Hi, I'm looking for an above-par simulation game, any will do, any genre.
But please, notify me if it's a complicated game, I'm not very smart.
But please, notify me if it's a complicated game, I'm not very smart.
Good Simulation Game?
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Wow, quite a nice thread. Quite a feat, looking for a not complicated, above par simulation...
I'd go for Live for Speed [www.liveforspeed.net] as it is quite easy to set up and offers quite a hassle free multiplayer component. And it simulates driving, which most people are familiar with.
I'd go for Live for Speed [www.liveforspeed.net] as it is quite easy to set up and offers quite a hassle free multiplayer component. And it simulates driving, which most people are familiar with.
Awesome,! And Hazabaza,by not complicated I mean I don't need four note books and a calculator.
Thanks for the advice.
Thanks for the advice.
If you want a good Space Sim then go for Orbiter (it's free as well). Basically MS Flight Sim IN SPAAAAACE!
Though you wanted to be notified if it's complicated. It's complicated. Better brush up on orbital mechanics because if you want to do anything like dock with a space station, go to the Moon/Mars/wherever, or land in a particular spot then you'd better know how to use the controls and plot trajectories (a calculator and pen and pencil come in handy as well for the bigger missions). Though if it wasn't that hard it wouldn't be a sim.
Though you wanted to be notified if it's complicated. It's complicated. Better brush up on orbital mechanics because if you want to do anything like dock with a space station, go to the Moon/Mars/wherever, or land in a particular spot then you'd better know how to use the controls and plot trajectories (a calculator and pen and pencil come in handy as well for the bigger missions). Though if it wasn't that hard it wouldn't be a sim.
If you're interested in simple sports simulation games, there are a bunch at b1231 [http://www.b1231.com] - baseball, football, basketball, volleyball, horse racing. And if you have questions, I can answer them because I programmed them. Working on a Nascar sim now.
Lock On: Modern Air Combat
tis a bit on the complicated side (a joystick is pretty much mandatory), but fortunately there is a whole training section for you to get used to everything in stages
tis a bit on the complicated side (a joystick is pretty much mandatory), but fortunately there is a whole training section for you to get used to everything in stages
Dwarf Fortress is an excellent management simulator, and ridiculously simple to boot!
trollface.jpg
Seriously though, ArmA II and Microsoft Flight Simulator X are very good choices. That being said, there's all kinds of simulators. Can you narrow down your preferences?
trollface.jpg
Seriously though, ArmA II and Microsoft Flight Simulator X are very good choices. That being said, there's all kinds of simulators. Can you narrow down your preferences?
Well, Dwarf Fortress is the most realistic fantasy-world dwarf colonisation simulator I have ever played...Super Toast said:
Other than that, there's uh... Euro Truck Simulator? Bus Simulator 2? Farming Simulator 2009? Tank truck simulator 2011?
To be honest a lot of the strictly realistic simulators are extremely dull... many of the old "Space-sims" (I assume they count, they have "sim" in the name) are great though. Oolite is community made modern(ish) version of Elite, and it's free to boot, so it might be a good game to try.
Since you're interested in all types of sims, I would assume you have a joystick? If not, I would strongly recommend you get one. Any basic Logitech or equivalent will do.
I'm a big flight/space sim fan, and here's some of my favorites:
Red Baron and Red Baron 3D. They might be older games, but they're still some of the best World War I flight sims out there. Both games have highly customizable difficulty options, allowing you to make it as easy or hard as you want it to be. They also come with a mission editor, allowing you to come up with your own combat scenarios.
Good Old Games offers both games packaged together for $10.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/red_baron_pack
I'd also recommend the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series of games. They're some of the best Star Wars games of all time in my opinion. They can be extremely difficult sometimes though, even with cheats on. Also, it can be hard to find these games nowadays due to their age (and it can be an even bigger headache trying to get them to run on newer versions of Windows). I think they're worth the effort to track down though. Your best bet would be Amazon or Ebay.
EDIT: You also might want to try World of Tanks. It's more of an action game with RPG elements than a sim, but there's a fair degree of depth, strategy and teamwork involved. It's basically a game where you get to fight other players with a number of different tanks ranging from the 1930s to 1950s. You start out with a few weak starter tanks, but over time you'll be able to amass experience points and in-game currency to purchase better vehicles.
