Shall we play a game?

[batskeets]

As I've previously noted, after attending PAX, I came to the conclusion that I'd like to play more games. And I could probably use a few extra excuses to lighten up and take a load off.

So, my lovely gamer friends, here's your chance to steer my gaming boat:
List 5 games that will be released this year, or have been released in the past 3 years (basically, since I stopped doing much gaming), and tell me why I should play them.

A few notes to guide your thinking:
1) I currently have Wii, PS2, and a decent Mac at my disposal. Might consider getting an XBox 360 if I'm properly convinced that there are reallygood games for it. (but I'd rather no if I don't have to)

2) No need to include music-based games like Rock Band or DDR, as I have already played, and will invariably continue to play them at parties or random social gatherings.

3) Games I have become the most addicted to in the past: WoW, The Sims/Sim-City, Civ, RPGs in general

4) I generally suck at first-person shooters, so if my ability to enjoy/beat the game is highly dependent on those skills, please make a note of it.

And... go! :)

Comments

[daemonwise.livejournal.com]

If you do decide to go the 360 route, I have a slew of games you might enjoy and could certainly borrow as needed, especially if you like RPGs. I typically avoid shooters like the plague for the same reason you state, but two of my favorite RPGs - Mass Effect and Fallout 3 - are RPG shooters. My complete suckitude at virtual guns didn't get in the way of me loving those games (I'll have my hands on ME2 very, very soon, in fact).

Also, there's Dragon Age, Oblivion, Overlord, Lost Odyssey, and Fable 2. I also have (We Love) Katamari Damacy for weirdness, and Burnout: Paradise City for catharsis.

(I cannot in any way, shape, or form recommend Oblivion, Fable 2, or Dragon highly enough. Those games are amazing.)

[ghost-girl.livejournal.com]

::dances in her cubicle::

I worked on Oblivion and Fallout 3!! Yay! Yay!

[daemonwise.livejournal.com]

Holy shit! Do you work for Bethesda?!

And did you work on Morrowind?

[ghost-girl.livejournal.com]

Haha, I'm there right now! ;D
I started here 6 and a half years ago doing QA on the Game of the year edition on Morrowind, and then did QA on Tribunal and BloodMoon. I moved up the world artist for Oblivion, and made the town of Cheydinhal. :) For Fallout I did mostly landscapey stuff. If you walked on a road, I put it there, hahah. :D

[monkeyhole.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, I would just like to say thank you and your fellow employees for creating worlds that are beautiful and believable.

[daemonwise.livejournal.com]

I think my head just exploded. You're my new hero.

Morrowind is my favorite video game, ever. Period, bar none, RPG or otherwise (I still need to go back and finish Tribunal, though). And, ha, in Oblivion, I made Cheydinhal my character's base of operations, precisely because I thought it had the best look and design of all the towns. And I'm still playing F3 now (well, not right now, I'd prolly get some funny looks from my boss, but you get the idea).

Wow. Hello!

[skeets.livejournal.com]

Ehehehee! I have the most awesome friends ever. <3

[dawningday.livejournal.com]

Don't know if it falls within your window or whether or not you've played it, but Psychonauts (PS2 or original XBox) was one of the most satisfying games I've played in years. I played the PS2 version and loved it; I've heard the XBox version is better.

[aniline.livejournal.com]

I think the two games I've played the most recently are Civilization Revolution (I will play it on any platform I can) and Animal Crossing City Folk on the Wii. If you get Animal Crossing I can trade fruit with you! heh. :D

I don't use my 360 too much except for a)Netflix and b)The Penny Arcade games. Holy crap are those games great. I'm fairly sure you can play them on your Mac. They also have that revamped Monkey Island game but I haven't played it much since I got it.

I'd really recommend Dragon Age if you get a 360 though. I haven't played it but omgbf is on his second playthrough and the sheer amount of choices you have in the game is really cool.

[ghost-girl.livejournal.com]

In all seriousness, buy an XBox 360. In order to understand modern gaming, I think it's essential to own one. Between all the addictive XBox Live games and the crazy amount of both 360 and original Xbox games you can play, it's totally worth it.
Plus ZOMG Netflix streaming. IT CHANGED MY LIFE.
If you do get one, I'd highly recommend the Penny Arcade episodic downloadable games - there are two so far, and they're really funny and cute, and relatively easy to play. :D
Plus if you want, I can hook you up with Fallout 3, heh.

[veiravx.livejournal.com]

Resident Evil 4 for the Wii is great, but I know it's not for everyone. Being able to use the Wiimote to aim makes it a lot easier than most shooters (it's not a first-person shooter; I can't play those without getting motion sickness). The plot is totally preposterous and the dialogue is typical Capcom gold, but it's a damn pretty game, and lots of fun.

No More Heroes for the Wii is supposedly also great fun. I own it but still haven't gotten around to playing it, so you're welcome to borrow it. Honestly, my Wii is basically only used as a zombie-killing machine, so I don't have a good grasp of what else is out there aside from various RE games and Dead Space: Extraction (which was excellent).

If you get a 360, I can't say enough good things about Mass Effect. It's my newest favorite game and current addiction. It combines the best elements of over-the-shoulder shooters and RPGs. It has a great story, is absolutely gorgeous, and is a lot of fun to play - aside from the sections where you have to explore planets in a truck with the world's worst physics design.

I also can't say enough good things about Dead Space (Nathanael and I liked it so much we wrote a walkthrough), but if you're not a fan of horror, steer clear.

And of course, there's Dragon Age. Great game, but it made me cry. I still haven't forgiven it.

[phasmaphobic.livejournal.com]

Pretty much everything she said.

[skeets.livejournal.com]

Hey, I actually have RE4 for Wii already! Boy got really into it for a while, but I only got a little ways in before I got too busy for it.

