town. Me and a friend getting stuck on the
second-to-last Nightfall mission, over 14 hours straight of horrible pickup groups, and getting ready to ragequit GW forever, when all of a
sudden someone came along and got us not only through that but the last mission with Abbadon - and I can't remember their name. The
first time I tried to run my 55 monk outside Dunes of Despair and wondered "What the hell is this all about?", then figuring it out finally and
going on a spree all over the map. My first glimpse of Titans. The first time I completed Domain of Anguish with just my heroes. Solo farming
in the Underworld and my first ectoplasm.

ArenaNet, NCSoft, that game... you did something amazing. You updated it over the years to keep it balanced and running, you kept people
playing, you made the most compelling, the prettiest and the most challenging game I've played yet and all with no monthly fee. Add to that
a working reporting system for abusers and cheaters and a dev team/community team that really cared about the game. I'll miss Guild Wars
when it goes away. It's in my muscle memory. It shaped what I'll look for in games to come for the rest of my life.

Well done, you. Thanks for years of great gaming.
Ehlissa Undomiel, monk

Re:Guild Wars 1

[TheLink]

The prophecies towns and cities are quite empty, but I find that many Eye of the North, Factions towns still have people. And nowadays they have the daily activities stuff which does help the players that are left gather together: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki...

You can play with heroes too. Yes it's often fun to go with some random PUG (even if you fail) but sometimes you just want to try a custom team build. It's like having your own customizable army - and I actually like that part of GW1.

GW2 can't be like GW1 - you can't have a noninstanced MMO with the same skills and mechanics of GW1. That said they didn't even seem to really try that much to the point that to me it seems like it's closer to WoW/SWTOR than GW1.

Re:Guild Wars 1

[Anonymous Coward]

The 7 hero customizable army was the reason I started playing GW1 again.

-Small Medium

Myst series, FEZ

[davecotter]

With Obduction coming out (next year?), I thought I'd go play the entire Myst series. And can i just say WOW? MYST was great. Then RIVEN was BETTER! Then (skipping 3 and 4, not on steam) "End of Ages" was AWESOME, then OMG "URU: Complete Chronicles" just makes my head explode with awesomeness! And if you like 8 bit platformers, and insanely difficult puzzles, then you'll love FEZ.

Deus Ex, anyone?

[erfunath]

Just had to throw that out there so that someone has to reinstall it. I played through it a few weeks ago.

Except for flashes of nostalgia where I drop something like that (or Morrowind) onto my laptop (through WINE), I don't really play games any more. And nothing on Android/iOS is even remotely interesting to me.

Re:Deus Ex, anyone?

[gmhowell]

Just had to throw that out there so that someone has to reinstall it. I played through it a few weeks ago.

I really wish they'd make a sequel to this. Also, The Matrix could do with a sequel or two.

Re:Deus Ex, anyone?

[NoZart]

I would not disregard the last deus ex.
Sure, it's got a more linear structure to it, but it presents a very cool story and still offers the 3 ways to solve stuff - violence, sneaking and hacking.

Re:Deus Ex, anyone?

[erfunath]

Human Revolution was pretty good, but I do generally pretend that Invisible War never happened. The original does win out for its weaving together of secret societies. That was just plain interesting.

games

[Lehk228]

Heroes of Might and magic II and III

Minecraft

World of Tanks

Unreal Tournament 2004

Pokemon Y

Candy Crush

Re:games

[kramulous]

+1 Minecraft

When I get any time. I cannot be bothered setting up Starcraft II on linux again (with the 10GB updates). Only commented for the bot that will sift the results.

Re:games

[alex67500]

Addicted to Candy Crush...

Re:games

[ninjagin]

Thank heavens I'm not the only one playing UT2K4. Love that game.

Re:games

[rwa2]

man, it's like you'd have to be some sort of ninja to make those double-jumps... oh, wait...

Old N new.

[sjwt]

Of my new games, the ones I play the most at the moment are both in paid working status (with free options)

Kerbal Space Program $27 (Free Demo link) (now teaming up with NASA officially)
        A fantastic rocket sim builder/sandbox, now working on the career mode side of things, if for some reason you haven't herd of this then give it a shot, learn about orbital mechanics and have fun at the same time, or just see how many Kerbals you can crash into the moon in an hour.. This game will remind you just how hard real physics for your tiny CPU to crunch.

Factorio $13 (Free Demo link)
        You have been sent to a new world to establish a colony and start industrializing it for settlement.. unfortunately your ship crashes and you are isolated from any other survivors, using you ''advanced'' technology you will be mining resources, researching technologies, building infrastructure, automating production and fighting enemies so that you can reach the final goal of building a defensive space port. An ever improving 2d world with 3d models for a fantastic effect.

Older games, warning these are older games.. If you cant stand to do retro games, don't bother.

Master of Magic $6 @ GOG
          Fantasy 4X game, that once some of the bugs where sorted became one of the best fantasy 4X's ever.. Others have tried to copy, non have succeeded. All Green magic FTW!!

Master of Orion 2 $6 @ GOG comes with number 1 as well
          Space based 4X, AI is unfortunately lacking a bit, but still quite engaging, Silicods FTW!!!

Populous $6 @ GOG
            How the Sequels for Populous missed the mark so much is anyone's guess.. Damn it, update graphics, tweek sound a bit, keep the game play/spells the same.. pure win for all!! And I shall put this out there for all, the DOS Roland theme music is the best of the old school versions :P

Evil Genius $10 @ GOG
          Build your evil lair, send your minions out into the world to plot, teal money and recover cool artifacts, and finally take over the WORLD!! Why Despicable Me has not cloned this is totally beyond me..

Re:Old N new.

[Tukz]

I've spend a lot of time with Evil Genius, usually fuelled by Whisky (Scotch master race).

Re:Old N new.

[cbhacking]

In many ways MoO2 is still the best space-based 4x, and there's been stiff competition since. Not bad for a 16-bit game! There are some balance issues, but you can intentionally avoid those if you want to make the game harder...

Re:Old N new.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Unfortunately GoG doesn't offer the Master of Magic 1.4 patch. The last patch released by Simtex, 1.31, still had a ton of bugs. A man went through the .exe with a debugger, into the machine code, and fixed a ton of bugs. The computer opponent doesn't make nearly as many stupid mistakes now. It will now make and use magic items. Plus, there were a couple of huge bugs that never worked the way the designers intended, and now do. Plus, it adds a new difficulty level between Hard (too easy) and Impossible (so hard it's no fun).

Download the Master of Magic patch here. Unzip it over the files in your MoM directory.

Re:Old N new.

[sjwt]

Bug fixes and increased AI sound fantastic.. Someone mod this guy up on my behalf =>

Re:Old N new.

[an0nemus]

I love MoM...I was upset that Stardock's Elemental War of Magic wasn't able to recapture the flavor of it. Undead trolls for the win! (regenerating, undead units...is there nothing they CAN'T stop? aside from drakes..)

Re:Old N new.

[psychogre]

i've never been an avid gamer, but the two games that really held my interest are:

Outpost 2 - establishing a colony on alien planet, somewhat similar to the Factorio game mentioned above. It was released in 1997, but still playable on a Windows 7 machine. I play it for a few weeks every so often, but have to put it aside when my blood pressure goes up.

Kerbal Space Program - you get to build rockets, crash spectacularly, build right the next time and finally get to orbit. I know I've only scratched the surface of its vast array of rocket parts and rich solar system, but it gets my mind thinking up all sorts of things to do in the game.

A third game but not on the computer, 'Wife', occupies a lot of my potential time on the first two games...

Re:Old N new.

[Whorhay]

I helped kickstart M.O.R.E. and I'm really hoping for it to be the true MOO2 successor. MOO3 was attrocious. The real time space combat was impossible to properly control which meant leaving it to the AI. At which point there really isn't any point in not just having it give you the outcome based on some number crunching. They abolished the ability to micromanage things and instead made it a macro management game without bothering to make that readily transparent.

Re:Old N new.

[mjwx]

Evil Genius $10 @ GOG
Build your evil lair, send your minions out into the world to plot, teal money and recover cool artifacts, and finally take over the WORLD!! Why Despicable Me has not cloned this is totally beyond me..

Evil Genius is a brilliant game, a little bit flawed but it easily makes up for it.

Re:Old N new.

[wellsdm]

I still play the original Master of Orion game fairly often. Never really liked the sequels. The only other game I really like playing is Spore.

Re:Old N new.

[hawk]

gosh, that's why I never switched from the original Master of Orion, which is what I still paly on a MacBook retina.

And, of course, nethack, the only game that *matters*

hawk

apart from pocket billiards?

[thephydes]

..... wtf? what are you asking?

Re:Darksiders II, Skyrim and CS 1.6 (yes even in 2

[bemymonkey]

Have they finally implemented a matchmaking system for 1.6? I've finally gotten back into CS since they released competitive matchmaking for *gasp* CSGO, and I've been having a blast. 1.6 with matchmaking would be even better...

I'll Try Anything Without DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

About to buy Banished off the humble store.

The games i like

[muphin]

- Age of Empires
- Assassins Creed (1,2.3...)
- BioShock
- BorderLands 1 & 2
- DIshonored
- Fallout 3
- Mass Effect 1 - 3
- Metro Last Light
- Sleeping Dogs
- Syndicate
- Elder Scrolls
- Tombraider

Re:The games i like

[Anonymous Coward]

If you like Metro Last Light and Fallout 3, you may also want to try the STALKER series, which is somewhat similar to Metro, but has a more open design with RPG elements. While these games are Windows only, they can be run decently with Wine.

Re:The games i like

[muphin]

Yeah i have S.T.A.L.K.E.R aswell :) but just didnt POP for me

Re:The games i like

[Man Eating Duck]

- Age of Empires
- Assassins Creed (1,2.3...)
- BioShock
- BorderLands 1 & 2
- DIshonored
- Fallout 3
- Mass Effect 1 - 3
- Metro Last Light
- Sleeping Dogs
- Syndicate
- Elder Scrolls
- Tombraider

We have a very similar taste in games, sir :)
I've greatly enjoyed most of the games on your list. I got Metro 2033 in a Humble Bundle a while ago, but never checked it out. I suppose it is similar to Last Light, which I see several posters mention here? Would you recommend it (2033 for starters, that is)?

Dwarf Fortress

[Anonymous Coward]

>What older games do you keep coming back to?
Dwarf Fortress.
>What upcoming releases are you looking forward to?
The next version of Dwarf Fortress.

Re:Dwarf Fortress

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe you have an IQ above your shoe size, and like open world sandbox games, I beg you to try this game. Its free. The only problem is that all games seem like two dimensional shadows after playing (and understanding) dwarf fortress. Download the lazy newbie pack to get half decent graphics and sound.

Heh. DF is a great hipster detecting game; specifically, people who like it are hipsters.

DF is basically the canonical "how not to design a game". Its UI is shit and it's designed primarily as a simulation above all else (no game balance), except that it's a bad simulation with perpetual motion and disintegration bugs.

Also, despite the fact that it plays like shit and looks like shit, it still runs really fucking slow.

Re:Dwarf Fortress

[Anonymous Coward]

Caution: Prolonged exposure to Dwarf Fortress may lead to fever, sleep disorders, substance addiction, disregard for natural physical laws, compulsive hoarding disorder, lapse of moral judgement, intense compulsion to place lethal traps in your home, frequent violent psychotic urges (usually manifesting as anti-elven racism at first), intense urge to pour magma everywhere and slight skin irritation.

Consult your mental health professional if you experience any such side effects. Do not pour magma on your mental health professional. Contrary to common sense, the later will not improve the situation.

Re:Dwarf Fortress

[Remus Shepherd]

I played the hell out of DF years ago, but I don't like the direction the game is going now. I'm only interested in Fortress mode but most of the latest enhancements are to Adventure mode, and that doesn't appeal to me. On top of that the releases have gotten further and further apart -- it's nearly two years now since the latest patch.

Still a fun game if you like micromanaging complexity, but it's gotten very old and I don't believe Toady cares much about improving it anymore.

Re:Dwarf Fortress

[modi123]

Yeah.. I spin up a game about every few months and see if I can remember what I was doing, how to even play, and what state of decay my fortress was in.

Re:Dwarf Fortress

[Rob Simpson]

Ha! More like Autism Spectrum Disorder testing game. Hipsters are too busy "playing" Gone Home.

Dwarf Fortress is pretty amazing, but the last version I really enjoyed was 40d. I find the interface in the newer versions even more cumbersome. It runs reasonably fast with a decent processor, but doesn't benefit from multiple cores.

Re:Dwarf Fortress

[Anonymous Coward]

Try out Haven and Hearth, its more 1st person but has more graphics, much of the complexity and the malleable world and is multiplayer. Plus for now at least its still free.

Well

[Bender Unit 22]

I just got a new iMac with maxed out configuration and 4GB video memory. So I can run everything at 2560x1440 with all graphics at full/ultra. A great computer although I think that the Fusion drive could benefit from PCIE SSD larger than 120GB when the SATA is 3TB.

- Civ 5, which is good fun but I rarely has the time.
- I liked the original Bioshock so I am playing Bioshock Infinite. It is ok.
- The new Tomb Raider but I kinda hate it since it seems to spend more time with story telling than actual gameplay.

I am hoping for a new Fallout game soon but I don't think it will be released for OS X and I am not going to buy and install Windows for just one game, although it is my all time favorite game.

Re:Well

[Anonymous Coward]

who buys windows these days, sheesh

Many

[Anonymous Coward]

Played through Max Payne 3 again. Really love the emotional cotext of that game. Also playing Dishonored, Papers Please and GTA V.

Re:Many

[Anonymous Coward]

MP3 was quite a fun game. One of the best third person shooters I've played in a while (not counting the Uncharted series, since the focus isn't on TPS), and like most Rockstar games, it has some pretty good music. I only wish it were a bit easier to replay, and Last Man Standing, while a cool idea, can be annoyingly buggy (where you cannot hit the person who 'killed' you, and thus have to wait for the animation to finish to restart). Also headshots, DEAD.

warframe

[issicus]

There's no story , most of the levels are the same. it's pretty fun, also free to play.

Driver Support

[Anonymous Coward]

As a person who tried going full-time Linux [which,for response's sake I now use every day]; The driver support is terrible, but that isn't Valve's fault. There are a _ton_ of other games that are supported fine, but L4D2 would be laughable to play while in a Linux OS. I thought TF2 would be okay until I remembered my primary laptop runs on an AMD CPU [great performance]. It couldn't get past the title screen, with all the options available via some research exhausted, I decidedly let it go and installed a Windows 8 partition for Photoshop (it runs in WINE great, but it's just not the same with the file system all out of sort) and sub-par casual gaming.

That's not to say Valve is at fault in the least, but this is going to be the biggest hurdle for Linux gaming to go mainstream. I am aware there are reported announcements of Valve working with nVidia to improve Linux driver support. Yes, SteamOS pre-loaded systems are already reaching the market, but that is still in the infantile stages of production. In short, we'll see, but I feel these speculations are easily justifiable.

Nothing modern, that's for sure.

[Anonymous Coward]

Via DOSBox:
- Crusader: No Remorse
- Crusader: No Regret
- Command & Conquer '95
- C&C: Red Alert '95
- Raptor: Call of the Shadows
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Quake
- Descent
- Descent 2
- Fallout
- Warcraft 1 & 2
- Star Wars: Dark Forces
- Mass Destruction
- System Shock
- Syndicate Wars
- Pro Pinball (Big Race, Timeshock, The Web)
- Grand Themft Auto
- Earth 2140
- Simcity 2000 Special Edition

Via VMware Workstation (Win95, 98, XP):
- Expendable
- C&C Tiberium Sun
- Total Annihilation
- Descent 3
- Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
- Fallout 2
- Diablo 1 & 2
- Starcraft
- Dune 2000
- Simcity 3000 and Simcity 4
- Homeworld 1 & 2 (I like to pretend Cataclysm never happened)

There are a few modern games I've enjoyed (Borderlands, Metal Gear Solid, Mass Effect, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, etc) but they tend to be few and far between these days. I'm kinda getting tired of the whole idea of "experience" and "grinding", hence the huge nostalgia trip. It's amazing how much gameplay a lot of those older games offered (especially the Crusader games), considering they were built by a handful of people and a five digit budget.

Re:Nothing modern, that's for sure.

[cyborg_zx]

- Duke Nukem 3D
- Quake

You know there are modern ports for these such that you don't need to use DOSbox right? I'd recommend the JonoF port of Duke Nukem 3D along with the various hi-res texture pack downloads and models that have been made. If you're a purist this may not be what you're looking for but the extras are optional.

I can't remember which Quake engine port I'm using (not at home and there's an absolute tonne) but there's also a hi-res texture pack that was done for it and it really looks good without changing the style at all and I'd definitely recommend seeking that out to get the same classic experience with a face-lift.

Other game I've played recently a lot on PC is StarCraft II - again catching up a bit - and if you like StarCraft you'll probably like this. Best of all you can just go ahead and get the "Starter Edition" and decide for yourself. I particularly like the StarBattle Arcade game which you can play on that version I believe - it's basically capital ship battles with a bunch of smaller fighters like something out of Babylon 5.

I recently got a PS3 (it's cheap!) and have been playing through the "older" games I missed out on having not been playing games recently. If you're looking for something different I'd highly recommend The Last Of Us as this is basically what I'd think of if you asked me how an "interactive movie" should be done in that it tells a great story whilst also being a proper game in its own right.

Re:Nothing modern, that's for sure.

[aslashdotaccount]

Try GTA V, Starcraft 3 or Metro: Last Light (to quench your Quake thirst), if you haven't already.

Re:Nothing modern, that's for sure.

[advid.net]

Starcraft 3

You mean StarCraft 2 ?

Re:Nothing modern, that's for sure.

[aslashdotaccount]

You're right. Starcraft 2 was what I was going for. Brood Wars was such a major part of my gaming life that I see it as a whole new version :).

Re:Nothing modern, that's for sure.

[NoImNotNineVolt]

Awesome games. If you like Syndicate Wars, you might like its predecessor Syndicate. None of that 3D stuff, but great gameplay. Also, I can't help but recommend Star Control 2 (or its open source remake: The Ur-Quan Masters), which is quite possibly my favorite video game of all time, but has little in common with the games you listed. And... no XCOM?

Xonotic

[future assassin]

And thats all everyone should play http://www.xonotic.org/

I also run several modified Xonotic servers

Freeze Mofo (Camping Rifle Feeze Tag)
Drive Mofo (Vehicle CTF)
Mofo With A Shotgun (Shotgun only mod)

Here's a list of the most active servers http://stats.xonotic.org/topse...