The game's free to play, but there are some special bonuses that can only be bought with real world money. It's not a huge advantage though, as the game's more about solid teamwork than individual stats. You can download the game here:
http://www.worldoftanks.com/
I'm a big flight/space sim fan, and here's some of my favorites:
Red Baron and Red Baron 3D. They might be older games, but they're still some of the best World War I flight sims out there. Both games have highly customizable difficulty options, allowing you to make it as easy or hard as you want it to be. They also come with a mission editor, allowing you to come up with your own combat scenarios.
Good Old Games offers both games packaged together for $10.
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/red_baron_pack
I'd also recommend the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series of games. They're some of the best Star Wars games of all time in my opinion. They can be extremely difficult sometimes though, even with cheats on. Also, it can be hard to find these games nowadays due to their age (and it can be an even bigger headache trying to get them to run on newer versions of Windows). I think they're worth the effort to track down though. Your best bet would be Amazon or Ebay.
EDIT: You also might want to try World of Tanks. It's more of an action game with RPG elements than a sim, but there's a fair degree of depth, strategy and teamwork involved. It's basically a game where you get to fight other players with a number of different tanks ranging from the 1930s to 1950s. You start out with a few weak starter tanks, but over time you'll be able to amass experience points and in-game currency to purchase better vehicles.
The game's free to play, but there are some special bonuses that can only be bought with real world money. It's not a huge advantage though, as the game's more about solid teamwork than individual stats. You can download the game here:
http://www.worldoftanks.com/
Any particular TYPE of sim?
This is a bit like asking for a recommendation on A Game Where You Come Into Conflict With One Or More Enemies (within which you find RTSes, FPSes, Beat Em Ups, SHMUPS...)
MS Flight Sim is generally considered the dogs dangles as far as flying a plane around goes, but as far as I can tell it's mostly been gradual graphical tweaks for the last 20 years.
LFS as mentioned is a pretty good racer (good to see it's still going ... never got round to buying the full version and figured I'd missed the boat).
If trucks and the like are more your thing, and you have a reasonably hardcore PC, you could check out Rigs of Rods. ANYTHING with integrated graphics will likely die a horrible, protracted death, bleeding from the gut, mind, and you'll need at least full XGA to read some of the on-dash keybind cheat sheets. Don't trust the start screen if you get 60fps ... add a couple vehicles and go to a tricky bit of terrain and that could well drop. I've been down to 1fps on my laptop; really, below 10fps it all gets utterly pointless, particularly as you can't really join in with multiplayer games properly.
Gran Turismo likes to sell itself as a sim, but the strangest thing is how it pays a shocking amount of attention to some things (the car meshes, things spraypainted on the tarmac at the nurburgring, certain engine samples, suspension settings that even F1 engineers probably tweak according to trial and error, 83 squillion different subtle variations of a dull toyota sedan that was only sold in Japan, and only between 1996 and 1998) but is equally stunningly deficient in others (license test difficulty weighting, operation of rev limiters / manual clutches / LSDs, total lack of "real" automatics, rubbish lighting shaders, using the same engine noise for probably 25 different cars of different cylinder capacities and cylinder numbers or arrangement (a 2-cyl boxer should sound nothing like a V6), speedos/tachos that are massively out of line with the speed/rpm that the car you're driving can actually achieve, near-constant tyre squeals (you know HOW HARD you have to corner/launch/brake to make that happen IRL, even when racing?), next-to-useless dyno graphs, "feel" of the analogue controls vs how the car controls react, inability to get a decent-looking body-coloured wing for a car that actually HAD ONE IN REAL LIFE if you'd ticked the right option box, egregious and gaping holes in the model inventory for anywhere that isn't Japan (I have yet to find a satisfactory - nevermind "exact" - match for any car I've ever DRIVEN, let alone OWNED), stock gear ratios that seem to have come from a guy tripping on acid on the motherfucking MOON... oh yeah and the fact that damage was only finally implemented in GT5 and you STILL can't turn the car over or run very far off the fascistically designated track). I paid for GT4 and 3 quite happily (4 as an "upgraded 3", pretty much - that one was REALLY minging), after losing weeks of my life in 1 and 2... But I can't be bothered any more. Haven't bought 5 (would require a new console anyway), probably never will. May give 6 a look if it ever arrives, but it'll need to fix the leftover stupidities.
