This thread has caught my eye owing to the fact that I feel more or less, exactly has the OP does, I also noted lots of good advice and the person who mentions tiredness having an effect on game enjoyment may be onto something, nice theory for sure, I havent really thought about it but after Uni the last few days I am sitting here about sleeping, heres the thing I was enjoying X terran conflict a few days back and now I can be bothered so maybe its the tiredness
To the OP terran conflict is a time sink now yes it does a good job as a trade sim but the fact is x terran conflict has so much more than all other x series games which were quite boring unless u found away to exploit the boring simulator, that may well put you of but the fact is , in terran you can go capturing small mesium ships(i.e stealing) or boaording the top level huge ships after training your marines via sucesful boards of easier ships.
Theres numerous campaigns in it and unlike the older x games where you put your life on the line , spent 3 weeks on some crappy plot sub mission well terran is not like that sure the story isnt epic but you do get good rewards this time so you can be viable very fast and hence enjoying the game without just doing buy low sell high rubbish and calling what is in essencee ecconomics a game for most.
Do you like the old snes games? get a snes or an emulator and put on shadowrun, offcourse you must own the game and not go searching google for shadowrun roms that could be illeagal
another old school set of games I bought of steam was the xcom series
I also bought groteque tactics and for all the good reviews it got at the time i didnt think much of it at all
Then theres "The last remnant" , many of the younger users on the steam forums rage quit at one of the bosses but i really liked that game, some of the bosses required good tactics, the graphiicss were good and there was lots of content but it wwas not bland looking content, the story wasnt bad once it got started (It does start kinda slow)
The combat system took critisism but I also liked it
When I think of more I will post, anyway great thread all, I hope I helped with some of my old and not so old school suggestions
Ow and last but not least, GET WARBAND (as in mount & blade warband) if you havent got it, suffice to say I NEVER buy sequels, ever because I like unique original things but if you played the first mount and blade, remember how having your own empire wasnt feasible? Well it is now and you get lords and become a king, you control and appoint minister of state marshalls and vassals who act independently in your defence but who will do your every whim if you send the command, hell warband has so much added , tbh anyone new to the game I would say just dont buy mount & blade 1 and get warband its just brilliant and has loads more than m&b 1 , additionally theres a great multiplayer mod called crpg which maes mp more like single player, you start as a peasant though and login to a web server m&b map, move about goto shops buy gear and level up through killing in MP (actually the shop thing is strategus , play both these)
also theres a new m&b mod which claims that it makes the game play like single player except you and a friend are on differqant pcs and you can help each other in fights etc via mp having the benefit of a mp game as well. (I havent verified it works but am eager to try it when my friend grets his neew PC
P.S you folks are the best, I just bought Magika
didnt know of that one!