Video Games: Wallets Getting Steamed

[Galactus]

Brave New World is excellent, by the way. Still not sure if it makes CIV5 "complete" better than Civ4 "Complete", but it sure as hell makes the game a whole lot different.

[TheEvilKing]

Alright, finished with the Steam sale. Here's my haul all up:

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (played it when it first came out, curious to see how old it holds up)

Divinity II

Fallout: New Vegas (played on 360 but never completed it or bought the DLC - I want to mod it up)

Fez (played a bit, nice idea but I don't think I'll play it much)

FTL (cool game but I have serious problems with the massive gap in difficulty between easy and normal)

Hotline Miami (played a bit, fun but a bit repetitive)

Just Cause 2

No Time To Explain

Civilization V

KOTOR 2 (see: Deus Ex)

Tropico 4 (played a fair bit, I'm having fun with it. Good if you don't have time to play a more in-depth city building game)

[lessthanluke]

Guys just picked up a 360 and after barely doing any gaming over the past few years I don't know where to start game wise. The only new game I have played over the past 4/5 years is Skyrim(which I loved) I like RPGs but I am up for playing anything really. What should I buy? :)

[Fez]

Guys just picked up a 360 and after barely doing any gaming over the past few years I don't know where to start game wise. The only new game I have played over the past 4/5 years is Skyrim(which I loved) I like RPGs but I am up for playing anything really. What should I buy? :)

There's tons and tons of great games out there. I'd recommend starting with Portal 2 (clever dialog and puzzles), XCOM: Enemy Unknown (turn-based tactical combat), Dishonored (stealth), Red Dead Redemption (open-word sandbox), Fallout New Vegas (Western RPG), and/or Mass Effect 2* (Western RPG)

*You could start with Mass Effect 1, but its pretty old at this point. Might be better to start at 2 and get the DLC interactive comic that explains the story of 1.

[Muttering Bill]

Guys just picked up a 360 and after barely doing any gaming over the past few years I don't know where to start game wise. The only new game I have played over the past 4/5 years is Skyrim(which I loved) I like RPGs but I am up for playing anything really. What should I buy? :)

For RPG's, I'd recomment looking into Dark Souls, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, The Witcher 2, and Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning. Avoid Fable.

Otherwise, the Gears of War games are pretty fun TPS's. Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge (not the original version) if you want a good hack-and-slash type action game.

[Gears of the Beast]

Guys just picked up a 360 and after barely doing any gaming over the past few years I don't know where to start game wise. The only new game I have played over the past 4/5 years is Skyrim(which I loved) I like RPGs but I am up for playing anything really. What should I buy? :)

Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas

[Merentha]

Alright, finished with the Steam sale. Here's my haul all up:

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (played it when it first came out, curious to see how old it holds up)

Divinity II

Fallout: New Vegas (played on 360 but never completed it or bought the DLC - I want to mod it up)

Fez (played a bit, nice idea but I don't think I'll play it much)

FTL (cool game but I have serious problems with the massive gap in difficulty between easy and normal)

Hotline Miami (played a bit, fun but a bit repetitive)

Just Cause 2

No Time To Explain

Civilization V

KOTOR 2 (see: Deus Ex)

Tropico 4 (played a fair bit, I'm having fun with it. Good if you don't have time to play a more in-depth city building game)

You're in for treats in all of the above. Amnesia's a blast, first off, though moody. Deus Ex still holds up on its own, but there's a few quality-of-life mods out there that you might look into. I recommend Shifter, since it doesn't really change too much around, adds a few weapons and small bugfixes seamlessly, and makes toggling on lots of augs at once a pain. In vanilla DX, at the end of the game I was having to activate (in combat) Speed, Regen, Power Circ, Targetting, Active Defense, and Ballistic skin all at once, each with their own button press. Its been ages, but I'm pretty sure Shifter gives you the ability to put together multiple augs into one button press, so you could create a "Rock-n-Roll" preset and just flip everything on at once. That said, if you don't want to deal with it, there's no need to at all, vanilla is still great. BioMod is another DX mod, but it changes a lot more and I wouldn't recommend it for a first-run.

