Silliness, but help a fellow out...

[Rabain]

If you like Rome: Total War you will really like Medieval: Total War. I would suggest getting 1 before 2, because while 2 has all the fancy of RTW(and more) 1 does have some features I consider better than 2 and it'll probably be harder to do 1 after 2.

 

I really liked all the Mechwarrior series, Mechwarrior 2:Mercenaries I think even beats out M4:M except for graphics. It's about time for another Mechwarrior game on PC.

[Domi]

I have to say that so far I like KOTOR and NWN2 kind of the same, because NWN2 allows me to recreate the feel of playing with 6 people party (thanks goodness for cheats!) and because KOTOR is a very well crafted game, with a winning dialogue system.

 

So KOTOR1 and NWN2 will be my favs. What I am going to play in my life after IWD2 are KOTOR2 and Dragon Age. I would have tried Jade Empire for PC as well, but there are too many hits against it.

[Gabrielle]

I would also suggest Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. A great game with a lot of replay value. Just make sure you have a Gig of RAM and the latest official patch installed.

[BigRob]

Oh yes, there I was with the shortcut still on my desktop and I forgot all about Vampire the Masquerade. Definitely have a go at that, if you can get hold of a copy. Poor Troika Games. *sniff*

[cirerrek]

I'll add another vote for KOTOR 1.

 

Feel free to skip KOTOR 2. It didn't suck, but just barely.

 

Civ IV is also muy simpatico. Haven't tried the Civ IV expansion, yet.

 

Jade Empire is on a shelf waiting for me to finish NWN2 (I'm close).

 

@berelinde - it has been my experience that any Single Malt Scotch worth drinking is $$$.

 

Or cmorgan, another option on the Scotch front is to come visit me in St. Louis. There is a Scottish restaurant in town, The Scottish Arms, that has a huge selection of single malts scotch and they serve hagis to boot!

[Kulyok]

Feel free to skip KOTOR 2. It didn't suck, but just barely.

 

Yep.

 

If you never tried PS:T... if you *never* tried PS:T... if you never tried *PS:T*... Well, how shall I put it: if you install it, and you're able to get past the screen resolution, in an hour or two the only sound your family and friends will hear from your computer for days will be "Updated my journal". Trust me on this.

[Domi]

I actually looking forward to KOTOR2, because yep, I hate PS:T, and KOTOR2 has one serious advntage over it - you can play a female PC, and I hear that the official character for it is actually a female. So, at least *something* positive about it, unlike PS:T that is just bad, bad, bad the moment you start it. (What, male ONLY?! And an *ugly* male?! No real choices at creation class-wise. Don't forget that stats should be just so too, or you won't get the story at all -why even *bother* with character creation, huh? Horribly boring beginning. Horrible first NPC. Horrible dialogues in the beginning... lost the will to play....)

[SMichelle]

I liked KOTOR 2...well...except for the "ending."

 

Not to spoil anything, but the ending was like if you walked out of a movie theater 15 minutes before the movie actually ended. I remember waiting paitently for the "real" ending even as the credits rolled. (However team gizka looks like they are nearly finished restoring the missing content-that should make it a much better game.)

 

And, I hate to admit it, but I too never finished PS:T.

 

Whenever I play a game I feel compelled to finish as many quests as possible. So, I went into that blasted maze to get some cube NPC, got horribly lost (friends and family can attest, I have NO sense of direction) ran out of bandages and blood to heal myself, got killed by that wizard guy time and time again (sure, I could find him a thousand times, I just couldn't find the blasted NPC I was looking for) and gave up in disgust.

 

I also liked Jade Empire, and I'm in the middle of NWN2. (However, I'm a little nervous because the same company that did KOTOR 2 did NWN2, so I'm afraid that the ending is going to be less than satisfying)

 

Oh, and I loved NWN HoTU. Valen Shadowbreath was the first time I experienced an NPC romance (until that time I had NO idea such a thing was possible-and you never forget your first )

 

*sigh*

 

When will someone write a mod for poor Valen?

[Domi]

However, I'm a little nervous because the same company that did KOTOR 2 did NWN2, so I'm afraid that the ending is going to be less than satisfying.

 

The ending of NWN2-OC is not really an ending because they will release an expansion this fall that takes off right where the OC ended. The expansion is something I *REALLY* am looking forward to because it is set in Rashemen and I always wanted to play in this setting.

[Nythrun]

I'd recommend Morrowind over Oblivion if you'd not played the former - it's the game that got me modding.

 

Appreciating PS:T requires getting past the inital "oh, so I'm a mummified Rastafarian in a Fred Flinstone toga, now?" shock. I think it's worth the effort.

