What PC Game to get Next?
 

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

spore

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

I'd pick up EU3

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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 ...

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 ;-)

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:

1. Start the download of the 1.75GB demo Monday night. It'll take 4 hours, so off to bed.
2. Tuesday morning, see the download has finished. Start the install. Off to work, since this is going to take a while.
3. Tuesday evening, go to play demo. Can't find it anywhere on the hard drive.
4. Start demo installer again, this time watching what happens.
5. 15 minutes later, 1.75GB archive has extracted and is actually starting the installer.
6. 20 minutes later, installer appears to be wrapping up.
7. Installer attempts to run game (with no option for me).
8. Game crashes before I see a thing.
9. Because running the game is part of the installer, this means the install fails.
10. 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.

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.

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.

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

OOTP 2007 of course :)

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...

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...

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...

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.