New to PC gaming - looking for PC exclusive single player game suggestions

Maklershed

Maklershed

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Well I was thinking about these:

Crysis
Stalker
The Witcher

What else should I consider? And which of those three should I start with?
 
Those are all great choices. I'd start on Crysis before STALKER (since Crysis is shorter), but The Witcher you could probably play at the same time.

I recommend a GameTap subscription, there's tons of stuff to choose from there, both old and recent.
 
Ah, so weird! I just built my first PC and the first games I got were STALKER and Crysis.
STALKER is a little more fun it's like fallout sort of. Crysis looks crazy, but gets repetitive.
 
Alright depends on two things:
1) How old the games you would be willing to play
2) How well your PC can handle new games

Newer stuff:
1) Crysis - not the greatest shooter out there, but nice super soldier abilities (cloaking is fun) with some fun open-world style battles against north koreans. Once you get to the second half with the big "reveal" the game becomes more linear but by that time I didn't mind because the story is actually picking up. This game is a system hog.
2) Half-Life 2 & HL2 episodes 1 & 2, portal. - these are the thinking man's FPS.
3) Oblivion - just type in google "oblivion must have mods" http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Must_Have_Mods careful, you might spend more time modding this game then playing. But it's a good SP game.
4) Fallout 3 - C'mon, this shit was meant for PC.
5) Plants VS Zombies
6) Total War Medieval II - Sure TW: Empire is out, but this game can be found on the cheap and is a great strategy game with large scale real time battles. Nothing like having a couple thousand knights on the screen invading Jerusalem.
7) Bioshock
8) Company of Heroes - good single player campaign with one of those Tom Hanks style story-lines
9) World in Conflict - good single player campaign

Older stuff-
1) Baldur's Gate 2
2) Planescape Torment
3) Diablo II
4) Fallout 2
5) Deus Ex (#1)....invisible wars is alright also.


You didn't mention genre preferences. Whether you can deal with the hanky janky-ness of old games. Or how powerful your computer is.

Those three games:

1) Start with Crysis
2) Stalker - Is a little bit open world with poor in-game instructions. You lack goals until you figure out how you're supposed to play. It will play weirder than most FPS games you've done in the past. Buggy. The whole time I played I always felt like if I sneezed too hard the game wouldbreak.
3) Witcher - is point and click roleplaying with some timing-based combat. When I tried it originally they hadn't patched it and the game had 15 minute load times (no exaggeration). Make sure that game is patched or that you get the enhanced edition.
 
Wow, thanks for the responses everyone. That list will come in very handy Chernobyl.

Well just an update - I bought the Crysis Maximum Edition today. I figured why not .. it was only $30 something and had Crysis, Crysis Warhead, and a Crysis Wars.

Chernobyl, I'm open to a lot of genres but I really like FPS and western RPGs. And I don't care about how old it is. Also, here's the specs of my PC:

HP Pavilion Elite e9150t PC
• Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-920 processor (2.66GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache with QPI Technology)
• 6GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs]
• 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
• 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters]
 
The Witcher is pretty awesome IMO. The American version has been censored for a while, and now they're finally releasing the "Uncensored Director's Cut." Don't wait to buy the new, more expensive version, because you can quite easily just download the uncensored files and apply them for free.

Also, if you like horror games, try the Penumbra series. I just started playing it and hoooooly shit, it's scary as fuck. It's only ten bucks new for the whole series at Best Buy, so if you like the genre and can deal with the not so great graphics, I'd definitely recommend it. Here's the main site (http://www.penumbragame.com/index.php), read some of the story and the little quotes from reviews.
 
If you liked Fallout 3 at all you should check out Deus Ex for a western style FPS/RPG. Pretty much started the genre if you're ignoring the System Shocks. Good conspiracy theory story w/upgrade choices of stealth,pistols,rifles,heavy,melee. It's dated but was a classic back in the day.

