Company of Heroes is probably the best RTS you can get these days. I'm not an RTS fan, but I know good games when I see them. Empire at War is pretty okay if you're into Star Wars, but if you're hardcore about your RTS's and you aren't a Star Wars fan, then you might find this game a little lacking - however, it does have an expansion pack out, so there is probaby quite a bit of good gameplay to be had.

FEAR is a great FPS! Probably one of the best out currently. Bioshock was just released, however I personally found it difficult to really get into. Something about it just didn't bode well for me. Also there is STALKER, but that is sort of hit or miss depending on the type of game you like to play, plus you'll need one badass PC to run it on any setting worth playing. I've found FPS's to be a little lacking these days, but hopefully that will clear up soon enough. A last resort might be Call of Juarez, and you can't go wrong with Call of Duty 2 or Rainbow Six: Vegas.

Then you have Oblivion which is probably your best bet for an RPG right now, not to mention it can be played in FPS mode, so it's sort of a win/win thing. A close second would be Gothic 3, but it might be a little too unconventional if you're not a big RPG fan. If you have a lot of patience, and a nice stable rig, pick up Neverwinter Nights 2. It's a great RPG, but I personally stopped playing it because the damn thing just wouldn't run well. That could be cleared up now, though, with current patches and whatnot.

That's my list and best advice.

I don't think PC gaming is dying really. I mean, it's not a matter of if Consoles have better games or if PC has better games. For me, it has nothing to do with any of that since a platform doesn't constitute whether a game is successful or not. What constitutes a successful game is the quality of the gameplay and vision at launch. Not 2 months after launch with the first patch - at launch.

No, the biggest thing that really bothers me about PC games is convenience. I'm tired of installing, uninstalling, upgrading, downloading, and all the rest of that crap. I'm just tired of it. I want to sit down, put the game in, and not have to worry about optimizing my graphics settings, fix the sound settings, spend 30 minutes configuring my controls.... it just get's bothersome when you go through the same process with every single new game. And then, to make matters worse - games are so short these days.... you spend an hour getting it to operate, and then it's over 10 hours later.

Which leads me to my point. MMO's, as far as I'm concerned, are really the only reason one should ever bother with a PC. They are the only genre of games that for one, can't be successfully duplicated on a console, and two have the gameplay longevity to merit spending all that time and effort just to get it to run correctly. Now if they could just make one good one....

I don't know. Maybe buy her a good game? :D-wildflower-

Lol....

Any gun in Jedi Knight: JO/JA - Not to mention the mines. I mean, seriously. What were those guys thinking? The E-11, which is by far the most used gun in the game, if at all, was completely retarded. The only gun that got any kind of satisfying use was that Sniper Rifle/Demataerializer thing, and even it sucked because you had to charge it for half a decade for it to be any good.

I think, though, what made the guns suck, wasn't the guns themselves. It was the fact that all the damn enemies ran around at lightning fast speeds, and the projectiles of the guns were so slow. I was fighting one ST, and had full health. I had a Pistol and the E-11. I wasted every ounce of ammo I had with the E-11 because the stupid guy just kept running around and the bolts were too slow. YOU CAN RUN FASTER THAN THE BULLETS!

Anyhoo, they're great games, as long as you have the LS, which is probably the best weapon ever. But the guns are just dismally stupid and useless.

[QUOTE="Los9090"]It is suprising to see just the number of PC games that are on the shelves. I went in the other day to EB and there were only two racks of games.cobrax25

There is a difference reason for that....EB games does not rent out PC games....but they do console games.....and make a huge profit off that.....go to somewhere like Best Buy (which doesnt rent) and from what I saw, the PC section was larger then any individual console sections.

First off, Most of those PC games just flat out suck. At my Best Buy, they carry only the newest releases, and the most popular games. Try finding a good one or two year old game that didn't sell a million copies there. You won't - period. Wanna play Splinter Cell? You can choose from the worst one to date, SP IV. Want to play prince of Persia? You don't. Want to play SWG? Well, you can buy a game card, which is worthless without a Key, which you can't buy there. Not tat you would want to anyhow. Want to play a goo RPG? Well, there's Silverfall - nothing else exists there. Not even NWN2. oh, you can buy the strategy guide though - that's still popular. Want to play an FPS? Well, you have about a million different choices, and they all suck. Want to play Jewel Quest 2? NO PROBLEM! How about Barbie's Grand Makeup Parade? You're in luck! Beethoven's 23rd (about the dog). Sweet, cuz you can sign up for some of that too.

The best way for the PC Gaming market to really pick up steam is for the developers to stop making crappy games. Even better, Publishers need to start allowing the Developers to make those good games and stop hounding them for release dates. On top of that, PC Developers need to stop "Breaking the current benchmarks!" Why do they always feel the need to create some new engine with cutting edge technology, when there is plenty of good stuff out there now? Not a single game used the Doom3 Engine except for Doom3. i remember when every FPS out there used the QuakeIII engine, and they all were better than the previous. PC games were good four years ago when they spent the money to buy a liscense and spent the time making those assets their own. What do you get when you build your own proprietary engine? A buggy, crappy, dense, game.

