Great games you've been playing/played!

[Tnx]

I'm just wondering what games have drawn you in for awhile and that you would recommend to others..

I'm playing Dominions 3, Unreal World (Planning to buy the 3 dollar version)
A game I used to play that was pretty fun was Notrium, that was alot of good time spent.

[Silfir]

I just checked out the Dominions 3 demo... Seems like it could be called Fantasy: Total war instead. Pretty cool though.

I'd like to name a game series that I played a lot in my childhood (starting from 1993, I completed my first around 2002), kept playing throughout the years, and of which I only completed the last part last year (2007). It's a German 2D Action-Adventure series called "The Game of ROBOT", or just ROBOT. It consisted of the parts I to IV and the "ROBOT Junior" part, a freeware ROBOT game that was a lot shorter than the other parts and supposed to show off what ROBOT is all about. The first part was created 1988, with the last part being produced in 1992. The game was developed by only two, later three guys, making it an indie title by today's standards.

The "action" part of the game were the repeated battles with the robots that gave the game its name. They followed extremely simple walking patterns ("Move and kill") and would willingly walk into electric fences (a common object in the game that is lethal to anything that enters it) if you were behind it, which was your main way of defeating them until you found the slingshot and ammunition for it - though they could be killed in other ways, some of which required pretty enormous skill in controlling your "hero" (some guy representing you who did not receive a name until the last part). The "adventure" part was the exploration of the environment, the solving of puzzles and the wise use of the many, many items you found during the games - acid flasks that could destroy certain kinds of walls, magnets that could influence "arrow tiles", garlic to repel the various robots for a short time, blue overalls to push electric fences around, even letters to write out magic spells with...

The games were mostly entirely non-linear - you could explore the levels and the story (told mainly through the setting, Robot III and IV featured EXCELLENT settings, involving and mysterious) in any way you wanted, and subsequently spent HOURS just searching for clues how to advance, and then more hours solving the puzzles...

There was an english version once, but sadly I think it's been discontinued, and today's versions are fully German. Still, the Games of ROBOT deserve a mention, because these are extremly obscure, but also extremely well-done games I still love to play to this day even though I know them in and out.

[mdrew93]

I like Heroes of Might and Magic ii and iii. i haven't tried any of the newer ones yet. I also like Age of Empires. I have I and II but III wont run on my ancient computer.

[Silfir]

No loss. The third part sucks...

[Shadow_2014]

Heroes V is pretty much Heroes III with 3D graphics. I thuroughly enjoy it, but it won't run on my god(s) forsaken Dell.

[Subconscious]

Lately I have been playing mostly Chess, Heroes of M&M V, Adom and such.

Chess is wonderfull game if you get inside the all neat techniques in it, Im bit disapointed how people refer to chess as boring or nerdy. I play chess almost all the time. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

HoMM V is a game I play occassionally. Sometimes you feel like "omg gotta play HoMM asap!! asdasdasd" and all the rest time you feel you wouldnt touch it even with a stick. Its pretty addictive but you cant play it very long at the time.
BTW get Tribes of The East exp. - Gives lots of new tactical units etc.

Well Adom is Adom and Zlatan is Zlatan. Cant describe better but Adom is the perfect RPG at the moment.

[Grey]

I've always thought of ADOM as being like a very big chess game... At least in intense situations it feels like that, sitting and planning carefully your moves and strategies. Whenever friends ask me how I could play such a boring looking game I always say it's a lot like more complex chess.

[Silfir]

Chess doesn't fuck around with you - it says "Here are your pieces. You won't get more, and your opponent, who has the exact same pieces and setup, sure as hell isn't goint to let you transform one easily. Neither of you can run or hide, or fool around. Watch every move of your opponent closely, think over every move you make, devise cunning, foolproof plans, and achieve victory using only your superior intellect and your nerves of steel."

ADOM says "Here are your character and your items, good luck improving. You never know what will lurk behind the next corner (or, indeed, above or below you) - it could be good, it could be bad. Prepare for everything. Hide and run if things look bad. And don't be too pissed if I just seriously fuck up your shit from time to time - that's how I roll."

In the end, you can't compare one of the best multiplayer games ever devised in the history of mankind with one of the best freeware singleplayer games and expect to really be able to come to a conclusion.

[Grey]

True, very true, but people think you're silly if you say that a game that looks like ADOM has deep tactical thought involved. Comparing it to chess (in terms of some of the thought processes required) is a simple way of explaining the fun from the game. Like all analogies it fails utterly under serious scrutiny.

[Silfir]

It takes three things to love ADOM: You must like RPGs and turn-based strategy, and you must have the patience needed to overcome the extremely steep learning curve. (AND you have to be pretty fluent in English...)

Slightly off-topic: I'm currently in the process of writing an ADOM tutorial that explains, at the very least, the most basic controls of the game step-by-step, and adds a couple of basic strategy lessons. I plan to put it up at some point, so you can see (or test out for yourself, there's people you haven't tried to introduce ADOM to for sure) whether it's helpful.

EDIT: And let's not forget the graphics. I swear, I've barely kept myself from strangling some people that got all "Those graphics are pretty shitty, aren't they?" on me. Some people don't seem to be able to look beyond the surface...