So yeah, I wouldn't believe the GT hype. It's an enjoyable enough racing game but it's not so good of a sim.
Other than that .... urrrhm. I'm not really au fait with modern simmy things. I could talk your ear off about things released approximately '85-'95...
This is a bit like asking for a recommendation on A Game Where You Come Into Conflict With One Or More Enemies (within which you find RTSes, FPSes, Beat Em Ups, SHMUPS...)
MS Flight Sim is generally considered the dogs dangles as far as flying a plane around goes, but as far as I can tell it's mostly been gradual graphical tweaks for the last 20 years.
LFS as mentioned is a pretty good racer (good to see it's still going ... never got round to buying the full version and figured I'd missed the boat).
If trucks and the like are more your thing, and you have a reasonably hardcore PC, you could check out Rigs of Rods. ANYTHING with integrated graphics will likely die a horrible, protracted death, bleeding from the gut, mind, and you'll need at least full XGA to read some of the on-dash keybind cheat sheets. Don't trust the start screen if you get 60fps ... add a couple vehicles and go to a tricky bit of terrain and that could well drop. I've been down to 1fps on my laptop; really, below 10fps it all gets utterly pointless, particularly as you can't really join in with multiplayer games properly.
Gran Turismo likes to sell itself as a sim, but the strangest thing is how it pays a shocking amount of attention to some things (the car meshes, things spraypainted on the tarmac at the nurburgring, certain engine samples, suspension settings that even F1 engineers probably tweak according to trial and error, 83 squillion different subtle variations of a dull toyota sedan that was only sold in Japan, and only between 1996 and 1998) but is equally stunningly deficient in others (license test difficulty weighting, operation of rev limiters / manual clutches / LSDs, total lack of "real" automatics, rubbish lighting shaders, using the same engine noise for probably 25 different cars of different cylinder capacities and cylinder numbers or arrangement (a 2-cyl boxer should sound nothing like a V6), speedos/tachos that are massively out of line with the speed/rpm that the car you're driving can actually achieve, near-constant tyre squeals (you know HOW HARD you have to corner/launch/brake to make that happen IRL, even when racing?), next-to-useless dyno graphs, "feel" of the analogue controls vs how the car controls react, inability to get a decent-looking body-coloured wing for a car that actually HAD ONE IN REAL LIFE if you'd ticked the right option box, egregious and gaping holes in the model inventory for anywhere that isn't Japan (I have yet to find a satisfactory - nevermind "exact" - match for any car I've ever DRIVEN, let alone OWNED), stock gear ratios that seem to have come from a guy tripping on acid on the motherfucking MOON... oh yeah and the fact that damage was only finally implemented in GT5 and you STILL can't turn the car over or run very far off the fascistically designated track). I paid for GT4 and 3 quite happily (4 as an "upgraded 3", pretty much - that one was REALLY minging), after losing weeks of my life in 1 and 2... But I can't be bothered any more. Haven't bought 5 (would require a new console anyway), probably never will. May give 6 a look if it ever arrives, but it'll need to fix the leftover stupidities.
So yeah, I wouldn't believe the GT hype. It's an enjoyable enough racing game but it's not so good of a sim.
Other than that .... urrrhm. I'm not really au fait with modern simmy things. I could talk your ear off about things released approximately '85-'95...
Tetris - the best block stacking simulator ever. Yeah, sorry.
If you have friends available, you could go for Artemis, the starship bridge simulator. Optimally played on 4 computers in a single room with a projector. It puts you and your mates in the seats of a ship's command staff, emphasising the importance of effective communication between all of you.
If you have friends available, you could go for Artemis, the starship bridge simulator. Optimally played on 4 computers in a single room with a projector. It puts you and your mates in the seats of a ship's command staff, emphasising the importance of effective communication between all of you.
