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Dear TL,
For the past four years, I haven't had much opportunity to game besides SC2. Now I've upgraded from a macbook to a laptop with a GT 640 LE and I'm looking to make up for lost time with Steam sales.
I am looking for work so I can't play too many games but what are the top 2 or 3 shooters, RPGs and strategy games you would recommend from the past 4 years? In particular, which ones are so good I should pick up now and which ones should I wait on.
Provisionally, I'm looking to pick these games up right now:
RPG: (bought Bioshock I & II), FallOut: New Vegas, then Mass effect 1-3 or Skyrim.
I'm thinking I should wait on ME and Skyrim until the winter sale both because I won't have time to play them and because there should be bundle packs on sale then?
Shooters: Looking for something with a fun campaign
RTS: One of the total wars? Can't decide between Empire and Shogun.
Help me connect with the Khala TL.
 
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Well game I play most is BW, but for RPG I really liked Dragon Age (original) and Skyrim to a lesser extent.
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I'll go in a different direction and point you towards Fire Emblem for the gameboy (or emulator) as far as strategy games go. Awesome series 
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On July 05 2012 04:01 OmniEulogy wrote:I'll go in a different direction and point you towards Fire Emblem for the gameboy (or emulator) as far as strategy games go. Awesome series
The Fire Emblem games for Gameboy are both over seven years old, so don't really fall within the "last 4 years" category.
They're both excellent, timeless games however. I especially recommend Fire Emblem 7.
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You should probably get The Witcher 2 if you want one of the best RPGs made recently.
also bioshock is definitely not an rpg.
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ME and Skyrim definitely recommend.
As far as Total War goes I'd actually recommend Napoleon or Medieval 2, but if you're talking Shogun 1, definitely get Empire.
Shooters - get DX Human Revolution. Other than the shit boss battles it's a very solid game. If you like it, the DLC is also worth getting.
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Among recent games the recs I endorse include... actually I love all these recs except for Skyrim. Also preferred Empire over Shogun 2. I probably wasted the most hours on Dragon Age.
Dragon Age, Empire, and New Vegas demand modding for a richer experience. (Empire's battle AI otherwise is incredibly shit)
For Fire Emblem if you don't want old games (old games are good though, don't hate) try emulating Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn on Dolphin.
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Hey I say last 4 years since I just got a computer that could play them. I am definitely not opposed to playing around with an emulator. Especially since all my gf plays right now on /her/ macbook is Diablo 3 and pokemon.
I don't know why I thought of Bioshock as an RPG, but Deus ex does look right up my alley.
Thanks for the Recommendations regarding TW. Actually Empire and napoleon are on sale for 5 bucks at gamestop right now so I guess I'll grab that and skip shogun for awhile.
Between Skyrim, ME, New Vegas and Witcher what would you guys choose?
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Haven't actually played New Vegas or Witcher so I can't talk about either one of those, but I think that Skyrim will have more replayability since everything is so open, but ME is less frustrating, especially ME3. Skyrim's more buggy and the load times get longer, but with Google and a good computer you should be set
But I'd recommend ME because Skyrim just eats your time. I get up at 4 to play SC before school starts, when I just got Skyrim it made all that time between waking up and going to school just go by in a flash.
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On July 05 2012 05:48 Sabu113 wrote:
Hey I say last 4 years since I just got a computer that could play them. I am definitely not opposed to playing around with an emulator. Especially since all my gf plays right now on /her/ macbook is Diablo 3 and pokemon.
I don't know why I thought of Bioshock as an RPG, but Deus ex does look right up my alley.
Thanks for the Recommendations regarding TW. Actually Empire and napoleon are on sale for 5 bucks at gamestop right now so I guess I'll grab that and skip shogun for awhile.
Between Skyrim, ME, New Vegas and Witcher what would you guys choose?
Witcher. Hands down.
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Bastion and Braid.
Both infinite times better than these trash games.
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On July 05 2012 06:25 Steveling wrote:
Bastion and Braid.
