Since there are multiple threads involving Video Games in there various forms, I figured I'd consolidate them all into one forum for easy reference.
For me, Video Games date back to my Commodore 64 with those old Gold Box D&D adventures-- Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, etc.
Then it was on PC games, with more D&D titles such as Eye of the Beholder and the Baulder's Gate games, Tomb Raider, among many others.
These days I mainly focus on console games. I've had a Xbox 360 since the summer of 2006 and picked up a Playstation 2 a little over a year ago. I've played numerous games, mostly adventure games and some FPS.
What games do you guys play?
Video Games
Video Games
Have light, will illuminate!
Re: Video Games
Well, I'm a huge fan of Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind by Bethesda. Play it over and over with different characters and different mods. I even do a bit of mod testing and tweaking, though I cannot claim to be a modder in any real sense. By this summer, I should have a powerful enough PC to try out ES IV: Oblivion, though from what I've heard and read about it, I doubt I'll like it as much. I'm also looking forward to their Fallout III game.
I also like and play the Avernum series (and to a lesser extent, the Geneforge series) of games from Spiderweb.
Gordon
I also like and play the Avernum series (and to a lesser extent, the Geneforge series) of games from Spiderweb.
Gordon
"Tilt....with explosives.....running.....mmmm don't like it." - Flux (Bruce)
Re: Video Games
The game that I played over and over has to be Baldur's Gate 2 by Bioware. It just had some many possibilities that playing it more than one time was a must. I must have completed the game at least 10 times. There was the main quest and then there were side quests. But on top of that there were class-specific quests and then NPC specific quests. Plus you could be good or evil or inbetween and male PC's had 3 different romance options, so there was a lot to cover.
The funniest NPC quest had to be with an LE mage named Edwin. He was an arrogant SOB, but was a must for an evil party which I sometimes ran. (A neccessary thing when romancing the drow hottie.) Anyway, his big quest to was to find something called the Nether Scroll. Eventually you locate the scroll and Edwin reads it. The scroll changes him into a woman!
From that point on, he's called Edwina complete with a female voice that sounds just as arrogant as the male one. The NPC's chatted with each other time to time in game. I recall one NPC kept saying to Edwin/Edwina "Why must you be so evil?" all the time. After the changed Edwina, Edwin kept saying, "Stop looking at me!"
While I never did Morrowind, I have played a little of Oblivion on the 360. Now let me put what I'm about to say into a proper context. I knew that Oblivion was the big game of 2006, critically acclaimed game of the year and what not. I had been cylcing through 3 other Bioware RPG's right before it. Specifically Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Repulblic 1 & 2. All there were Xbox games, but I think there are PC versions now. Anyway, I was going back and forth between these three, doing all three of them at least three times each. Much like Baldur's Gate2, there were good and evil options to explore and different romances.
And then came Oblivion. The difference between it and the three I had been playing was so jarring, that I had a really hard time getting into. I played around with for a while but eventually put it aside and moved on to other games. I think I went on a FPS run doing Halo2 & Half-Life2 around then. I never did get back to it and ended up trading my copy in.
I might have reacted better to if I had come from diferent games into that one and I still might give it another try at some point. Proplably picking up a used copy of the second release with al the extra stuff on it. Assuming if I ever run of games that I already have to play!
The funniest NPC quest had to be with an LE mage named Edwin. He was an arrogant SOB, but was a must for an evil party which I sometimes ran. (A neccessary thing when romancing the drow hottie.) Anyway, his big quest to was to find something called the Nether Scroll. Eventually you locate the scroll and Edwin reads it. The scroll changes him into a woman!
From that point on, he's called Edwina complete with a female voice that sounds just as arrogant as the male one. The NPC's chatted with each other time to time in game. I recall one NPC kept saying to Edwin/Edwina "Why must you be so evil?" all the time. After the changed Edwina, Edwin kept saying, "Stop looking at me!"
While I never did Morrowind, I have played a little of Oblivion on the 360. Now let me put what I'm about to say into a proper context. I knew that Oblivion was the big game of 2006, critically acclaimed game of the year and what not. I had been cylcing through 3 other Bioware RPG's right before it. Specifically Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Repulblic 1 & 2. All there were Xbox games, but I think there are PC versions now. Anyway, I was going back and forth between these three, doing all three of them at least three times each. Much like Baldur's Gate2, there were good and evil options to explore and different romances.
