New PC gamer here! I would love some recommendations (and friends!)

[ToastiestZombie]

Snip

Yeah I admit, I worded that wrong. I was meant to say PCs overall were better because you aren't limited to one control method. But, sometimes when a game has really bad keyboard controls AND no gamepad support then I just want to hit something, it reeks of bad port. Most of the Lego games are like this, good thing I've only bought one for PC.

Captcha: I want control. How relevant.

Very true. Though that's a weakness of the developer.
I personally prefer the ps3 controller plugged into the PC for sidescrollers though. much better dpad.

really odd how relevent the captchas are these days.... mine is Level Playing Field.....



Edit: BTW op, you're going to get a tonne of recommendations for older games that take a little bit more effort to get into that the current bunch of brown shooters.
such as Morrowind vs Skyrim.

On that note I seriously recommend Morrowind. unless you don't like reading, at which point I say, what are you doing here?
Muhahaha.

Just found out that all the Lego games have Xbox controller support, and now I shall get a few more of them on the PC! Also, I guess I'm the only one who finds using a stick for platformers is better than a dpad, I just find it more accurate. But personal preference I guess.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

'Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion' was just released. You might want to give it a shot. It's an awesome space real-time strategy game.

I played a bit of Metro 2033 on the 360 and just couldn't get into it. I don't know why... I'll retry that one.

Don't bother. If you didn't like it on a console, chances are you won't like it on PC either. It's not one of those games that you have to experience on a specific gaming system. I am a PC gamer. I played it on PC and I didn't like it one bit. I don't really know what people see in that game.

 

[Irridium]

Hands down, a can't miss PC game is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Spoiler

Cool. Looks very interesting. Although I'm a little worried about how scary it might be. I nearly shat myself playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

Well, there's the haunted house... but other than that it's not really scary.

Anyway, not sure what you like, so I'll just recommend what I have. Here's my recommendations:

All Valve games
STALKER series
Witcher 2 [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2]
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 (with restoration patch)
EYE Divine Cybermancy
Total War series (I suggest Rome: Total War and Shogun 2 Total War: Fall of the Samurai. Best ones of the series. Or at least my favorites of the series)
Civilization Alpha Centauri [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/sid_meiers_alpha_centauri]
Civilization V
Deus Ex [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/deus_ex]
Anachronox [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/anachronox]
Mount and Blade Warband
Second Sight [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/second_sight]
Serious Sam HD series
Battlefield 2
Sins of a Solar Empire series
Galactic Civilizations series
MDK2 [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/mdk_2]
ONI
Planescape: Torment [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/planescape_torment]
Fallout [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/fallout] and Fallout 2 [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/fallout_2]
Freespace 2 [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/freespace_2]

Most you can find on GoG or Steam. The ones that are on GoG I linked to. Only games that aren't distibuted digitally are ONI and Knights of the Old Republic 2. Which is a shame, since they're damn fine games. You can find them on Amazon, but they're not exactly cheap. Well, ONI isn't. Not sure about KOTOR 2.

Apart from that, browse around. GoG [http://www.gog.com/] is a great place to look at older titles, and they have some newer ones as well. All DRM-free, packed with goodies, and optimized to run on modern operating systems (vista, XP, Windows 7). For newer games, there's Steam.

 

[KILRbuny]

snip

Added you on Steam!

snip!

Added you too. On Borderlands, I didn't purchase the game on steam. I haven't played the MP on it yet but I'm not sure if that messes anything up

 

[teh_gunslinger]

Hi.

I'll just add my list of games that are worth playing:



STALKER
Dead Island
Hitman Bloodmoney
Mafia
Mount & Blade (Warband is probably the best choice)
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
X-Com
The Blackwell series
Gemini Rue
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Arma 2 + Operation Arrowhead
Dear Esther
SpaceChem (seriously, play this!)
Uplink
Freedom Force
Sim City 4
Silent Hunter 3+4
Men of War (best RTS made)
Crusader Kings 2
Europa Universalis 3
Hearts of Iron 3
Digital - A love story
Galactic Civilizations 2


And a ton more.

 

[Victim of Progress]

Bleh...Sanctum, such a waste of my money. If you want a good tower defence-like game, try Dungeon Defenders.(Edit: I wanted to reply to you, Signa. But I failed, as usual...)

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

Hands down, a can't miss PC game is Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Spoiler

Cool. Looks very interesting. Although I'm a little worried about how scary it might be. I nearly shat myself playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

It's horror-themed, but it's not a horror game. It has some scary portions, but it's mostly just a dark RPG.

If you can get it running, it's a must play. It's buggy, and it IS unfinished, but what's there is absolutely fantastic. [Edit: DO NOT play as Malkavian! Very fun one to play as, but you'll be confused as all hell using one on your first playthrough XD)

It's not really a 'can't miss' game, but I'd recommend Blacklight Retribution while you're hunting around. Basically plays like CoD with deeper customization and a cyberpunk twist. And it's free. So it's worth a look at least if you want something multiplayer in the meantime.

