Recomended games for my vacations?

[PauloMorfeo]

Hallo, long time since i last set foot in here...

For my vacations i was thinking which games i could use to entertain myself. What better place to ask advice than the forums of Spring, the place where you are less likely to receive as advice shinny games with zero content. Also the place where you are less likely to receive as advice the games Starcrap or Warcrap.
I was looking for some game(s) that are kind of wasy to pick on, since my job stresses the brain alot and i am attending university too.

Now, really, what «must have» games have i missed these last 1,5 years? Beyond the obvious SupCom, UT3 and Quake Wars:ET. And about Spring? Last i was here, XTA was on decline and BA (abbr. for Butchured Annihilation, right?) was reigning. What changed? Anything big new?

By the way, could someone be kind enough to answer me these questions?
1- What is that expansion of SupCom? I honestly can't figure it out. It doesn't seem to bring any new race, any new units, .. any new nothing...
2- UT3 / Quake Wars:ET. Is any of them worth as single player games? (i bet their multiplayer environments are swarming with people on anphetamins with uber crazy skills that have nothing else to do with they're lives and are just waiting to chew a sitting duck like me)

Just for reference, by the way, i'm buying a new PC with the following characteristics:
Board: Intel - G31PR (stupid board is out of stock right now...)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8200
RAM: 2 x 1GB Kingston CL 5-5-5-15)
GFX: EN9600GT 512MB
HDD: Samsung of 320GB with 16MB of cache
(that should handle Spring, SupCom, UT3 and Quake more than fine)

[SinbadEV]

Puzzle Quest.

[Dragon45]

The Penny Arcade game. On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness.

[Comp1337]

First gut feeling: Battle Raper 2

[jcnossen]

Call of duty 4 is a pretty good FPS game.

[Cabbage]

Limbo of the Lost....

Why spend money on several major titles when you can play them all at the same time!?

[manored]

*Dungeon Keeper 2
*Battle for wesnoth
*Crysis
*Assassins Creed
*Evil Genius
*Spring engine (off course! :) )
*Jumper
*Give a look a this site: http://www.abandonia.com/ If you dont mind playing old games as long as they are fun that should keep you busy for a looong while :) I recommend you play the dos game using dosbox.

[Caydr]

I wonder where he'll get the money for all these games...

Mass Effect, Sins of a Solar Empire, X-Com, Ur-Quan Masters are the only PC games I've played in the last year, they were pretty good. Correction: I've also played one or two abominably crappy games, I won't mention em.

Of those, the only two I can recommend are X-Com and Mass Effect, since your vacation time is limited and the other two eat up entire days.

Mass Effect crashes *constantly*. I dunno, maybe blame my video card, but it's the most unstable thing I've played in recent memory. You know how you can be playing Civ and say, "One more turn"? In Mass Effect, you say , "One more crash". You know fairly reliably you'll crash within an hour... Fortunately it has autosave.

[Gota]

"Majesty" an awsome kingdom sim very fun dont need to think too much..
Its expension...
Lucas arts games like "day of the tentacle"..awsome adveture games..
"fallout 2"? funny and fun..
"warms blast" ^^ very nice worms veriation..
"Planescape torment".Top 3 RPGs in my opinion.Its like reading an interactive fantasy book.
Down side for your brain is that itll have to read alot.
what else...hmm..
All i have for now...

[Regret]

Definitely "Mass Effect".

I wonder where he'll get the money for all these games...

hahahahahahahahaahha

[ZellSF]

Unreal Tournament 3 singleplayer just isn't worth it, it just feels frustrating for some reason. The earlier UT games are fun to play with bots though, but to get some enjoyment out of UT3, you need to go online. I seemed to find a server with people who weren't too good pretty easily. Then again, I might just be really awesome without knowing it.