I know you're planning on modding FNV, but if you have all of the DLC, consider getting jsawyer. Its basically the personal mod settings of the project lead and lead dev for the game, Josh Sawyer, and does quite a bit without really changing the game too much. Not necessarily recommended for a first time either, but you did that already, so...It amps up hardcore, slashes your carry capacity and EXP gains quite a bit, and basically makes the game into how he wants it to be played, but realized wouldn't necessarily play well with massive sales. Its not obnoxious, it just plays more towards "I'm a badass wandering cowboy" instead of "I'm a badass who is currently carrying more guns than the combined cast of Expendables 2". Look into it, anyhow. Another key mod, I think, is CASM, especially if you're planning on stacking a lot of mods. It gives you an autosave function that allows you to have up to 5 (?) autosaves that rotate at a frequency you set, allowing you multiple fallback points automatically. I don't know if you've modded any of the games based on Bethesda's engine, but they can get buggy if you start stacking masses of mods on each other. Plus, its a nice quality of life mod.

KotOR2: Good news, the restoration mod is actually finally totally done! It doesn't fix everything about the endgame content, but it does restore a lot of what was cut in the rush to get it out. http://www.moddb.com/mods/the-sith-lords-restored-content-mod-tslrcm Its solid, and easy to install.

There's tons and tons of great games out there. I'd recommend starting with Portal 2 (clever dialog and puzzles), XCOM: Enemy Unknown (turn-based tactical combat), Dishonored (stealth), Red Dead Redemption (open-word sandbox), Fallout New Vegas (Western RPG), and/or Mass Effect 2* (Western RPG)

*You could start with Mass Effect 1, but its pretty old at this point. Might be better to start at 2 and get the DLC interactive comic that explains the story of 1.

I'm going to second all of these, and add Dark Souls and Witcher2 to the list.

[Gears of the Beast]

Add Just Cause 2 to the bolded list, that game is pure fun. Cannot recommend Just Cause 2 more. Plus I think the multiplayer mod should be officially released soon.

[Fez]

So I have a question, has there been any indication about how much longer mainstream developers will continue making games for the current generation? I've noticed that a whole lot of launch titles are going to be dual releases (ex. Destiny) , but do we know if its just going to be those, or if games will be coming out for both generations for some time beyond that?

I ask because I really don't want to be an early adopter of next generation, and would like to wait at least an extra year, maybe two. However there's really not that many good games (excluding genres I don't like) left in the back catalog of the current generation that I haven't already played. There's a bunch of new titles this fall, so that'll last a while, but not for as long as I want to wait.

[Werthead]

So I have a question, has there been any indication about how much longer mainstream developers will continue making games for the current generation? I've noticed that a whole lot of launch titles are going to be dual releases (ex. Destiny) , but do we know if its just going to be those, or if games will be coming out for both generations for some time beyond that?

I suspect 2-3 years as a minimum. It depends on sales of the new consoles. If they are lacklustre, you might expect games for the existing consoles to continue coming out for a long, long time.

Add Just Cause 2 to the bolded list, that game is pure fun. Cannot recommend Just Cause 2 more. Plus I think the multiplayer mod should be officially released soon.

It should, but it won't work on the console versions of the game.

[TheEvilKing]

Add Just Cause 2 to the bolded list, that game is pure fun. Cannot recommend Just Cause 2 more. Plus I think the multiplayer mod should be officially released soon.

The multiplayer is pretty much why I bought it. Looks like a blast.

Merentha - I'm new to PC gaming and modding in general so thanks for the advice! My main problem is deciding what to play first.

[Howdyphillip]

I suspect 2-3 years as a minimum. It depends on sales of the new consoles. If they are lacklustre, you might expect games for the existing consoles to continue coming out for a long, long time.

This has traditionally been the course of new console launches, but since the price point on the newer consoles coming out this time is significantly lower, I can easily see that time window shrinking to a year or two.

The point here is that we will have time to make an adjustment. I will not be buying a nextgen console for at least a year to allow a game library to build up.

[TheEvilKing]

This has traditionally been the course of new console launches, but since the price point on the newer consoles coming out this time is significantly lower, I can easily see that time window shrinking to a year or two.

