DescentBB

I haven't played any games since Descent 3. I was wondering if any of you might have any recommendations, with active multi-player communities.

Albatross18

What do you have to play on?

Halo (overdone, still fun, good graphics/gameplay)

Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy (Fun, Academy has a larger community and better graphics/engine)

Battlefield 2142 (Excellent graphics, cool game modes)

Other genres----------

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (Good graphics, cheap, cool cars)

Tribal Wars (Free, real-time)

World of Warcraft (WAAAAAY overdone, slightly fun)

Red_5 wrote:Halo (overdone, still fun, good graphics/gameplay)

Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy (Fun, Academy has a larger community and better graphics/engine)

Battlefield 2142 (Excellent graphics, cool game modes)

Other genres----------

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (Good graphics, cheap, cool cars)

Tribal Wars (Free, real-time)

World of Warcraft (WAAAAAY overdone, slightly fun)

Say... Tribal Wars. What worlds do you play?
Along the same lines, CyberNations is excellent. Politics, nuclear war, and the whole bit.

America's Army Is a favorite of mine. It is made by the US Army as a recruiting tool, though they have yet to recruit dozens of guys I know that play. Also, its free, legal free that is.

I said screw Tribal Wars when it took me three months to get one village to being a decent one, and it just got nobled and attacked. Tribal Wars isn't fun for the noobs imo.

I am going to get World in Conflict, the demo is awesome!

the Orange Box.

BioShock for single player experience.

I also play Final Fantasy XI: Online. Still fun after all these years.

If you want to be absorbed by a game and get into the atmosphere, I highly recommend S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Its an RPG/FPS hybrid that takes place in Chernobyl. Supplementary mods make the game more interesting, so if you plan to use some install them early, some of them require you to start a new game to use them.

KOTOR is a really good Star Wars RPG, has a good story and about 40-80 hours of gameplay depending on how you play it.

The Grand Theft Auto series starting from GTA3 has always been a blast, you cant go wrong there.

America's Army is a free game, Google to get it. Its pretty much a FPS, but more realistic than your typical groundpounder so you actually have to think for a bit.

...

If you are in to strategy games, Civilization 4 is a turn-based strategy thats quite excellent. Many hours of my life have been wasted playing that game. The Charlemagne expansion is good too.

Supreme Commander is a good RTS game, though I always liked its predecessor the best (cant exactly point out why).

Simcity 4 has always been a favorite of mine, good mods for that game too.

Wishmaster wrote:

Red_5 wrote:Halo (overdone, still fun, good graphics/gameplay)

Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy (Fun, Academy has a larger community and better graphics/engine)

Battlefield 2142 (Excellent graphics, cool game modes)

Other genres----------

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 (Good graphics, cheap, cool cars)

Tribal Wars (Free, real-time)

World of Warcraft (WAAAAAY overdone, slightly fun)

Say... Tribal Wars. What worlds do you play?

I gave it up. Real-time was just too slow

Orange Box
Titan's Quest
Flatout 2
GTR 2
UT 2004
Crysis

The Orange Box
GTR2
Quake Wars Enemy Territory
Battlefield 2142
IL1946
Lock On - Modern Air Combat
Quake4

Soon to be released (FREE)
Battlestar Galactica - Beyond the Redline

The Orange Box is practically the best of everything PC gaming has had to offer in the past four years. It cannot be recommended enough!

Bioshock
Gears of War
Puzzle Quest
Portal (orange box)

If you like racing games, I'd recommend TrackMania. It has a track editor that is incredibly easy to use.

Actually, I should really ask:
What gaming systems do you have?

If he hasn't played anything since D3, I rather doubt he has anything but a PC.

For FPS - Orange Box, hands down.

For MMOs - World of Warcraft is a definite best-choice for the most polished, enjoyable, and well-rounded MMO. The graphics are a little on the cartoonish side, but still flattering. It also falls into the realm of easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master, depending on which class you choose to play.