And then came Oblivion. The difference between it and the three I had been playing was so jarring, that I had a really hard time getting into. I played around with for a while but eventually put it aside and moved on to other games. I think I went on a FPS run doing Halo2 & Half-Life2 around then. I never did get back to it and ended up trading my copy in.
I might have reacted better to if I had come from diferent games into that one and I still might give it another try at some point. Proplably picking up a used copy of the second release with al the extra stuff on it. Assuming if I ever run of games that I already have to play!
Have light, will illuminate!
Re: Video Games
You know, I actually have a copy of either BG or BG2 that I tried to play a while back. Unfortunately, the controls and commands were way too complex for my simple mind to keep track of and I gave up.
The thing I love about Morrowind is the incredible freedom. It's this huge island and you can just wander around and do anything you like. You don't even have to do quests if you don't want to. It's as close to actually being there as I've ever seen in a game.
From what I've heard and read, the difference between Morrowind and Oblivion is that they traded depth of story and game play for fancy graphics. BTW, note that by playing on a game machine rather than PC, you have far less flexibility as regards mods for the game.
Gordon
The thing I love about Morrowind is the incredible freedom. It's this huge island and you can just wander around and do anything you like. You don't even have to do quests if you don't want to. It's as close to actually being there as I've ever seen in a game.
From what I've heard and read, the difference between Morrowind and Oblivion is that they traded depth of story and game play for fancy graphics. BTW, note that by playing on a game machine rather than PC, you have far less flexibility as regards mods for the game.
Gordon
"Tilt....with explosives.....running.....mmmm don't like it." - Flux (Bruce)
Re: Video Games
BG2 picks up sometime after BG1, so you could transfer the same character from game to game. Some of the NPC's are the same in both games too. BG1 was a good game for its time, but after it pales to BG2. It was improved greatly and play was sped up considerably.
On the surface Oblivion sounds very much like Morrowind. Huge island to explore, go where you want, do what quests you want and so on. Wouldn't know how the stories compare and I really wasn't all that impressed by the graphics.
Yeah, I know that the 360 version won't have any extra mods or things like that. What I was referring to was all the Downloadable Content that there was for it on Xbox Live that you could buy. For the PC's these were all just released as expansion sets. The version I might get one day is the one that comes will all the extras in 1 place instead of having to buy and download them.
The main reason I switched from PC gaming was that I got tired of getting a game and not having it run properly or even at all. So annoying to find that your graphics card is 1 level below what is needed. I'm not one to open up my computer and fiddle around with it, so just decided to go with consoles where the specs are standard. On a PC they can vary from system to system.
On the surface Oblivion sounds very much like Morrowind. Huge island to explore, go where you want, do what quests you want and so on. Wouldn't know how the stories compare and I really wasn't all that impressed by the graphics.
Yeah, I know that the 360 version won't have any extra mods or things like that. What I was referring to was all the Downloadable Content that there was for it on Xbox Live that you could buy. For the PC's these were all just released as expansion sets. The version I might get one day is the one that comes will all the extras in 1 place instead of having to buy and download them.
The main reason I switched from PC gaming was that I got tired of getting a game and not having it run properly or even at all. So annoying to find that your graphics card is 1 level below what is needed. I'm not one to open up my computer and fiddle around with it, so just decided to go with consoles where the specs are standard. On a PC they can vary from system to system.
Have light, will illuminate!
Re: Video Games
After looking around, it appears that I no longer have the BG or BG2 disks. There was a point last summer or fall when I was getting rid of a bunch of stuff, and that probably got included. I suspect they ended up down at the local Half Price Books.
I'm currently working my way through Fallout 2, as I couldn't get Fallout to run very stably on my system. They're pretty old games, so no big surprise there.
Don't know if I mentioned this, but I think it was Ultima 3 or 5 that got me into computer gaming. I was visiting a friend from college a few years after graduation and he showed me the game. I was hooked pretty much immediately. After I got home from the trip, I bought my first PC just so I could play it!