Phoronix also uses Xonotic in their testing.

I have Steam with severral games but with them reading my DNS cache they can have the game back (ohh heh)

I also play these console

3DO
AtarI Jaguar
Dreamcast
Saturn
TG 16
N64
Game Cube

Re:Xonotic

[aslashdotaccount]

Gaming is an escape into a dream world, and I prefer to keep my dreams filled with cutting-edge visual experiences, particularly when there's no story involved. I bought Nexuiz on Steam and removed it the very same day.

Re:Xonotic

[LanMan04]

Wow, I used to play Nexiuz. Glad to see it has a successor!

Re:Xonotic

[future assassin]

If you are comparing Nexuiz or even Nexuiz Classic to Xonotic you can stop now. The game play is not comparable.

new games, old console

[Anonymous Coward]

Casual gamer here - I've been playing on an Xbox 360:

- Mass Effect 3: fantastic overall (series) storyline and depth, better than a lot of SF books (!), I found the (expanded) ending quite satisfying for the series
- GTA 5: Rockstar have outdone themselves with this one, great story, great graphics, as open world as they could do it - and what an open world it is...
- Tomb Raider: the latest one - very well done (albeit a bit short) story, incredible island, linear gameplay but very very nice game overall
- Max Payne 3: the shaking camera and (weird) visual effects make this one bad for epileptics (I'm not), super linear gameplay but worth it for the bullet time shootouts

I don't know what upcoming games there are, and if the 360 has one more year or life in it or so, but I'll be happily replaying these games (well, perhaps not Max Payne) in the years to come. Won't be buying the Xbox One, of that I'm certain - perhaps the PS4 in 2015 or later.

Re:new games, old console

[aslashdotaccount]

Mass Effect 3 was fantastic, but GTA V was totally unexpected. My brother and I breezed through GTA V in a week, and managed to keep our day jobs at the end of it. It's an experience that any gamer should have to understand the extent to which the newest technologies have enhanced gameplay (and that's all I'll say).

Preferred Far Cry 3 over Tomb Raider, and wasn't excited enough about Max Payne 3 to give it a go.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Warma]

I really, Really, REALLY wanted MWO to be good. I actually supported that game with more than a hundred euros.

But it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, their art assets are really good, the stage design works and the mech movement and aiming physics feel good. It is not an arcade game and has the right, massive feel, which was missing from MW4. However, their balance and game design philosophy is really out of whack. Missile balance, missile tracking, impossibly high heat capacities which encourage boating, the retarded ghost heat to fix the aforementioned problem and the inclusion of a lot of completely useless weapons. I know it's narcissistic to assume that if I were there, the game would be better, but this time I really do. I had merely a day's worth of time to tinker with the configuration files, it'd be easy to improve the game considerably.

I still have hope that they realize where they are going and reverse the course, but not much. Haven't bothered to play for almost a year because of this, but I still visit occasionally and read the patch notes to see if they are going in the right direction. They never are.

Crusader Kings 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Crusader Kings 2 is the game which has taken over my life. It is a strategy game which simulates the dynasties of mediaeval Europe where you can attempt to dominate the continent through war, marriage, diplomacy and betrayal. It takes a few days to learn the basic mechanics and a few weeks to learn the subtleties but soon becomes immersive and compelling. The developer has been very active in providing patches to enhance the game over the years and the community is fanatical. I strongly recommend this one.

Re: Darksiders II, Skyrim and CS 1.6 (yes even in

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see another DS fan here.

Re: Darksiders II, Skyrim and CS 1.6 (yes even in

[CharlesKulcsar]

Nice to see another DS fan here.

Crusader kings II

[Insinuated]

I have no idea how long I have been only playing this for, It is amazing.

Re:Crusader kings II

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes it is amazing. Started as a count in Corsica, currently king of Sicily, about to take advantage of the carefully-engineered collapse of the HRE to take Italy.

So CK2 for strategy (replacing XCom), and TF2 for twitch.

Re:Crusader kings II

[jasper_amsterdam]

Yeah, I also went from xcom to ck2. And in both I can't stop myself from save/load cheating. =( In xcom I went iron man, but that's not supported for ck2 with DLCs. Guess I'll have to learn self-discipline (but not enough to stop playing)

Re:Crusader kings II

[Anonymous Coward]

I have no idea how long I have been only playing this for, It is amazing.

Haven't tried CKII yet but been addicted to EUIV. One of the best strategy games I've ever played. New patch out today!

Kerbal Space Program

[Kunax]

- Infinity is just the beginning. what i would like to see improved in KSP - better snap on of new item - better handling of massive ships(to high item count cause massive lag) - better snap on - less crashes(caused by mods or not)

Re:Kerbal Space Program

[advid.net]

I've watched this video, it answers pretty well my questions, thank you. Other up to date videos have nice effects (eye candy).

As I have many unfinished games right now I'll add it to my steam list and stay on the lookout for sales :)

Thanks for sharing this.

Re:Kerbal Space Program

[pslytely psycho]

Happy to oblige. It has become my favorite game. (Down with a back injury for the last 10 months, so I have had LOTS of time to play this.)

Currently have launched the first half of a mission to Jool (Jupiter analogue) with 4 satellites, one atmosperic lander and 6 crewmembers with living space etc. Just having difficulty getting the second half to orbit. Then I need a fuel tanker to fill it up before I head out to explore the moons of Jool. My main target is Laythe, the only Jool moon with an atmosphere.....(More info than you wanted to know! hehhehehehe)

Counterstrike Global Offensive

[Anonymous Coward]

The title says it all.

oh ya

[Anonymous Coward]

linux, anybody

FOSS games aren't real games

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedoom, OpenQuartz, OpenArena, ...

Apparently I'm not a gamer.

Re:FOSS games aren't real games

[melikamp]

openarena and openttd here :)

Re:FOSS games aren't real games

[nullchar]

Open Arena is still very much alive... There's always people playing death match, CTF instant gib, CTF all weapons. There are lots of mods like freeze tag and rocket-rail, and defrag (where you learn how to strafe jump and circle jump to beat the puzzle map).

Girl games

[Anonymous Coward]

Not buying PS4, Not buying Xbox One. Nothing on these consoles compels me to buy one that I can't do with my PC. I'd rather spend the 300$ and upgrade the video card to console level.

I play platformers (Mario games) Super Mario 3D World, I play the Legend of Zelda games
On the PC I play games like Civ 5. Fallout and Oblivion were okay, but the character models in Oblivion were butt ugly I still haven't finished it. Fallout I had bit more emotional investment in as the storyline actually counted for something. I have Saints Row 3 and 4, of which I think I liked 3's storyline a bit better than 4's but 4 has a bit more Simpsons-like satire going on that makes it feel like it's own game rather than the GTA knockoff 3 felt like.

Latest game I bought was GameDev Tycoon, in which I bought GameDev Story (iPhone), neither of these games are fantastic by any measure but they're easily played while waiting for things. You can't do that with most games on Steam or any other "always-on" service as the authentication process slows it down. On the iPad I also have FF5,FF6, The Simpsons Tapped out, and Ghost Trick.

I have The Sims 3 that I've played on and off.

On the Indy side
I have Gone Home, which freaked me out a little to start playing but only really jumped at one part. It has a great mood setting to an otherwise would-be-boring narrative. I have "Long Live the Queen" which is a difficult VN-RPG type of game. Multiple paths to get to the end, mostly you just die a lot.

Mass Effect 3 was probably the best "AAA" game I bought, though I felt the ending was forced.

Dosbox wise, I have all the Sierra "Quest" series games ever made, bought from GoG or Steam. Please buy them from GOG, the steam versions are sometimes broken. Both use dosbox either way and are DRM free. I also have the Ultima games and I have various games I played when I was a kid that I purchased, regardless of having bought them the first time around (I will readily admit that prior to the internet, every single person I knew with a computer traded their games, I know which games I ended up with because I still have the CD's and Floppy masters, but there are games that were traded or copied as well. This was prior to any GameStop stores trading in games.)

Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Warzone 2100 (native Linux)
Command & Conquer : Tiberian Sun (via Wine)
Homeworld (via Wine)
Freespace 2 (native)
Urban Terror (native)
Rocks 'n' Diamonds (native)
Duke Nukem 3D : Atomic Edition (native)

Used to play:
Enemy Territory : Quake Wars (native, but not tried in a number of years, probably wont work what with changes to ALSA -> PA and old libraries etc)
Quake 3 : Arena (same - audio issues)
Portal (via native Steam)
Team Fortress 2 (via native Steam, was very slow for some reason, gave up playing it)

I wish there were decent modern fighter flight sims on Linux - I used to really enjoy TFX and EF2000 on DOS.

I also wish there are decent modern car racing games on Linux.

Re:Linux

[nullchar]

Thanks for listing these! If the game doesn't run natively on linux, I'm not interested. (No windows computer, and no time to mess with settings/wine.)

Open Arena works great with pulse audio btw.

Dwarf Fortress

[ihaveamo]

If you believe you have an IQ above your shoe size, and like open world sandbox games, I beg you to try this game. Its free. The only problem is that all games seem like two dimensional shadows after playing (and understanding) dwarf fortress. Download the lazy newbie pack to get half decent graphics and sound.

My criteria

[ledow]

- What's cheap.

I do not pay GBP30 for a game. I'd rather buy GBP30-worth of older games. On average, I'll get more value out of them even if there are a couple of stinkers in there.

Indie bundles are my bread-and-butter, provided the games are actually ones I've heard of or look half-decent. I can't stand "greenlight" or "debut" bundles filled with what should be freeware / beta crap. That sort of tat, I can get from anywhere on the net. But nearly the whole series of the Batman games and a couple of randoms thrown in, with Steam keys, for a few dollars? Please take my money.

Basically, I expect - at a minimum - 1 hour of play per GBP I've paid (about USD$2 ?). That's for a game that I find beautiful, amazing, fun, etc. The tat I take a punt on still needs to get near that for me to feel satisfied. And, obviously, quite a lot of games don't even get played for that hour.

The best games I've ever owned are quite literally into figures smaller than 1p (2 cents?) per hour. That's the standard you're competing against. Can't match that? Then I'd rather just play my existing games and not have to pay more money.

I'll go up to about GBP10 for a complete random game that looks fun that I've never heard of and is getting good reviews (from users, not magazines). I expect 10 hours of play out of it.

I will go up to about GBP30 only for real, huge, blockbuster, waiting-for-it-for-years, top-end titles that are going to rock my gaming world. The last was probably Half-life 2. The next will probably be Half-life 3. Because they basically earn that from me in the first few minutes of gameplay, and they are really the exception to the rule.

- What's on Steam

Steam availability is critical, but there are a few exceptions (mainly GOG.com). I don't have a single "gaming" PC, I move my games around. I do not "install" games, they do it themselves when I double-click them nowadays. I have one account I sign in to to get all my games, and all my games, savegames, settings, etc. are on that account.

Origin is a nightmare that I touched once and got bored waiting for a single game to download (literally tens-of-gigabytes of downloading, umpteen updates, restarts, etc. then more downloading before I could even see the main menu), then I deleted Origin - despite having about a dozen games on it from various bundles and duplicates I had.

GOG.com earns a place because it has one-click installers (for quite complex installs sometimes), the original untouched games, a single login and plain HTTP download of the games, no DRM, games you couldn't get elsewhere at the time, and cheap prices. And they don't spew crap across my computer.

GfWL doesn't exist to me except as a stupid requirement for a handful of Steam games that's slowly dying and being patched out of games, as far as I'm concerned.

Desura - a nice in-between of Steam and GOG.com. But the simple fact is that everything on my Desura account is either already on Steam or not something I'm interested in. I honestly don't think I've downloaded a single game from there, but with the indie bundles etc. I have probably a few dozen redeemed on my account there.

Anything else? Probably not interested. Can't even remember the last time I bought a physical PC game disk. Probably Half-life the original, whose CD-key I used to create my Steam account on the second day of Steam existing.

I was without a Windows PC for a while this year and gamed with Steam on Linux. It was great fun, and I was so glad of it. I have since remembered to fund games that I have that have Linux versions (on Steam or otherwise). Honestly, if it came to it, I'd game on Linux full-time quite happily. That only gives me Steam, Desura and GOG.com, really, and that matches perfectly to my Windows tastes.

- What's quick to pick up

In the same way that I don't have time to piss about installing games, I do not have the time to sit through entire games in a single sitting any more, nor to spend hours levell

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[heypete]

Over the last month or so I've really been into Deus Ex: Human Revolution. I've been a huge fan of the original Deus Ex (and, to a lesser extent, Deus Ex: Invisible War) and still go back and play it about once a year.

DX:HR is a worthy successor to the original.

I'm also a big fan of the Mass Effect and Fallout series. I'm working my way through the Fallout:New Vegas DLC (in the middle of Old World Blues, having finished Lonesome Road and the main game itself), though I really prefer Fallout 3 over NV.

After finished the NV DLC I'm looking at Skyrim, though the fact that I'm working on a PhD and my wife and I are expecting a daughter in mid-June might cut into my Copious Free Time.

Re:Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[allcoolnameswheretak]

If you're a big fan of Deus Ex, try Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

The graphics have aged a little, and combat feels a little clunky, but other than that, it is one of the best Deus Ex -style first person RPG's in existence. A vastly underrated game. The plot is one of the best, ever. Levels and atmosphere are fantastic. Yet, you only start to truly appreciate the greatness of this game on the 2nd playthrough. I think you will get the most of the game choosing a Toreador for 1st and Malkavian for 2nd playthrough.

Re:Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Oh, and if you give it a shot, by all means, apply the unofficial community patch.

Re:Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[F. Lynx Pardinus]

Malkavian on 2nd playthrough is how I played it and it was fantastic.

Re:Deus Ex: Human Revolution

[jxander]

No mod points to give, but 100x yes.

Bloodlines was an amazing game that got screwed over by the studio. They rushed it out completely unfinished for a holiday release. But the devs were dedicated enough to stay onboard and continue patching it up in their spare time (completely for free)

Old School

[cpm99352]

I play Nethack, FreeCiv and Morrowind (and very rarely, Oblivion). I rotate them out as I get bored with each game. For the Oblivion series, the player add-ons are what kept me hooked - there are some truly awesome player expansions out there, where the player is able to make a contribution in the first place.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[NoZart]

I also was disappointed by MWO, but mostly because i came directly from the Crysis War Mod Living Legends. The mod itself is dead (as in no more development due to rights), but it still has a small devoted community playing it. It's got way more mechs and other vehicles but instead of a mechlab preconfigured mechs. Also a round tends to go towards one hour and the size of the maps allow for more tactics (also due to the possibility of buying resupplies and repair the mech)

It takes way more time to get into it than MWO, due to the heavy reliance on teamplay and resourcemanagement, but i found it to be way more satisfying than MWO (especially with their very stupid radar system).

Old = Best

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm currently attempting to do a low level challenge in Final Fantasy IX.

It makes a nice change.

Forged Alliance Forever

[Anonymous Coward]

The awesome community at Faforever.com have breathed new life into Supreme Commander. It's the best game I've ever played.

I watch casts of it every night ...I know the best players playing styles, lots of maps, strategies. I've studied this game actively for over a year. And still I get walked over all of the time.

A random cast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kttBIMkmLqw

Someone mentioned Borderlands 2

[aliquis]

I'd be up for that too.

Haven't bought it yet but should had bought it when Nuuvem sold it for cheap. It can be had for about 100 SEK not from GetGames or something but I haven't picked it up.. Since I haven't got the computer no need to hurry it ..

There already was a Slashdot group on Steam but it have 7 members and a weird logotype so it may not have anything to do with this forum which is sad.

Here you go:
http://steamcommunity.com/grou...

The only one for me...

[Smivs]

is Oolite. Good old Elite but brought into the 21st Century - free and open source and modable. Awesome!

Re:The only one for me...

[RockDoctor]

That's my #1 game too. The #2 being a Tetris or a card game.

Oh, I have DOSbox, for running ~1990 Civilisation (I forget which version) and occasional forays into shooting the XCom alien hoards. But it's probably 2 months since I last fired up XCom.

Guild Wars 2

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently restarted to play, after a year of not playing. Was surprised to see all my characters received a "birthday gift" that contained awesome stuff.
Also, major event going on right now at Lion's Arch, the whole city was destroyed, it's citizen killed, everything on fire... It's great!

Kentucky Route Zero

[StoneyMahoney]

Kentucky Route Zero cannot be explained to people, they have to experience the jaw-dropping beauty of that game for themselves. Ostensibly a point-and-click adventure game, it departs from the usual notion of narrative progression in some marvellous ways and all it's design and art features have been carefully polished to mesmerising effect. Currently has 2 of 5 episodes released and I couldn't care less how short each episode is or how long episode 3 is taking to complete.

Re:The only one for me... (the real new Elite)

[MeerCat]

Have you seen the new Elite from David Braben?
It's in Alpha at the moment (testing of limited scenarios), Beta is expected after another 2 Alpha rounds (6-8 weeks?) and a launch later this year.

http://elite.frontier.co.uk/

Videos etc of real gameplay are up on the site.
Personally, it's enough that I've actually bought and installed Windows for the first time in 15 years...

mostly borderlands

[polar red]

mostly Borderlands 2, some UT3 but I only play in LAN(my buddies come to my place) nowadays.

Re:mostly borderlands

[nevermore94]

I am still addicted to Borderlands 2 as well. I am currently stuck regrinding the Treasure Room in the Pirate's Booty expansion. I never get tired of opening all of those treasure chests and looking for new high end items.

Re:mostly borderlands

[klausboop]

I'm with you. I never thought there would or could be a game that I loved or played more than Team Fortress 2, but Borderlands 2 has taken that title. It is a fantastic blend of FPS and RPG, the stories are worthwhile and are frequently very funny (and sometimes touching), the art is great and the voice acting is some of the best I've heard. It is fun to play solo and LOTS of fun to play multiplayer. Once you beat the game it starts over again with everything scaled to greater difficulty (and greater rewards). I never imagined that could be fun, but because of the story and the acting and the gameplay, I've not only played through more than once I've played through more than once with each of the six character classes. I own it on PS3, Steam and will buy a Vita to play it mobile. For me, there just is not a better game!

wogsquash

[Anonymous Coward]

wogsquash on an SNES emulator

Re:wogsquash

[Anonymous Coward]

We do not know what "wogsquash" is.

One

[sociocapitalist]

Chess - the only game that I never get bored with and always come back to.