Another notable MMO that is hard to go wrong with would be EVE, which has jaw-dropping graphics and limitless depth, but can be daunting and has a noticeable learning curve if you want to get the most out of it. Its PVP can be very cutthroat as well, if you venture out into the less lawful areas of space. Knowing how to survive is not as difficult as some might think, though. You just gotta learn the ropes and take your licks a few times, first.

It should be noted that all 3 of the above games can run on just about any system that tries to label itself a gaming rig, these days - even one that's 3 or 4 years old. You won't get all the polish and sparkle that they have to offer, but they'll still be very playable. And in the case of Orange Box, some of your game load times are going to be downright painful. ;p

Alien Arena 2008

Descent: Freespace The Great War
Freespace 2
Halo 1 for PC
Freelancer
Doom 3

Though I haven't played these, I would recommend them; I've heard lots of great things about these games:

Portal
Half-life 2
Quake 4

I can't think of much more. I'm into the sci-fi games, especially flight.

Descent is the only shooter game I'll play (I can't stand killing in games) so I couldn't recommend any others. Otherwise, I mostly play racing games. If you like Sonic the Hedgehog, you could try Sonic Heroes or Sonic Riders - they're both for PC, although Sonic Riders' system requirements are somewhat high. Also, to do with TrackMania - there are three games; you can download the third one, TrackMania Nations, for free (legally) on the developer's website http://www.trackmanianations.com/indexUk.php

TrackMania United has all three games in a rather different style, apparently, although I haven't been able to find it.

Battlefield 2142.

This is simply the best multiplayer game I've played since Descent 3. The game specializes in multiplayer (it has a very weak single player based on Conquest with bots) and therefore you know the multiplayer experience can only be top priority. Between Descent 3 and BF2142, I have played Halo PC and FEAR. BF2142 is like a combination of these 2 games. You get awesome vehicles like in Halo, but you also get awesome hand-to-hand combat like in FEAR. And of course it only gets better with all the game modes this game has. You can download BF2142+NS (Northern Strike is the expansion pack) for $30 from the EA store. This is the same price of just BF2142. EA is therefore giving NS away for free for new comers. With NS, BF2142 has 3 game modes: Conquest (not very fun), Titan (very fun), and Assult Lines (a boosted Conquest with NS vehicles \"Goliath is the bomb\" to make it as fun as Titan).

The visuals of the game are awesome as well. I would place them ahead of FEAR in terms of the whole scale of the game. And the sound effects, especially if you have an X-Fi Fatal1ty and Windows XP, are the best of any game I've ever played (except maybe Crysis). Overall, this game is just one step below Crysis and as such, can be somewhat demanding. On my GeForce 8600M GT system, I play it at 1600x1200 (doesn't support widesreen officially and I don't use it because it causes some minor artifacts when forced) at low settings, but it still looks awesome. I play at these settings to ensure my gameplay is always smooth. I can push it to medium or higher, but then I start to slow down when the action gets very hot. 64 players on a server is a lot to render.

There are no noticeable cheaters/statpadders in this game thanks to a combination of a ranking system and EA's wrath shown to those who abuse it. The servers are pretty stable. Now that patch 1.40 is out, the game pretty much has all the bugs taken care of. There is a problem with X-Fi, mic's, and Ventrilo for some systems, but I never ran into a problem (ccb056 has though, but I believe he found a fix). His workstation motherboard may add to this problem though, I don't know. I mention the mic because this game is big on communication. A good percent of players use their mic and if they don't, they actively use their command keys or typing.

Crysis could be another game you might want to consider, but right now it is still rough going on the MP side. SP is awesome, but until 1.2, the MP is plagued with hackers.

Aggressor Prime wrote:Battlefield 2142

*sniffles*

What is the matter roid?

my BF2142 has been giving me issues. i want to play it more but it crashes a lot on my machine.

Did you make the mistake of getting Vista?
Post your system specs.

i don't really want to clog up this thread with it. There's 2 threads about it on the DBB.COM
http://descentbb.com/viewtopic.php?t=2966
http://descentbb.com/viewtopic.php?t=3002

(ps: XP not Vista)

2142 works for me in Vista without any issues. And yes, it's very enjoyable.