Games for the metal community.

[esoteric]

FFVI was great for the first half, but the World of Ruin was really bad. Final Fantasy Tactics and Chrono Trigger are probably two of my favorite RPGs. Star Ocean 2 is a good one, also. Other great ones: Vagrant Story, Dark Cloud, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Skies of Arcadia, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, FFIV and FFVII.

Half-Life 2 is a very very good game that shouldn't be missed. Superb gameplay, graphics and story. I also enjoy competitive RTS games: Starcraft is always a good one—Starcraft 2 is coming out soon, actually—as are Warcraft, Command & Conquer, Civilization, Age of Empires, Total Annihilation, and especially Supreme Commander.

Most of those games are really not that good.

I can't understand Hessians who appreciate good music yet cannot see the uselessness of modern commercial games. Games are no different from music or books. Don't get sucked in by flashy graphics, look for a solid story and creative ways of telling it using the capabilities of computers. Giving the player the role as a soldier shooting everything in his path but not choose what to say to someone else is not a good way of telling a story. Neither is setting up random scenarios to pass in order to obtain the next bit of narrative, like Warcraft and Age of Empires do.

For non-commercial games, a trusty site with good reviews is http://www.the-underdogs.info/

[Divus_de_Mortuus]

I don't play video games much, but the games that resonate with me are the classics like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 3 and 7, Chrono's Trigger, Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto and such.

To stifle some idiotic reply from the usual suspects - not everything in life has to have intrinsic eternal value - video games are about gameplay, not values. Indeed, they are nothing more than dreaded entertainment. You should try some sometime - you just might live past 60 years of age, or be able to sustain an erection on your own.  

[Hyvolgen]

Here's a good essay on videogames:
Art or not Art? - Peter Eliot

I enjoyed gaming up to and during the N64. It will downhill fast after that when the big publishers started buying out the good small development teams.

[chrstphrbnntt]

I don't play video games much, but the games that resonate with me are the classics like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 3 and 7, Chrono's Trigger, Legend of Zelda, Grand Theft Auto and such.

To stifle some idiotic reply from the usual suspects - not everything in life has to have intrsic eternal value - video games are about gameplay, not values. Indeed, they are nothing more than dreaded entertainment. You should try some sometime - you just might live past 60 years of age, or be able to sustain an erection on your own.  

Yeah... I'll restate what I said before: I play games as a mental exercise, and for entertainment. Games like Red Orchestra and Chris Taylor RTSes give those things to me.

If anybody seriously thinks that they are being enlightened by a video game, tell me the game and I'll buy—or download—it gladly.

[esoteric]

If anybody seriously thinks that they are being enlightened by a video game, tell me the game and I'll buy—or download—it gladly.

Grim Fandango
Syberia
The Longest Journey

If you don't get anything useful from the above, you're probably not a human being.

Also try interactive fiction. It's essentially a written story in which you are playing the character. They are often better than graphical games since the authors are widely read. You need an interpreter program to play. Recommended games are Anchorhead (Lovecraft themed suspense) and A Mind Forever Voyaging.

[chrstphrbnntt]

Grim Fandango
Syberia
The Longest Journey

If you don't get anything useful from the above, you're probably not a human being.

Also try interactive fiction. It's essentially a written story in which you are playing the character. They are often better than graphical games since the authors are widely read. You need an interpreter program to play. Recommended games are Anchorhead (Lovecraft themed suspense) and A Mind Forever Voyaging.

I'm familiar with Tim Schafer games. He's probably my favorite maker of adventure games. His newest, Psychonauts, is also pretty good. I'll check out the other two.

[Prospero]

I like all form of media to tell me a story if the said story is good, may it be books, movie, storyteller (mostly for folkloric tales), games, or anything else.

They all have their own way of telling a story, and to compare them is something fun when it's of equal quality.

Were you thinking of Fred Pellerin?



I know very little about game, my only knowledge is playing with friends to halo once a month. So I was wondering, is the myst series a good game? And if yes, which one should I try?

[Aesir]

I find it really hard to get my hands on good books because living in New Zealand its more expensive to get things imported so i started playing games.

These were the usual games that everyone plays on their playstations( except final fantasy, i cant stand it) but these got boring fast and i thought that there had to be better games.

I started looking through the internet and came up with a game genre that inspired such things as Diablo, diablo II and other games like that. These are called rouge-likes(because they are along the lines of a game called rouge) these games were normally set around crawling through dungons and distroying orcs and golbins ect.

They are normally set up with dungon and dragon rules and they are really hard to learn to play because a command could take you pressing four buttons at once.Just like diablo the dungons and weapons are randomly generated everytime you start a new game.

But they are fun and are made by small groups of developers that have been making the same game for over 20 years and most of them are free to download at anytime. I think alot of people here who play games might enjoy downloading some of these. I will just put some of the ones i found that are good down here.


Ancient Domains of Mystery:

http://www.dosgames.com/dl.php?filename=http://www.adom.de/adom/download/dos/adom111.zip

Ragnarok (not the online stupid rpg):

http://www.dosgames.com/dl.php?filename=http://www.dosgames.com/files/rag25.zip

Angband:

http://www.dosgames.com/dl.php?filename=ftp://ftp.thangorodrim.net/pub/angband/DOS-386/angband-306-dos.zip

The UnReal World:

http://www.dosgames.com/dl.php?filename=http://www.elisanet.fi/tila/urw302.exe

These games are hard and could take you months to get a charcter anywhere, enjoy.

[esoteric]

So I was wondering, is the myst series a good game? And if yes, which one should I try?

Absolutely. The first three in the series are worth playing, with the second (Riven) being the peak. It's recommended to play them in order to understand the story. They are, however, quite hard. Some of the puzzles are obtuse, especially for someone used to Halo-type games and RPGs and it's easy to get stuck and not knowing what to do.

[born for banning]

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

Most of the graphics engine was written by some guy in a Burzum shirt.

[Andrew]

Gothic 1, 2, and 3 are each incredible and very atmospheric; I'd recommend them to anyone.  Other than that most games I've played from the past 10 years or so are really little more than mindless entertainment.  A good site I've found for RPGs is http://www.rpgcodex.net/, they seem to take a very elitist stance towards video games and violently oppose those that are worthless and unartistic despite their popularity and budget, almost like a DLA of the video game world.

[Divus_de_Mortuus]

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun

The first good thing you ever said.

[More Celt Than Sassenach]

I vividly enjoy the total war series. Closest I've ever come (and ever will) to experiencing a realistic conquest of the known world.

[Necrolust]

Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy [before they sold out with X], Half-Life and Grand Theft Auto [assuming you look at it in a black comedy sort of perspective of how fucked-up "society" is]: these series seem to combine the highest concentration of storytelling and actual challenge compared to most modern games.

I have personally stopped playing games as enthusiastically as I once did. New games just DO NOT interest me in the slightest. I look at it kind of analogous to Metal selling out and becoming soulless and stagnant.

[NEVR4GETLOL]

The first good thing you ever said.

AMEN.