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[JimboM12]

I want a PC game that I can start and stop and start again without too much difficulty. RPG elements are fine but without grinding. A compelling story that's narrative driven without repetitive randomly generated content. Nice graphics are a must, voice acting is preferred over text. Single player only, not multiplayer online. Genre isn't too important, but no Sim/4X/RTS/Sports/Casual games. Action/Adventure/RPG would be nice. Action would be least preferred since they're most likely to require player skill development to overcome harder challenges.

If youre into stealthy rpgs, i could recommend Alpha Protocol. Its not grindy, its easily broken with most char builds and its story is strong if youre the type to learn all the players in the 'game' of international espionage. Its single player and most of its bugs can be fixed with some tweaks from pcgamingwiki.

Sorry for the quality of typing, on my phone.

[Sappho]

I'm assuming that "I can start and stop without much difficulty" means short play sessions are possible? I'm not sure if I can think of one game that encompasses all you are asking for (for example, story-driven tends to be non-skill-based or require long play sessions, and short play sessions usually means casual, at least in my experience) but off the top of my head, you could try...

Grow Home / Grow Up (Sort of casual but you definitely develop skill with the controls and it has a nice story)
Botanicula, Machinarium, Samorost (Point and click adventure, beautiful, no text, great stories, not skill-based other than solving puzzles)
One Finger Death Punch (Basically no story but very immersive, skill definitely develops over time in very noticeable ways)
BattleBlock Theater (Platformer, shortish levels, skill-based, great story)
Spelunky (Not much story and has random content, but I think the random content doesn't get stale, and it otherwise fits the bill)

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Asked this three years ago, hope for new answers. My girlfriend and I want a co-op PC RPG. An MMO is ok but it needs to be heavy on secrets, puzzles, environmental interaction.

To further refine:
* We liked DDO, and are almost finished with Divinity: Original Sin.
* We played GW2 which I liked but she didn't; she felt like it was all pointless outdoor walkabouts and little to no dungeoneering.
* A sci-fi thing could be good but she prefers fantasy.
* I need to think about whether I want to get her into NWN 1 or NWN 2. They're a bit slow-paced, especially with backtracking through empty areas with a cripplingly slow walk speed. You almost have to play a Monk to keep from going insane.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

RPGs:

Torchlight 2: Super duper fun as all heck to play with peeps. Moderate story, but interesting locales and you get to feel more and more like a badass.

Baldurs Gate/ Neverwinters/ etc. etc. -- Honestly? Even newer lovesongs to the genre like Pillars of Eternity tend to be incredibly boring. The plots tend to come off more hokey than original for me. If she felt like GW2 was pointless outdoor walking, well... I would recommend keeping her mostly away from the cRPG genre.

Pulsar: Lost Colony -- more like Captain Kirk Simulator 2017 than RPG, but could be fun together! More people == more fun.

Castle Crashers -- Roaringly good fun, and despite a bit of classic Newgrounds trolling at the end--a surprisingly compelling, if simple plot line that'll push you to finish the game. Try other The Behemoth games too.

Borderlands -- Eh, mileage WILL vary. An okay series of game.

MMOs:

The Secret World? I haven't played, but I hear it's highly original for its genre--still an MMO, so take that with a grain of salt.

TOR--great storylines and even though its stock MMO combat, its fun as heck to play, if just because you get invested in the characters. I recommend playing the Bounty Hunter storyline together.

Guild Wars 1??? Story is rather engaging and fun to play with friends. Pacing is faster too. If you can convince her that is.

[Ultimuh]

RPGs:

Borderlands -- Eh, mileage WILL vary. An okay series of game.

Eh.. I would call it an FPS with RPG elements.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

That's fair. Just trying to think of fun co-op stuff mostly

[CABL]

Many people recommend skipping first Borderlands and going straight for the second. I personally really like Borderlands 2 (and enjoyed the 1st game) and think it's one of the finest sequels, but it's sometimes insanely grindy. It's also hard as hell if you play alone.

Damn, already want to re-install it.

[Megawott06]

I have a question everyone.

Which game should I get? Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas?

