PC RPG Recommendations please
 

I'm seriously jonesing for some PC RPG goodness right now. It's been awhile since I have played one and don't have much money to spend so I cannot buy several. To save some trouble, here's a list of games I have already played through or played enough to know I won't be playing it more.

• Knights of the Old Republic
• Dungeon Siege
• Neverwinter Nights (& expansions)
• Fallout 1,2, Tactics
• Baldur's Gate 1,2
• Icewind Dale 1,2
• Temple of Elemental Evil
• Planescape: Torment
• System Shock 2
• Deus Ex
• Divine Divinity
• Pool of Radiance
• Morrowind

Any suggestions of good games not on this list?

Get a console or resort to days upon days of MMORPG's.

Yeah, I am so wanting to play WoW but can hardly afford it: both in terms of time and money. Sigh, it looks sooooo sweet too.

Would you be interested in a spacey RPG: X2, or Freespace.. ?

I enjoyed x2 much much more than the latter.. hmm.. Just in case you don't know anything about it, check out some screenshots at http://www.egosoft.com/ ... It gave me a good 20 hours, but I ended up needing *just* a few dollars more for a ship i was saving for, and it was too much of a hassle to go back to a previously saved condition and do things all over again.. eh.. I'll more than likely pick it up again.

Matrix: Online surprisingly takes up a lot of my time right now, but I would pick WoW over MxO when it comes out.. Seems really unpolished for it's release date in january!

Anyways.. Lil bit of a threadjack: What did you think of Neverwinter Nights and Pool of Radiance? I'm in your position now looking for a good PC RPG and was thinking of these.

vampires: the masquerade, bloodlines? It just came out and its got very good reviews. Havent played it myself yet but Im definitely getting it once school is over.

You could complete that one NWN module that got interrupted mysteriously. :p

subversve's got a copy of vampires, go hit him up for it.

Diablo II. Sure, it came out in 1998, but a lot of people still play it and it is HIGHLY addictive.

How about Pirates!?
I haven't played it yet, but I plan on playing it very soon
The reviews have been very positive and it seem like other TFPers are enjoying it as well

Highly bug filled game, but still fun.. just be prepared to play a unfinished game that was rushed FAR more then the avg game.

Neverwinter Nights + Expansions is great fun.
The Elderscrolls III - Morrowind + Exp are also great fun.
Lionheart was also fun, but rather buggy...
Arcanium since its patches is now a lot more fun.

is KOTOR 2 out now? depending on how much you liked the first that might be worth a go.

I'll take a look at these, thanks.

Matrix Online Ddoesn't look like something I'd play. WoW does, but I'm afraid I'll play it too much. Sucks, I know.

Neverwinter Nights absolutely rocks. You can pick up that with the two expansions for about $40. Definitely worth the buy. Pool of Radiance had a few bugs at release (I'd call wiping out your hard drive when trying to uninstall a bug, nice one there guys!) but I think it's better now. It was ok while I played it, but I spent too much time watching zombies walk around. Bleah.

Thanks for the input so far all.

Last I checked this comes out mid 2005? And I'll definitely be picking it up when it is released.

Yeah, I saw that thread. I found it for sale on gogamer.com for $24.95 I believe. I just might pick this one up. But it is not an RPG, yes?

Sorry, I don't feel like killing another mouse with all that clicking.

You still bitter about that? I think I have my save games somewhere...

How about the orginal Vampire the Masquerades? I liked it a lot when I played it way back when. Another couple games to check out are the Final Fantasy series on PC. Get FF7 first and then you may want to try out ff8, but I'm warning you: No where near as good as FF7.

Never played the original Vampire game, maybe I'll look into that one and the recent one. The only FF I played was the original one on the NES. I've seen FngKestrel play FF10 I think it was back when we were roommates. Doesn't really do much for me.

It might have been the incessant fighting transitions. Every three feet.

FF 1 and 2 are coming out on GBA, btw.

Well, the RPGs I would recommend are all on your list of already played. I can't think of any others along those lines that (in my opinion) are particularly good.

However, if you're willing to try something different, Sierra's Quest for Glory series is fantastic. It's somewhere between the classic adventure/puzzle genre (think King's Quest, Secret of Monkey Island) and an RPG. You control one character and level up your stats in one of 3 classes (fighter, wizard, thief), and through specific actions in QfG 2 or QfG 3 you can become a Paladin. Most of the game is puzzle, with some combat thrown in. You can play one character from QfG 1 all the way through QfG 5.

You can get a QfG Anthology pack that has 1-4, and QfG 5 is separate. I don't think they're being distributed any more, so you may have to Amazon or ebay (or suprnova) it.

Hey man, try "Arcanum." It's a little dated, but us RPG fans should not be expecting cutting edge technology.

Check out some reviews and I think you're in for a treat.

I'll second Arcanum. It's from the fallout team, iirc. Where it's slight (and I mean slightly) lacking in gameplay, the world more than makes up for it.

If you like adventure games at all (no stats, exploration and puzzle based rather than combat), the you MUST get The Longest Journey. It rivals and even surpasses the Sierra/Lucas Arts games of yore.

Where the fuck is the love for Anachronox?!?

ANACHRONOX!!!!

Great fuckin PC RPG.... If you can find it, play it.

Yeah, that totally reminds me of the King's Quest series. I'll look some more and see what I can find. Thanks!