Gordon
I'm currently working my way through Fallout 2, as I couldn't get Fallout to run very stably on my system. They're pretty old games, so no big surprise there.
Don't know if I mentioned this, but I think it was Ultima 3 or 5 that got me into computer gaming. I was visiting a friend from college a few years after graduation and he showed me the game. I was hooked pretty much immediately. After I got home from the trip, I bought my first PC just so I could play it!
Gordon
"Tilt....with explosives.....running.....mmmm don't like it." - Flux (Bruce)
Re: Video Games
My gaming on PCs began with the venerable C64. We had various console games growing up and loved my Intellivision way back when. Never really got into the newer consoles, except for my cousin's Playstations and the great game series GRAN TURISMO.
Cannot for the life of me remember the first one from the C64 (it has a very simple basic name) and the first few I played were the text interative type: GO LEFT, GET LAMP, OPEN DOOR, then they tell you what happens next. It may have simply been called ADVENTURE.
I remember a Pirate One (I think simply PIRATE ADVENTURE) on a sunken ship and the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Then there was things like BARD's TALE and the TEMPLE of APSHAI.
Played several from the old EPYX line, like Crush, Crumble and Chomp! (take over a movie monster nd destroy cities, great fun). (Can't play without the old FASTLOAD cartridge!) The Summer Games and Winter Games were fun as well.
Then came EA's Adventure Construction Set and a few others.
I remember when I bought my first PC, which was on a week's vacatuion and strictly to play a game, which I played pretty much all week. Lately, gaming has been few and far between.
Cannot for the life of me remember the first one from the C64 (it has a very simple basic name) and the first few I played were the text interative type: GO LEFT, GET LAMP, OPEN DOOR, then they tell you what happens next. It may have simply been called ADVENTURE.
I remember a Pirate One (I think simply PIRATE ADVENTURE) on a sunken ship and the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Then there was things like BARD's TALE and the TEMPLE of APSHAI.
Played several from the old EPYX line, like Crush, Crumble and Chomp! (take over a movie monster nd destroy cities, great fun). (Can't play without the old FASTLOAD cartridge!) The Summer Games and Winter Games were fun as well.
Then came EA's Adventure Construction Set and a few others.
I remember when I bought my first PC, which was on a week's vacatuion and strictly to play a game, which I played pretty much all week. Lately, gaming has been few and far between.
Conquer or Die!
Re: Video Games
It happens, Gordon. Old stuff gets thrown away. The one thing I forgot to mention about BG2 is that is where I got Yusef's monk class from. So you had the chance to play a monk in that game!
Never played Fallout, but have seen some previews of Fallout 3. This year is looking pretty bleak as far as new games that are of interest to me. The only one that I know I'll be buying for sure is Tomb Raider: Underworld and that's not until the end of the year! Probably the next DLC for Mass Effect, but the next one hasn't been announced yet. Maybe Star Wars: the Force Unleashed, but we'll see.
Never played an Ultima game either.
Oh my goodness! I had forgotten about the Intellivison game system Steven had! That was when we were in high school. I had a Atari 2600 then too. Man, those were some awufl games! But Intellivision had some fun ones. We used to get together at Steven's house on Saturdays to play games with a few other friends, his mom and younger sister. Geez, that's what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight years ago?
The C64 wasn't my first actual computer. That would go to the TI-30 I had from Texas Instruments. Not much of a computer, but I did have 1 game on cassette! It was text game, but I don't recall ever getting to far along in it.
The C64 came next. I had forgotten about the Temple of the Aphsai! I did have Bard's Tale 2 and I think Might and Magic 2, along with some other games whose names elude me.
Much of what we did on the C64 was file writing and we had a draft baskletball league using APBA games. I ended up writing a program on the C64 to play the games, even keep track of stats! That all seems so long ago!
My first PC was in '93 as I was on AOL before I left Qlink. I was GM Mad on Qlink and so I made GM Mad Too on AOL and still have it today. The C64 was a great little computer. It must have lasted me almost ten years! Sure, I had 2 of them, 2 hard drives, and even 2 printers, but for the price it was hard to beat.
