What PC Game to get Next?

gstelmack · 02-09-2007, 12:09 PM

I'm getting ready to pick up another PC game, but I'm a bit stuck on which one to pick up. I'd love some advice from anyone playing these right now. All of these are games in genres I like, but I'd like opinions from any who are playing. Key system specs (in case one of these is a real hog):

3GHz P4 w/ Hyperthreading
2GB RAM
128MB Nvidia 6600GT AGP
Windows Vista Home Premium (as of this weekend)

The video card has me a bit nervous for Company of Heroes as they recommend a 256 MB 6800 or better. Otherwise I might really be interested in a good WWII RTS. I have played every other game in the Total War series, and I had a blast with Total Annihilation many years ago.

I really only have time for one of these right now, hence the indecision. I'll probably pick up one of the others in a few months unless something else sweeps me away.

Eaglesfan27 · 02-09-2007, 12:17 PM

I voted for Medieval 2 because I have gotten over 30 hours of enjoyment out of it already. Although on the medium difficulty level, the game is a bit easy to beat. Also, the total realism mod is coming along nicely and I think that will take the game to the next level. However, I have to admit that I haven't played any of the other choices.

Edit to add: I love timing a good flanking calvary attack just right with a charge from either side. I also have had a blast with my Culvern and other cannons once I've discovered gun powder.

If you like RPG's, I'd highly recommend Neverwinter Nights 2.

spleen1015 · 02-09-2007, 12:22 PM

Supreme Commander looks awesome. That's my vote. If I wasn't just starting the WoW craze, I would be playing this.

MizzouRah · 02-09-2007, 12:33 PM

I've read Company of Heroes is a great game.

gstelmack · 02-09-2007, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I've read Company of Heroes is a great game.

My problem is that I've read that they are all great games.

I probably should have made this poll "which one should I NOT get?". Might have been interesting to get the negative reactions. And I wish I had the money and time to just buy all 3.

Antmeister · 02-09-2007, 12:57 PM

Damn, I haven't played any of those games.

MizzouRah · 02-09-2007, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstelmack

My problem is that I've read that they are all great games.

I probably should have made this poll "which one should I NOT get?". Might have been interesting to get the negative reactions. And I wish I had the money and time to just buy all 3.

I've just seen some folks at another forum call it their game of the year, but I understand what you mean.

gstelmack · 02-09-2007, 01:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I've just seen some folks at another forum call it their game of the year, but I understand what you mean.

The concern I've got is what I stated in the first post: my video card is a notch below their "Recommended" system. Anyone playing it with something similar and want to comment on their experience?

Pumpy Tudors · 02-09-2007, 02:00 PM

My video card is only a 128MB, and I bought Company of Heroes a few months ago.

Then again, I haven't even opened the box yet, so I can't be of much help. I hope to hear encouraging things about it. Maybe I'll get around to opening it and playing it.

Flasch186 · 02-09-2007, 02:07 PM

spore

spleen1015 · 02-09-2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flasch186

spore

I don't think he wants to wait 6 months.

SirFozzie · 02-09-2007, 02:22 PM

I'd pick up EU3

moriarty · 02-09-2007, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstelmack

The concern I've got is what I stated in the first post: my video card is a notch below their "Recommended" system. Anyone playing it with something similar and want to comment on their experience?

I'm running COH on laptop with a mobile radeon 9600/9700 which I believe is a 128. I have to turn down a few settings and the level loadings are slow but it plays fine (and great game BTW if you're not burned out on WWII or RTS games).

Best bet though is to download the demo which goes through the training scenarios and I think a mission or two to get a sense of gameplay as well as determine if it will run on your computer.

BigDPW · 02-09-2007, 03:05 PM

Recently bought Medieval 2 Total War about 2 weeks ago and it has sucked me in like no PC game has in years (short of CM/FM). Granted this is my first Total War game but I am really impressed. You really have to fight off the one more turn syndrome in order to get some sleep with this game. Sorry I don't have a more detailed review of it for you but I have not seen any problems that stick out myself.

Eaglesfan27 · 02-09-2007, 03:10 PM

One other comment on Medieval 2 Total War which may or may not be a positive. My wife doesn't play these types of games at all. Rather, I should say, she didn't play these type of games at all. Medieval 2 on easy level (both battles and campaign map) has completely sucked her in and she has played it even more than I have.