Scarlet Blade

[RubberDogBone]

This is my first MMO and I found it because of the calendar art pages that were circulating last year. It wasn't even the titillating nature of the game -I had no idea about that. Just liked the art.

Found out there was a game attached to it and that I could play it within my own abilities and within what my PC could handle, and ended up playing my first MMO ever. That was 8 months ago. I am currently the head for two different guilds and manage to have fun with the game nearly every day. I've made friends in game who helped me through a nasty crisis last summer, just by giving me an outlet and a refuge from the real world chaos.

The sexy aspect that is the game's notorious point fades after a while. It's not actually as in your face as some of the videos make it look and the only players who get really fixated on that are the brand new ones. Most of them get over it after a while, or they quit. Those of us who have been there a long time don't really notice it any more. I play as a girl because I am fine being a guy in real life. It seems fine to me to game as a fantasy, same as if it was a troll or something equally impossible. What's the difference?

The game is not perfect. Early on, gold-trading was more or less tolerated so early players were able amass huge wealth for not much cash. Buying gold is now banned but the gold purchased before is still in play. This means the early players basically dominate everybody else because they can afford to buy the best gear which they resell primarily to their own levels. This leaves everybody else at something of a disadvantage.

The game has a mix of quests and PvP but the game all but says PvP is the purpose. The game wants you to spend money to compete on the battlefield. The questing is mostly just a way to gain basic skills and level up to a point. And then you are expected to be good enough to go kill other players. If you don't want to kill players, you can continue grinding out repeat quests but it's boring and slow. And eventually, you will have to go PvP. Surprisingly, this game seems to attract a lot of first-time MMO players who don't want to do PvP. It's fine to kill a monster but different to take on somebody with the power to kill you.

One problem with the game is that leveling up starts easy and happens fast. Literally, you can level from 1 to 10 in about half an hour. And new players get hooked on that easy leveling. 10 to 20 takes hours, probably over several days for most people. 20-25 is going to take days, easy. And slower and longer after that. My first level 30 character took a month of playing every day just to do level 30 alone.

This huge increase in difficulty and time starts becoming apparently around level 20 which is also when the supply of quests starts to run out before the level ends. Once players realize they have to grind, and that they will have to do a LOT of it, well, it tends to burn players like crazy. The attrition rate is probably around 90% at level 20. Net result is that only the good, or patient, or determined players hang on after that which is again what the game wants. Those top players represent another brick wall for new players who do manage to come up. You will be facing players who can eat you for dinner, and will do so.

From the game's perspective this is fine. The top players have an incentive to keep spending money to maintain their status. Perhaps a lot of money. It doesn't matter financially if hundreds of free-players drop out for every one player dropping hundreds of dollars a month.

I do pay to play. Spent money tonight on virtual warehouse space to store my game goods. Go me.

Re:Scarlet Blade

[davewoods]

I hope you realize that you only mentioned bad things about this game.

Re:The only one for me... (the real new Elite)

[Smivs]

Oh yes, I've seen it. The lack of a Linux port is one reason I'm not that interested TBH.

Linux ?

[Tom]

Why are you assuming all /. users run Linux on their desktop? Maybe that was true 10 years ago, but it no longer is.

I run OS X on my desktop and Linux on my servers, and away from Windows.

So I play whatever makes the effort to be available on OS X. Both Guild Wards 2 and League of Legends were smart enough to create OS X clients, and there are a few indie titles like FTL that I love.

Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[advid.net]

Now I mostly play games bought via Humble Bundle and Steam.
Most of the games are 2-3+ years old, I bought them there at discounted price.

Also some games on PS3.

Currently on PC (most recently played first) :

- Path of Exile (Diablo like)
- World of Goo (very nice puzzles with a bit of physics simulation)
- Antichamber (your own mind against you, quite unique game)
- The Cave
- Portal 2
- Amnesia
- Starcraft 2

On PS3 :

- Terraria (sand box)
- Star Drone (flipper like, good ambiance)
- Journey (mystical feeling)
- Heavy Rain (multiple ends story, immersive)
- Some FPS, Snipper I guess.
- DarkSiders 2
- Uncharted 3 Great Game, great memories, highly recommended
- Crisis 2
- Lots of demos

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[advid.net]

Other games I forgot to mention:

- Rayman, all games.
- Braid (puzzle plateform with time/dual ghost tricks

/.ers advice I quote:

- StarBound - It's like Terraria, but much better and available on all three platforms

Other games I look forward playing once discounted:

- X-Com
- Contrast

Games that would suit me:

- Some Civ Net good replacement and with standards up to date

Old games I remember, looking forward playing again :

- Ascendency - I didn't finished it, some saved games are on floppy I think. DOS based.

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[advid.net]

Another /.er mentioned Kerbal Space Program, I think I'll try if it's cheap enough.

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[pslytely psycho]

It's currently running about $27 (US) and worth much more.
They have a demo (25 part max, only Kerbin and Mun but gives you the idea)
Steam puts it on sale every once in a while.
It has a native Linux version (64bit)
Since it went on Steam 14 months ago i have 740+ hours on it. Best bang for the buck I ever spent (was $17 then) Check out the forums and U tube videos by Scott Manley (Astrophysisist game player!) if you have any doubts.
Expect to crash often. It's NASA by trial and error (Somewhat easier now with career mode that helps you into the very steep learning curve.
Fly Safe!

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[pslytely psycho]

Astrophysisist?

Preview, preview, preview....why do I never think to preview!

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[advid.net]

Since it went on Steam 14 months ago i have 740+ hours on it.

Thank you for the warning ! :)
At least it isn't online with other users and I guess we can save at any time.

May I ask the expert some questions ?

- How old children should be to enjoy the game ?
- To what other game would you compare this one ?
- What main skill would describe best the successful player ?

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[pslytely psycho]

In response:
1: any age really. The only violence would be crashing (which does kill the crew) It is basically a building and exploration game. Probably one of the least violent you will come across.
2: Orbiter would be the closest, and even then, not very close. KSP is truly a one of a kind game. Hardcore real physics with cute characters.
3: Tenacity. You will fail over and over, but, when you succeed, it is very rewarding.

Although it uses real physics, you don't need to know any math to make it work. (heck, I'm a truck driver!) I would suggest watching some of Scott Manleys videos. They will explain it in approchable detail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgPr4q5tj-Q
It is an old video, but the techniques are the same and still valid.
In career mode, you get a small amount of parts so it is easier to understand. (for many of us there were no instructions at all. )
They are making new training videos that should be in the next update (0.24)
It is still in development, but feature complete. If you want more parts Mods are fully supported, and even ecouraged. (Some, like clouds and city lights, and deadly reentry are mods now, but eventually will be standard in the game.)

Re:Various games mostly 2-3 yo - new distrib

[pslytely psycho]

Oh yeah, you will find documentation is a little sparse at this point. But this is a late Alpha game.
There is a nice Wiki though, that fills in a lot of blanks.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Main_Page

World of Tanks anyone?

[Kaleidoscopio]

It's free, it's fun and it requires little more than a few minutes for each battle.
That means that I can play for 10 minutes or one hour, all depending on my free time.
I've been playing on average half an hour every day for the past year and I'm now on the tier VIII vehicles, still a long road for the top tanks in the game, but that's the beauty of it, you can go at your own pace.

Re:World of Tanks anyone?

[OptimalCynic]

Yep, I love WoT. I've got nine tier X and I'm saving up credits for number 10 while it's on special.

Re:World of Tanks anyone?

[Adam Jorgensen]

I also played World of Tanks on the NA Server (In-game name OOPMan).

I'm taking a break tho. The micro-lag introduced in 8.11 makes it unplayable for me :-(

Re:World of Tanks anyone?

[qbast]

I just switched to playing artillery. While not so much fun as zooming around in a light tank, smiting unrighteous from above has appeal of its own.

Re:World of Tanks anyone?

[rwa2]

Yep, I'm heavily addicted to World of Tanks at the moment.
It's playable under Linux and is straightforward to install using http://www.playonlinux.com/ (though lately I've had to turn torrents off in the WoT updater, or find and download their torrent files separately before relaunching their updater). My frame rate appears limited, but supposedly it helps to configure PlayOnLinux to use a newer version of Wine with the CSMT patch (to offload rendering to another CPU core). Audio still sounds pretty crappy under Linux, which is a lot of the fun with a good subwoofer, so mrrr.

On to gameplay, it's pretty well balanced, and you can have just as much fun at lower tiers than some of the higher ones. The game mechanic and learning curve is quite a bit higher than your average shooter... before you get frustrated, you'll want to read up on how the camouflage system works, since a lot of the game mechanic is more hide-n-seek than twitch-n-shoot (though really there are tanks that you can play either way). Above all, I love how player skill and teamwork is still more important than, say, crew stats (which certainly help load the dice in your favor when you land shots, but aren't the end-all-be-all like in most MMORPGs / RTSs).

King's Bounty

[phrank]

The 1990 version with it's pschedelic colours and meditative gameplay is highly addictive.

Payday 2

[Kjella]

Get together with three friends, headsets, a few beers and enjoy co-op multiplayer. Incredibly much fun as long as you don't take it too seriously. Currently I don't have any solo addictions, just a bit of online chess but when I get addicted I do get addicted....

Varied

[Anonymous Coward]

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance (absolutely brilliant -- it's a crying shame that SC2 was nerfed)
Kerbal Space Program (absolutely brilliant)
Mirror's Edge (on my 4th playthrough it's that good - can't wait for ME2!)
Portal - started this for the first time a couple of weeks ago, it was great!

I would be playing Tropico 4 but Steam messed it up:
  - Although I hadn't purchased Modern Times DLC, Steam decided to install it to my copy, but without the correct resources. Modern Times buildings showed up as placeholders. I managed to find, download, and install the missing resources (textures and models, I guess). Worked fine after that.
  - Then steam decided to un-install the DLC, because of course I hadn't bought it.
  - Thereafter none of my save games worked
  - Additionally there is an annoying bug that the game shows you a black screen for 5 minutes before starting.

I would be playing Anno 2070, but Steam destroyed my installation. It won't start and won't repair itself.

Indie games...

[gigaherz]

... and EverQuest Next Landmark, and World of Warcraft. One does not simply quit WoW.

Dungeons and Dragons

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, still playing a non-computer game. Sill fun, still meeting all ages at the events when playing at the local hobby shops. Awesome.

Re:Dungeons and Dragons

[modi123]

I really should get back into it again.. It's been too damn long since I dusted off my trusty 20sider.

Candy Crush

[thegarbz]

Yeah well with 30000000 active users every day at least some had to be on here right? /Goes sits in corner in shame. /Pulls out phone and plays Candy Crush in corner.

Xonotic, Prof. Layton, The Bards Tale, ...

[Qbertino]

Mac & Linux:
Xonotic (excellent FOSS FPS Multiplayer), Wesnoth, Warzone 2100 (neat FOSS 3D RTS)

Nintendo DSi:
Prof. Layton (the Time Machine Story (can't remember the exact title)
Advance Wars 'something' (DSi Edition of AW)
Zelda Spirit Tracks ... etc.

PSP 1:
GTA Chinatown (hilarious and fun)
Patapon
Ratchet & Clank
God of War (the PSP titles)
Wipeout ... etc.

Android Tablet (HTC Flyer
The Bards Tale

I've been playing very rarely though in the last 10 years, so all of those games I've been playing for a few years now. F.i. I've been at that specific title of Prof. Layton for roughly 2,5 years now. I'm something like 2 or 3 titles behind in the Layton series now. In GTA Chinatown PSP im at the 5th mission or so. ... The Bards tale for 3 Euros on Android illustrates to me where gaming is headed. Rough times for the console makers ahead, portable and stationary, that's my take on the situation.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Warma]

Naturally I purchased Crysis just to try that game, but my visit ended up being very brief. I was put off by the heavy netcode/lag issues (EU player here). Hitting was practically completely arbitrary and objects constantly warped around etc. I filed it in the category of "perhpas playable in a LAN" and didn't look back.

I know that what they did was ambitious and liked the combined arms aspect of air/tanks/mechs in there, but if you can't play, you can't play. You're lucky that it worked for you.

Spelunky

[maghuys]

Changes all the time, insanely difficult and therefore takes a lot of time to master, many ways to die. I started playing the open source version, but ended up buying the new version. Very addictive.

Forged Alliance Forever

[Anonymous Coward]

Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance is still the RTS with most epic scale and still good looking - although it is from 2007. It is fully simulated, you can even shoot down planes with long range artillery if you are lucky :)
It has a healthy multiplayer community with custom lobby and more at http://www.faforever.com

old school

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux -> Baldur's Gate, Falout 1,2, Ice Wind Dale , psx -> Xenogears, Chrono Triger, sometimes C64 (emulator) -> Giania Sister, Montezuma revenge, Buggy Boy :)

games i play

[Anonymous Coward]

well it comes down to 2 things
World Of Tanks & some stupid games on Facebook
but mostly now just World of Tank and looking forward to World of warships.

Starcraft II, Minecraft (FTB unleashed), KSP

[Alioth]

Minecraft with FTB unleashed mod on a server with some friends. The Feed the Beast mods add so much to the game and take away a lot of the mining grind and you can build industrial machinery.

Starcraft II. I love SC2 but unfortunately Blizzard recently completely screwed up the matchmaking system. It used to work really well, but then they added a very aggressive MMR decay which means many 1v1 matchups are no longer fun - because I've played a bit sporadically and their brain-dead MMR decay system means my MMR has decayed to such an extent that I'm winning 75% of the time and it's just no challenge. The remaining 25% of the time I'm playing against former low masters who have had their MMR decayed in the same manner meaning I just get stomped into the ground, so I've given up on Starcraft until they put the matchmaking system back to how it was or fix it some other way. It's just stopped being fun because there are so few games now where I get a good, close, hard fought game.

KSP - another time sink. The only problem I have with Kerbal Space Program is that its physics engine is single-threaded, so I've sort of given up - any largish structure ends up maxing up a single core leaving 7 other cores almost idle. Apparently the problem is that the Unity engine uses a single threaded physics engine, so it's probably not going to get fixed soon (or more likely ever - because if you don't design something to be multithreaded from the get go it's not usually practical to tack it on some time later save a complete rewrite).

Re:Starcraft II, Minecraft (FTB unleashed), KSP

[Anonymous Coward]

Starcraft II ... MMR decay

I too enjoy starcraft and now I know why after not playing for two months why I was placed into Gold and winning 100% of my first 8 games easily!

OpenTTD

[SeanDS]

I've played Transport Tycoon Deluxe since I was 12 and I've played OpenTTD since it came out. I'll probably play OpenTTD for years more. As the original game said in its tagline: "This game will bring out the megalomaniac in everyone".

Where other games are pretty and complex, OpenTTD is just about micromanaging a massive transport network. It's really consuming. I've lost evenings to the game for years. Sometimes I don't play it for up to a year, then go back to it and lose a month.

Re:OpenTTD

[fredgiblet]

Brofist. I played the original a long time ago, I've been downloading OpenTTD since well before it hit 1.0, but I've avoided spending months on it so far. Got too many other games to play.

Re:OpenTTD

[Striktarn]

I've played Transport Tycoon Deluxe since I was 12 and I've played OpenTTD since it came out. I'll probably play OpenTTD for years more. As the original game said in its tagline: "This game will bring out the megalomaniac in everyone". Where other games are pretty and complex, OpenTTD is just about micromanaging a massive transport network. It's really consuming. I've lost evenings to the game for years. Sometimes I don't play it for up to a year, then go back to it and lose a month.

I second this. In addition to what you said it is also worth mentioning it is open source, runs on multiple platforms and has multiplayer support so you can play with other tycoons. Build giant transport networks and buy companies and factories. Crisp graphics. There are two things I miss though, and I dont expect it to change anytime soon. 1) There are no "goals". Sure, you can set some up yourself, like who reaches a certain company value first wins, but it is not the same thing as the game really "ending" and someone wins. 2) The game settings are divided into one section with "settings" and one with "advanced settings". Understanding them takes a long time and is difficult. And different players can have different settings in a multiplayer game (like auto-renew old trucks), which makes it unfair. I think the defaults could be more sane also. Great game though, highly recommended.

ff6

[Anonymous Coward]

recently, square rereleased final fantasy vi (ff3 for SNES) for android with new character and background graphics, and it has been draining my tablet ever since.

Batman

[pugugly]

*Just* finished the last of the side missions in Arkham City and Riddler items (Still have some of the combat 'use such in such five times in combat' but otherwise complete). In an oddly neat twist of fate, evidently the only character I can play that suddenly decides to whip through the Advanced AR missions was the 'Batman Beyond' batman - which explains what sadist *designed* those things - Bruce Wayne! THAT MY STORY AND I'M STICKING BY IT! Probably will go back to my dream of actually finishing Baldur's gate all the way through now (Never finished Throne of Bhaal).

Skyrim rocks of course - my mother is still playing, and is insisting I get Daggerfall installed so she can play all the way through, which I find hilarious.

Pug

Re:Batman

[F. Lynx Pardinus]

If you like the Batman series, you might like the newest Tomb Raider. Uncharted-style gameplay with Arkham Asylum-style exploring and collectibles.

EVE Online

[fazig]

I'm not sure if just installing the necessary Wine libraries to run the game counts as 'native Linux port', because that's what EVE Linux did.

I'm also playing EVE Online, for over 6 years now and I'm hardly interested in any other MMO. There I am a newbie friendly teacher, trader, industrialist, thief, scammer, scumbag pirate, suicide ganker for profit and fleet coordinator.
EVE can offer a lot, but it has serious shortcomings in twitch based gameplay. In the beginning it may be challenging to manage and use all the information that the game throws at you, but after a while you simply can't get beyond the 1 second server ticks that cam become as long as 10 seconds in larger fleet engagements. Therefore I also play games like CSGO and Arma III or Hack and Slay like the F2P Path of Exile.

Generally on MMOs:
Ever since World of Warcraft was released and easily took over the market, most MMOs seem to be all the same with different graphics and names. Theme parks that don't allow or even discourage creative game play.

John Smedley, inventor of Everquest and probably the whole theme park MMO genre recently wrote in his blog that he is going to pursue more sandbox approaches to his newer games instead of following the theme park trend. The mind-boggling thing about this is that apparently no other major game designer came up with this crazy idea.

Oddly enough the only offline games I play are things like: Garry's Mod, the Portal Games and Solitaire.

