Recommend me a good PC RPG that's not top down

[Taxman1]

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura;

You sir deserve a cookie for reminding me about that game. It takes a bit of setup though.

 

[gorfias]

Basically I hit a brick wall lately. My gaming PC is out of reach and I lost my copy of Diablo 2. I thought maybe the kind and helpful people at the Escapist can help me out here. I need something long and satisfying so RPGs should do the trick but I have a disorder with old school PC games like Baldurs Gate ( I can't play anything past the 2002 era or my PC will scream and shout at me.) I always get the feeling of being lost and not having the ability to continue on. It doesn't necessarily have to be a RPG as I'm up for anything to kill boredom
PC specs:
Ram:384MB
Processor:Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 400 64mb

Sacred and Dungeon Siege should work fine. You should be able to get copies of these relatively old games cheap.

 

[Taxman1]

Seems like everyone is narrowed down to most of the RPGs, anyone know of some realistic shooters? I'm a huge sucker for those.

 

[MouseFlight]

Try the Ys series. I bet you can run all of them on your computer.

 

[lacktheknack]

Dragon Age just use the close up angle, its better in my opinion.

You think that will run on his specs? That's cute.

OT: Geneforge and Avernum. Both pulished by Spiderweb Software, have freaking massive demos, and almost no one has heard of them.

Plus, creating you own mini army of telepathic squid is awesome (Geneforge).

 

[lacktheknack]

Daggerfall (freeware, I think)

YES. GO WITH THIS ONE.

 

[Casimir_Effect]

RPGs that aren't top-down and will run on your system... that's a tricky one. KOTOR and Jade Empire might work. I saw mentions of The Witcher, Oblivion and Bloodlines and I doubt any of them would run. You could look into Arx Fatalis. I own it, but have never played it. Can be found on Steam and gog.com for cheap. Older Elder Scrolls games - such as Daggerfall (freeware, I think) - will be an option. If you don't mind something like Diablo then check out Torchlight as well.

Non RPG games, look up Starlancer for a great space combat game (probably hard to find though). Adventure games will be your friend as they're pretty low spec, so I'd say to check out The Longest Journey. Impulse has an offer on Total Annihilation this weekend which is always a classic RTS. And speaking of classic RTS, various Command and Conquer games are freeware available on the EA website. For lots of things that will almost certainly run, I highly recommend you check out Good Old Games,

Do you know which Command and Conquer I should start with? I was always curious about the series.

Tricky. I recommend you pick up all 3 on offer here http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic so that ultimately you can decide for yourself, but otherwise I'd say to start with Red Alert. C&C: Tiberium Dawn (the very first game) is basically the first game ever to be in what we now think of as standard the RTS mold (Dune 2 had many similar elements but can be considered as more of a Beta to the genre, as opposed to a final form). But, because it's the first game it has some issues, such as balance/difficulty. Red Alert is a lot nicer to play. Not necessarily easier, just fairer. C&C had no qualms with being an absolute dick to you at every opportunity.

BUT as you can see, they are all free and pretty small downloads. So fuck it, go for all of them. Personally, my favourite of the series is Red Alert 2, which isn't freeware yet (then again I haven't played C&C 3/4 and Red Alert 3). Of the 3 free ones, I like Red Alert and Tiberium Sun equally.

For realistic shooters, you could try Max Payne.

 

[feather240]

Obliven or morrowind if your PC can run that.

...or Nehrim if you have Oblivion.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Your setup looks to be marginally better than my old Celeron D + Intel on-board graphics set-up, so I know a lot of games that would run.

I second Morrowind, give it another try. Gold standard for non-isometric RPGs.
KOTOR is brilliant but it might not run.
Freelancer is a must and it will most definitely run.
And since we've left RPGs, get Thief 2 as that game is an absolute classic.
The 2005 remake of Sid Meier's Pirates mayyyyy run.
If you're willing to look at FPSs, then Halo and NOLF will work, but the must-play game of that era is still the first Call of Duty.
OH, and for some serious fun: Jedi Knight series. I think even the last one, Jedi Academy, will run.