Surtt · 02-09-2007, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

I've read Company of Heroes is a great game.

I didn't dislike the game, but it never really grabbed me.

I think part of the problem was using historical weapons and bastardizing them to build a RTS.
I would haver liked it better if it was set in a fantasy world.

Yellow5 · 02-09-2007, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I voted for Medieval 2 because I have gotten over 30 hours of enjoyment out of it already.

Same here. This is one that I fire up every weekend and think that I'll play for an hour... then I look at the clock and it's been 4 hours. I love this game.

Tasan · 02-09-2007, 07:53 PM

I played Company of Heroes from start to finish on my laptop that only has a gforce 6150, so don't let that hold you back there.

Greyroofoo · 02-09-2007, 09:48 PM

If you don't mind a slightly older game, I've been having a blast playing through Direct Action: Act of War. It can be found for as little as $10 and will run better than any of the other games on your list.

DaddyTorgo · 02-09-2007, 09:52 PM

COH and M:TW II are both games I have gotten my money's worth out of. although i admit i havn't dug into M:TW II yet (waiting for the realism patch)

fjvieane · 02-10-2007, 09:25 AM

I have played the heck out of CoH and enjoyed every minute of it. I also play it on my laptop but it is better than my Dell XPS so I cant compare to your settings.

Edward64 · 02-10-2007, 09:32 AM

I've been wanting to play CoH.

Unfortunately, I have a 8/5 yr old son/daughter that sometimes would look over my shoulder (ex. SM Pirates) and don't think I could justify the profanities and visual.

If there was a patch (anyone?) that toned CoH, I would be over it.

In the meantime, just bought GalCivII Gold. Just getting into it ...

gstelmack · 02-10-2007, 12:13 PM

Hmmm, this is going to be a hard decision. And this thread is doing a good job of keeping it muddied. Too many good PC games for once ;-)

gstelmack · 02-14-2007, 09:01 AM

Well, Company of Heroes has taken itself out of the running. Let me give you an example of how NOT to make a demo.

My experience with the Company of Heroes demo goes as follows:

Start the download of the 1.75GB demo Monday night. It'll take 4 hours, so off to bed.
Tuesday morning, see the download has finished. Start the install. Off to work, since this is going to take a while.
Tuesday evening, go to play demo. Can't find it anywhere on the hard drive.
Start demo installer again, this time watching what happens.
15 minutes later, 1.75GB archive has extracted and is actually starting the installer.
20 minutes later, installer appears to be wrapping up.
Installer attempts to run game (with no option for me).
Game crashes before I see a thing.
Because running the game is part of the installer, this means the install fails.
Because the install fails, it cleans itself up, so it's as if nothing ever happened.

Now, at this point, I'm pretty sure the crash is my fault. I'm still using the default Vista drivers for my 6600GT and the onboard SoundMax sound (I got rid of the Audigy card thanks to the lack of stable drivers). This is the first 3D game I've tried, so I'm all up for trying the NVidia beta drivers and double-checking the SoundMax setup (reports are you want to be in stereo mode as the 5.1 is unstable). However, there is no way I'm going to do that, and then go back to #4 and wait 40 minutes to see if step 7 actually works this time.

Now if the installer would complete before running the game so all I have to do is keep trying to rerun the game, I'd be all over this. But with two other strong possibilities, there's no way I'm wasting potentially a couple of hours more figuring out what I need to do to my system to get this game running, especially since it's specifically tagged as a Vista-compatible game.

So I'm down to Medieval vs Supreme Commander. I'll check my system, then grab their demos to see if either one runs.

Dawgfan1980 · 02-14-2007, 04:07 PM

I've got to say I'm hooked on Europa Universalis III, just because I enjoy being Scotland and taking part of Africa and other lovely lands. It is a fun game, and if you are familiar with other Paradox titles, it is their best work to date.

moriarty · 02-14-2007, 08:38 PM

Paraworld is on sale at Best Buy for $9.99. I haven't picked it up yet but it's a RTS dinosaur setting game. Bill Abner (or one of those blog guys) raves about it.