• BioShock: everyone needs to play through this at least once. Note that it (had) DRM, now it only has online activations + disc checks, which still sucks
• Call of Duty 4, Crysis, F.E.A.R Perseus Mandate: if you don't mind less casual shooters, these are all awesome.
• Command & Conquer 3 + Expansion: singleplayer campaign is still fun.
• Half-Life Episode 2: Boring, but you need to be prepared for episode 3
• Mass Effect: Don't bother with this until they patch it some. Not that I'd buy it and support the shitty DRM anyway.
• Portal: way overrated, but a great game anyway.
• Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion: forget about this and just replay one of the Infinity Engine games.
• The Witcher: Don't bother with this until the enhanced edition is released
• Universe at War: Earth Assault: I've yet to try this, but from the demo it seemed at least slightly promising, buy this if you need more RTS games to fill your list

Why limit it to the last 1,5 years?

[SwiftSpear]

I'm an advocate of zell's list.

I wouldn't bother with percius mandate independently... Get the platinum version of fear, it's like 10 dollars more expensive then the stand alone game, and comes with both the expansions. The game is excellent, but the expansions don't really bring anything new to the table, so once you've gotten bored of fear the expansions are going to be difficult to play. With the platinum edition you can play as much as you want, and if you get through percius without getting bored, great, but it is difficult.

It's worth noting that you're looking at like 40 hours of gameplay to get through all 3 games.

[Gota]

Bioshock is boring repetetive crap it might be worth a "preview" but i sure dont recomand buying it.Just repetetive linear fps wth very nice GFX.
Portal,yeah fun stuff but not THAT good..
Cod4 only worth it if u play online.Single player is "fun" but short and linear.
UNivrse of war-crap
C&C 3 - crap
Halflife 2 episode 2 - crap.

[Comp1337]

Bioshock is boring repetetive crap it might be worth a "preview" but i sure dont recomand buying it.Just repetetive linear fps wth very nice GFX.
Portal,yeah fun stuff but not THAT good..
Cod4 only worth it if u play online.Single player is "fun" but short and linear.
UNivrse of war-crap
C&C 3 - crap
Halflife 2 episode 2 - crap.

YOU DONT LIKE MANY THINGS DO you
fuxck caps lock

[Gota]

I dont like hyped Pretty visuals oriented games that costs a fortune.
And i dont like such games selling many copies based on pure hype and good marketing.
Not only do these popular games lower the quality of games but they also make gamers buy new computers to support this worship of better visual effects. Also who do you think ultimatly pays for this crazy hypes and marketing campagins and unbeleivable graphix that can hardly run on our pcs?we do,the gamers that have to spend money on things we ultimatly do not want.
This craving for the ultimate visual quality is created by the game industry's Giants and inserted into gamers minds-advertising.
I also dont like big corporations in general and thus judge their products in a much stricter fashion and only the best of the best get a good score from me.

[Forboding Angel]

http://evolutionrts.info + rai 553

[manored]

The incredible machine and lemmings series :)

[Erom]

Portal is one of the best games I've ever played.
Bioshock was good as well.

Those were the only commercial games that really sucked me in recently.

[Caydr]

Portal isn't an awesome game it's a new concept. Some people realize they're seeing something new and interesting, others just say "it was too short and I didn't kill enough ewoks".

Mass Effect's crazyass DRM scheme was cancelled by the developers when the entire internet said they wouldn't buy it. So I think it's safe now.

[ZellSF]

Bioshock is boring repetetive crap it might be worth a "preview" but i sure dont recomand buying it.Just repetetive linear fps wth very nice GFX.
Portal,yeah fun stuff but not THAT good..
Cod4 only worth it if u play online.Single player is "fun" but short and linear.
UNivrse of war-crap
C&C 3 - crap
Halflife 2 episode 2 - crap.

I'm not sure why the hell you think being linear or short are negative qualities, but you are so wrong.

Mass Effect's crazyass DRM scheme was cancelled by the developers when the entire internet said they wouldn't buy it. So I think it's safe now.

No, that was just the connecting to the internet every tenth day check, you can still only install the game three times before you have to go call EA, and you'll lose an activation anytime you change some hardware. I really wouldn't be surprised if there was a disc check too...

"Buying" Mass Effect is an illusion, you're renting it, and you need to ask EA each time you want to extend your rental period.