 

[TrevHead]

The games by Relic Entertainment is a good place to start for strategy games, I highly suggest you check out Homeworld.

When playing classic PC games its worth checking out what mods might be available for its even if its just to update the game so it looks newer.

If you like retro / indie games theres a crazy amount on the PC. From emulation of older systems including Japanese classics that never saw English localisations and have been fan translated like the Langrisser / Warsong series

Theres MAME an arcade emulator. If you are too young for the arcades it might be worth checking it out just to see what the fuss was about.

If you like retro Japanese genres, check out Doujin, some have been localised like Cave Story, Recettear and the Exceed Series, many of the best doujins you have to dig around for but its worth doing if you like 2D platformers like Megaman & Castlevania. Its also a good place to get into the shmup genre as they tend to be easier than arcade shmups.

For doujins the Japanese cutesy artstyle is king, however don't let that fool you into thinking they dont have any gameplay. Imothe best doujins are better than their western Indie counterparts in their resective genres. Sturgeon's law applies however with both doujin and western fangames.

For indie Platformers play VVVVV, Dustforce, Noitu Love 2 & Gun Girl 2, Jamestown is a good noob shmup

Also make sure you grab Xpadder or Joy2key so you can map keyboard buttons to your pad

 

[The Pinray]

snip

Added you on Steam!

snip!

Added you too. On Borderlands, I didn't purchase the game on steam. I haven't played the MP on it yet but I'm not sure if that messes anything up

I'm pretty sure that as long as we both have the same patch version it shouldn't matter if it's steam or non-steam.

 

[nu1mlock]

I was going to write a big list of maybe 60 games out of my 180-ish Steam library, but I'm too tired and need some sleep.

Instead, I'll just point out that if you're going to buy a lot of games that are on Steam you might want to wait about two weeks for their summer sale. There will be shitloads of sales on pretty much every game on Steam.

Might come back tomorrow to finish that list though.

 

[Jinjer]

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but Giants: Citizen Kabuto is definitely worth checking out

http://www.gog.com/gamecard/giants_citizen_kabuto

 

[Nouw]

Can't go wrong with Relic's strategy games like Dawn of War, Company of Heroes and Homeworld.

 

[Blights]

League of Legends.

I mean, yeah, it gets bad rep for its community, but if you get a group of friends together, it's great fun. Plus, it's probably the most forgiving DoTA game out right now, and I don't care what anyone says, Riot loves their community as much as Bungie, they just have a more difficult crowd to deal with. I'd even have a game with you if you end up on EU West servers, same as forum name, so just add that.

Bloodline Champions is a small little arena game, it requires a fair bit of skill to play, but is pretty basic. It's mostly 3v3, though you can go to 5v5 game modes.

That's all I have at the moment that hasn't been mentioned. Buy Guild Wars 2 if you're looking for an MMO to play, from the betas I've been in, it's pretty amazing.

 

[Sooint]

Welcome to the wonderful world of PC gaming! I'm pretty sure most of my recommendations have already been mentioned above, but I'll put them here anyway.

Role-playing Games
Deus Ex
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
Dragon Age: Origins
Guild Wars
Neverwinter Nights
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
TES 3: Morrowind
TES 4: Oblivion

Shooters
Doom series
Duke Nukem 3D
Half-Life series
Hard Reset
Painkiller
Quake series
Serious Sam
Star Wars: Jedi Knight series

Indie
Bastion
Binding of Isaac
LIMBO
Minecraft
Super Meat Boy
a bunch of others that I can't remember

Multiplayer (All free to play, with the exception of Guild Wars, and WoW past lvl 20)
Blacklight: Retribution
Guild Wars
League of Legends
Quake Live
Team Fortress 2
Tribes: Ascend
World of Warcraft
Xonotic

I also recommend checking out the Humble Bundle and any games that have been in previous Humble Bundles. I've listed quite a few of them in the Indie section, so you should start there. Also, I'll send you a friend request on Steam. (name should be Saint, Sooint, or a similar variation)

Edit: Just noticed I listed Guild Wars twice. Derp. Oh well, it really is a great game IMO

 

[dfphetteplace]

Make sure you grab TF2 from Steam! It is free and tons of fun! Also, Skyrim, Portal 2, and the Half Life series.

 

[KILRbuny]

Thanks for so many recommendations! I'm currently neck-deep in diablo iii and loving every second. I just got skyrim, fallout 3: goty, preordered torchlight ii (got torchlight free!) and lone survivor. I'm bookmarking this thread to come back and pick up some of the other recommendations from you guys. I really appreciate them! Love the community here! Please keep them coming

 

[lacktheknack]

OT: start with Dwarf fortress. Its really Fun, and its different every time you start a new..... hey.... why is everyone looking at me like that.....

Ok DONT start with dwarf fortress....

Yeah, don't. Dwarf Fortress is what your years of PC gaming slowly lead up to. You MUST try it, once you've played everything else.

OT: Get "The Binding of Isaac" and pretty much anything off of gog.com. Also, install Dwarf Fortress somewhere and keep an eye on it until you're ready to play.