Both infinite times better than these trash games.
Even if Bioshock is pretty overated and Dx 3 is only a 3/5 in my book those indie "artsy" games are not better lol.
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i can highly recommend "Singularity" from Raven. very atmospheric shooter with great art design and fun ideas. Heavily underrated tho. Seriously, it's my favorite game of the last years.
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Of the total wars i'd recommend Shogun 2, and I'm of the understanding that most people find it to take the best from empire without some of the crap. I hear there's a new one coming soon though, which is to expand upon the concept they tried on Shogun 2 so you might want to wait.
I'm gonna go off an recommend something crazy for the RTS genre though; Dawn of War 2: Retribution.
By that I suppose i'm recommending Company of Heroes as well, although I've never played them much.
What I find interesting in DoW2 is that it's simply a different framework from SC. There's no base, it's about capturing points and cheese is very rare. The campaign in Retribution is pretty good if you're only thinking single player, but there are still people playing it online, although it's got a pretty steep learning curve due to the incredible variety of the game.
I love the fact that there are 6 factions with a lot of possibilities each (most of them). The game isn't perfectly balanced, hell it's not even perfectly polished, but it's sufferable and the flavor is bloody epic. 40k Space marines > SC space marines. No doubt about it.
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I would definitely say stay away from Mass Effect 3, Skyrim, Bioshock, and Deus Ex: HR. No offense to those who love those games, but in the end they are very much average games that have been over hyped.
I'm going to agree with steveling and recommend Braid and Bastion, Actually i'm going to recommend Journey, Flower, and Limbo instead of those. All of these are extremely short, cheap games. For RPGs, The Witcher 2 beats everything from the past 7 or so years, easily. I'm a big fan of Hard Reset, Mirror's Edge, and Prince of Persia, though lots of people aren't. I've heard good things about Xenoblade Chronicles and Dark souls as well, but i haven't played those.
If in doubt, play Rayman Origins. Or donkey Kong Country Returns.
-edit- forgot to mention Sin & Punishment:: Star Successor. !!
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Dragon Age: Origins (Don't get Dragon Age 2), was awesome, first game I finished :p, Really fun.
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For strategy, I'd recommend the King's Bounty games. They're inspired by the Heroes of Might and Magic series and have turn-based hex-grid combat.
As for the AAA games that everyone is discussing, I liked ME2, but thought ME3 and ME1 were only okay. Deus Ex:HR was also mediocre, and the graphics looked really strange to me (why is everyone and everything so reflective and shiny?). Skyrim was fun, but it got boring and suffers (like previous Elder Scrolls games) from poor coding and overpowered strategies.
A shooter I haven't seen recommended is Bulletstorm. It has a system that rewards you for getting crazy kills, and it's pretty entertaining. Borderlands was okay too, but got boring and was better with co-op.
In reality though, you should just check Steam sales to decide what to buy. Gotta get games cheap.
EDIT: Some more recommendations: The Void was a pretty interesting adventure game. Trine and Trine 2 were nice indie sidescrolling platformers.
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On July 05 2012 07:07 polarwolf wrote:
i can highly recommend "Singularity" from Raven. very atmospheric shooter with great art design and fun ideas. Heavily underrated tho. Seriously, it's my favorite game of the last years.
Never heard of the game. These kind of recommendations are the ones I'm looking for. I imagine I can grab that on a lark and it'll be different from the norm so that sounds great.
I really enjoyed Rome Total War. I imagine that Shogun will play out very differently strategically than Empire Total war will. Might be shorter/ faster campaigns? At the same time empire and napoleon are at $5 a piece.
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Dragon Age: Origins was the best roleplay game i've ever played, you should definetly try it out. It might take a little time to get in to it but once you do you are pretty much stuck inside that wonderful universe. I believe i sat 16 hours straight playing that game for like a week. It's not like you get addicted to it, it's just that the mystery and the atmosphere, story and the combatsystem is so rewarding that you dont want to return to the real work until you finished the game.