[QUOTE="zbiggie"]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/alanwake/index.html?tag=result;title;1

sound like the game you were talking aboutwas alan wake

either way i really dont care for graphix as i tend to upgrade every 5-6 years buts its nice to have then as well

-tears-run-red-

It;s from the movie Equilibrium. It's one of those modernsemi low budget movies that pre-big movie stars act in to "practice" their craft. It's sort of likea business card to see if they can carry a bigger budget of a movie. This one had Christain Bale in it as some sort of Priest/Monk type guy who studies the art of Gun-Fu. It's a pretty silly movie that capitalizes onthe post-Matrix faire, but Bale shows his action morale in it.

[QUOTE="sircyrus"]You mean great like TES4: Oblivion, Thief 3: The Dark Project,Deus Ex 2: Invisible War, Shadowrun, etc?JN_Fenrir

Some things have to be accepted by faith alone. I don't know that a tree makes a sound in the woods when it falls if I'm not there to hear it..... but I beleive it does.

It's just common sense man. If you have 2 years to create a game, and you spend 6 months just working on code to make it work on 3platforms - that's practically 3 entire games you're making there. Now, take that same equation, take out the variable of the additional platforms, and you suddenly have more time to endorse a singular platform. It's not rocket science. Ever wonder why UT3 isn't out.... YET!? Maybe because it's being made for 3 different platforms? Granted, the engine was used in Gears of War, but... well... hey wait - isn't that an X360 exclusive? Imagine if UT3 was PC exclusive! I'm sure it would be just as good, maybe even better, but we would already be playing it by now.

When I cancel my WoW subscription will my characters still be there if I ever come back? I've decided this fee is too steep for one game. WoW is awesome, but I don't think it's worth it anymore. Thanks for any input.

Dagamemonkey

After about a month, you'll notice how much extra time you have on your hands.

MMO's are pretty okay while you're playing them, but it's not until you take that first week or so of not playing that you realise you really don't need it. That's always been my experience anyways.

OVERRATED!!

That's right, I said it. Now what? It's what anyone who knows anything is thinking in the back of their mind everytimesomeone praises it as if it's even a good game in the first place - just no one ever brings it up.It was Warcraft with different textures! To say one was better than the other is like saying Christopher Reeves was only good as Superman in Superman II. Don't misinterperet that, I'm not saying Warcraft should be praised anymore than it already is. What I am saying is that they are both overrated.

Be that as it may, you can't say Warcraft was terrible, and as a result I respect its placeholding.Let me put it this way - Starcraft is to Warcraftas Eragon is to Lord of the Rings. You'll notice in that statement how similar Starcraft and Eragon share the same context. They suck!

This is a thread for people who hate Starcraft and wish people would shutup about it already. If you're here to say how great it is... start your own thread. Or better yet, go join in on the fun in any of the other thousand threads that are already 20 pages long!

Not trying to start a flame war here. I just want to voice my opinion on the matter. I'm afraid I may have involuntarily accomplished both ends.

I'm going to throw a game in this debate that I think we can all relate to - Star Wars Galaxies.

This is a prime example of how Publihers are gettign away with well.... fraud. From the time that game was released to the current time of day, LucasArts has been taing advantage of the people who play this game. I played it for three years until I got smart and decided I was no longer going to pay someone to do half the job. I don't pay someone to cut half my yard do I? No, I don't - and neither should you.

SOE is usually the people who get the bad rep for SWG, but the truth is, they were merely the developers, and that whole thing has been covered in this debate numerous times. The thing about it is, SOE is not a victim in this scenario. They try to play it off like they have no contol, but deep down, we all sort of know whatthe hell is going on here. SOE is getting paid whether their product is crap or not. If they can do as little amount of work as possible, and still get funding - you're damn right SOE would take advantage of that. So in this sense, they're just as guilty as LA.

The thing is, these things won't change until someone starts suing the hell out of them. What game publishers are doing in the industry is controlling it. In every other market in the world that is "legit", no one has complete control over the stock. It's a gamble. The gaming indutry has absolutely no risk involved, and Publishers know this. The minute they feel like they're about to lose money, they ship the product with no questions asked - period.

Not all Publishers are as bad as some though, so it's not a big deal. Star Wars Galaxies is one that just stands out among all others in this respect. I'm not bent out of shape about it, it's just that what those people went through never should have been aloud on any constitutional level. True, they paid for a service month after month. But how many times did SOE and LA both break promise after promise? This, ladies and gentlemen, is fraud. Had people not already put money on the product, it would be different. True, we can't pove they used that as a bait and switch tactic, but they can't prove they didn't.