I also think the sheer wait for a new console generation will help, and they both seem to have a fair few big titles lined up for early on. Also next gen games being clearly better (eg. BF4 being 64 player on the new generation compared to 24 player on current consoles) will sway some people.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Alright, finished with the Steam sale. Here's my haul all up:

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition (played it when it first came out, curious to see how old it holds up)

Divinity II

Fallout: New Vegas (played on 360 but never completed it or bought the DLC - I want to mod it up)

Fez (played a bit, nice idea but I don't think I'll play it much)

FTL (cool game but I have serious problems with the massive gap in difficulty between easy and normal)

Hotline Miami (played a bit, fun but a bit repetitive)

Just Cause 2

No Time To Explain

Civilization V

KOTOR 2 (see: Deus Ex)

Tropico 4 (played a fair bit, I'm having fun with it. Good if you don't have time to play a more in-depth city building game)

Yeah, Divinity 2 is awesome. One of my favorite games.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

I got Dragon Age origins and its DLC on sale on Steam a couple of months ago, and I have to say it is SO much better on PC than it was on console. I don't know what it is--maybe that you can pull the camera all the way back during battles, but this game is so much easier. I'm playing on hard, when on console I struggled with casual sometimes.

It's still hard, but not in a that super cheap way like before. Of course I know some of the tricks like the elfroots being in infinite supply, yet even so, I feel like I can really plan my battles.

And plus, plus is that though most Dragon Age mods are kind of "eh", there is one mod that makes this game infinitely better on the PC. Skipping the Fade completely. That was the best mod I've ever seen in a game.

[Fiddler]

Yeah, Divinity 2 is awesome. One of my favorite games.

I am currently playing it now, picked it up on XBL when they had thier sales going, and I find it enjoyable as hell. The combat is a little wonky, but overall enjoyable. There is just something about the game that I really like, especially now that I have the ability to turn into a dragon and summon a creature that I have collected body parts for. Awsome.

As for the steam sale, I only purchased Civ 5. Everything else that I wanted I either already had or my computer just couldn't run it.

On that note, any of the PC guys here have a good website one can go to and order a gaming PC?

I am a complete computer moron and do not want to even attempt to build my own, but I am looking to get a decent one by the end of the year. My current laptop is a very cheap(200 on sale at walmart 3 years ago, lol) computer that has been ok for the games I play, but there are some computer only games coming out that I would really like to play.

[Poobah]

Having a ball in Civ 5 Brave New World. Just finished a commie venice master of puppets game. Now I'm working on playing as the Zulus and warmongering from the very start. Annoyingly I just crashed though :( Right after murdering Ghandi.

[Merentha]

Merentha - I'm new to PC gaming and modding in general so thanks for the advice! My main problem is deciding what to play first.

Oh! Another, different New Vegas mod is Project Nevada. Its another quality-of-life mod that doesn't really change the base game but does some pretty nice things to rebalance a few things throughout the game. If you're looking for a vanilla+ experience, its pretty fantastic. Its definitely not as hard as jsawyer, but it does feature some pretty nifty features. There's a grenade hotkey, for one thing, the ability to sprint, and the ability to use bullet time in lieu of VATS. Also comes with several optional modules such as increased weaponry, an overhaul of the implant system, and more! Definitely worth a look. I don't really know more of the indepth and gamechanging mods since I like the base game just fine.

[Slurktan]

Picked up Dynasty Warriors 8 today. Not far into it but the stages seem to have gone up a notch and the new Paper-Rock-Scissors weapon system is actually kind of cool.

[Jace, Extat]

I am currently playing it now, picked it up on XBL when they had thier sales going, and I find it enjoyable as hell. The combat is a little wonky, but overall enjoyable. There is just something about the game that I really like, especially now that I have the ability to turn into a dragon and summon a creature that I have collected body parts for. Awsome.

As for the steam sale, I only purchased Civ 5. Everything else that I wanted I either already had or my computer just couldn't run it.

On that note, any of the PC guys here have a good website one can go to and order a gaming PC?

I am a complete computer moron and do not want to even attempt to build my own, but I am looking to get a decent one by the end of the year. My current laptop is a very cheap(200 on sale at walmart 3 years ago, lol) computer that has been ok for the games I play, but there are some computer only games coming out that I would really like to play.

AlienWare