Well that's basically how I waste my time when I'm playing games.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[NoZart]

Also an EU player (Austria), and i started playing it on 0.5.x. There were serious problems as soon as you hit the 22 player mark - although i mostly saw problems in missile hit detection, not so much in warping around... But they changed around quite a bit in how the missiles and bullets are handled in the netcode, so it got better.

Below 22 players, it always was very playable for me. And yes, this is a game for LAN parties also, as they provide a dedicated server for it with the MOD. The community even created a complete installer for it using the crysis wars demo.

If you like big stompy robots, you should seriously consider looking at it again - the last three versions of the mod improved on a lot of things. (It's still a mod though, so some things are expected to be not as perfectly polished)

WazHack

[chris-chittleborough]

I really like WazHack, a roguelike from a one-man operation. (How indie can you get?) It's Nethack redone as a side-scroller, with animated 3D characters and monsters. Better yet, it was released on Steam earlier this week (http://store.steampowered.com/app/264160/), is still 15% off and now runs on Linux.

Re:WazHack

[ConceptJunkie]

WazHack is what Nethack used to be before it became an exercise in reverse-engineering the spoilers. I'm thinking late 80s back when it was still called Hack. I'm not trying to dis what NetHack has become, and clearly I haven't put enough effort into it since it's obviously beatable, but I find it a lot more frustrating than fun at times. I had e-mailed the creator of WazHack about a bug and had mentioned how much I liked the game and he agreed with me about the idea of making it more forgiving than what Nethack has evolved into.

Maybe that makes me a wimp or a loser, but I really enjoy WazHack, and it works really nicely on a touchscreen-only device too (although it can be a little hard on a small screen), which is a big improvement over trying to play something keyboard-oriented with an on-screen keyboard. Although I tried a recent version of UnNetHack on my phone and found they'd made a lot of improvements to usability on a touchscreen-only device.

Simplicity

[Anonymous Coward]

I probably play Simon Tatham's puzzle collection more than any other game just now.

Long Live the Queen

[fredgiblet]

Just finished Long Live the Queen. If you want to be the little girl then that's the game for you. You're playing as a 14-year old anime princess trying to survive until your coronation. Your have to prevent or fight off assassins, rebellions and invasions. Surprisingly engrossing, be prepared to take notes because you're going to need to do some trial and error to determine what you need to survive.

FlappyBird

[Anonymous Coward]

I only play flappybrid. Such a great game!

Re:FlappyBird

[hcs_$reboot]

I've been playing Flappy Bird since the 80's. Of course it bore other names at the time..

Super Mario 3

[dreamtripper]

I'm playing Super Mario 3 for the SNES (once again) and it's as good as ever :-D

Re:Super Mario 3

[Quirkz]

I've been playing Baseball Stars on NES. Something about baseball being around the corner makes me want to build a team and hit a few home runs. Also it's fast and simple and easy to play around the schedule of a toddler who takes a few tries to go to sleep.

Old school ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but still good. Zeus and Poseidon (you can get MANY great user-created scenarios online), Caesar3

Hearts of Iron III TFH

[Dunbal]

This is an awesome WW2 grand strategy and I still play it regularly when I'm not playing EVE Online. Fairly bug free, realistically balanced but sandboxy enough to permit almost any outcome, this is the WW2 game for me until hopefully Paradox out-do themselves with HOI4...

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Stormwatch]

All mech fans out there, have you tried HAWKEN yet?

Sonic 3

[moogmusic]

On Android via emulator. Much fun.

Minetest

[dr.Flake]

Obvious clone, written in C++ and open sourced Minecraft version.

Far from finished, but dozens of conversions and mods, so great fun to see a lot of potential new directions for this type of game.

Fun to spend some time in, and then back to work........

WoT

[Anonymous Coward]

World of Tanks
Free, great graphics, swift gameplay, very addictive though :D

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

[mattington]

If you're getting old like me and can't handle twitch games, check out crawl. Super deep, tons of replay value, online play, tournaments, active community, and still under development. And open source. This game's design is stellar.

Tetris

[hcs_$reboot]

Tetris, but... that 1988 arcade version. This was the best version of Tetris I've ever known: graphically, musically and the way difficulty increased while playing (not just speed). Too bad this version had to be removed due to licensing issues. See this Tetris in action.

Been playing the Classics...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I've been playing a lot of older games on PS2 and MAME emulators. Specifically Dodonpachi (MAME) and God of war 1+2 (PS2) and others. I haven't really been that enthused about AAA games. We've reached a serious stagnation point for the most part.

Games I'd generally recommend:

1) Neverwinter (perfectworld) for those who want an RPG/MMO with more action oriented combat and who don't usually play mmo's (weren't fans of autocombat in wow/guildwars).

2) Dodonpachi (MAME emulator) for pure action oriented space shoot-em-up arcade gameplay

3) God of war 1 + 2 (PCSX2 emulator)

4) Magicka (Paradox interactive)

Dofus

[xyrw]

I've been playing a French MMORPG, Dofus, for ages.

It's quite different from other MMORPGS, as it's turn-based and the graphics are 2D. It's a bit like an MMO version of FF Tactics, though the world and lore are vastly different. It's grindy, but has a nice sense of humour and a tonne of content.

Humbbundel sid bundel

[Anonymous Coward]

Humbbundel sid bundel

Fallout3

[Eunuchswear]

On Debian Sid, using WINE, on a VAIO Z2, using DRI_PRIME to get the 3D graphics running on the PMD's ATI card while everything else runs on the built-in Intel Graphics, sound coming over HDMI.

Worked first time, extraordinary.

Red Alert 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Still fun after 10+ years. Yes it's old but I still enjoy it.

Neverwinter Nights (still the best neverwinter)

[Anonymous Coward]

For Role Playing Game fun there is nothing to compare to Neverwinter Nights. There are many people still playing, building and buying Neverwinter Nights (see http://gog.com/ to purchase a copy). The community is still strong after nearly 13 years and the wealth of custom content is staggering. http://playnwn.com/ is an example of an excellent server operating 24x7. Come join the fun!!!

Gosh I feel old...

[Anonymous Coward]

I must be a dinosaur - I still play Tradewars 2002 which runs on my linux box under wine, I connect through every machine in my house from ipad to laptop running linux. I still make weekly progress in Mordor MUD, but find playing alone is very challenging. I do like some of the more recent games such as Rage and Left 4 Dead 1 & 2. Annually I play through all the Half Lifes just to feel nostalgic. And there is still nothing better than firing up DooM ][ late at night with all the lights off and headphones on... still makes me jump out of my seat!!

PoE

[watcher-rv4]

Path of Exile, for life.

None!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm probably an odd-ball , only Sudoku. The only other game I might think of playing online is GO (The "Ancient Chineese Game" )

Apparently everyone here is a hipster...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a lot of gamers... they don't all play indie games.

Re:Apparently everyone here is a hipster...

[GodfatherofSoul]

This is like asking people for a favorite band. It might be the Eagles, but they're going to name someone obscure to *sound* hip. So, either Slashdot is an anomalous population or it's what I suggested.

Re:Apparently everyone here is a hipster...

[Whorhay]

I would go with the /. crowd being anomalous. The simple fact that most users here are even aware of the existence of indie game studios puts them in a different subset of game players. Just look at the numbers for things like players who frequent forums and read wiki's about their favorite games. /. readers are a subset of a subset, and yes we are all subject to some group think, but that group thnk does differ significantly from the population at large. So I find it very believable that the commenters on a thread like this are going to have favorite games that other people have never even heard of.

For myself I'd have to say that my biggest time suckers for the last year have been Minecraft, Skyrim, Terraria, Don't Starve and as of yesterday I might be getting sucked into Banished.

Skyrim is a AAA game obviously and popular enough.

Minecraft is indie but probably the most wildly succesful indie game and possibly better known than Skyrim.

Terraria was pretty successful and popular so far as indie games go. Don't Starve is probably not as well known but also seems to have done well and I know a number of people that have liked and played it a good bit.

Banished is an indie that was released just yesterday. When I got my copy it was the number 1 seller on Steam but wasn't even listed on the front page. All those purchases were coming from people actively seeking it out and buying it. Those people knew about the game because they read hobbyist sites like this.

Cribbage

[Rufty]

And get off my lawn.

what about some board game love

[Anonymous Coward]

The now standard german style games:
Settlers of Catan
Carcasonne
Agricola

Cooperative games:
Arkham horror
Zombicide
Pandemic
Space Alert

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many artists, not enough engineers. Aesthetics is killing MWO. May it rust in peace...

Civilization 4

[Zedrick]

I can't seem to let go of it. Bought Civ5 when it came out, worthless dumbed-down failure. That was the last time I bought a game without trying a copy from TPB first

#2: World of Tanks - the only MMO I've never stuck with for more than a few days.
#3: Crusader Kings II. Medieval strategy, last decent game from Paradox.

Apart from those I sometimes boot up Colonization (dos), Defender of the Crown (C64), Last Ninja 2 (C64), North & South (Amiga). All modern games offered on piratebay are extremly f'ing boring. BF4 - boring. Skyrim - boring. Assassins Creed 4 - boring. Gta 4 - boring.

Looking forward to Elite: Dangerous though.

Re:Civilization 4

[advid.net]

1) Would you advise someone who enjoyed CivNet to go for Civilization 4 ?

2) Wold of Tanks: do you mean that you're playing it much more than a few days ? (and other MMO much less)

Re:Civilization 4

[rwa2]

GTA4 was pretty terrible, but GTA3:SA is pretty brilliant. Sounds like GTA5 falls somewhere in between... though part of the appeal of the GTA series was as something of a time capsule, which doesn't really work now that they're basically modeling recent times.

Lots of games:

[EmagGeek]

Chess
Settlers of Catan
Axis and Allies
Cards Against Humanity
Go Fish
Battle
Checkers
Connect-4
Candyland
Sorry!
Hide and Seek

And, twice a year, pin the tail on the donkey.

Shhoters

[MercBoy]

I've played dozens of shooters, but I always come back to Serious Sam if I have some time to kill. It's simple, and funny as hell.

Aion / LoL / M:tG

[Anonymous Coward]

Aion: free MMO with huge regular updates. Like it or not, the Gundam-style Aethertech class was just released. Big zones, tough mobs, epic raids, loads of challenging instances. Played since launch and still log in weekly.

League of Legends: slick gameplay, excellent teamwork oriented strategy. Always new characters and game modes coming out. The recent "One For All" mode was a hit, soon a 6v6 mode.

Magic: the Gathering: combining elements poker, chess and Legos, this old game has drawn me back every few months for nearly 20 years now.

I'm playing GTAV... when I can

[drinkypoo]

I'm playing GTAV, when it works. Mostly, it's a gigantic festering piece of shit. The single player is polished, though it left me cold. The online experience is pure shit. Apparently, 5Mbps isn't enough to play a game online even though it really has no more complexity which should be transmitted over the network than games I used to play on just 1Mbps. And when you lag, which will happen whether it's your fault or someone else's, then your system appears to choke and your position resets to someplace you've already been. The players are the servers, as always. I have innumerable other complaints, but I've whined long enough. I won't be giving Rockstar any more money. Bye, guys.

Re:I'm playing GTAV... when I can

[drinkypoo]

So my connection is kicking absolute ass right now, and I just got my ass handed to me over and over and then lost my connection due to an "unknown network error" right as I was lining up to get revenge. The error is always unknown because Rockstar equals incompetence. Fuck those fucking fucks.

Re:I'm playing GTAV... when I can

[WeeLad]

Totally agree on the GTAV multiplayer. It was horrible. I also thought the single-player was good, but there were some annoyances with the character switching. Like waking up drunk in your underwear as Trevor when switching to Trevor. Now I have to drive all the way to one of my properties to get some decent clothes. Also, I liked the idea of the mission planning and the ability for re-used henchmen to build up, but it was used so seldomly in the game that it didn't seem that important. (I think they'll probably try to sell big capers like that as DLC). I certainly won't be giving Rockstar any money for GTAV DLCs, but if they ever release another Red Dead Redemption, I'd buy that almost right away.

Re:I'm playing GTAV... when I can

[tompaulco]

Never tried online. never wanted to. I also was confused by the capers. It said you could re-use henchman to increase their experience, and then there were maybe three capers you could do in the whole game. I had it in my mind that after I finished the storyline that i would be going back and "leveling" my henchman by redoing capers. But no. You can redo the capers, but it is like starting from ground zero each time.

Text games!

[Anonymous Coward]

HHGttG the text game: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/game.shtml
RetroMUD: RetroMUD.org
NetHack: nethack.org
BatMUD: BatMUD.org

Doom.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, really. I'm not what one would call someone who keeps up with the times; it works, is responsive regardless of hardware, and is fun. Likewise, nethack and Tuxracer.

Re:Doom.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you like Doom, check out Painkiller. A simple, fun shooter with very nice weapons and beautiful level design. Though it's been a long while since I've played it, I'm not sure how well it may have aged. Also, stay away from the awful, awful sequels.

SpaceChem!

[Cinnamon Whirl]

SpaceChem is excellent. I have had it for awhile, but only recently started it and got hooked immediately.
I haven't played any FPSes since Far Cry 3; looking forward to Destiny, and keeping my fingers crossed that Watchdogs will stand up to the hype.

Pop'n Music

[Vermonter]

After not playing for a good 8 years, I busted out my old arcade style controller and got back in to pop'n music. I personally think it is one of the best rhythm games ever created. Plus now I have a wife and child (when the child is old enough) to share the fun with.

OpenRA & Freeciv

[qwm]

I pretty much only play OpenRA and Freeciv these days. Excellent reimaginings of the Command & Conquer and Civilization series, respectively.

Re:OpenRA & Freeciv

[unixisc]

Yeah, I too switched from Civ II to FreeCiv, and absolutely love it. My only beef - one can't edit the .NATION files w/o hanging the system - I tried, but didn't work. I noticed that some of the civilizations had inaccurate city lists that I wanted to fix, but couldn't. Would also be nice to be able to redefine the colors by which each nation is tagged.

wall of fire repli-byrds downed from command line

[Anonymous Coward]

kreme of the kode contest never ends???? fake byrd watchers demanding apologies, compensation for trauma.....

Whatevs

[Anonymous Coward]

About the above posting about XONTIC i had a lot of bugs/issues with it. Red Eclipse is way more polished and has more people playing.

For the time being, I am hooked on OpenRA - an open source clone of CNC, Dune, and Red Alert. Its awesome and more addicting than it was 10 years ago

Alien Arena

[Anonymous Coward]

My all time favorite is Alien Arena. Free and open source. If you like fast paced FPS, this game is for you!
http://red.planetarena.org

An antique coward here

[Anonymous Coward]

Frozen Bubble

IL2 Sturmovik

[KendyForTheState]

Still the best WW2 combat flight simulator around. If I had more free time I'd fly more missions.

yeah, a strange list

[misfit815]

You're not going to see new games on this list. I am the type to latch onto stuff I really like. Plus, I don't devote much time to playing.

Neverwinter Nights - you can get the Diamond edition on GOG cheaply. I play it LAN-style with my kids, who enjoy it. I also play on a Persistent World. And I'm working on a module in the Aurora Toolkit. Oh, and I'm playing it on Lubuntu, though the kids use Windows 7 or XP, depending on the box.

FIFA13 for the XBox 360. I hate the direction that console games like this are going, with online play being the only real venue. But there is a career mode that I'm enjoying. The AI is good enough for me, and I'm slowly getting the hang of the 15 million different commands (I'm an old 8-bit button masher at heart).

Diplomacy, both via http://www.webdiplomacy.net/ and an Android app called Droidippy. Not sure how I avoided this game for so long, but I'm enamored with it.

Forza 4 and F1 2012, also for the XBox 360. I would love to be able to race the IndyCar in Forza 5, but as I already mentioned, I just can't bring myself to upgrade to a game whose primary selling points are all from online play. But those two are quite playable.

After re-reading the question, I realized that it doesn't limit to electronic games, so here are a couple more:

Dungeons and Dragons 3.5E in the Forgotten Realms. Yeah, I'm running a campaign for my kids. They're about to meet a group of drow for the first time. I smell a TPK coming.

Agricola (plus other German-style games). That one has my attention lately, and is probably the newest game on this list. It's similar in some respects to Puerto Rico, but I've found it more interesting.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Anonymous Coward]

I have not but I had HAWKEN described to me as too fast for Mech fans and too slow for Mecha fans

CAPTCHA: deadly

Banished

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Banished just came out on steam and I bought it. It is a mixture of sim city with stronghold ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... ) with WoW-style spreadsheet min-maxing.

It's like raiding in WoW but single player and without the raiding. I haven't played enough to say it is a must have, but it is one of those games that is worth playing just to master all its complexities.

Re:Banished

[Whorhay]

I was home sick all day and picked this up also. I've really enjoyed it so far. I have managed to not end up wiped out by any disasters yet at year 16. I however might have screwed it all through mismanagement. I didn't pay enough attention to the fact that the people in the settlements age 4 times faster than the game years roll by. Which snowballed with my ignorance of how housing and procreation work. Namely that couples won't pair up and have kids unless they can have their own house to live in. So I ended up with a geriatric population all happily living six to a house and not producing any more kids.

The game has four tutorials which I went through but none of them mention the advanced pace of aging and the housing requirements for population growth. Additionally the game will notify you when people die from starvation, cold, and vocational accidents, but it does not notify you of death from old age.

I'm really liking it so far though. Micromanaging my little mideval hamlet is really fun for some reason. And the sound track has been pleasant enough for me to not switch it off.

Re:Banished

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Yeah I have also ran into that problem, but only after you saying it to me I realized it. I thought the game was just bugged and not showing a notification when my citizens died.

Another problem I am having is having my builders and laborers do the stuff I need. Sometimes it seems my builders just stand around doing nothing and the laborers don't cut down the stuff I order them to. I'm still unsure if I need to manually clear the site of a building to have a builder build it or if the builder does it automatically.

Once it took years for my builders to remove a single road. The increase priority tool did not work.

Two tips: build a school early and do not build a hospital if your health bar is high. Fishing is the best source of food at the start of the game and you should separate some virgin forest (you can clear stone and iron though) close to your base to place a gatherer and herbalist, those two help a lot with the health bar. Also try to get some sheeps and tree seeds as soon as you can order stuff from merchants.

Re:Banished

[Whorhay]

The priority tool seems to be kind of buggy, in that sometimes it works like a charm and other times everyone still ignores my desires.

Builders will clear a site, the problem though is related to resource clearing orders. For whatever reason when you give a command to clear an area of stone, iron, or trees, that order takes precedence over just about everything else. So if you want your labourers and builders to work intelligently don't give big clearing orders unless they can be accomplished quickly or you like canceling them.