EagleFan · 02-14-2007, 09:57 PM

Where's the obligatory Maximum Football response?.... I guess that would be the trout response...

Markus Heinsohn · 02-15-2007, 07:29 AM

OOTP 2007 of course

gstelmack · 02-15-2007, 10:37 AM

Well, interestingly enough Company of Heroes was not fully uninstalled by that last failure. No shortcuts anywhere, but I was able to try and run it out of the folder directly.

And it failed because it could not find d3dx9_30.dll. With a 1.75GB download, I figure they thought they needed to save the 1MB or so it would have taken to include dxwebsetup.exe to make sure that D3DX was installed...

And there is no Maximum Football response because I figured the odds of it being Vista compatible were roughly comparable to the odds I'd get reasonable stats out of a simmed game. I figure Vista would throw off the QB accuracy...

gstelmack · 02-17-2007, 12:02 PM

The Supreme Commander demo ran V E R Y S L O W on my box. Company of Heroes seemed okay, so I guess my system is just not cut out for Supreme Commander. On to the Medieval Total War II demo...

twothree · 02-17-2007, 01:13 PM

Voted other. After reading your experiences with the demos, I would suggest buying a new video card. Probably not what you want to hear, as then you probably can't afford a new game.

gstelmack · 02-17-2007, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twothree

Voted other. After reading your experiences with the demos, I would suggest buying a new video card. Probably not what you want to hear, as then you probably can't afford a new game.

Actually, after everything else we've done with the tax money (new computer for wife, 1GB + Vista for mine, computer desk for my daughter who is getting the hand-me-down, etc), we've still got $200 left. It's a tossup right now between buying a 7600GT AGP (still stuck with AGP) or an Earthmate BT-20 GPS for my Axim handheld for all the travelling we do. We've been thinking about the GPS for quite some time, but on the other hand the 6600GT AGP is starting to get a bit long in the tooth.

And no lectures on spending the tax money instead of saving it: my situation right now is such that an accurate W-4 is impossible, and we've been VERY good about spending on the kids for the last couple of years and trying to keep up our savings, so this was our one splurge on us in like the last 3 years...

gstelmack · 02-22-2007, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twothree

Voted other. After reading your experiences with the demos, I would suggest buying a new video card. Probably not what you want to hear, as then you probably can't afford a new game.

For the curious, this is the route I finally decided on. Made too much sense, and I'll be grabbing both Medieval 2 Total War and Company of Heroes over the next couple of months. In the meantime I'll mess around with some of my older games and my 360 games.

I ended up buying the XFX 7600GT AGP card from New Egg. $175 with a $30 rebate for a total of $145. Installed it last night and it's running great.

Eaglesfan27 · 02-22-2007, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gstelmack

For the curious, this is the route I finally decided on. Made too much sense, and I'll be grabbing both Medieval 2 Total War and Company of Heroes over the next couple of months. In the meantime I'll mess around with some of my older games and my 360 games.

I ended up buying the XFX 7600GT AGP card from New Egg. $175 with a $30 rebate for a total of $145. Installed it last night and it's running great.

Nice. I'm still enjoying Medieval 2, despite winning my first game as England on the medium level. I'm now playing on the Hard Difficulty Level and starting as Portugal which doesn't have an enviable starting position.

View Poll Results: Which game should Greg buy?
Medieval Total War II	13	27.66%
Supreme Commander	7	14.89%
Company of Heroes	10	21.28%
Other (please specify)	6	12.77%
Trout Fishing 2007	11	23.40%
Voters: 47. You may not vote on this poll

02-09-2007, 12:17 PM	#2
Eaglesfan27 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: New Jersey	I voted for Medieval 2 because I have gotten over 30 hours of enjoyment out of it already. Although on the medium difficulty level, the game is a bit easy to beat. Also, the total realism mod is coming along nicely and I think that will take the game to the next level. However, I have to admit that I haven't played any of the other choices. Edit to add: I love timing a good flanking calvary attack just right with a charge from either side. I also have had a blast with my Culvern and other cannons once I've discovered gun powder. If you like RPG's, I'd highly recommend Neverwinter Nights 2. __________________ Retired GM of the eNFL 2007 Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles (19-0 record.) GM of the WOOF 2006 Doggie Bowl Champion Atlantic City Gamblers. GM of the IHOF 2019 and 2022 IHOF Bowl Champion Asheville Axemen. Last edited by Eaglesfan27 : 02-09-2007 at 12:19 PM.