[monkeyhole.livejournal.com]

Okay.

For a classic RPG experience that has what I believe to be some of the most enjoyable story "moments" of any video game: Dragon Age Origins.

For a great PS2 game that mostly got overlooked: Odin Sphere.

For a good deal of "pick it up and just have fun", Boom Blox for the Wii, or the sequel, Boom Blox Bash Party.

-- These last 2 rely on having an Xbox 360 --

For a game that will consume you for hours without you realizing, Fallout 3.

For an engrossing but lighthearted RPG experience, Fable II.

These are just the ones I would suggest from the restrictions you mentioned and my (limited) knowledge of your tastes. I own everything I mentioned, plus about a billion more, so you can try anything on the list next time you're here :-)

[dark-knightly.livejournal.com]

i know you said you'd rather not get a 360, but it really is a good system, and has a lot of awesome games. including all the rpg ones that mike mentioned. also awesome for 360: bioshock (which is a shooter game, but i also usually don't like FPS but this game is so pretty and has a good story and not too difficult), assassin's creed (kind of prince of persia-ey with the stealth and the jumping about), and definitely fable 2 and dragon age. also: ARKHAM ASYLUM FUCKYES. i know i'm biased since it's batman, but it's seriously the most fun and awesome looking game i've ever played.

...aside from WoW. which i recently started playing again. spore doesn't have long-term entertainment power, but i enjoyed playing that for a while on my mac. it's cute and especially fun for people who love character creation like i do.

you can borrow any of my wii games, too: lego batman, super mario galaxy, mario kart, super smash brawl, okami, a boy and his blob.

[mrwiz.livejournal.com]

Arkham Horror (epic save the world from horrible monster adventure goodness!)
Ticket to Ride
Saboteur (great for parties)
Archaeology: The Card Game
Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game (only if you love accusing each other of being FRAKKIN TOASTERS, but who doesn't?)

all can be found at www.boardgamegeek.com

oh you wanted video games? ; )

Well, Modern Warfare 2 is awesome but you said you weren't into fps, so I'd go with Torchlight for a cheap, fun diablo-style game, Dragon Age for the epic RPG, Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition for post apocolyptic goodness, and Dwarf Fortress with a fun tileset for your badass strategy freebie.

[mrwiz.livejournal.com]

Schedule a weekly game night and invite 3 or 4 folks over. We do ours on Monday. 3 hours is a good block of time. It's nice to break up the work week with some gaming goodness.

[xplo-eristotle.livejournal.com]

Persona 4. (PS2)

If it were merely a dungeon crawling RPG, it would be nothing special. However, they've married a dungeon crawling RPG with a life sim (you know, the kind where you have to go to school, work at a job, and date girls) and a murder mystery and set it in a small village in modern-day Japan, complete with all the neat cultural touches you'd expect in a Japanese game set in Japan made for Japanese people. The combination is fun, and while the game does drag here and there (and it takes an hour or more of watching the game do its prologue and tutorial thing before it cuts you loose), most of it is holy-crap-where-did-the-day-go engaging.

[skeets.livejournal.com]

Dude, if that is in any way related to Persona 2 (which I suspect it is), I will LOVE IT. XD I can't tell you how many hours I spent playing Persona 2 during college.

[xplo-eristotle.livejournal.com]

Same series. Judging from the P2 article on Wikipedia, P4 is quite a bit different but shares some things in common (as is usual for different games in an RPG series).

[spiralshannon.livejournal.com]

The games I've gotten deeply into in the last year have been Mass Effect, Batman Arkham Asylum (though I haven't finished it - got stuck on a tricky bit), and Dragon Age. As far as upcoming, Sean and I are looking forward to the upcoming sequel for Bioshock (and the Mass Effect and Dragon Age sequels). And if you're in the mood for something lighter, the Sam & Max episodic games are a lot of fun (and apparently available for Wii).

Caveat - we do pretty much all our gaming on PCs... only console we have is a PS2 that is trotted out a couple of times a year to roll up Katamaris or crash cars.

[jupe.livejournal.com]

I /LOVE/ my xbox. So many awesome games for it.

Dragon Age: Origins
Brutal Legend
Castle Crashers
Beautiful Katamari
GTA 4
and so many more. The xbox gets a lot of use in this household.

as for PC, I play city of heroes still. I think I'll always love that game. (or at least the great group of folks I play with)

[lillilah]

If you have any urge to play a board/card game, pick up Race for the Galaxy. It is a fantastic 2-4/5/6 person game (you need the expansions for more than 4 players). There aren't that many games that are good for just two people, and this is one of them.

As for video games, I highly recommend all the recent BioWare games. Everything from Knights of the Old Republic to Jade Empire to Mass Effect and Dragon Age. There is also Assassin's Creed, which is a quite impressive game. If you are going to get only one, get Mass Effect. It is the best RPG out there, IMHO. The shooter-y aspect is not too overwhelming, and this is coming from someone who never ever plays first person shooters.

[monkeyhole.livejournal.com]

I super, SUPER agree with the Race for the Galaxy suggestion. Other than Dominion, it's one of my favorite new-ish tabletop games.

If you want to try it out, Richard owns it (plus expansion). He and Kenna and I play all the time -- you should come join us. In fact, I'll get something set up in the next few weeks, because I've seriously been having an urge to play.

[skeets.livejournal.com]

I am always down to get together for a good board game! Keep me updated :D

[xplo-eristotle.livejournal.com]

A few recommendations from Jessica, all PS2 games:

Okami
God of War and GoW 2

They're not recent by any means - most PS2 games aren't, really - and you may have played them already, but if not, you should. As a bonus, I can let you borrow any of them...