Edit: All dlc included of course

[Sappho]

I have a question everyone.

Which game should I get? Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas?

Edit: All dlc included of course

Are you trying to start a riot? There's a big debate over which is better. To my knowledge, the general opinion is that if you liked the original Fallout games, New Vegas is better, but if you didn't like them, Fallout 3 is better. There is no "objectively better" game between the two, though many people will ferociously declare one or the other superior. Really seems to depend on the type of game you prefer.

[Megawott06]

I have a question everyone.

Which game should I get? Fallout 3 or Fallout: New Vegas?

Edit: All dlc included of course

Are you trying to start a riot? There's a big debate over which is better. To my knowledge, the general opinion is that if you liked the original Fallout games, New Vegas is better, but if you didn't like them, Fallout 3 is better. There is no "objectively better" game between the two, though many people will ferociously declare one or the other superior. Really seems to depend on the type of game you prefer.

Well, the only Fallout game I have played before is Fallout 4, and from how things look and reading some reviews on some sites I'm starting to think that New Vegas might be the better option for me.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

F:NV is possibly the more polished of the two games, but FO3 is the trendsetter. Aint no feelin' more intense than the first time you step out of that vault. I mean, FO3 tends to get a lot of hate for its story--but it's actually pretty good, and if you're gonna get ALL the DLC, it's turns into a much larger game even though it's already pretty massive.

And imo, FO3 is "new", it's fresh, and original and everywhere you go, everyone you meet feels new. F:NV felt very much like I had seen it already, whether because of the old Fallouts or because of FO3 I don't know.

If your starting point is FO4, FO3 may feel a little worn to you, but there's a lot of storylines that cross over and generally they're fairly thematically similar. F:NV might be more original to you--especially if you've never played the original Fallouts.

In short, they're both good.

[itisnotlogical]

I mean, FO3 tends to get a lot of hate for its story--but it's actually pretty good,

I'm genuinely really curious, what's your reasoning? Because I thought FO3's story wasn't even as good as Skyrim's.


For my own two cents, I intensely dislike Fallout 3 and love New Vegas to pieces.

It's hard to put my finger on why, but FO3 feels like a really expensive tech demo, like each element had no more thought put into it after the first pass. The world of FO3 was created to be a sci-fi world for a video game. Every basic attempt to give pathos to the proceedings just makes it seem shallower, because that effort isn't consistent across the entire game. I could talk about specific moments but that's SPOILERS.

New Vegas just tries harder, in my opinion. It begins with mystery upon mystery and slowly teases you with every bit of the world. Each faction you can side with (including no faction) makes a compelling case for itself, leaving you to gather the facts and choose. The repercussions of past events are seen all over the game, like the capture of HELIOS and past events at Hoover Dam. The DLC takes this even further, as many events mentioned in the base game are elaborated on and tied up in the DLC. Fallout 3 feels like nothing happened, nothing existed before you installed the game and made a character.

Spoiler: Minor spoiler to illustrate my point (click to show/hide)

Veronica has two threads that you can't deal with in the base game, Father Elijah and her old girlfriend from the California BoS. Guess who you meet in Dead Money? (Although the latter is only hinted at and you can't talk about it with Veronica, it's pretty obvious that Christine is Veronica's old flame. You get more closure with Elijah since he's more important.)

Although it wasn't agony to play FO3, if it were one or the other I'd pick NV every time. FO3 is mechanically identical to NV in any way that matters, so if story alone won't convince you either way, go ahead and start with FO3.

[Krevsin]

FO3's biggest problem (after from the bigger story ones) is the lack of any real structuring to the world. The world is structured in such a way that you can go anywhere at any time and thanks to level scaling, nothing will really threaten you (the only exception I can think of is Old Olney where there's just a bunch of Deathclaws all over the place). Because of this mentality of being able to go anywhere, none of the places in the wasteland seem to really have any connection to each other. None of the towns seem to communicate, everything is wrapped up in its own little self-contained location that as a result doesn't really seem to have any impact on the rest of the world. There are a few exceptions to this but they are few and far between. As a result, the world feels less like a world and more like an amusement park, where you can go anywhere you want and have fun at the various attractions, but the attractions don't ever really interact with one another to give it a "this is a genuine world where people live" vibe.