02-09-2007, 12:57 PM	#6
Antmeister Pro Starter Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: At the corner of Beat Street and Electric Avenue	Damn, I haven't played any of those games. __________________ "I'm ready to bury the hatchet, but don't fuck with me" - Schmidty "Box me once, shame on Skydog. Box me twice. Shame on me. Box me 3 times, just fucking ban my ass...." - stevew

02-09-2007, 02:00 PM	#9
Pumpy Tudors Bounty Hunter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Pittsburgh, PA	My video card is only a 128MB, and I bought Company of Heroes a few months ago. Then again, I haven't even opened the box yet, so I can't be of much help. I hope to hear encouraging things about it. Maybe I'll get around to opening it and playing it. __________________ No, I am not Batman, and I will not repair your food processor.

02-09-2007, 02:07 PM	#10
Flasch186 Coordinator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Jacksonville, FL	spore __________________ Jacksonville-florida-homes-for-sale Putting a New Spin on Real Estate! ----------------------------------------------------------- Commissioner of the USFL USFL

02-09-2007, 12:22 PM	#3
spleen1015 Coordinator Join Date: Sep 2003	Supreme Commander looks awesome. That's my vote. If I wasn't just starting the WoW craze, I would be playing this.

02-09-2007, 12:33 PM	#4
MizzouRah Hall Of Famer Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Troy, Mo	I've read Company of Heroes is a great game.

02-09-2007, 02:22 PM	#12
SirFozzie Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: The State of Insanity	I'd pick up EU3 __________________ Check out Foz's New Video Game Site, An 8-bit Mind in an 8GB world! http://an8bitmind.com

02-09-2007, 03:05 PM	#14
BigDPW College Prospect Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Raleigh, NC	Recently bought Medieval 2 Total War about 2 weeks ago and it has sucked me in like no PC game has in years (short of CM/FM). Granted this is my first Total War game but I am really impressed. You really have to fight off the one more turn syndrome in order to get some sleep with this game. Sorry I don't have a more detailed review of it for you but I have not seen any problems that stick out myself.

02-09-2007, 03:10 PM	#15
Eaglesfan27 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: New Jersey	One other comment on Medieval 2 Total War which may or may not be a positive. My wife doesn't play these types of games at all. Rather, I should say, she didn't play these type of games at all. Medieval 2 on easy level (both battles and campaign map) has completely sucked her in and she has played it even more than I have. __________________ Retired GM of the eNFL 2007 Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles (19-0 record.) GM of the WOOF 2006 Doggie Bowl Champion Atlantic City Gamblers. GM of the IHOF 2019 and 2022 IHOF Bowl Champion Asheville Axemen.

02-09-2007, 07:53 PM	#18
Tasan College Starter Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: Houston, or there about	I played Company of Heroes from start to finish on my laptop that only has a gforce 6150, so don't let that hold you back there. __________________ 2011 Golden Scribes winner for best Interactive Dynasty

02-09-2007, 09:48 PM	#19
Greyroofoo Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Alabama	If you don't mind a slightly older game, I've been having a blast playing through Direct Action: Act of War. It can be found for as little as $10 and will run better than any of the other games on your list.

02-09-2007, 09:52 PM	#20
DaddyTorgo Hall Of Famer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Massachusetts	COH and M:TW II are both games I have gotten my money's worth out of. although i admit i havn't dug into M:TW II yet (waiting for the realism patch)

02-10-2007, 09:25 AM	#21
fjvieane Mascot Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: California	I have played the heck out of CoH and enjoyed every minute of it. I also play it on my laptop but it is better than my Dell XPS so I cant compare to your settings.

02-10-2007, 09:32 AM	#22
Edward64 General Manager Join Date: Oct 2005	I've been wanting to play CoH. Unfortunately, I have a 8/5 yr old son/daughter that sometimes would look over my shoulder (ex. SM Pirates) and don't think I could justify the profanities and visual. If there was a patch (anyone?) that toned CoH, I would be over it. In the meantime, just bought GalCivII Gold. Just getting into it ...