I played this for maybe 15 minutes when it first came out. I'll hit up my friend to see if he still has it. It didn't do much for me then, maybe it will now. Who knows? I myself am puzzled as to why I didn't like it, as it had great reviews. Thanks.

I'll download the demo and give this one a spin. Cool, thanks.

Play MUDs.

I have. In a one year span I logged 45 days into my character. That realization caused to to stop playing, cold turkey. My friends all marveled at how I did it. Of ocurse this was all about 10 years ago. Hence my aversion to MMOs. They'll suck away too much of my life, so I avoid them. Though the siren song of WoW is very strong indeed.

What's it like? How old is it?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/versions/gameId,4499/

I think it was overshadowed by Suckatana. I heard a lot of good reviews on it, but I think it threw people for a loop because the engine they used was the Quake 2 engine, which no one expected to use as an RPG.

Of course, people have learned, since the Half-Life 2 Source engine is used for Vampire: Bloodlines.

So I reinstalled Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna. After about 30 minutes I realized why I stopped playing it in the first place: it is the very definition of RPG-lite.

So I uninstalled that and then I reinstalled Neverwinter Nights and the two expansions. I am currently playing through Shadows of Undrentide (solo this time, previously finished it with two buddies) as a rogue. I will be choosing assassin as a prestige class when next I level up (damn restrictions). Man, I had forgotten how great this game is. It is truly a different experience soloing as a rogue than it was playing as a sorcerer accompanied by a priest and a rogue. Much harder as well - and that's a good thing.

Plus, this way I saved myself some money. Good times, good times.

Please tell me that you put at least one point into pick locks. :D

What am I, stupid? Of course I did! And then I promptly failed to put any into set trap, which I found out was a mistake when I realized that there are foes in the game that I would have an awfully hard time taking down myself. Being able to set traps is one tool I wasn't armed with. I have since corrected that mistake and won't do it again. :rolleyes:

For the rest of you out there: FngKestrel was the priest in the game where I previously played Shadows of Undrentide. The rogue that accompanied us failed to put any skill points into pick locks initially. That was frustrating. Sigh...

Set traps? Who the hell uses set traps? I suppose the soft and squishy... :lol: For some reason, I picture a lot of taunting and fleeing.

Rogue = my favorite class in nearly any game. NWN more than any others.

Sneak attack 10d6 + DC 14 Stunning mace + DC 14 sleep mace = pretty close to the best attack ever.

My girlfriend plays a dual katana wielding Weapon Master. Hot.



Something I forgot about for RPGs. A while ago, I really enjoyed the Exile games, particularly Exile II: Crystal Souls, by Spiderweb Software.

The graphics are, obviously, dated and sub-par, but this is an entirely independent company, here, consisting of three people, so it's understandable.

Exile plays similar to Icewind Dale II, in that you play up to 6 characters, and each character levels similarly to a DND character (specific skills for each weapon, armor, skill, etc. with racial bonuses/penalties affecting leveling time). The worlds are e-NORMOUS, and there are hundreds of side quests (possibly even thousands... like I ever finished). The gameplay is pretty fun, revolving mostly around the combat strategy and character development.

On their website, you can download large demos of all of their games. The demo of Exlie II alone would take you probably 30 hours to finish entirely, or just a few to run through it... depending on how you play. I highly recommend any of them, but as I said before, I enjoyed Exile II the best.

The other games they have don't play as smoothly or enjoyably, in my opinion, but they're at least worth a look.

If you don't mind the old graphics, how about something like Wizardry 8? I found it pretty nice and old-school.

If you like the Diablo style of gameplay, Sacred isn't that bad either.

It's not a traditional RPG (mission based strategy gameplay with stat management), but I really liked Freedom Force a lot.

The original games on your list were the cream of the crop for me, however.

Let me throw my hat in with the others suggesting Vampire: Bloodlines. While I would not hesitate to openly mock those that play the pen and paper game, I think Troika did a good job developing the characters, world and storyline. The amount of dialog options is massive, and add great depth to the gameplay. It is a bit buggy, and the combat leaves something to be desired, but all in all it's pretty damn fun.

I'd second the whole Exile series in general. Great games all. And if you can stand those graphics, you might be able to take a step down and try rogue-like games like Ragnarok, Nethack or (my personal fav) ADOM. Very basic graphics (the last 2 are totally ascii) but great gameplay.

Another game that's not quite so dated looking is Freedom force. You should be able to find it new for around $10-$20. It's a superhero genre game, but i's a great RPG.

You know, I kinda liked Arcanum. I thought that was pretty good. Nice blend of characters, level of play, story etc.

DId anyone else like Arcanum?

Played Freedom Force for a few hours, didn't really get into it. Same with Arcanum. Coincidentally, I sampled them both from a friend who liked them quite a bit. I played the Sacred demo and thought it was ok, nothing great. Never played Wizardy 8 (or any other). Last night I did however talk a friend into buying Fallout and Fallout 2 for $5. That's a damn fine deal right there. He also got Starcraft and Brood War for $20.

Even though you finished it, I have to throw my voice of support in for Morrowind. I finished NWN and the expansion modules and wanted another RPG to play. The sheer open-endedness of Morrowind is what I feel is so impressive. Yes, NWN was good but you still had the feeling that the developers were herding you down certain paths. Morrowind exactly addresses my style of play, which is let me do my own thing. I haven't even attempted to start the main storyline in this one. I am ransacking the local area and building a pretty impressive character.

God,I love this game.