I did find a button to enable notificaitons of death due to natural causes. There is actually a text log window that gives you a lot of those notifications that I keep open all the time now.

Schools are BOSS! I always build one as soon as I am covered so far as food and shelter for the first winter.

I've found Fishing to be pretty lackluster except in the very early stages. So I sometimes will use one for the constant food, even though the amount is low.

I like to use a couple farms and at least one pasture for each type of livestock. Sheep are my favorite livestock as a single pasture puts out 1200 mutton and 60 or 80 wool each year, for just two herdmen. I haven't noticed any real difference in output from farms crops, although crops that finish faster might be better on average being less likely to freeze.

I always put a Gather Hut right on top of a Forrester station, with the forresters initially set to plant only. The Gatherers do better with full forrests so the forresters really help with that. Once the forrest is filled out and all stone/iron removed I let them cut also. I also put four houses in that cluster with a barn and small stockpile. Last time I looked the Gatherers in that setup were producing 600 - 700 per worker.

I like to use clusters like that wherever they will fit. The food is great and the wood gets fed to choppers who create mountains of firewood for trading purposes as well as heating. When just starting it is a good idea to put a hunting lodge and a herbalist in that mix, or even off on their own. Once you get cattle or sheep going though you can dump the hunters as they are inefficient and not worth it for the leather anymore.

I've tried Orchards a few times and the only reason I can think of to do it is for making alcohol. The first few harvests can be good but then production drops like a rock as the trees die off and are replanted. They just seem to inconsistent for me to justify.

I think one of the most important bits I've learned is that fully staffing buildings is important to efficiency. Expanding faster than you can afford to staff stuff is a waste of time and resources all around.

Re:Banished

[Daniel Hoffmann]

Thanks for the tips! I used your suggestion about housing in my last game and I ended up overcrowded with people I couldn't feed or keep warm. Placing too many houses is a bad idea too.

I place all my houses next to my stocking pile and storage barn, should I spread the houses around? Are the workers smart enough to work close to their homes? Should I spread stocking piles and storage barns around too?

You need to place hunting houses in open fields and the leather is quite useful early because hide coats save you firewood and can be sold for 15 each at the trader.

Another thing, do I need two cattle/chicken/sheep for they to procreate? I once bought a single cow and then it died and the pasture never got back. I also read that the herbalist needs to be place around "old trees", so cutting them down with a forrester might not be a good idea if you place herbalist next to the gatherer like me.

My settlement usually fails before I can afford to buy seeds so I never get to place farms. I'm on my third try.

Re:Banished

[Whorhay]

Spreading is a good idea to a point as it can reduce damage from fires. Yes, the game will attempt to put workers near their place of employment but this seems to fall apart over time. I've seen a few suggestions for resetting work assignments so that people work and live in the same area. Reducing commute time is a huge boost to productivity.

If you use markets near clusters of homes the market vendors will pull the necessary resources from barns and stockpiles so that the other foks can get all their stuff from one place in one trip. So use markets to resupply people and otherwise place barns and stockpiles where they increase productiviy of the worker filling them up. So barns go near to fields, orchards, gathers, hunters, fishing docks, pretty much anywhere that you are producing something which can be stored in a barn. The same applies to stockpiles, put them near forresters, quarries, mines, and trading posts.

Yes, Hunting Lodges are critical early on so you can have clothing and the food doesn't hurt. But as you progress you will run out of areas that work for hunting as space gets scarce. Once you can get cattle, or sheep pastures producing you can ditch the hunters.

I've heard mixed results of asexual reproduction with pastures. I wouldn't take the risk on just one livestock animal. Buy as many as you can afford. They will increase in number much more rapidly. In fact I frequently purchase livestock to fill out new pastures because it gets them to actual production faster.

Herbalists do work better in forrests that arn't being cut, but I don't think it matters enough to worry about if your population has a good mix of food types available. I'm at over 200 total population and my people use less than 50 herbs total a year. I'm still relying on the first herbalist I built at the start of the game. I've got my inventory for herbs capped at 500 which should be plenty for a good long while.

Did I mention before that firewood is my favorite trading material? I've got four full time forrester stations fully manned planting and cutting. They produce around 1300 logs a year or more. That chops into 6200 firewood, only a portion of which needs to be used for heating homes. The rest I trade for stone, iron and steel tools. Stone and Iron because they are non-renewable and buying them is much easier and faster than quarrying or mining. I don't bother with coal and instead just buy the finished steel tools, which is probably a little wasteful but it means I don't need any blacksmiths on a regular basis and I can save iron for construction.

Re:Banished

[Daniel Hoffmann]

I agree with your points, the hunting lodges take way too much space, but early on you have space to spare. And it is better to buy the tools rather than make them.

Up until now I was placing the storage barn and stocking piles in the center of my town, my next game I will move those out of the town and next to the producing areas once I can afford a market. You know if food/good producers put stuff directly on the market if it is closer than the storage barn?

I found out that Wool Cloths are the best thing ever to trade. Sheep are cheap and produce a lot of wool. My last game I had 3 tailors working full time making Wool Clothing. Sheep pastures takes less space than hunting lodges, even accounting the tailors, require fewer workers and also produce food. Also they require square spacing rather than circular like forresters.

Also I don't even bother with wood houses, go straight for stone ones. It is easier to grow slowly in the beginning of the game. In the long run the logs/workhours you save from chopping firewood adds up.

It is very rare that I get a merchant that sells stone though, stone is by far the hardest thing to get in this game. Also I wish the merchants were more consistent. I was at a point that I could afford buying food rather than making it myself, but the food merchants rarely came to town, when they did came they had HUGE stocks of food. You know if more trading posts bring more merchants?

One thing I did learn the hard way was that you really need to prepare before accepting nomads into your village. They will eat all your food. Do you know how long the offer to take in nomads stay on the town hall before disappearing?

One thing I am not very sure about is cemeteries, is it worth building them? they take way too much space and stone.

Re:Banished

[Whorhay]

Yes, villagers will take materials and food straight to a market if it is closer than a barn or stockpile. The only problem with relying on that though is I am not sure if the vendors can then remove excessive amounts of stuff. So a market might get filled up with building materials and not have room for food, tools, coats, and firewood.

Each trading post has it's own set of merchants that will visit it. So the more trading posts you have the more merchants you will see in any given time span. I use three and I get at least that many merchants a year, often more, and it is rare for me to go a year without seeing one that sells stone and tools. The amount of goods that a merchant will have for trade seems to depend on your viallage size or something. I frequently see merchants with 1k or more stone for trade. I went all in a couple times early on and still have 2500+ unused stone and haven't bought any in probably 5 years. Have paience and make sure you keep a big stock of firewood and those wool coats for when you have the opportunity to buy stone, and then place it on order for every visit.

I don't take in Nomads anymore. They ubalance everything too quickly for my tastes and come with an extra chance of disease. I couldn't tell you how long they'll hang around waiting. Incidentally trading also brings an increase chance of disease. So make sure you have hospitals built along your main thourough fares.

I have cemetaries, I put them in where ever I can't fit something more useful. I don't worru about the the stone cost because I have that in abundance for the time being. That said all they affect is happiness, so if your villagers are happy enough for you then don't sweat it.

Eve Online

[WeeLad]

Reading about the recent massive costly battle in Eve Online got me to renew my subscription after a few years away from the game. If I couldn't re-activate my old characters, I would not have sunk back into it. At least I might get a little intimidation factor when someone clicks on my history to see I've been in the game for 7 years, even if I don't have the skills to back that up.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/ar...

But what am I playing the most recently? Tabletop games. Pandemic, Illuminati, Fortune & Glory, Lords of Waterdeep, etc. (Though I did buy Space Hulk on Steam after playing it tabletop)

Most of the recently-released PC games have left a sour taste. I loved Skyrim, but after 2 complete playthroughs (1 with all the official DLC expansions), and multiple half-playthrus I'm a little weary of it at 700+ hours. If Elder Scrolls Online was going to be like Skyrim, but with other human-playable characters in the same world, I'd pay all their silly little microtransactions and subscription fees. However, having played the Elder-ay Olls-Scray Online-ay beta, I can see that it's going to be a whopping turd. Not because of bugs or anything; It's just uninteresting cloned drivel. I'm seeing a lot of recommendations for some indie games in this thread and I'll probably be checking them out (Papers Please? FTL?).

I thought the new consoles would open up a lot of possibilities, and they may yet. However, I currently only have a single game for my PS4 (FIFA 14) and nothing else seems worth buying yet. Even FIFA 14 is barely worth it. I still think ProEvo's Master League is better than FIFA's, but I heard the gameplay on FIFA was going to be so much better. Meh. Plus, the leagues and licensing that EA can afford makes it a little better.

Twitch plays Pokemon

[lewoot]

Everyone on the internet is playing it right now

Re:Twitch plays Pokemon

[seanvaandering]

No not really... 100 people are competing for the next command and everyone else is watching. It's like watching 1,000 ants all trying to squeeze through the same tiny hole. Boring to watch after 10 minutes, but if that sort of thing thrills, you can run it on an emulator on your computer and then mash the keyboard repeatedly for the same effect.

Limited time

[mprindle]

With as little time as I have I try to sneak in a round of two of World of Tanks every now and then. The rounds are quick and fun.

SpaceChem

[bzipitidoo]

Speaking of indie titles, SpaceChem has been my obsession in recent years. Nice little programming puzzle game. I didn't learn of it until it was in a Humble Bundle, and found I missed the period when it was most popular.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Nemesisghost]

I'm with you here. MWO is a lot of fun when the game doesn't crash & cheaters aren't rampant. I still get on my MWO company's TS3 server(House Kurita, 1st Ghost Legion) just to chat while keeping up with the latest developments in StarCitizen. Once in a while I'll spend an evening doing drops. But the rumors coming out of MWO's dev team are really distressing to those of us who aren't hardcore & dumped $1Ks on the game or are willing to start from nothing after supporting the game for well over a year.

I'm hoping that StarCitizen holds up to what it's promising. If so, it seems like it'll be a better version of Eve.

For the Dragon!

Alien Arena Still Rox

[SiNbonfire]

Since like forever, I have been playing Alien Arena. Tried plenty of other games, but none of them got me hooked like this one, despite those games being really good. Anyone who likes Quake, Unreal Tournament, Xonotic and so on, would like Alien Arena too. /me 3 Fast FPS!

Re:Alien Arena Still Rox

[Anonymous Coward]

Great game! One of a kind!

Old school

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I play these days is ZAngband, a variant of Angband, itself part of the NetHack / Rogue / Moria family of ASCII dungeon crawlers.

NS2

[evendiagram]

I'm always surprised Natural Selection 2 doesn't get a lot of love. A deep space multiplayer shooter game with elements of RTS - think starcraft, where one person is in control of strategy and building placement while the rest of you get to run around as marines or zerglings. The drawbacks are that it's hardware intensive and there is a relatively steep learning curve. On the other side it's pretty cheap (~10-15 bucks if I remember correctly) and is available on Linux/OSX/Windows.

Blackjack

[egcagrac0]

These days, it's mostly Blackjack.

Advanced strategies for simple games are interesting to me, and potentially lucrative.

As far as electronic games, it's typically a simulated cribbage game against an AI. Again, simple games and advanced strategies.

Maybe I'll have a look for a Mancala implementation for the phone.

Europa Universalis

[polymeris]

Paradox finally decided to support Linux. It sometimes lags a bit behind in bugfixes compared to the Windows version, but overall a pretty good experience.
Add in a bit of Crusader Kings II and Kerbal Space Program: I don't see myself wanting new games in a good while.

Bought/backed Banner Saga

[MisplacedLonghorn]

Still haven't had time to play it for more than an hour, but it looks promising and immersive.

Re:Bought/backed Banner Saga

[Dareth]

Sssshhhh... don't want that to get "Candy Crushed" for the S word.

Tabletop RPGs

[KermodeBear]

Yup, I'm a nerd, but I bet I'm in great company here.

Lately I have played the following systems:

D&D 3.5 / Lots o' House Rules: Chief among them getting rid of that chaos engine known as the d20. It has been replaced by 3d6 to allow for a probability curve. Some other numbers have been adjusted. Because of the bias towards rolling 10 and 11, those feats which add +2 to skills are actually worth something!

FATE: Fate's aspect system is fantastic, and we have been incorporating it into other games as well. Had a fun time recently where I was playing a mercenary during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and a small team had to infiltrate a Russian-owned (or so we thought) secret military base. We didn't find missiles - we found cloning vats full of JFKs! Oh no! Is our president even the real JFK?!

(Old) World of Darkness: Specifically Werewolf. Can't get enough of this vastly underrated game. The themes carried throughout the game as a whole are fantastic, and it reaches into all kinds of place historically and metaphysically. Besides - werewolves are cool.

this:

[buddyglass]

Core Worlds. Not on a console.

Neverwinter Nights

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't yet found anything as good as this series but since I don't have much time for playing I probably haven't tried hard enough. I also play Myth2 Soulblighter sometimes and (rearely now) Hexen2.

I have a Steam account and a couple of games but for me they aren't very inspiring. What I don't understand about Steam is that if I look for linux games there are always exactly 100 and have been for the last 6 months. It also seems to me that all the interesting games aren't available for Linux - I thought the whole point of Steam was that it made the games platform independent.

Titanfall Beta - finishing out 360 games

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm currently trying to milk all I can out of the Titanfall Beta for Xbox One, and I'll be wrapping up Xbox 360 games I haven't finished: GTA 5, ME3, Arkham City, and some story lines in Skyrim. South Park Stick of Truth will be the last game I buy for 360.

Dwarf Fortress

[Greyfox]

Even with a few very annoying pathing bugs, it's still kind of fun to bust out Dwarf Fortress and spend a few days each month pushing dwarves around. The stubby little bastards are simultaneously brilliant and so stupid that even when they manage to trap themselves in a room that's slowly filling with lava (with your good iron pick!) when there's an up ramp right behind them, you can't help but feel a small bit of satisfaction from watching them die. I remember the first time I breached a cavern and didn't realize I had to wall it off, and some ancient beast lumbered into my fortress. The dwarves were running everywhere and completely freaking out and the beast kept shooting this poison cloud everywhere and I just sat there laughing my ass off watching it all. I've never experienced anything like that in a game before.

And even though it only has ASCII graphics, if I play it too long I'll start dreaming of dwarves with their viking helmets in their marble halls. It's quite remarkable...

Tales of Xillia until recently

[Anonymous Coward]

Was playing Tales of Xillia, until I picked a bunch of Civ games on the humble bundle. So last few days I have been playing Civ IV

Ingress

[rexneville]

Real time GPS location based team capture-the-flag(s) on global scale. Ingress is the first Android mobile game addictive enough to make me say ok Google and anyone playing this can track my location any time I play. For the last year I have played it every day that I could get a network connection, going to places I wouldn't normally have gone, including walking in the dark in two feet of snow when it has been 20 degrees below freezing to get to a strategically located portal. Don't start playing. But if you do... Make sure you join the Enlightened. :)

DOTA on WCIII

[AttillaTheNun]

This is still my go to game. Runs reasonably well under Wine on my old desktop system I built around 2006. I'll check out DOTA2 when I get around to rebuilding my system in the next year or two, but I have other priorities right now.

Re:DOTA on WCIII

[davewoods]

FYI, they did a really good job with DOTA 2. Much better graphics, fine tuned gameplay, new heroes, special events, and free. I play often with friends, I was able to pick it up very quickly my first time because I had so much WCIII DOTA under my belt, so other than learning the new heroes/items, you should not have any issues.

Final Fantasy XIV ARR

[sandytaru]

Didn't see this anywhere on here. They took the monumental pile of suck that was the original XIV and transformed it into a thoroughly enjoyable casual P2P MMO. I've been having a blast.

It's out on Steam now, too.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV ARR

[Anonymous Coward]

They took the monumental pile of suck that was the original XIV, ripped out all the interesting albeit poorly implemented ideas, and transformed it into a blatant World of Warcraft ripoff.

There. I fixed that for you.

Check the reviews for the new game, it got worse reviews than even Final Fantasy XI. The only people playing it are weeaboos who want to ogle catgirls.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV ARR

[sandytaru]

All 1.5 million of them! Yeah, it ripped off a lot of WoW mechanics (as well as a dozen other games - so it wasn't plagiarism, it was research.) Then it added in FF lore and a pretty damn good graphics engine. And FFXI got fairly high reviews when it came out - it just had its 11th anniversary and it's still P2P so it must have done something right.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV ARR

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooo, lies, damn lies, and sales statistics. Yes, it's nice to know that there are 1.5 million boxes sitting around somewhere, but much like Xbox One sales, no one really cares.

And FFXI got fairly high reviews when it came out

No, no it didn't. It got middling reviews, since it was just another EverQuest clone. The FFXIV re-release didn't even get that.

But seriously, if you're going to blow money to play a subscription MMO, you might as well play the one with the 10 million ACTUAL subscribers, not a ripoff whose only selling point is up-skirt shots of catgirls.

Re:Final Fantasy XIV ARR

[sandytaru]

And 10 year old graphics!

Re:Final Fantasy XIV ARR

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, are ARR's graphics that bad? I didn't know that.

Because WoW's graphics have been constantly updated, and the next expansion will update them again, so you can't be talking about WoW.

GTAV, Batman Arkham City and Flappy bird

[herrsergio]

GTAV and Batman Arkham City from PS3 :) And Flappy bird, lol

Two not mentioned so far

[edremy]

I'm working my way through System Shock 2 on Impossible as an OSA agent. I've *finally* gotten to the point where my powers are beginning to be effective and I don't have to rely on wrenching every single thing to death now that I've hit the command deck

I also downloaded The Void last night on a whim off of Steam. Really, really bizarre, and the strategy is not obvious at all. I'll see if it's more an art thing or a compelling game

Fallout: New Vegas (with a variety of mods)

[gregthebunny]

Thanks to Gopher on YouTube for lots of awesome modding advice and hundreds of play-through videos!

Blood Bowl and Crusader Kings 2

[jasper_amsterdam]

For my multi-player itch it's still Blood Bowl, and has been so for years now (played high-quality low-graphics for free on the donation-based site fumbbl.com ), and my latest single-player addiction is the deep feudal dynasty simulator crusader kings 2.

Playin' a bunch of old games.