 

If you go into KOTOR2 knowing that Obsidian had to cut much more than they wanted to on account of Lucasarts strong-arming, you're likely to prefer it to the first one - what's there is far less cliched than the first game.

[Domi]

Appreciating PS:T requires getting past the inital "oh, so I'm a mummified Rastafarian in a Fred Flinstone toga, now?" shock. I think it's worth the effort.

 

And dreadful writing. And heavy-handedness. And three hundred other flaws.

[Miloch]

Appreciating PS:T requires getting past the inital "oh, so I'm a mummified Rastafarian in a Fred Flinstone toga, now?" shock.

So... what shock is there to get past?

And dreadful writing. And heavy-handedness. And three hundred other flaws.

Oh, come now. No one actually reads the *text* in RPGs. Haven't you read any forum postings about how people never read any game text... eh, nevermind.

 

Though if the PC being male-only is what keeps you back, why not mod the avatar (or the portrait at least) to a female? It might be weird if the game expects a male PC, but that could probably be changed too. And although I almost always play male PCs in RPGs, it hasn't bothered me in games where I've been forced to play a female PC (like Myst, Longest Journey, Journey to the Center of the Earth, etc.).

 

To the OP: you're not allowed to play any games. You're doomed to mod BG1NPC now and forevermore. And after the post-final epsilon Apocalypse "Release to End All Releases," you will write a half-dryad half-succubus NPC.

 

Re: Scotch - Bunnahabhain is pretty good stuff, and doesn't cost $300 a bottle like Johnny Walker Blue and other blended crap. Highland Park is a rather unusual Orkney single malt. Oban and Glenmorangie are pretty good too.

Civilization III (modded), Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire (unmodded)

Good old Sid, eh. We'll have to swap mods sometime, though I thought I cracked my Civ addiction so I'd like to stay off it (for a little while at least). I was going to shy away from game recommendations, but it seems we have similar tastes, so:

 

Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns

I've recommended this before - great storyline and strategy. Sort of like PS:T/BG meet Civ III, as there's a lot of city/army management as well as roleplaying and questing. There's a couple sequels, at least the second of which is good (I haven't tried the third, but it looks more like NWN than BG). Incidentally, your PC is a male who has to recover his memory in this game, but in the sequel you play his evil wife who's out to get him.

 

Lord of the Rings (Interplay)

Basically Tolkien meets Baldur's Gate, or Ultima VII at least. It has its flaws like any game but it's somewhat true to the author without being anal or a three-ring circus. I actually started modding for it a while back; maybe I'll pick it up again someday. You can probably get it cheaper in an anthology. They did a second one (Two Towers) but either started to go belly-up or got into a license dispute before the third.

 

Siege of Avalon

A bargain gem that must've suffered from horrible advertising - I think you can even get it open source these days, since the company went belly-up. It drags a bit a bit toward the end and you have a somewhat limited PC selection (fighter, scout or mage - all of whom IIRC are male) but it has specialised quests and a great storyline. Its interface is quite like BG, as others have commented.

 

I could go on but eh, I'll stop at three for now.

[cmorgan]

[igor:Hunchback of Notre Dame imitation] "The bells, master, the bells...." [/igor:Hunchback of Notre Dame imitation]

[Domi]

Though if the PC being male-only is what keeps you back, why not mod the avatar (or the portrait at least) to a female? It might be weird if the game expects a male PC, but that could probably be changed too.

 

I actually tried it, but re-writing 800+ files for the sake of PS:T... nah, I picked another project to entertain me. Honestly, I don't like PS:T, and it's not just the fact that it is unexplicably tied into a male protagonist only. I have major problems with writing in PS:T and a whole lot of other issues.

[theacefes]

I tried PS:T and honestly I just found it boring...I don't know, maybe it was partially due to the fact that everything was so poorly lit that I couldn't see a thing.

 

Oblivion may not be the ideal party game, but if you just want to take a moment and look at the prettiness of it, I'd say it's worth it. The different viewpoints you can use (1st and 3rd) are nice, though I would HIGHLY recommend getting an Xbox PC controller that hooks up via USB, otherwise horseback riding will be hell. (ended up riding My Painthorse off a cliff and killing it).

 

And...I don't know if this makes a huge difference for you or not, but it does when I play: the soundtrack and voicing. The voiceovers were pretty nice and the music was amazing. I personally can really get into a game if it has good music. NWN was cool, but 10 years from now I won't remember what the music sounded like. BGII however...I don't think I'll ever forget that. Same with the Elder Scrolls theme.

 

I haven't tried NWN2 yet, and I refuse to buy it. I've seen the screenshots and previews and there's nothing groundbreaking about it that can justify the system requirements being so high.