Not to mention that the level scaling actually undermines a lot of the world-building that has been set in place by the game. The ruins of DC are supposed to be this incredibly dangerous place to explore, with super mutants and raiders and the BoS duking it out and anyone caught in the crossfire gets quickly chewed up and spat out unless they are a tough-as-nails veteran of the wastes. However if you go there at a low level, you will mostly be facing lower level enemies and all the challenge just kind of evaporates and the stories of how messed up the DC ruins are just start provoking an eye-rolling response from the player.

Lastly, there really just isn't a lot of space for role-playing in Fallout 3. Oh sure, there's more than in Fallout 4 with a much greater variety of possible responses in dialogue, but as far as choices and consequences go, they are inevitably all written as a choice between being a genocidal maniac asshole with a penchant for burning children and nuking towns for no reason whatsoever or a stalwart protector of the wastes who shits rainbows and camaraderie. You don't really get much actual choice that meaningfully impacts the world in any real way. Yes, you can erase one of the cities in the game from the map but that doesn't really affect anything outside them. Hell, the longest and most developed quest in that city survives the nuke and allows you to continue it with no repercussions apart from the radio DJ making aggressive quips.

Fallout 3 is best approached in a way you'd approach an amusement park. You go into it and have fun on the rides without expecting the staff to give you a concise history of the Spinning Cups and their tumultuous relationships with the neighboring Log Ride. Any time they try to do that (and boy does Fallout 3 try to do that in its main story) it's best to just roll your eyes and nod along until you are free to roam the grounds again.

Fallout New Vegas on the other hand is a much more traditional RPG experience in its world and story design and should be approached as such. Fallout New Vegas isn't just more of Fallout 3 and vice versa. They are very different games, despite sharing an engine and (broadly) the same overarching world.

[itisnotlogical]

Where does Prison Architect fall on the scale from "strategy game" to "simulation?" From what I've seen of it in let's plays and the Pet Peeves thread, it seems to bill itself as a "simulation" but has tons of linear scripted story-based campaign scenarios with little freedom, like the XCOM tutorial but if that were every single mission. Specifically in the Peeves thread, I remember somebody mentioning a riot with weapons that should have been impossible to get in their prison, yet magically appeared anyway.

[JimboM12]

Where does Prison Architect fall on the scale from "strategy game" to "simulation?" From what I've seen of it in let's plays and the Pet Peeves thread, it seems to bill itself as a "simulation" but has tons of linear scripted story-based campaign scenarios with little freedom, like the XCOM tutorial but if that were every single mission. Specifically in the Peeves thread, I remember somebody mentioning a riot with weapons that should have been impossible to get in their prison, yet magically appeared anyway.

I want to say stronger on the simulation part but strategy comes into it if you manually manage your guards in emergencies (ideally you should never have to do this). Events can be turned off and it turns into a solid sandbox, but there are campaign scenarios to do, if you want.

It's actually modeled how contraband and weapons are generated and circulated through the prison. Perhaps whoever was ranting isn't as paranoid as me; if you have normal security or above, you need to take extra, extra precautions cuz somtimes they're smarter than you think. You need to have metal detectors and dogs patrolling all major thoroughfares to passively clean up most contraband and you also have to remember to double door air lock your armory and guard rooms and assign a guard there to constantly keep watch and set these rooms as completely off-limits using the restrictions tab. Get a narrow, 2 tile passage with detectors as a chokepoint for the cell block with guards assigned to patrol a small block of space around these detectors. You'll get so many catches, make a lot of solitary cells.

I usually play with gangs on and they're usually more aggressive but the 1 gang leader I have is constantly suppressed for attempting to smuggle improvised weapons from the canteen, so he's no threat, can't recruit and also all the major gang claimable turf is guarded. I have mostly normal sec but some high sec prisoners and I have never even got close to a riot except those times a snitch or ex-cop gets transferred and everyone kills him. Snitches ain't welcome here.