I've had loads of PC games over the years, depending on how good my computer was. I'm now on my 5th PC since that very first one. Some of the games I have for the PC include: Tomb Raider 1, 2, &3, Tomb Raider: Last Reveleation, Tomb Raider Chronicles, Tomb Raider: Legend, Half-Life, No One Live Forever 1 & 2, Civilization 1 & 2, Myst, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Freedom Force, Eye of the Beholder 1, 2, & 3, Neverwinter Nights, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, Halo and probably others that I forget.
Tired of my computer not being up to snuff when it came to games, that's when I changed over to consoles. I did some research and decided which games I wanted to play and that's how I choose which console. So for my birthday in July '06 I bought an Xbox 360. Many Xbox games can be played on the 360, so I was able to pick many up cheapily or used.
Xbox games: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Darkwatch, Destroy All Humans, Half-Life 2, Halo 1 & 2, Ninja Gaiden, Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2, Ultimate Spider-man, Prince of Persia,
Xbox 360 Games: Bioshock, Halo 3, Madden '06, Bulletwitch, Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions, the Orange Box, Mass Effect, Tiger Woods '06 & '07, Tomb Raider: Legend, Perfect Dark: Zero, Quake 4, Tomb Raider: Anniversary.
The following January I picked up a Playstation 2 and had even more of a backlog of games to pick up. These include: Bloodrayne, Bloodrayne 2, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, God of War, Tomb Raider: Anniversary.
In the machines right now: Tiger Woods '07 on the 360, and for the PS2 I actually had to look as it's been so long, but it was Tomb Raider: Anniversary.
Never played Fallout, but have seen some previews of Fallout 3. This year is looking pretty bleak as far as new games that are of interest to me. The only one that I know I'll be buying for sure is Tomb Raider: Underworld and that's not until the end of the year! Probably the next DLC for Mass Effect, but the next one hasn't been announced yet. Maybe Star Wars: the Force Unleashed, but we'll see.
Never played an Ultima game either.
Oh my goodness! I had forgotten about the Intellivison game system Steven had! That was when we were in high school. I had a Atari 2600 then too. Man, those were some awufl games! But Intellivision had some fun ones. We used to get together at Steven's house on Saturdays to play games with a few other friends, his mom and younger sister. Geez, that's what? Twenty-seven, twenty-eight years ago?
The C64 wasn't my first actual computer. That would go to the TI-30 I had from Texas Instruments. Not much of a computer, but I did have 1 game on cassette! It was text game, but I don't recall ever getting to far along in it.
The C64 came next. I had forgotten about the Temple of the Aphsai! I did have Bard's Tale 2 and I think Might and Magic 2, along with some other games whose names elude me.
Much of what we did on the C64 was file writing and we had a draft baskletball league using APBA games. I ended up writing a program on the C64 to play the games, even keep track of stats! That all seems so long ago!
My first PC was in '93 as I was on AOL before I left Qlink. I was GM Mad on Qlink and so I made GM Mad Too on AOL and still have it today. The C64 was a great little computer. It must have lasted me almost ten years! Sure, I had 2 of them, 2 hard drives, and even 2 printers, but for the price it was hard to beat.
I've had loads of PC games over the years, depending on how good my computer was. I'm now on my 5th PC since that very first one. Some of the games I have for the PC include: Tomb Raider 1, 2, &3, Tomb Raider: Last Reveleation, Tomb Raider Chronicles, Tomb Raider: Legend, Half-Life, No One Live Forever 1 & 2, Civilization 1 & 2, Myst, Icewind Dale 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Freedom Force, Eye of the Beholder 1, 2, & 3, Neverwinter Nights, Master of Magic, Master of Orion, Halo and probably others that I forget.
Tired of my computer not being up to snuff when it came to games, that's when I changed over to consoles. I did some research and decided which games I wanted to play and that's how I choose which console. So for my birthday in July '06 I bought an Xbox 360. Many Xbox games can be played on the 360, so I was able to pick many up cheapily or used.
