Topic: PC Gaming

Yes. I mean...where else would they go?

Well that's annoying for people who don't check their emails very regularly... why can't we have a notification system on the actual website so we can them? Not thrown into your email? How hard can that possibly be?

A lot harder than it would be for you to check your emails, or skim the threads you've posted in to see if anyone replied...

@3dcaleb First thin you must do: get Steam. The sales are amazing and it's just a must in-general for anyone who wants to game on PC.
These games may not work the best with a controller, but they're definitally worth it.
Mount & Blade: Warband - A medieval sandbox game. You make you're own story, as there literally is no path set for you to follow. It's unique in that it's not fantasy, a fictional setting, but all mostly feasible in real medieval times. In the game, you gather men that you lead into battle. Great combat mechanics. I've played it for over a 100 hours.

Civilization V - A great stategy game, if you haven't heard of it, you lead you're own civilization from the beginning of time to modern times. A must-have for PC gaming.

Orcs Must Die! series - A mix of tower-defense and action. It's very-well done and I've had a lot of fun with it.

Lastly, find yourself a real-time strategy game. I've always liked the Age of Empires series myself. 2 or 3 are both pretty good games. If you've never played an RTS though, I'd start with the HD version of AoE2 on Steam.

I've never found a "nice" PC gaming community... yet. Most of them are full of PC Master Race and consoles are for peasants kind of children. The best sort of community that is centralized around PC gaming would be Steam imo.

You can use an Xbox 360 and Xbox One controller on the PC, thankfully Windows gives you the drivers for them for it to work out of the box. You may need to download the Xbox One driver from their website before the Xbone controller. I would say though, if you're going to be doing any online multiplayer (such as CoD), I would suggest learning the keyboard and mouse controls, dual stick is not going to help you out here.

Most of the games on PC are multi-platform. Steam has plenty of PC only titles such as Survarium, The Forest, DayZ, Age of Empires series and lots more if you can be bothered digging for them.

@CanisWolfred Usually I don't have a huge amount of time to skim through every single thred I've posted in to see if I have replies, same goes with my email, it's probably buried in unread emails by now and I don't want to be sifting through that monster any time soon.

@3dcaleb: I'm assuming you never played most PC classics, so I'll include them in this list of exclusives I recommend :
Deus Ex, The Witcher, System Shock 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, Dear Esther, Tiny & Big In Grandpa's Leftovers, Alone In The Dark (ok, it's DOS, technically not PC), Civilization V, Crysis, the Deponia series, Call of Juarez, the GTA series (not an exclusive, but a completely different experience from consoles if you're into mods), The Banner Saga

@3dcaleb HALF LIFE
one of the best games ever made

PS: i am still freaking addicted to skyrim

@3dcaleb: I recommend keeping a constant eye on the Humble Bundle. It's a good way to get a lot of good games for cheap. If a few games in the bundle interest you, or even just one, buy it.

You'll probably want to set up an account on Steam, as it is the largest client for PC gaming. Let me know what genres of game you like best and I'll give some recommendations, and maybe some free (I have a bunch of steam keys lying around). As @SomeBitTripFan said though - definitely make a Humble account and watch their site. They have some amazing game bundles.

So, I was able to convince my dad to let me get Skyrim with mod that removed non-scripted decapitations. I absolutely love it so far. I can drfinitally say it's one of the best games I've ever played. It's just breathtaking. It feels like your in your own fantasy novel, with the quality of The Lord of the Rings, and the scale of all three books plus The Hobbit put into one. I'm playing a dual-weilding stealth-character. I haven't even gotten mods or DLC yet. Oh man. I've 100s of hours ahead of me.

thanks everybody. i got steam already. i downloaded a ton of demos to see what i liked. but so far only a couple of them were good. im definitely getting mass effect 1 and 2, plus theyre on sale and they seem like my type of game, plus geometry wars, just cause its cheaper than psn and would look better on my screen than the tv. i dont think i really like mmo's, but im going to try star wars and star trek online for free and see if i can get into it. plus a few of the cheap fps that are on sale.

nice, that would be awesome, i like alot of types of games but my favorites are probably, FPS, retro, horror, sci-fi, racing, and anything that has guns, gore or zombies.

Some recommendations:

• Based on your sig, I'd definitely recommend the Ys series. They're really fast-paced action RPGs with rockin' music. You don't really need to play them in order, and they have quite a few of them on Steam.
• The Last Remnant is a squad-forming-tactical-turn-based-strategy-I-don't-even-RPG by Square. It's basically a SaGa game without the SaGa name, so it's very love-it/hate-it. It's cheap and is much improved over the 360 version. I liked it a lot, but YMMV.
• Star Wars Battlefront II is $3 right now, so just go buy it.