02-10-2007, 12:13 PM	#23
gstelmack Pro Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Cary, NC	Hmmm, this is going to be a hard decision. And this thread is doing a good job of keeping it muddied. Too many good PC games for once ;-) __________________ -- Greg -- Author of various FOF utilities

02-14-2007, 09:01 AM	#24
gstelmack Pro Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Cary, NC	Well, Company of Heroes has taken itself out of the running. Let me give you an example of how NOT to make a demo. My experience with the Company of Heroes demo goes as follows: Start the download of the 1.75GB demo Monday night. It'll take 4 hours, so off to bed. Tuesday morning, see the download has finished. Start the install. Off to work, since this is going to take a while. Tuesday evening, go to play demo. Can't find it anywhere on the hard drive. Start demo installer again, this time watching what happens. 15 minutes later, 1.75GB archive has extracted and is actually starting the installer. 20 minutes later, installer appears to be wrapping up. Installer attempts to run game (with no option for me). Game crashes before I see a thing. Because running the game is part of the installer, this means the install fails. Because the install fails, it cleans itself up, so it's as if nothing ever happened. Now, at this point, I'm pretty sure the crash is my fault. I'm still using the default Vista drivers for my 6600GT and the onboard SoundMax sound (I got rid of the Audigy card thanks to the lack of stable drivers). This is the first 3D game I've tried, so I'm all up for trying the NVidia beta drivers and double-checking the SoundMax setup (reports are you want to be in stereo mode as the 5.1 is unstable). However, there is no way I'm going to do that, and then go back to #4 and wait 40 minutes to see if step 7 actually works this time. Now if the installer would complete before running the game so all I have to do is keep trying to rerun the game, I'd be all over this. But with two other strong possibilities, there's no way I'm wasting potentially a couple of hours more figuring out what I need to do to my system to get this game running, especially since it's specifically tagged as a Vista-compatible game. So I'm down to Medieval vs Supreme Commander. I'll check my system, then grab their demos to see if either one runs. __________________ -- Greg -- Author of various FOF utilities

02-14-2007, 04:07 PM	#25
Dawgfan1980 H.S. Freshman Team Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Seattle, WA	I've got to say I'm hooked on Europa Universalis III, just because I enjoy being Scotland and taking part of Africa and other lovely lands. It is a fun game, and if you are familiar with other Paradox titles, it is their best work to date. __________________ I still have nothing witty to say at the moment

02-14-2007, 08:38 PM	#26
moriarty College Starter Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: A negative place	Paraworld is on sale at Best Buy for $9.99. I haven't picked it up yet but it's a RTS dinosaur setting game. Bill Abner (or one of those blog guys) raves about it.

02-14-2007, 09:57 PM	#27
EagleFan Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Mays Landing, NJ USA	Where's the obligatory Maximum Football response?.... I guess that would be the trout response...

02-15-2007, 07:29 AM	#28
Markus Heinsohn OOTP Developments Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Germany	OOTP 2007 of course

02-15-2007, 10:37 AM	#29
gstelmack Pro Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Cary, NC	Well, interestingly enough Company of Heroes was not fully uninstalled by that last failure. No shortcuts anywhere, but I was able to try and run it out of the folder directly. And it failed because it could not find d3dx9_30.dll. With a 1.75GB download, I figure they thought they needed to save the 1MB or so it would have taken to include dxwebsetup.exe to make sure that D3DX was installed... And there is no Maximum Football response because I figured the odds of it being Vista compatible were roughly comparable to the odds I'd get reasonable stats out of a simmed game. I figure Vista would throw off the QB accuracy... __________________ -- Greg -- Author of various FOF utilities

02-17-2007, 12:02 PM	#30
gstelmack Pro Starter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Cary, NC	The Supreme Commander demo ran V E R Y S L O W on my box. Company of Heroes seemed okay, so I guess my system is just not cut out for Supreme Commander. On to the Medieval Total War II demo... __________________ -- Greg -- Author of various FOF utilities

02-17-2007, 01:13 PM	#31
twothree College Prospect Join Date: May 2005	Voted other. After reading your experiences with the demos, I would suggest buying a new video card. Probably not what you want to hear, as then you probably can't afford a new game.

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