[gmarsh]

Lately I've been playing a bunch of old games, using new source ports/engines, eg:

- Duke Nukem 3D (using eduke3d engine + high resolution pack)
- Descent series (using DXX-Rebirth engine)
- Doom/Doom2 (using zdoom + high res texture pack)

I've got a never-ending fondness for these old games, and the new engines allow for an enjoyable gameplay experience - 320x200 on a 14" CRT back in the day was acceptable, not so much on a modern LCD. I can't give enough thanks to the people who run these projects.

War Thunder

[Anonymous Coward]

Ambitious vehicular FPS. Right now only has Air combat but they have been in beta with ground vehicles and naval units. Not sure how that's going to be balanced, but the air to air aspect is fun.

https://altitudegame.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

I play Altitude. (https://altitudegame.com/) It seems like a childrens game at first, but is incredibly addictive and deeply strategic. It is essentially an online dogfighting game, but at the same time a sports game. Think soccer, but with planes instead of players. (defense involves shooting down a plane or intercepting a pass.) I bought it years ago for 10 bucks and still play religiously. I've tried everything, but I keep coming back to this old 10 dollar game.

Ingress

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Ingress?

www.ingress.com

Not single Ingress agent here?

Wargames

[Webs 101]

I've been stuck in a WWII rut for 20 years.

I love the Combat Mission games for classical wargaming.

The only FPS game I play is WWII Online/Blitzkrieg

And I still fire up WarBirds from time to time for my fighter-combat fix.

Re:Wargames

[geekoid]

The difference between a rut and a grave is about 5 and a half feet.

Effectively, nothing

[scotts13]

Basically got tired of the game vendors and their nonsense. The newest game I (occasionally) play is Escape Velocity Nova, and that's a dozen years old.

I want to utilize my 3-D tv for PC gaming!

[ClioCJS]

I have a 3-D tv. I have no need for 3-D support at the computer level. The TV will automatically combine side-by-side or over-under images into a 3-D image.

I spent many hours looking for games that would support this. I ended up getting zero games that do this. I found middleware that would fake out directx drivers and add 3-D support where it's not natively enabled, but it was a challenge to find a game that used the right drives and, y'know, worked.

So are there any games that do this? Bonus if I can play with my wife - I'll get her a 3-D monitor if we find one.

Re:I want to utilize my 3-D tv for PC gaming!

[pslytely psycho]

Sleeping Dogs has native 3D support. I only uninstalled it because of a menu screen scrolling bug that forces me to disable my Thrustmaster steering wheel in order to play.
It looked good on my 3D TV.

Re:I want to utilize my 3-D tv for PC gaming!

[ClioCJS]

Thank you very much for being the only person on slashdot to answer my question... I'll check it out... :)

Re:I want to utilize my 3-D tv for PC gaming!

[pslytely psycho]

I just wish I knew of more. It is the only one I have come across.

Here is a list of 3D compatable games. You will notice how rare the native support column is.....

http://www.mtbs3d.com/gg3d/index.php?lim=0&grp_by=pos_gam_name&sdr=all&ord=&sdr_dev=&view=all

Not video games

[DrHyde]

I play Go. With real people, face-to-face, on a wooden board. I'm not interested in big flashy video games, and haven't been since Doom.

There are a few interesting games on iOS devices. They're mostly good because the very limited user interface - you don't have eleventy million keys, or joysticks - and limited CPU grunt, storage and memory means that game designers have to actually think about gameplay and come up with original ideas instead of just releasing yet another Doom clone with MOAR MEGGERPIKSELS. Harbour Master, Osmos, and Tower Bloxx are all a few years old but still great fun.

Re:Not video games

[geekoid]

This isn't 'News For hipsters, stuff you did before it was cool.'

I tend to like MInecraft modded FTB

[Ex-MislTech]

I tend to like MInecraft modded FTB, its a 90+ mods add-on for base minecraft.

Check out some of the youtube vids.

Re:The only one for me... (the real new Elite)

[Anonymous Coward]

200 pounds to join alpha?!

Looks good, but I'll pass....

Dark Souls

[Xian97]

Trying to finish it and any other games I have in my backlog that use Games For Windows Live before Microsoft pulls the plug on it this summer. Some have had it patched out, such as Bioshock and Batman, but others have not like Dark Souls.

Re:Dark Souls

[Radical Moderate]

Just bought DS on Steam, did not realize is use GFWL (may it burn in hell). Crap.

Re:The only one for me... (the real new Elite)

[MeerCat]

Yeah, but like I said, for this, I'll dual boot windows for the first time in 15 years or so.
In other news, installing windows blows, and windows 8/8.1 ??
At least I won't be tempted to stay in Windows any longer than needed to play the game...

Need for Speed Rival PS4

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm brutally addicted to Need for Speed Rival. Amazing game!

DOTA2

[DarthVain]

Built a new computer last September. Wanted to get back into PC gaming a bit. Specifically wanted to try my hand at Eve Online. Video card came with vouchers for games (AMD: Dues Ex, and Thief pre-order). Loaded some of my pre-existing games, like WOW, and Starcraft 2 (which never really played well on my old computer) to see what they looked like. Decided to try some free games on PC first, you know just to try out the video card. Tried the whole World of Tanks thing and variants as well as Star Wars and Marvel online games. I had always heard of DOTA on my old computer, but have never tried it. Heard about DOTA2, decided to give it a try.

O.M.G.

So I have literally not played anything else since and cannot stop playing. My mouse is pretty much intravenous at this point. It might be most accurately described as multiplayer arena combat. I've played 300+ matches at this point.

#1 Its Free, as in Beer! (There are transactions, but it is only cosmetic)
#2 It is multiplayer and competitive
#3 It is great looking
#4 It is balanced, has depth, and a host of options

About the only thing that I would call a con, is the fact that a match is about an hour. This isn't really a bad thing, it is just you do not want to quit in the middle and disadvantage you team or be a jerk. It just means that unless you know you have at least an hour to kill, you may not want to play it (but you want to play it!). I find myself asking myself, "Hmm do I have an hour for one more game of DOTA2?"...

I still plan on looking at Eve Online and some other games, but I just find it very hard to tear myself away for even a second of DOTA2.

Re:DOTA2

[davewoods]

I agree with everything you have to say about this. The only reason I started playing other games is because one of my good friends became interested in Warframe, so I play that with him from time to time. But DOTA 2 is definitely my favorite, especially with the new Ability Draft mode, it really keeps things fresh.

Borderlands 2, But Portal (1 & 2) is Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

I've maxed Borderlands out a few times (currently working my way through Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode -very difficult).

Don't play team, as I don't want to deal with smart-mouthed 15-year-olds that can squash me like a bug. That's no fun (but Gearbox likes them).

I've gotten every DLC (apart from the appearance packs, which are worthless to this "not a team player").

I like the humor.

I suspect there will be a Borderlands 3, sooner or later. They are wrapping up 2.

Portal (especially 2) is one of the most awesome puzzle games I've ever played.

Wish Valve was able to count past 2...

Re:The only one for me... (the real new Elite)

[MeerCat]

I gave Alpha a miss (watching the videos is free), but signed up on the original kickstarter for a level of "all future expansions included" and pretty much got to Beta level.
When new console games are basically 50 quid, I figured this was worth the risk of 100 quid... YMMV, and the game should be out this year for a more normal price.

XCOM Enemy Unknown

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd advise you to stay away from the classic difficulty setting if you value your free time :) I've been playing it non-stop since I got this one. I was a huge fan and addict of the original UFO games, and the re-boot is just as good in gameplay (with a few minor improvements even), the graphics are very decent and it still is highly addictive.

Wazhack

[Pigeon451]

Combines Nethack and a 2D platform scroller. Not nearly as complicated as Nethack, but much more fun IMHO. Also has a unique multiplayer component. The developer is active on Reddit, and fixes bugs quickly.

Website: http://www.wazhack.com/
Just released on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/...
Reddit page: http://www.reddit.com/r/WazHac...

Games

[geekoid]

well, King of Tohyo is fun, as is sentinals of the Multiverse. Oh, video games? :)

I'm playing 'Toyko Jungle' with my daughter, Loadout, Defense Grid, TF2, Garry's Mod with my Son.

Only indies, lately

[Zebedeu]

One of my favourites lately has been RimWorld.
A sort of colony simulator where your characters have to survive the harsh environment of the planet where they crash-landed, as well as the occasional raiding parties.
It's similar to Prison Architect (another indie), which is also nice, but I prefer the sci-fi aspect of RimWorld.
The game is currently in alpha, but it already runs quite well, and has a Linux version.

I've also been playing Faster Than Light and Kerbal Space Program which need no introduction here, and Gunpoint which despite not being that new anymore, is a very compelling 2d platformer.
Unfortunately, Gunpoint only has a Windows version and runs like a dog on Wine (at least it did for me, YMMV).

On Android I've been playing The Room 2, which was released just a few days ago.
That one's also pretty good, but I think I enjoyed the first installation more. Not sure if it was because of the novelty at the time, but I feel like the first had more depth to each table.

AAA games are becoming less and less interesting for me. It feels like the really innovative game making is being done by indies. Big companies seem to be interested only in sure investments, so they keep on pushing the same stuff year after year.
Not that that's completely bad. I did enjoy the hell out of GTA V, but it does follow a formula.

SMITE!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can round up some friends (1, 2, or 4 to be specific - assholes spoiled the fun for groups of 4), SMITE is the way to go.

All of the MOBA tactics, none of the MOBA clicking.

Re:SMITE!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Bloodline Champions. No creeps, no having to level a hero every game, no towers...just pure unadulterated arena murder.

... a mix ...

[ninjagin]

My LAN group is playing Borderlands2 (FPS) and StarCraft2 (RTS), occasionally Diablo3 (RPG).

At home, I tend to play Rise of Nations (Thrones & Patriots, an RTS) on the PC and augment that with Super Mario World 3D and Super Mario Brothers WiiU.

I still enjoy Wii Sports Resort, mainly for the bowling and archery and frisbee.

For mobile, it's Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario Brothers on the 3DSXL.

Lots of games, but nothing especially unusual.

I'm kind of excited about Titanfall (almost out) and this kickstarter game called "Reset" (by Theory Interactive) that I think is due out late this year.

TSW and FF14 mainly

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently I'm playing Secret World for the story and mythos. You have to love a new and fresh approach to a staling genre. MMO put into modern times with a cthulu-esque story. Not to mention that you don't have to stand still to use any of your abilities and your character can be every class so there is no need for an alt really. Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn made a massive change from how they originally were and have a AAA game now. Once again the ability to have your character be able to be all of the classes helps.

I'm also stuck on Resogun and Don't Starve on my PS4. Contrast was really good and quick, Outlast scared the crap out of me within the first couple hours of playing it lol.

BF4

[SebNukem]

Until BF5 or BC3 comes out.

Mostly Older Games with Newer Mods

[Gryle]

I tend to cycle through my older games and apply newer mods for a tweak here and there. I play through the entire BG saga once every two years or so, with added quests or rules changes from third-party individuals. I've got a mod for Oblivion that strips out the main quest and turns the game into a wide-open sandbox and I have a few characters. As for recent games, Torchlight II is my current crack. Yeah, yeah, yeah it's really similar to Diablo, but who doesn't want a pet alpaca that can summon the undead?

Unvanquished, Tribes Ascend, Dwarf Fortress, EVE

[genkernel]

Unvanquished is a successor to Tremulous a free, open source game that was originally a quake 3 mod (but has been its own standalone game for quite some time). It is an asymmetric FPS, aliens vs humans that has some similarities to Natural Selection, but has been around much longer and is much better balanced.

Tribes Ascend is a good free-to-play FPS based upon the original Tribes series. Jetpack skiing with explosive discs is fun.

Dwarf fortress is a surprisingly detailed simulation game about dwarves, who build fortresses. So yeah. Losing is fun.

EVE Online is an MMO that is unique in having an impressively detailed economy, and largely lives and breathes by player-directed drama. It also boasts some rather good parody songs like this one.

Asheron's Call

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost 15 years old and still ticking... mostly.

Battlefield 4

[GodfatherofSoul]

v3 almost killed the franchise for me and v4 brings it about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way back to what BF2142 and BF2 were. I'm probably out of the market as a regular purchaser, but I can't wait to play the Walking Dead sequel. For the longest i trawled game news sites for info on Half-Life Ep3, but I bet it would be a disappointment. The 2nd installment's story got very predictable.

I have Bioshock and I've never played it for an odd reason. I played Dead Space first which was such a shameless ripoff that even though I got the sense that DS was trying really hard to seem original, that Bioshock was the copy cat. I might get around to BS one day.

Re:Battlefield 4

[Bratch]

BF4 is only recently getting all the bugs worked out if it because they released it too early. I'm just starting to play, mainly because Second Strike is out. After all the Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Half Life, Counter Strike, and Battlefield series, I have arrived at BF4, and will stay a while.

Stanley Parable

[interkin3tic]

I realize that steam offends many in the church of absolutely no DRM, FOSS only, but if you don't hate steam en face, then play "The Stanley Parable." While short, it is brilliant.

I recommend playing it without reading anything more about it. I realize "some guy on the internet said I should play it" isn't very credible, but that's what I'm saying on the internet anyway.

onine mostly

[Anonymous Coward]

UrbanDead, Pardus, LotRO...

Offline, BFME2, and if I'm not doing real work on my 24-year-old A3000D-040, some classic Amiga games like Virus, TKGS, Xenon 2 Megablast, SotB, etc.

Mechwarrior Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of fun and most combat rounds are under 10 minutes. Perfect for a father of three in the 30 minutes a day after I get my kids to bed and before I fall asleep.

my 3

[linear a]

Portal, Skyrim, Civ 3

My list

[Anonymous Coward]

Just finished Ch. 1 of Broken Age (Formerly, Doublefine Adventure). It was about a days worth of play and if the other two chapters represent the same amount of play-time, I'm happy with the value.

I'm also waiting on Star Citizen,

and thinking about
PIllers of Eternity, Xenonaughts, and Gaia Sisters (in the current humble bundle), and Wasteland 2

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Bugamn]

Last I checked, Hawken has more in common with Call of Duty than Mechwarrior. Not to say it's a bad game, but it feels different. Speedier, perhaps.

World of Warcraft

[Toad-san]

Yes, still .. for 4-5 years now, and still enjoying it.

Years ago I used to enjoy the various "giant walking machine" sorts of games (MechWarrior and the like), the multi-user online MMOG ones. But the hackers and cheats spoiled them for me. I played Warbirds (a fairly realistic MMOG WW II flight sim) for years, until game changes and a loss of other users made it too boring. Battleground Europe, another MMOG (you see the pattern now?) was fun for a year, me and my trusty German antitank gun :-) But the game became non-fun for a solo player like myself and I dropped out of it too. Tried Star Wars: The Old Republic, too rigid and structured despite interesting graphics. Played World of Tanks for a while because of its highly realistic tank models and interesting terrain .. but the player interaction and totally silly "tactics" drove me away. Just couldn't get into Eve, despite its huge popularity.

Although I play solo in almost all my games (I'm not very social), I enjoy having other players around, the unexpected things that happen, even the occasional social intercourse. So I prefer the online multiplayer games rather than solo console games on my PC. However I'm not young and my reflexes are not as they once were, so these "twitch" shooter games are right out: no way I'm going to compete or even survive with the 14-year-old players. And if the game is a bloody trivia contest of things you must memorize, hugely complicated User Interfaces and keyboard commands .. fageddaboudit. I'm not spending my bloody LIFE on this thing, you know.

So I'm sticking with World of Warcraft. Thanks, Blizzard: you done good. And nothing in the game's turned me off yet.

Ghost Recon and C&C Generals

[Fotmasta]

Me and my brother on LAN playing coop against computer. Hours and hours of fun! and swearing.

Vanguard currently, Elder Scrolls Online in April,

[wwphx]

I've been playing WoW since before the first expansion and it just doesn't do it for me any more, maybe the new expansion will be interesting. There's a lot of stuff that I really like in Vanguard much more than WoW, but Sony is sunsetting it at the end of July. I was really interested in the Pantheon Kickstarter, but I doubt it's going to get funded as it's under $500K of an $800K goal with three days to go. So it's Elder Scrolls Online will be the next thing that'll interest me, especially since it's multi-platform and I run Mac.

Standalone, I do a fair amount of Civ 5, though I find it easy enough, though tedious, to win. I'm planning on trying Sid's Pirates and Railroad games, just got them from the Humble Bundle sale. Tabletop, my fav far and above is Flash Point: Fire Rescue, I also received Game of Death which I'm really looking forward to playing. For RPGs, I'm loving reading up on Night's Black Agents, awesome game world.

The only game I need

[Anonymous Coward]

Save the Bacon is the only game I'll ever need. Oh, and Flappy Bird.

Runescape and TA

[Anonymous Coward]

Semi-current games are Total War: Shogun II, Total War Empire, Runescape III (I know weird), anything from Paradox.

I keep coming back to Civ III & IV, Age of Empires III and Total Annihilation (Cavedog).

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Anonymous Coward]

MWO is a great game at a great price, FREE.

You can get a lot of game play in a short amount of time. Matches last between 7-12 minutes, usually, and you can exit the match after you die and immediately search for another match by selecting a different Mech. There is a rotation of 4 Trial Mechs that you can play for free. You use those to initially earn credits. After a few days you should have enough credits to purchase your first Mech, though the larger ones cost more. Once you own a Mech, you can customize it to suit your play-style.

It's Free to Play. You get 4 Mech Bays for free so you can have up to 4 Mechs you can customize at any one time. Initial account activation gets you 24 hours of premium time. Premium Time gives you a bonus to the credits and experience you earn in a match. If you activate that and play as much as you can, you can get your first Mech in a day.

Advice: Pick a Medium or Heavy Mech to start. Lights and Assaults can be tricky to pilot.

It is NOT pay2win. Things Real Money can buy that credits cannot: Mech Bays, most paint colors, paint patterns, cockpit trinkets, Hero Mechs. The last are just a special variant of existing Mechs. They are not significantly better or worse than any other Mech you can get with credits. I'll match my free STK-5M build against any Misery (a Hero STK) any place, any time. The only serious temptation to use Real Money will come from your desire to own more than 4 Mechs or to have your Mechs in colorful paints. Those things have no impact on winning.

There are lots of great communities around this game. I play with the Free Worlds League Military. Great bunch of pilots. Find a group and join up in teams of 4 or 12 using a voice chat and you will see how this game is meant to be played. Both casual and serious. Community Warfare is on the horizon, so the factions will matter. In general, teamwork wins.

Yes, there are things that need fixing, but the Devs are working on them. Patches happen every few weeks. Yes there are Meta-Builds that are OP, but you will have that with any game where players can choose different combinations and find the best.