Since you're new to Steam... brace your wallet. Summer approaches. Sales... Sales like you wouldn't believe. Hundreds of games... 50% off. 66%. 80%. 90%. There will be no shortage of interesting games. In the words of one famous sword-wielding leader of mercenaries: Prepare yourself.

It's not "top of the line", but http://www.gog.com/ has awesome classic gaming selections you can't find anywhere else, DRM-free. Right now, Rogue Squadron 3D is on sale, and plays great with a gamepad. I'll also recommend Rayman Legends and Left 4 Dead on steam.

Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 both have splitscreen offline and online co-op (online with 2 other non-local players in addition to your 2 local splitscreen players) multiplayer with two gamepads. It does take a bit of setup yourself, but the process is easy and detailed here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=745113 .

Sonic and Sega all-stars has a Mariokart-style kart racer that's pretty good with a joytick, and I'll throw Sonic Generations a recommendation as well (I loved it with a gamepad).

If you're willing to try some mouse/keyboard games, I'd go play some MMOs or strategy games that you can't have on consoles. SWTOR has 240 hours of voice-acted story (imperial agent is quite possibly Bioware's best writing ever), Try the link in my signature to get some free starting items as well. DDO has a nice dungeon-crawling fantasy feel. Both are free (though some classes and race options will be locked). GW2 is a one-time purchase that could keep you playing for literally months of time in game. WoW has more content than any other game I know, but also a monthly subscription fee.

On the RTS side, I'd try the demos for any of the Age of Empires series. Medieval 2: Total War has a pretty epic campaign map, and in my opinion is the pinnacle of the series. DOTA II is free, and among the most challenging cooperative games ever.

cant wait for my first steam summer sale. already got skyrim for ridiculous 3,75€ or so a few days ago. what a steal

cool i will check out gog.com. but in general im not into mmo's, rts and turn based games are boring to me unless i already like the characters. what i like are FPS, not RTS.

Based on this, definitely grab the Half-Life series. It fits into the bolded elements pretty solidly, but also incorporates some of those other elements in some way. The first game isn't exactly "retro", but it's an old (1998) PC game. The second game has two lengthy vehicle sections (I find them fun, but many don't think that they hold up) and there is some gore (depends on how you define it, some blood and cutting enemies in two, mostly with Headcrab Zombies). But it sounds like those games are completely suited to you.

I'd go with left 4 dead from steam, then. It's a zombie co-op FPS, and can be played splitscreen on one PC with two gamepads. A lot of FPS's don't play as well with a gamepad as with a mouse/keyboard on PC....I'd put L4D as an exception. They have the full 360 support in their build. If you wait for the steam summer sale (usually late june early july), you can usually pick this up digitally for $5 on steam.

Splitscreen setup guide:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=745113 .

For mouse-and keyboard FPS games:
MoH:AA and Battlefield 2142 are my my go-to FPS games. MoH:AA is older, but the shooting mechanics just feel right with a mouse and keyboard. Battlefield 2142 has this awesome Titan multiplayer mode, with nothing else quite like it. These floating air-craft carrier sci-fi ships are shielded, and you play a normal battlefield conquest round to lower their shields. Once the shields are down, you catapault yourself in a star-wars-like escape pod onto the enemy hull and blow up 6 reactors as a team while the others try to defend them long enough for their team to down your shield in the conquest-style battle. When all enemy reactors are down, you can blow up the enemy ship from the inside to win, then race to parachute off the floating carrier before it explodes. The conquest battle continues below, and if neither team can sabotage a ship than that can decide the victory after 10-15 minutes. It's a lot of fun.
Neither of those will work with a gamepad by default, though. Xpadder would be your best bet if you really can't stand the mouse/keyboard - it emulates mouse movement, buttons, and key-presses on your gamepad, but can take some fiddling with sensitivity options to get right.

Maybe Mass Effect 3 or Planetside 2 as well? ME3 has a pretty polished horde-style multiplayer mode, and Planetside 2 is the only FPS MMO to write home about. I believe both have gamepad support.

I'm looking for a way of getting a handheld PC due to the large variety of small form factor Windows tablets out there. While there is a lot of 7" and 8" tablets out there, I can't seem to find any sort of grip that acts as a controller for playing games. I'm looking for something like this.

http://assets.razerzone.com/eeimages/products/7373/rzr_edge_c...

I don't want this hpwever, because the Razer Edge tablet is too expensive, not sold in the UK and it only accommodates the Razer Edge which is quite a bulky 10" tablet. I am looking for a device like the grip but for a smaller form factor tablet. (possibly a universal sort of grip)

Does anyone have any ideas? I can't find anything else like this on the internet at all.

I haven't seen anything like that. I just use a PS3 controller (bluetooth) and put the tablet down.