Xbox games: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, Darkwatch, Destroy All Humans, Half-Life 2, Halo 1 & 2, Ninja Gaiden, Jade Empire, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2, Ultimate Spider-man, Prince of Persia,
Xbox 360 Games: Bioshock, Halo 3, Madden '06, Bulletwitch, Lost Planet: Extreme Conditions, the Orange Box, Mass Effect, Tiger Woods '06 & '07, Tomb Raider: Legend, Perfect Dark: Zero, Quake 4, Tomb Raider: Anniversary.
The following January I picked up a Playstation 2 and had even more of a backlog of games to pick up. These include: Bloodrayne, Bloodrayne 2, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, God of War, Tomb Raider: Anniversary.
In the machines right now: Tiger Woods '07 on the 360, and for the PS2 I actually had to look as it's been so long, but it was Tomb Raider: Anniversary.
Have light, will illuminate!
Re: Video Games
I never played many of those games mentioned either. My PC gaming tended toward Master of Orion, Master of Magic, Age of Empires, Age of Mythologu, Lords of the Realm, a pair of Star Wars flight combat games, Red Baron, G-Nome, Frontpage Sports Football Pro. Probably a lot that I had forgotten about. The things I was messing with most recently were finishing up the campaign from the Master of Mythology: Titans expansion and the ongoing football league we had with FPS Football Pro. Ran a league when working at Wargames West in Albuquerque (Scott had the Albuquerqeu Maulers team) and recently found a DOS emulator that let me run the game again, so resurrected things for old time's sake.
Intellivision was cool. It blew away the Atari systems at the time and actually had simple movement to the figures, instead of static things that slid around. Had some cool games and was sorry to see it not only go away, but mine to wear out. We got a lot of use out of it though.
And Ken, do you remember the game I had before that, the old generic console with the decent bowling game? Broke that out a few times too. Well, we graduated about 26 years do, yeah 27-28 years in the past.
I remember that TI, but never did we do much with it. It wasn't unti Commodore that we got into PCs a lot.
Yeah, that draft BB league was a lot of fun. Ken was the main writer of the program and I was the modifier. I made it more efficient, which was vitally important on a machine with only 64K of memory and implemented the graphics scoreboard. That was a great learning experience at the same time. I remember sifting through pages and pages of BASIC code while in school.
I think I am only on my 3rd real computer since moving to PCs. But about to get a new one for anniversary this week, so that's good. Plus we have the laptop.
I would much rather play games on computers and with the games I play, you need more involved interfaces than a console can give you. I do not much care for those controllers either. Give me a keyboard and a joystick any day! Since my game playing is so rare anyway, it hasn't been the case much that I have games that cannot be played on my machines, especially the Sony Vaio laptop, as it is a great machine. Of course, the new desktop will rival if not surpass that one.
Now that we're playing World of Warcraft, a better machine will be useful there. Probably the only gaming I will be doing for a long while.
Well, nice time reminiscing...
TTYGL
Intellivision was cool. It blew away the Atari systems at the time and actually had simple movement to the figures, instead of static things that slid around. Had some cool games and was sorry to see it not only go away, but mine to wear out. We got a lot of use out of it though.
And Ken, do you remember the game I had before that, the old generic console with the decent bowling game? Broke that out a few times too. Well, we graduated about 26 years do, yeah 27-28 years in the past.
I remember that TI, but never did we do much with it. It wasn't unti Commodore that we got into PCs a lot.
Yeah, that draft BB league was a lot of fun. Ken was the main writer of the program and I was the modifier. I made it more efficient, which was vitally important on a machine with only 64K of memory and implemented the graphics scoreboard. That was a great learning experience at the same time. I remember sifting through pages and pages of BASIC code while in school.
I think I am only on my 3rd real computer since moving to PCs. But about to get a new one for anniversary this week, so that's good. Plus we have the laptop.
I would much rather play games on computers and with the games I play, you need more involved interfaces than a console can give you. I do not much care for those controllers either. Give me a keyboard and a joystick any day! Since my game playing is so rare anyway, it hasn't been the case much that I have games that cannot be played on my machines, especially the Sony Vaio laptop, as it is a great machine. Of course, the new desktop will rival if not surpass that one.
Now that we're playing World of Warcraft, a better machine will be useful there. Probably the only gaming I will be doing for a long while.
Well, nice time reminiscing...
TTYGL
Conquer or Die!