Super Hexagon by Terry Cavanagh

[Anonymous Coward]

The best actual game IMHO. I died more times than in all Castlevania games I played combined, in just one week. And kept playing.

Super Hexagon

[juancnuno]

Super Hexagon. OMG this game is addicting.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.distractionware.superhexagon

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[clubby]

I wanted to like Hawken, but to me, there was no sense whatsoever of being in a vehicle. You accelerate like a person, you run like a person, you stop like a person. I didn't feel like I was in a mech, I felt like I was wearing a weird helmet and had a jetpack. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but I went in looking for a mech game, and Hawken simply is not a mech game, it's a straightforward first-person shooter where the player models look like mechs.

wildstar, eq classic, eq next

[resignator]

I am desperately waiting to get into EQ Next beta. I still occasionally play EQ classic on an emulated server (project99). Wildstar beta has been eating up most of my time lately, though. The game is great fun so far minus some minor class balancing issues which isnt out of the ordinary for a RPG. From the Wildstar wiki: "WildStar development started in 2005, after 17 former members of Blizzard Entertainment founded Carbine Studios. At the time, the seventeen former members of Blizzard Entertainment had a desire to "do anything but WoW","

TENNIS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I spend enough time in front of LCDs at work...

Backgammon

[xhgcqreq]

Playing backgammon a lot. More relaxing than chess. Backgammon NJ is the strongest on Android as far as I know.

I'll stick with the classics

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess.

openttd

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice free game - railroads are fun!

Dungeons & Dragons Online

[Badlight]

It's been 7 years now, and despite the occasional break, I keep coming back.

The current state of the game is basically 3.5e adapted for online play (spell points instead of spells/day, etc) with a couple of enhancement-tree systems grafted onto it.

There is multiclassing (with alignment restrictions!), real dungeon crawls (traps, puzzles, riddles, etc), guild housing (airships), plenty of content and more being added (Ed Greenwood is narrating his Haunted Halls of Eveningstar module for the next expansion)....

I had high hopes for ESO, but... no.

EQN, maybe; EQ was fantastic, but dated, now, and EQ2 sucked. Fingers crossed :)

DayZ Epoch

[SpaceManFlip]

I've been wasting a ton of time on DayZ Epoch (a mod of the Mod) which is like a combination of the zombie survival MMO-FPS with Minecraft and RPG elements.

You can buy and sell stuff for gold etc, and buy a real estate plot anywhere that's not taken already and build a base from raw materials to hide your valuables in or battle from like a fort. Vehicles are own-able and lockable etc. It is amazeballs.

Consoles, mostly

[Rinikusu]

I still have a stack of strategy JRPGs for the PS2 I'm working through (mostly NIS America stuff.. Currently on the Disgaea series, with the Atelier Iris series in tow).

And I still have a windows xp machine that is only for my midnight insomnia Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri runs.

Finally, World of Warcrack.

Battle of Z - PS Vita

[Wingfat]

playing DBZ Battle of Z a lot, or Assassins Creed Black Flag on my PS4. just picked up Lego Marvel for the PS4 on sale as well. on PS3 Diablo 3

Just finished Alan Wake

[Radical Moderate]

Loved the Twin Peaks vibe, combat is different in a mostly good way, and it's scary/creepy enough. Just about to start BioShock Infinite.

Re:Just finished Alan Wake

[Anonymous Coward]

For Twin Peaks: The Game, check out Deadly Premonition. Though it's not to everyone's taste, being Japanese and having poor gameplay, it's a very interesting experience. Or just check out Supergreatfriend's LP of the game, if you're so inclined.

Sims 4, WoW, CafeWorld, FrontierVille

[WillAffleckUW]

At least I kept games off of my cell phone.

Pirate the pirate game

[tepples]

If AC4 was billed as just a "Pirate Game, from the maker's of Assassin's Creed" instead of an actual Assassin's Creed sequel, I would've probably bought it.

Bought it, or pirated it?

Re:Pirate the pirate game

[jxander]

AARRRRRR!!!

Everquest 2

[some old guy]

Once an Evercracker, always an Evercracker I suppose. My preference is the fantasy genre, so that probably explains it. Sc-Fi and modern/urban settings don't interest me.

I am also an Alpha tester for Everquest Next Landmark, and enjoying the experience immensely. I also plan to be involved in Everquest Next once Landmark goes live.

Ultima IV on my C-64 emulator

[peter.kingsbury]

See?

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[jxander]

Saw that on Steam yesterday. Looks interesting, but it's $30 just to play the "Early Access" version.

Call me old fashioned, but aren't studios supposed to PAY their testers? Or at very least let people beta test for free? Charging people for the 'privilege' of playing a beta is fucked. Especially considering the game claims to be "Free to Play" but ONLY charging the people who want "Early Access"

Looks interesting as a game, but the people running the show need to get their heads out of their asses..

Current rotation of games

[JTsyo]

1. Hearthstone - log on and do a the daily quest and maybe play 2 or 3 other rounds
2. Check Battlelog to see if any friends are playing BF4
3. Skyrim for some alone time
4. Log into Planetside 2 for the daily certs. Play for a bit if there's an alert or something interesting going on
5. On weekends I might fire up a game of Civ5

Minecraft+

[Anonymous Coward]

Minecraft with family (wife + 4 kids = 10 years old), Civ 5 (solo or with wife), and World of Tanks (solo and two oldest kids 8 & 10 started to play with me).

Nintendo 3DS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's got my eyeballs. Both of them. Fantastic machine.

Lots

[Anonymous Coward]

Ticket to Ride
Stone Age
Agricola
Carcassonne
Thurn and Taxis

Forgotten Hope 2

[Striktarn]

For anyone interested in exploring some "authentic" battles from WWII, Forgotten Hope 2 mod for BF2 is an ambitious game with a dedicated community. The weapons, the vehicles and most maps are all modeled to look, feel and sound like the real ones. Teamwork is key to winning and most players know that. The variety and range of vehicles is particularly nice I think. The Tiger tank is reputable with its thick armor and 88mm gun. Almost any allied tank meeting it is defeated (one exception: Sherman Firefly). But not only firepower and armor matters. Tanks are more vulnerable in the rear and the tracks are too. Also, if you hit a tank in a too large angle, the shot will bounce off. Fantastic game..

Nintendo and startups

[tepples]

Party games tend to be limited to the Nintendo platforms. If you want them, go there. Most people are happy without them.

I was thinking of this in part from a developer's perspective. Nintendo hasn't been kind to startup developers (source 1; source 2).

By "paywalled", I meant pay-to-win, or free-to-start-playing-but-pay-through-the-nose-if-you-want-to-play-for-more-than-ten-minutes.

Would that include any PC game with a demo that can be completed in ten minutes?

Re:Nintendo and startups

[RogueyWon]

I'm really not sure where you're going here - and I've lost track of what the first point you're trying to make is. With the days of Wii-shovelware behind us, there aren't really any party game developers other than Nintendo in the business any more anyway. I know full well that Nintendo is a horrible company to work with; they are certainly no more virtuous than Sony and MS (and in some respects less so) - but they always benefit from a "sympathy for the underdog" factor.

And no, demo + purchase is not the same as what's happening in mobile gaming now - if you think it is, then I can only suspect you haven't followed what's been happening on the mobile platforms at all.

Demo + Purchase is an old and established way of selling games. You give the customer a bit of it free, if they like it, they make a one-time purchase and buy the rest. If they don't, they move on. It's not a perfect system (I can think of games whose first levels - the bit used in the demo - have been far better than the rest of the game), but it is reasonably honest.

The mobile "free to pay/pay-to-win" and "paywall" models are very different. You can, in principle, play the whole game for free. But you will be forced to "grind" sections of the game for hours, or simply wait with the game idle for hours or even days between taking actions. At any time, you can spend money to speed things up. But you can never pay a fixed sum and "own" the game. There's always another paywall along in a few minutes.

Worse, any semblance of game design goes out the window. These games aren't designed to reward skill - quite the opposite. The last thing the developers want is for a skilled player to encounter the paywall less frequently. Rather, they are designed to form a direct correlation between success in the game and the amount of money you spend. More information and analysis is here.

Anyone playing Speedrunners?

[Anonymous Coward]

My weekly online gaming group (RL friends) grabbed a 4-pack on Steam when it went on sale. We weren't expecting much at all from it- maybe get one night of fun out of it. Damn were we surprised! It is sort of a racing platform gaming. It is a very simple concept well executed. For the last month it has eclipsed all the other games we have to play. A controller is a must though...

Transport Tycoon

[Anonymous Coward]

In DOSBox ...also erm Pizza Tycoon and Crusader No Regret

Also Ninja Gaiden Sigma on my Vita ;-)

For mobile gamers

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm playing Ingress right now

Hearthstone

[TheMadTopher]

Hearthstone. It just recently went open beta too so anyone can play for free.

WorldOfTanks.

[Anonymous Crowbar]

Was a free Xbox gold game. It is awesome. I'm an over 50 kernel hack and bought the Xbox 2 years ago for 2 boys. I only played this game to see if it would be appropriate for them and ended up getting hooked. They don't like it.

star control

[notamormon]

Hopefully they won't fuck up Star control 3 (a true one) which is finally more than a mere dream

Infocom

[Anonymous Coward]

Hereâ(TM)s to the old school!

I just started playing Bureaucracy again. I bought the game in 1988 but barely scratched the surface before other things got in the way. I installed the game and am in love with interactive fiction all over again.

Interactive fiction is great fun, engages the brain, and is a great way to spend free time. There is a lot of free interactive fiction on the internet, and there are tools that allow you to create your own.

Check it out!

Silent Hunter Sim

[Totaku]

Silent Hunter III with Grey Wolves Expansion

I figured I was done with it after playing ~350 hours last year, but the addiction persists...

Aces High -- multiplayer air-combat

[Anonymous Coward]

I mostly play Aces High, a multiplayer air-combat sim. You fly WWII aircraft in combat against others, with excellent modeling of the capabilities and flight dynamics of each aircraft. I like best the occasional Scenarios, special events that are based on historical battles, with a realistic mix of the historical aircraft an objectives of the battle. For example, you might have The Battle of Britain, with Spitfire I's and Hurricane I's vs. Bf 109E's, He 111's, Ju 88's, Ju 87's, etc. fighting across the English Channel; or 8th Air Force bombing of Germany, with P-51's, P-47's, and P-38's escorting B-17's, and B-24's vs. FW 190's and Bf 109's; or the Battle of Coral Sea with carrier combat of F4F's, SBD's, and torpedo bombers vs. A6M2's, D3A's, and B5N's.

Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator

[Anonymous Coward]

I must recommend Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator. This game you need to be playing with a group of friends in LAN type proximity, but if you've ever dreamed of being an officer on the bridge of the Enterprise, this is a game for you.

DayZ SA Alpha

[Anonymous Coward]

No DayZ Stand Alone players? Amazing game and for only being alpha it runs better than mod did on my PC.

YES

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes love the franchise,you can play it five times and have five different outcomes...

DF

[MikeBabcock]

I play a lot of DwarfFortress, I like my large 200+ dwarf settlements with lots of customization and building.
I really enjoy JRPGs and AAA adventure games on the PS3 too.
I try to avoid MMOs ... finally got unhooked on Wurm but I did play Vendetta online for a bit.

- Maluraq on PSN and gaming forums.

Have fun

[Anonymous Coward]

Thelastdoor.com

FireFall

[Anonymous Coward]

Love the game, my roommate and I have been playing it for about six months now.
We were playing TeamFortress-2 after a long absence from online gaming. There just wasn't anything that sparked our interest since Quake 3 (1999). It is a game we can get into and one we can support. The community is also a great part of the game even more so than some other games we have played.

What older game do I keep coming back to?

[darpo]

Chess! You can play a casual 5-minute blitz game, or delve deep into theory for years, or anything in between. With the Internet chess has exploded. On the chess.com server I play on, you'll find 15,000 people or more available for a game at a given time.

Gnomoria

[Jonah Hex]

Gnomoria may be "Dwarf Fortress Lite 3D" to some, but to me it's the best mix between in depth orders and possibilities and playability. http://gnomoria.com/ Lots of updates and support.

Gnomoria is a sandbox village management game where you help lead a small group of gnomes, who have set out on their own, to thrive into a bustling kingdom! Anything you see can be broken down and rebuilt elsewhere. Craft items, build structures, set traps and dig deep underground in search of precious resources to help your gnomes survive the harsh lands. Build your kingdom and stockpile wealth to attract wandering gnomads to your cause, but be wary of also attracting enemies!

Banner Saga

[Sin2x]

Finished 3 times on Normal and 1 on Hard to get all the achievements. What a glorious frigging little game.

EverQuest ... on Project 1999

[machineghost]

Project 1999 is an emulated Everquest server that only has the original game and one expansion (they plan to add one more expansion then stop). It's free, it's just as much (if not more) fun as Everquest was back in 1999, and I highly recommend it to any current or former Ever-Crackers.

Day-night cycles

[tepples]

I've lost track of what the first point you're trying to make is.

My point is that the deck is stacked against startups in a manner that I believe is self-destructive for the industry. There are certain genres that don't work on popular open platforms. For example, party games don't work so well on PC because most people haven't bought a second PC for the TV room. And platformers don't work so well on Android and iOS because the player looking at the character in the center of the screen can't feel where his thumbs are in relation to the directional control and fire buttons at the corners. I tried the demo of Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure on my Nexus 7 tablet and control was horrible. The platforms best suited for these genres (consoles and dedicated handheld gaming systems, respectively) have entry barriers that appear designed to protect established studios from competition from startups. I could see it in the 1980s when shelf space was limited and trustworthy reviews were hard to come by, but inexpensive distribution of games and reviews through the Internet weakens the "but the 1984 crash!" argument. And startups are more likely to bring fresh ideas as opposed to the same old safe bets that established studios put out annually. So how is anything fresh in those genres supposed to break into the market?

Demo + Purchase is an old and established way of selling games. You give the customer a bit of it free, if they like it, they make a one-time purchase and buy the rest.

The pattern of offering App Title Lite and App Title (Ad-Free) was still alive and well on Google Play Store last time I checked. I mentioned Pixeline and the Jungle Treasure earlier, and it has a demo and a full version. So does Rovio's Angry Birds.

More information and analysis is here

I see a scathing review of Dungeon Keeper for iOS because the free version operates on a poorly paced day-night cycle, and speeding up this cycle costs more than a major console game. But paid games like Animal Crossing for GameCube, DS, Wii, and 3DS are little different in theory: fruit trees, fossils, the general store, and the like are all replenished each morning at 0600. Perhaps the key difference is that Nintendo paced the day-night cycle of Animal Crossing better, actually giving the player an hour of stuff to do every day.

Re:Day-night cycles

[RogueyWon]

Pretty much any genre aside from party games is perfectly fine on the PC. And party-games is a genre that had a brief spike in popularity on the Wii but is now, mercifully, consigned back to oblivion. Everything else - from platformers to fighting games (ugh) to RPGs to shooters is perfectly fine on the PC. Almost all of them are fine on a home console (RTSes still don't quite work there and fpses will never be quite as good as on mouse and keyboard). Most are also fine on a Vita and, to a lesser extent, a 3DS.

The mobile platforms are not good for some types of game - yes. Touchscreen controls are poor for many types of game, in fact. But this isn't putting off mobile developers; if anything, the problem for iOS and Android is that the barriers to entry are too low. Quality indie games have a much better chance of success on Steam or the PSN, where they have to meet a certain quality filter for release.

I fundamentally don't buy into the idea that we need even more startups and indie-studios. Sure, the occasional gem comes from the indies (and thanks to the likes of Steam and the PSN, they tend to get the recognition and success they deserve), but mostly, we just get the kind of crud that jams up the stores on the mobile marketplaces. The best games, like it or not, continue to come from the mid-sized and major studios.

On app-lite and app-purchase models, I have no complaints. Rovio's means of selling Angry Birds is absolutely fine with me (and I adore Bad Piggies). But if you think that's still how most games on the mobile stores are pushed these days, you're at least 18 months behind the times. Rovio are, sad to say, an echo of an older, better time for mobile gaming (yes, this world moves fast).

And if you look around for other examples of games crippled by pay-to-win, they are legion. Dungeon Siege is just a recent high-profile example. The problem is that game mechanics are being actively stripped out in favour of mechanisms designed to get the player to pay more and more.

In the old days of arcade games, difficulty levels would be set very high so that players would have to put in more coins. Harsh? Yes, absolutely. But a skilled player could still go a long time off a single coin. The free to play mobile (and facebook) model these days has become one where, figuratively Pac-Man will DEFINITELY die after 15 seconds unless you put another coin in - but so long as you keep feeding those coins in, he's permanently under a power-pill effect.

Might and Magic X

[Fieryphoenix]

Just finished Might and Magic X: Legacy last night, then I tried Blackguards and the program locked up during the intro movie. I was not able to close it or even reboot my computer, so I won't be trying that again til after a patch. Today I tried Jazzpunk and it was mildly amusing... not as funny as I had hoped. I think I am likely to fire up BF4 now that Second Assault has been released.

Still playing WoW

[seanvaandering]

But did start playing it when it was Warcraft, Warcraft II and III, then took a huge 7 year break and tried out WoW and still playing it 3 years later. I still have friends ribbing me about being a "Level 7 Bezerker", but damn that game was addicting.

Before that, of course the gamut of FPS games:

Doom, Doom II, Hexen, and Heretic.

I ran MajorBBS/Worldgroup software with a 18 line BBS system that allowed those games to go multi player. Damn those were good times. If I had the money today to set that back up I probably would again - the community and the people were amazing.

I'll second this and give some love to FTL.

[MrNiceguy_KS]

FTL is an absolute gem. The gameplay is almost like an RTS set aboard a starship. Instead of controlling the ship, you're controlling the people inside. It really doesn't feel anything like Battlestar Galactica as mentioned below: For one thing, your ship has a maximum crew of 8. If we're comparing it to a sci-fi series, I'd say more like Firefly, except your ship is armed.

As the parent noted, it's got tons of replay value. It's almost a bit of a rogue-like, in that the sector layouts and encounters are all randomized, and death is permanent (and you'll probably die a lot.) You might have the same encounter multiple times is subsequent games, but you'll get different options depending on your crew and equipment. The most recent ship I unlocked, for example required having a teleporter, upgraded med-bay, and at least 1 crew member of a specific race.