Mass Effect, if you haven't played them i would definetly recommend them. First one is very good and you should start with this. Although, it's not totally nessecary. The second one in the series is probably one of the best games(in my opinion) that were released during the last decade. Mass effect 3 was kinda a dissapointment for me. I think the game is fine on it's own, but the hopes i had the the hype didn't met up with my expectations.
Fallout, i never really like the game, at all. Still i played it to the end. I did however rush through the whole game and probably missed most of it. Why is disliked it was mostly because of the atmosphere and the enviroment. I thought it was to depressing walking around in dead cities. Maybe wasn't my type of game.
Skyrim, i liked a lot more then fallout. All because of the enviroment. There are a lot you can do in the game. The mod community is really active and there are a lot of mods you can download to customise the game.
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Saints Row The Third if you want GTA but less brooding and self-serious.
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Go for shooters like AVA, Special Force2, and CS:GO (counter strike global offensive, don't go with source, its got bad hit boxes)
RPG's I'd say range between things like dragon age and such, but I think that pokemon is a really great stress reliever and a fun game too
One final thing to say is that I really suggest you look up some of the lesser known games on steam that are in the strategy or puzzle genre, games like Portal are very fun.
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^^ Definitely AVA. Or any shooter from ijji. The thing is they're multiplayer so no story 
And while we're on the subject of free games, check out Maple Story. It's pretty fun, really relaxing for lower levels, and pretty fast paced combat since your attack speed is high and it's not turn based.
As for Steam, this doesn't really fit into a category but check out Audiosurf if you have a decent amount of music on your compooper. It's kinda Guitar Hero-esque, but no instrument and it creates the track based on your music instead of hardcoded songs. And on highest graphics it can get you high after a while
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Bulletstorm and CoD4 (just because it started all that linear heavily scripted shooter stuff) for quick shooter fun, they both take only ~10 hours or even less to complete, but you can replay them on higher difficulties for some additional challenge.
As for RPGs: I loved ME1 for it's atmosphere and story, but combat is rather dull.
Also: get Portal!
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Skyrim, It just showed how epic a game could be without being an MMO. World of Warcraft, that game is still the #1 MMO. Mass effect, if you haven't played them you missed out. I am sad the franchise is over but they are amazing.
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Deus Ex, Payday The Heist maybe Skyrim are the only games i can recommend of the top of my head, in that order.
Unless you cant get friends to also get Payday, it makes it 1000x better :D
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Defined past four years. League of Legends. Sadly I think it is a bad game after playing a few games.
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On July 05 2012 14:10 Yurie wrote:
Defined past four years. League of Legends. Sadly I think it is a bad game after playing a few games.
if you want to talk games that really impacted the last 4 years..
Minecraft
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minecraft (2009)
took user created content in games to the next level
league of legends (2009)
took a niche game mod (dota) and turned it into a stand alone game with huge success.
expect to see more developers attempting the same in the future
angry birds (2009)
obviously. the king of casual games
dayz (2012)
A zombie survival mod for Arma 2 - alpha test version came out only a couple months ago and it is already the reason why arma 2 has been top seller on steam for many weeks now. the game is very complex. this game proves that games don't need to be simplified down to shit to appeal to casual games and still be a success. i am expecing a polished standalone game within the next couple of years.
other defining games i can think of (older than 4 years)
guitar hero
portal
team fortress 2
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TF2 and Portal should count because they're borderline, just one year ago they would have made the criteria.
So I've started on Fallout: New Vegas, and that's a definite recommend.
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Posting for two reasons:
1- Check out the suggestions later
2- As a warning that World of Warcraft is a good way to ERASE 4 years (tongue in cheek and totally serious at the same time, heh)
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Total War isn't much of an RTS, I think it falls under Grand Strategy
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Aaaah can't wait for the Steam sales. Think I will start on Fallout New vegas and get one of the others if they are on sale.
TW wise I'm eyeing the $30 bundle... though I might wait and see if there are any packages with all of the DLC.
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EPT