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from butcher bay was good on the PC also. I guess you could get the REMAKE and it would be equally pleasing with a whole new campaign.

If you're really bored you can just pick up Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for like $6 bucks and it has a solid campaign. The stories in those are always lacking but the mission design is usually solid. Graphics still look good.

I don't like it but Black & White 2 has its followers.
 
Neverwinter Nights would be my suggestion. That game has a crazy amount of followers and Bioware just put a patch out for it not too long ago. Takes a while to get into though.

Other than that, the suggestions everybody else made are on the ball. Start with those.
 
There are so many wonderful single player games out there for the PC. And since the games rarely age out (typically get better as hardware gets more powerful it's easier to play games at higher settings) Here are some of my favorites in no specific order:

Civilization: There are 4 of them, but you can't go wrong with any of them.
Alpha Centari (very similar to Civilization)
Sim City (any of the series is good except for perhaps societies)
Spore
Sims 3
Dungeon Seige

I know I have more but that's all I can think of at the moment since I'm not at home.
 
I'm going to second a few of Cow's picks because they're so good:

(1) Baldur's Gate II (Like D&D? Have 120 hours to blow? This is your game)
(2) Deus Ex (A little clunky by todays standards but still a great game)
(3) Fallout 2 (Again, very clunky by todays standards but still one of the most open ended games I have ever played... puts the "RP" into "RPG" better than most I've ever played)
(4) Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Made by a lot of same devs who worked on the original Fallout games and it shows. A pretty terrible combat system and older versions were very buggy but it's still a great experience)
 
If you don't have the Orange Box on PC yet, get it. Don't care if you have it on 360...the PC version is so much better. TF2 gets class updates and new weapons, Portal has a large library of custom maps (such as the Flash Version Map Pack), so there's a lot more to be had.

Also look into Evil Genius...it's 10 bucks on Steam, and is a fun evil base/dungeon builder that'll keep one occupied for awhile.

Then there's Painkiller. It's a ridiculously fun FPS that keeps things real simple. It's an FPS from a time when enemies were many, bosses were friggin huge, and plotlines really didn't matter. There's a large, large number of environments you end up finding yourself in, each with a few unique baddies. And the weapons...they're just crazy. One shoots shurikans and lightning...another shoots trees and grenades...your melee tool is a weedwacker on a yoyo.
 
-The Orange Box
-The Battlefield series, maybe BF2(only $10 now) if multiplayer FPS are of interest.
-Command & Conquer: The First Decade
-Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics
-Company of Heroes(on sale on Steam this weekend)
-Rome, Medieval II, or Empire: Total War

Try any RTS really, plenty of choices available for cheap prices.
 
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I know some of them are old but if you've never played PC single player games before you have to play: Aliens vs Predator 2, No One Lives Forever, Unreal Tournament 2004, Dreamfall, Jedi Knight II Jedi Outcast, F.E.A.R., Bioshock, Crysis, and If you are a Star Trek fan Voyager Elite Force. They are some of my favorites and were all great games that were extremely fun to play.
 
[quote name='s2k']Does gametap support 64 bit yet?[/QUOTE]

They're on track to; they made a blog post this last week saying that they hope to within the coming months. From what I understand, supporting 64-bit requires re-encrypting every game that isn't emulated.
 
Exclusive SP games for the PC?

I've heard good things about both Crysis and The Witcher, only having played the former. The supersoldier powers are fun in Crysis, but I heard that the gameplay gets pretty old later on the game. I haven't played The Witcher at all, so I can't really say.\

I second/third/whatever Half Life 2. Yes, it saw a multi-console release, but it's one of the definitive PC games out there, along with Portal and TF2.

I'll also recommend STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl, because it's a beast of a game. It's still buggy in some areas, but I think those bugs add a certain charm to the game. If that's a big downer, I heard that its sequel Clear Skies is a bit more refined and bug-free, but I haven't played it so ymmv.

If you don't mind some free MP game out there, Battlefield Heroes is something I've been playing a lot lately. Doesn't really cost anything, unless you feel like buying a couple pieces of customizable clothing or something.

