PC game recommendations

Other Games
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I’m catching up on all the PC gaming I missed out on over the years. My laptop (only computer I have) is not very good for gaming at all…but suprinsingly I managed to finish all of the Mass Effect trilogy on it these last couple of weeks. I’m looking for games up until 2013.

Here are the latest PC games I remember playing

Mass Effect 1/2/3
Half Life 2
Jade Empire
Tomb Raider Anniversary

I’m partial to games with top notch story and action/adventure games, but I’m looking for anything you guys deem essential gaming since the dawn of PC gaming till the year 2013. I don’t want to die having missed some pearls. Mass Effect in particular got me interested in gaming again. I had finished 1 and 2 on the 360 aaaaages ago…but only recently got to play 3 (I don’t understand how anyone can have problems with the ending, the game is superb). If you like ME and there’s anything remotely close to its quality on the PC, please let me know. But, in general, I’m just looking for your list of must play PC games ever (up until 2013).

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-The Longest Journey/Dreamfall series (Good story, characters and gameplay)

-Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (The original baby!)

-Diablo 1, 2, and 3

-Lifeless Planet (Good sci-fi exploration game, with a mystery to solve)

-Knytt Stories (A series of 2d exploration based games; there are many level packs to try out and a lot of user made levels that are full on complete games)

-Sonic Robo Blast 2 (A Sonic the Hedgehog fan game made using the Doom engine, really fun)

-Owl Boy ( Kind of new but has pretty good exploration/metorid-vania type of game with beautiful pixel art and endearing characters)

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If 2D games are fine with you, I have to personally recommend Freedom Planet. It has the asethetic of 2D Sonic, but honestly it plays more like Rocket Knight Adventures and a mix of some Treasure games than anything Sonic ever did.

Are you willing to give the shoot 'em up/2D space shooter genre a try? Ikaruga’s on Steam and it’s one of my favorite games of all time - but it’s definitely not easy. The only other releases were the original Dreamcast release, the Gamecube port and the Xbox 360 remaster, so it’s possible someone hadn’t even come across a console it had been on so far. It’s also a very good entry point for the genre, even though Ikaruga is very different from most shooters.

I know people think of 2D shooters as being a console genre, but in this day and age it’s largely relegated to Steam, so it kind of qualifies as “PC gaming”?

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If you like classic 2D style games:

Platformers: Freedom Planet and Rocket Knight
Shooters: Ikaruga

Indie Games:

Braid (this game is hard, but at least give it a try)
Firewatch
Undertale
What Remains of Edith Finch

The Life is Strange series (start with the original, then play Life is Strange: Before the Storm if you enjoyed it).

I second Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, although it may not have aged as well as I remember.

Give Skyrim and the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot a try if your laptop can handle them.

Some honourable mentions (that aren’t essential, but are worth playing) are:

Spec Ops: The Line
Abzu
Limbo (I haven’t finished Inside, but it’s similar)
To the Moon (there’s a sequel to this now which I haven’t played yet)
Bastion
Sonic Mania

I still haven’t played The Longest Journey series, so I can’t comment on that.

There is a notable lack of big budget, story driven games in this list. For whatever reason, I seem to always play these on consoles (in part due to most of the games that interest me being console exclusives).

Update: Did you play Alan Wake on Xbox 360 @GehnTheBerserker? There’s a PC version now. This, along with the first two Max Payne games, featured character driven stories and action packed gameplay. I haven’t played Quantum Break or the third Max Payne game yet, but the games I mentioned are worth playing.

If you liked the Mass Effect series, maybe try the Dragon Age or Witcher series (not a personal recommendation though)?

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I did play Brais years ago. And Knytt. Sonic Mania is the best sonic experince I’ve had. Bastion looked interesting. Limbo I dabbled in I believe. But yeah, I probably should have mentioned, I’m looking for meatier 3d games with bigger production values - so called AAA titles. But I’m glad I got some other suggestions from you guys. I would have never heard of Freedom Planet and Sonic Robo…which seem like the kind of thing I’d love to play with some audiobook on the background (as I usually did with many 16 bit games a few years back).

YES! Alan Wake is definately important! I wanted to play it so badly back in the day, totally forgot its existence! I loooved MP 1 and 2. Dragon Age was a dissappointment…I remember not liking the characters and flow of it at all for some reason…but the Witcher, yes, I do hear great things about it, it should be something worth as well.

I did love The Longest Journey…I’m reserving Dreamfall for when I’m at a more peaceful time in my life. I tend to spoil my adventure gaming experiences these days due to wanting something more immediate and more fast paced. I blame youtube.

I never tried an Elder Scrolls game, maybe I’ll give Skyrim a try. I did play Kotor and it was the first Bioware game I really was able to fully enjoy and it’s one of my favourite games ever. Lost my Xbox copy of it myseriously though…I’m definately trying TR2013…I’m a HUGE TR fan…of the originals…and with the new direction I was let down…I didn’t even give it a try…but with Shadow coming up (seems it is at least ‘trying’ to be more about raiding tombs and exploration like the old ones) I might.

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

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You could start with Oblivion, which still looks and plays quite nicely on older hardware with the settings turned up (whereas Morrowind had a fantastic atmosphere, but mechanically it wasn’t as action oriented as later games in the series). There’s also the Fallout series, which—since Fallout 3—has played like a post-apocalyptic version of The Elder Scrolls. Just don’t expect these games to be heavily story or character driven; they are about the game world first and foremost.

Most of the AAA titles are on consoles as well, so perhaps a good question to ask people is: what non-console exclusive AAA games are “must play” titles (from, say, the last two or three generations)?

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I’m gonna restrict this to games I’ve played, so it’ll probably not be a massively comprehensive list, and also I’m not really sure if you might’ve played any of these on console so apologies in advance :anjou_happy:

Marathon Trilogy (Available free (legally!) from https://alephone.lhowon.org/)
Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter
Half-Life (guessing you might’ve played this one though) or it’s remake Black Mesa (When they finish it)
Shenmue I + II (now available on PC!)
Counter Strike (any variant really)
Deus Ex (masterpiece)
Black & White
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (or Skyrim if you want a more modern experience)
Far Cry
Bioshock
Call of Duty 4
Portal 1 + 2
Minecraft!
Metro 2033 & Last Light
Spec Ops: The Line
The Walking Dead series by Telltale
Firewatch (released 2016 but will hopefully still play on your machine!)