 

[SulfuricDonut]

Neverwinter Nights.
It's made by Bioware so you know it's gonna be good.

EDIT: By the looks of your computer you might have to run it on pretty low settings though.

 

[Taxman1]

Your setup looks to be marginally better than my old Celeron D + Intel on-board graphics set-up, so I know a lot of games that would run.

I second Morrowind, give it another try. Gold standard for non-isometric RPGs.
KOTOR is brilliant but it might not run.
Freelancer is a must and it will most definitely run.
And since we've left RPGs, get Thief 2 as that game is an absolute classic.
The 2005 remake of Sid Meier's Pirates mayyyyy run.
If you're willing to look at FPSs, then Halo and NOLF will work, but the must-play game of that era is still the first Call of Duty.
OH, and for some serious fun: Jedi Knight series. I think even the last one, Jedi Academy, will run.

Do you think I would have to play the original Thief in order to understand Thief 2?

 

[Hawgh]

Might and Magic, one through eight-ish?
Wizardry, same.
Freelancer, Morrowind, KOTOR, NWN(I think you can move the camera to a third person perspective)

 

[Dirty Apple]

I'd throw out StoneKeep as a possibility. It's a mid-nineties first person RPG that I enjoyed quite a bit as a kid.

Here's some game info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonekeep

And, some game footage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee7ZwlUPynQ

It's a bit dated for sure, but it should run fairly well on an older machine.

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

Do you think I would have to play the original Thief in order to understand Thief 2?

Nope. Well, I didn't play the first one.

Damn, I'm forgetting a lot of games here... Had that set up from 2001-2007.

Oh yeah, another good shooter would be XIII.

NWN is interesting but I never got past the second act. Just got really stale. Personally, I think it's Bioware's weakest game ever. I hear it was just a platform for user-created content and the single-player story was therefore less well developed.

 

[Serenegoose]

Has anybody mentioned VTM: Bloodlines, yet? If not, why not?

 

[Vern]

In addition to the ones mentioned here, I'd say try playing Sanitarium, and The Dark Eye. Two games I've really been meaning to play through again, Sanitarium is a top down adventure game, not really an RPG, but it does have some very limited combat. It's mainly an exploration game played through the head of an insane asylum patient. The Dark Eye is a first person game based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, in the Myst vein, it requires clicking to move and is based mainly around puzzles and cut scenes. Both are older, and should work fine on your computer. OS would be handy to know though, if it's 98, ME, or 2000 both should work fine out of the box, if it's XP you might have to do some tinkering with compatibility modes to get it running.

 

[Taxman1]

Do you think I would have to play the original Thief in order to understand Thief 2?

Nope. Well, I didn't play the first one.

Damn, I'm forgetting a lot of games here... Had that set up from 2001-2007.

Oh yeah, another good shooter would be XIII.

NWN is interesting but I never got past the second act. Just got really stale. Personally, I think it's Bioware's weakest game ever. I hear it was just a platform for user-created content and the single-player story was therefore less well developed.

Hmm...Do you think CoD2 would run? I don't mind a little lag only if it's huge and unplayable.

 

[Taxman1]

In addition to the ones mentioned here, I'd say try playing Sanitarium, and The Dark Eye. Two games I've really been meaning to play through again, Sanitarium is a top down adventure game, not really an RPG, but it does have some very limited combat. It's mainly an exploration game played through the head of an insane asylum patient. The Dark Eye is a first person game based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe, in the Myst vein, it requires clicking to move and is based mainly around puzzles and cut scenes. Both are older, and should work fine on your computer. OS would be handy to know though, if it's 98, ME, or 2000 both should work fine out of the box, if it's XP you might have to do some tinkering with compatibility modes to get it running.

Oh sorry, completely forgot to post my operating system (XP).