I'll admit I've sunk a lot of time into it lately, but each individual game is fairly short - when I win, it probably takes between 1 and 2 hours from start to finish.

open worlds and Civ

[WiPEOUT]

Thanks to nexusmods.com I've been replaying the Bethesda open world games (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas) for years now. These not only still look spectacular on modern hardware, but entire new quest lines and regions are available via modifications that are easily managed via the (GPL'ed) mod management tool.

With the release of Civilization V: Brave New World DLC, Civ V has finally become a superior successor to all its predecessors (though it hasn't quite eclipsed the story orientation of Alpha Centauri), so that gets its fair share of game time, too.

Finally, I was bored the other day and decided to finally try out GTA:IV. While I had been a fan of the original two GTA games, the 3D once since hadn't managed to include sufficiently interesting story and characters to really engage me. So while I'd played the Mafia series, the recent GTA games were tried and quickly set aside. Imagine my surprise to discover that GTA:IV had actually improved. The characters are still lacking depth, but then so are those in Bethesda games. The important thing was they were finally engaging enough to not seem completely interchangeable, and the quests were aligned to some kind of plot I could follow. So for now, I'm happily playing through it and look forward to when GTA:V is released for the PC.

World of Warcraft

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's old, and it shows. But nothing matches it for depth of story and variety of things your toon can do. I tried and hated both Skyrim and Rift.

Ring Run Circus

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, of course! I'm playing Ring Run Circus, which is the first *ringformer* ever! :-)

MOO2

[stinkyjak]

Masters Of Orion 2 gets me hooked everytime I come back to it. Zelda on WiiU is fun too.

I'm surprised I haven't seen it mentioned

[twistofsin]

I have really enjoyed Path of Exile lately. If you are looking for a good arpg experience that is less pay to win than Diablo 3, this is a good choice. You really can enjoy all the content the game offers for free, and there is nothing you can buy with real money that will make your character more viable.

Rebel 1: Action

[RawkHawkFTW]

These days it's all fighting games. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend is my most played game, no contest, but I've gotten back into Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Reload and Street Fighter III: Third Strike, and Persona 4 Arena is a new love. Darkstalkers Resurrection, DiveKick, and Skullgirls are high on the priority list of games to get. I love the little things that can turn the tides of a round, a perfectly-timed parry or a quick throw when the opponent can't escape it. I'll be stuck with these for a while, too, since Chrono Phantasma and Guilty Gear Xrd are going to be PlayStation exclusive.

I'm also playing Dota 2 more and more, plus Civilization V when the girlfriend asks to play, and Oblivion is always a great fallback. PC gaming's nice, but since my only computer is a terrible, terrible laptop, it's generally not too viable. Not to mention playing fighting games on PC tends to be the worst thing ever.

Borderlands 2

[cybersquid]

on PS3. My wife & I play coop multiplayer using 2 PS3s in LAN mode. We're on at least our 4th play through. Gearbox just keeps adding more DLC and we haven't found a worthy successor.

Arma 3...

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly you haven't explored the vast depth of Arma 3. Sure, the controls are a bit jerky and there isn't much content yet, but if you really get into it, you'll find that Arma 3 is basically a game engine. You can create or download mission files that completely change or expand game mechanics. If it was just too difficult, you need practice. Requires a strong-willed player.

Still running Empire

[tmjva]

You may like this.

I'm still running Empire on an HP3000, a text game first run in 1973 on an HP2000C at empire.openmpe.com

Command line driven over simple telnet. (If you don't mind lots of typing.)

Recent blog entry on the HP3000 newswire:

http://3000newswire.blogs.com/...

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Anonymous Coward]

So sad that MWLL died.... that was the best MW game ever !!!!
It is so funny and sad in same time to see that PGA with massive financing and money from players only capable to do fraction of what was done by community ( with some donations) in MWLL and was SO much more interesting, involving and fun to play!
Shame on PGA..... MWO just took the name of Mechs and weapons and concept in general and made it into PGAWarriorOnline.... (Lamest Ghost heat, Retarded radar, Ruined Gauss, Lame matchmaking.... add your own)

Only Cudos to their designer in High res Mech assets look amazing !

Planetside 2

[Anonymous Coward]

The sheer chaos of hundreds of players attempting to gruesomely murder each other with small arms, explosives, and heavy machinery is exhilarating. There are hundreds of spectacularly funny ways to die, creative ways to outplay the enemy, and brazen methods to wreak total mayhem.

One of these years the games will start to implement destructive environments, and the level of immersion and addiction will skyrocket. I can imagine few things more exciting than starting a round with pristine vistas and ruggedly functional installations only to find yourself contributing to utter ruin with every blast of the Shrike.

Live free in the NC!

Some Classics

[danknight48]

F-Zero (n64)
Goldeneye (n64)
Daytona USA (dreamcast)
Xtreme G 2 (pc)
Urban Assault (pc)
Descent (pc)
Tr-Zero (pc)

For me, there something about classic games and the gameplay element that has been lost over the years. We live in this era where graphics/cutsceens and real money purchasable unlockables are all game devs seem to care about.
Profit is great, but creating "simple shit" that doesnt even play well, doesnt help the world lol.

Do you remember when the controls of games were smooth, not relying on flaky phsyx for everything.
Good old Vector3's and Quats that offered a solid response from the players input. With delicate tweaks to their internal numbers that offer an edge and reward to those who master it.
Oh the days where games were about pride before mass profits

World of Tanks

[allonoak]

I've recently tried out World of Tanks. It's fairly simple, but has some strategy to it. Been enjoying it.

Domminions 4

[Anonymous Coward]

Domminions 4 (by IllWinter games) is a great game, where you are a Prentender God ! (available on Linux, with play by email option, a LOT of fun).

By the way, I couldn't find a way to login using openid in ./ Beta ?? Is this intended? News for nerds that use Facebook, LinkedIn Twitter or Google+ exclusively !!!??? Humm... I feel there is something broken.

Battle for Wesnoth !

[Anonymous Coward]

Battle for Wesnoth is a must.
Armagetron is cool too when played online !

Reminded me more of Firefly

[Pherdnut]

You're strapped for resources, often faced with uncomfortable dilemmas and never know what you're going to run into next. In BSG it was always Cylons. Or drama. Or new revelations leading to a sinking feeling that as awesome as the first season was, there was never a !@#$ing plan.

COD: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 and Skyrim. Lament

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just started Skyrim but I have abandoned COD: Ghosts and Battlefield 4 because of their lack of continued single player. I buy the disk and only connect the game machine (pc) when we absolutely have to as bandwidth in multiplayer is a significant factor. If they brought out a single player DLC we would get it but...

Also I am looking forward to a new Metro and a new Fallout

Minecraft

[Keybounce]

I play Minecraft.

And, Minecraft: Magic Farm 2 modpack (aka "Death and Starvation come to multiplayer")

And, Minecraft: The forums

And, Minecraft: Mod debugging

And, Minecraft: Personal Modpack assembly and performance tuning.

And, Minecraft: Suggestions for improving mods / working with mod authors

And, Minecraft: The video recording editing sessions

And, Minceraft: The sister game of typos.

And, occasionally, minecraft, the video game of mining and crafting, and building.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Keybounce]

I have not played the current MWO, but long, long ago, I had an Amiga game called "Titans of Steel".

Imagine "real-time" (turn based, but you took turns based on your mech's "next active tick time") mech warrior. Realize that the old board game system of "You can generate 1000 degrees of heat, and have it all go to 0 if you have normally functioning heat sinks" fails when you actually have that much heat generated at once and it takes time for your mech to cool off -- and watch mech designs actually change to take realistic heat mechanics come into play.

All those FASA designs, fundamentally only work if you can generate lots of heat and instantly be still cold. Remove that, and everything changes.

Very interesting game.

Only problem? Requires a good Amiga emulator. I haven't had functional kickstart/dos disks in decades, and I'm not even sure I could find this game again.

Built my own game!

[iftachorr]

I was a big gamer once, but at the last few years I stopped because I was too busy at work.

So... I've decided to work at building a game! Whoohoo!

Well, not exactly a game, more like a gamification layer on top of the browser for gamers-that-work-all-day-on-their-computers.

Basically, you can find virtual goods by visiting a website for 24 seconds.
Visit more websites find more stuff. It has leaderboards, achievements, challenges, profile and most of the other stuff an RPG game has, except for a time-consuming gameplay.

It took me 2 months to build it, I did everything by myself (graphic design, product, the servers & client).

Anyways, I'm a Slashdotters for years, and this is what I play: PIXDO

Games, eh?

[locke.th]

World of Tanks and ME3 multiplayer still eat up large parts of my time, but I'm also playing DayZ standalone, path of exile, and now the titanfall beta. Looking forward to Watchdogs.

Ryzom

[Badaxe]

OK its old but the fact that its still going says a lot. As a sandbox MMO, and PvE mostly (some PvP) there is a lot to enjoy and with the size of the world there is a lot to explore. You don't have to chose between fighter and mage, you can level up in all skills.
Some players have been playing for 9 years now but it is still rare to hear of anyone levelling all skills to the max. And noobs don't have to compete against vets, the vets help the noobs get on in the game. A very friendly community, mature with a good sense of humour. If WoW is a bit juvenile for you, check this out.

Pinball!!

[doccus]

And more pinball.. lost my windows partition so I've also lost about 300 of them.. I have 150 handy on CD to reibnstall butg the others were sourced from irreplaceable ones.. such as online sales..they don't replace these things if your drive goes down, you know, even if I copuild remember which online retailer I bought them from..this was before the App store and Steam made it easy to replace them beause, since they only lease them to you, they have them handy. At least if your comnnection goes down you can still play app store games. Of course if you *know* you're going to have an unexpected loss of connectivity, you can plan ahead and activate offline mode ;-)

TitanFall Beta

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait for this game to be released. The beta was really fun.

since silent service

[dlsa]

Silent Hunter IV modded with TMO and RSRD

What games do I play?

[EmeraldBot]

I play the C&C games, such as Generals and Red Alert 3. Unfortunatly, that series is dieing (thanks to EA) :(. I've checked out World of Tanks and Warthunder, and they're fun, but they don't involve much planning or strategy and they are not very fair.

Haven and Hearth

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven and Hearth is a free, open mod/destructible multiplayer world - older feel (isometric) but still interesting in that there is no "goal". Build grow your toons and hopefully avoid bears and boars, not die doing something stupid and avoid being killed by other toons. Explore, build up toon, build up resources. Quite cutthroat once the world is matured some (world 8). So 8 instances so far.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Vendetta Online. It even runs on Linux.

Minecraft

[JBJblaze]

Minecraft... ALL THE WAY! :D

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No one even said Age of Empires 2 HD on steam. See if you still have the stuff to do the 20 knights in 20 mins rush.

Stanley Parable

[RyoShin]

My go-to game/hat collection simulator has been Team Fortress 2 for the last six-ish years, but every now and then I'll play something else.

I picked up The Stanley Parable during the last Steam Sale and, I have to say, it is a complete riot. For anyone who's played Bastion (another one I recommend, but it's a few years old now; waiting for Transistor to come out this year) you have the same idea of narration, but The Stanley Parable does it far better (it's pretty much the point of the game) as a "first-person adventure(?)" instead of an "isometric action" game. It's also the closest I've seen to a video game version of the old "Choose Your own Adventure" book series. Wonderfully hilarious and the narration is done by Kevan Brighting so it's super charming, as well.

I haven't done much in the way of console games as late, but I'm now a generation behind anyway. However, if you own a 3DS and are a fan of the Ace Attorney series, I cannot recommend AA5 enough. It's digital only (booooo) but still a little bit cheaper than most 3DS games and the 3D actually seems to add to the wonderful animation.

well...

[camazotz]

I've been plowing through the Assassin's Creed series at breakneck pace after ignoring it for too long (halfway through ACIII now). Still playing Fallout NV and occasionally returning to Fallout III. Picked up a PS3 last year and been catching up on it (Resistance 1-3, Killzone 2-3, Last of Us and Uncharted); played the hell out of Saint's Row III last year but still working up the energy to finish SRIV. Love GTAV. Still dabbling in MP for Halo 4, Halo Reach and Max Payne 3 when I can find other humans. Did grab a PS4 and mostly been playing Killzone: Shadow Fall and Warframe on it. For some reason Warframe is a better console experience for me than it is on PC.

Residential HAVC Features

[wajidsg]

Almaxair offer residential and commercial heating equipment repair service, equipment installation with our experts team at 24hours call us at 519-781-4328. http://www.almaxair.com/hvac.p...

Gears of War 3

[ed1park]

A couple of friends and I keep playing solo Wingman amongst ourselves because it lacks an appropriate deathmatch setting. Slow paced, somewhat strategic and at times really suspenseful gameplay. Quite different from the run around and drop dead CoD style play (which is what ruined Judgement.) We'll buy an xBone when the new Gears comes out. Only wish we could create our own maps or at least if they could release some new ones...

Story driven indie games

[thethingupstairs]

I would like to add my voice to supporting Supergiant (Bastion, Transistor).
I have lost interest in many of the big titles since Fallout 3. They have a big budget but are lacking in innovation and story compared to indie titles.

Bastion and Defence Grid are two of my favourite (if somewhat older) games since then.
Bastion is fun and entertaining with very small amounts of optional grinding.
Defence grid is the best tower defence game I know of. They also have a DLC pack You Monster which they created with Valve – based around the character GLaDOS (from Portal). I have yet to meet someone who does not like Portal... apart from one friend who didn't turn their speakers on...
The hilarity (and game instructions) are somewhat lost without sound.

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

[dekudekuplex1610]

Currently, I am mainly playing "Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn," "Final Fantasy XI Online" (which I have been playing since August, 2006), and "Dragon Quest X." I live in Tokyo and am bilingual (Japanese/English); therefore, I play all three titles in Japanese, and usually look up any terms with which I am unfamiliar using an online dictionary.

My main interest is in role-play: I usually play the role of a certain character from the anime series "Shaman King." Since I do not condone Internet slang, and dislike rude players, I usually play solo, and interact chiefly with NPCs; the reason that I play an MMORPG, instead of a non-MMO RPG, in the first place is that the latter usually do not provide means of emoting toward NPCs (i.e., using such emote commands as /smile, /wave, /bow, etc.); otherwise, I would just play a non-MMO RPG.

Generally speaking, I am primarily interested in RPGs that provide a Japanese-style fantasy role-playing environment that allows exploring the surface of a planet (as opposed to space, an ocean, or only dungeons) as a member of a multi-member party that may include NPCs who will fight together with me to fulfill quests that fit in to an evolving storyline (as opposed to a mere backdrop).

DayZ Standalone et al

[zhrike]

Loved the mod for Arma 2, got the alpha right away, have over 100 hours in. Features are still coming, but for me it's already fun. Been snowed in a lot lately, so lots of time for gaming.

Also:
Deus Ex: Human Revolution: The original game is one of my all time favorites. I like this one, too.
Borderlands
Banished: Cool, indie strategy/building game.

Also love FTL, and Dwarf Fortress is always on rotation.
Others have mentioned Alpha Centauri, one of my all time favorites, and it reminded me that a spiritual successor is around. Haven't tried it yet:

http://www.matrixgames.com/pro...

Sang Froid

[Anonymous Coward]

Can second a few listed already: Dwarf Fortress, Kerbal Space Program, Papers Please,

Factorio played this a good while ago, must go back now its been updated

One that I didn't see mentioned which I really enjoyed was Sang Froid http://www.sangfroidgame.com/
A kind of tower defence game set in mid 1800's canada against werewolves, very clever and lots of fun I thought. I suppose similar but far better than Orcs must die

Neptune's Pride II

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm addicted to Neptune's Pride II - Triton. Can play multiple games at the same time. Best space conquering multi-player I've come across.
Easy to play, hard to master.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[WilliamGeorge]

Huh, I'll check that out! The main thing with space sims, for me, is a realistic physics implementation for maneuvering and combat. I have tried a few other games like this recently and always been disappointed in the ship handling.

Racing games on Android phone

[bobthesungeek76036]

I play CSR Racing and CM Drag Racing on a daily basis.

AN old(er) gamer sez...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you asked, here's the thing. I'm over sixty, an old(er, I'll never be OLD) hippie, a relic of Hashbury and the Woodstock Nation. I'm retired now, and I have a heap 'o free time, so I can devote as much of it as I wish to play some games I hadn't time for previously. I've only recently finished playing through the Mass Effect series of games. I got all of the DLC, and just went at it. I'm now beginning to play through it a second time, having learned a few things and making Shepard 2.0 a lil mo' better this time 'round. I've played a lot of games over the years, but I don't care much for the online play. There's entirely too many tweens sitting waiting at the spawn points to blast fools like me, we oldpharts who're just a tad slower that're easy kills. No, I like the single-player bits, suits me just fine. I'm seriously impressed by Mass Effect, and lookin' ahead to the next iteration of the game. Otherwise, I'm playing M$ Flight Simulator (FSX) and Orbiter. Oh, I've had fun with the Call of Duty series, likely gonna get CoD Ghosts soon too. Maybe the most recent DOOM or somethin' too.
        That's about it. I play on a 60 inch screen with a hot PC I built just for games, so I look back and chuckle at the evolution of games and hardware. It's lookin' pretty damn nice these days!
                Y'all have a large time! ;)

Arma 3

[pyrokinetiq]

Arma 3 is the best game I have ever spent money on. Seriously for less than Battlefield of Duty 45 you can get Arma 3 which has better graphics, a better community, more realistic/immersive gameplay and an amazing open-world sandbox engine, the map it comes with is over 200km, it has on-foot, land-vehicle, air and sea elements, and literally unlimited replay value as the community has already created thousands of mods/missions for it. A popular one being "Breaking Point" (a DayZ-like zombie survival) I play some Dota2 on the side as well.

Alien Arena

[Anonymous Coward]

I started playing Alien Arena with Linux, then Combat Arms for Windows (I don't like it, too many cheaters), then I used Crysis 3, Crysis 2 and now I went back with Alien Arena in 3 different OSs.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[way2slo]

Cheaters?? Could you explain that?

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[way2slo]

^^ This needs modded up +1 Informative.

Re:MechWarrior Online, while waiting for Star Citi

[Nemesisghost]

There are numerous cheat methods being employed in MWO. The one that truly ruins the game for me is the Aim Bots. And they aren't hard to spot. It's especially telling when one side dominates the drop in the 1st 2 min & the damage done is exceptionally low. To top it off, when you have 1 or 2 players who get 90% of the kills for their side, you know that they were employing an Aim Bot.

There are other cheat methods, but to me that's the one that's game breaking. I've not dug into how to do it, other than doing a quick search for "MWO Cheats" & seeing all of the results that pop up.