On the strategy side, I wholly recommend Company of Heroes and World in Conflict. I'm playing through World in Conflict right now, and I have to say that it is one of the better action-strategy games out there right now, along with Company of Heroes (of which is on sale in Steam for pretty cheap).
 
Nevewinter Nights 2, never played the first one but loved the sequel (The stories aren't connected if I'm correct.). Also a lot of people like the Civ IV, so you should also check that out.
 
[quote name='rumarudrathas']
On the strategy side, I wholly recommend Company of Heroes and World in Conflict. I'm playing through World in Conflict right now, and I have to say that it is one of the better action-strategy games out there right now, along with Company of Heroes (of which is on sale in Steam for pretty cheap).[/QUOTE]

Wouldn't you say that the story in those was really good?

Particularly, World in conflict. I found myself really immersed in the voice action, still cutscenes, etc. I beat the whole game and by the end I finally realized how 'dumb' the gameplay is. Pretty much select all units, park them at this waypoint. Explosions ensue.
 
[quote name='ChernobylCow']Wouldn't you say that the story in those was really good?

Particularly, World in conflict. I found myself really immersed in the voice action, still cutscenes, etc. I beat the whole game and by the end I finally realized how 'dumb' the gameplay is. Pretty much select all units, park them at this waypoint. Explosions ensue.[/QUOTE]

Well that's what I find appealing. It's less a strategy game and more an action game. It's mostly about air support choices and a numbers game, unless you're their weakness. Then it's a landslide victory of a fight. The cutscenes and voice acting are all really strong though. Definitely worth the 15 bucks I spent.
 
Oh that's right, I forgot you spend most of your time clicking where the bombs need to drop. Tons of artillery strikes in that game. They look good too :applause:
 
[quote name='ChernobylCow']Wouldn't you say that the story in those was really good?

Particularly, World in conflict. I found myself really immersed in the voice action, still cutscenes, etc. I beat the whole game and by the end I finally realized how 'dumb' the gameplay is. Pretty much select all units, park them at this waypoint. Explosions ensue.[/QUOTE]

Coincidentally, that's the reason why I highly enjoyed World in Conflict: The Story.

That being said, I've heard that the re-release of this game, WiC: Soviet Assault, is said to give you the Russian perspective of things and it does a good job of doing so, while adding a bit more to the story.

I wouldn't say that the gameplay was "dumb", since there is a certain level of refinement needed in order to beat the missions on the harder difficulty settings (but in all honesty, it feels like that I lucked out on passing some of the harder missions).
 
Soviet Assault is rather eh. Most the missions are straight forward pushing from base to base, defending said base etc., haven't beaten it yet though. The story is also hardly interesting. And you have to play as a commie, ewww.
 
i have a copy of half life 2 and episode 1 i can gift on steam. let me know if you want it. i was trying to trade it for a wii VC game, but nobody seems interested. so youre welcome to it, youre also welcome to gift me a game ;)

half life 2 is one of the best pc games ever. period. so its well well worth it.
 
You had the right idea first. Just play Stalker and slap the Stalker Complete 2009 mod on it. It's good for first-time players and it includes the latest fan patch to solve any issues.
 
If you like FPS, would also might want to consider Painkiller. It's been out for a couple of years so you could get it on the cheap. Plus you get to fight 500ft. bosses with flaming wooden stake guns(no joke)!!! Obviously, this game is more "fantasy" and "far fetched" than more tactical FPS like Call of Duty. The graphics are nothing like Crysis, but still pretty good. I really enjoyed this game.

Also, there is a game that you might want to keep an eye out for called Borderlands. It's a FPS/RPG that has a big Mad Max/Fallout environment. The graphics look like graphic novels as opposed to traditional computer graphics. It's supposed to have over one million different weapons to it (again, no joke). This one might be right up your alley. Check out the thread here: http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=231783
 
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