Help me catch up-best games from 2006 till now

hi

I travel too frequently to have a desktop, so my notebook is my gaming machine.

i had an inspiron 8600, radeon 9600pro turbo which served me well gaming wise till around 2005-2006. after which i stopped gaming because it couldnt handle games at decent settings.

i am now buying a nice new dell precision m4400 with a quadro FX770 (~ nvidia 9600GT)

what are the best games that i've missed out over the past 3 years? and what are the "hottest" games right now? the two most common ones i've heard by looking around the forums are crysis and bioshock.

what do you guys think?

thanks

 

assassins creed is fun, another good one is call of duty 4. fallout 3 and farcry 2 are coming out in a month, and crysis warhead is coming out in like..3 days. other than those i dont really know. im pretty much in the same boat, i just got my laptop.

 

does the second crysis have higher requirements than the first?

based on some threads i should be able to play the first crysis with almost all settings on high, will i be able to do that with the second one?

thanks

 

Beside the ones you mentioned, for mainstream games, I'd get:

(in no particular order)

Oblivion
Sins of a Solar Empire
Orange Box
Civilization 4
Company of Heroes
Medieval II: Total war
Call of Duty 4
The Witcher


edit---If you like console style games, there are a bunch that were/are ported to the PC.
Gears of War, Mass Effect, etc

 

bf2 and 2142, company of heroes, and orange box are the best choices id say

 

there are like a ton, depends what type you like, go to gamespot and check out the reviews and scores

 

that would be quite tedious. since the time frame im looking at is 3 years.

i have a large budget, so i dont mind just buying almost all the games recommended by this thread and trying them out.

games i used to enjoy were serious sam (possibly my fav game of all time), starcraft, tactical ops. counter strike, max payne, hitman, simcity, flight sim 2003, tiberian sun, tomb raider..so im quite open when it comes to genre.

i also do value gameplay and story over eye candy.

 

as mentioned,

Call of Duty 4
TES4: Oblivion
Mass Effect

 

You guys forgot Bioshock, great game.
I beleive that Crysis Warhead has the same requirements as the original Crysis but it will be better optimized for smoother gaming.

 

My must buy list:
Call of Duty 4 - would be almost the best single player fps I have ever played, also has very solid multiplayer
Oblivion - builds on the fantastic morrowind base
Mafia - older then 06, but just making sure you have played it, would be in my top 5 games
Sins of a Solar Empire - great x3 game

 

if you are into racing, then cant miss grid, C&C T_wars is good as well, call of duty 4 is the most fun I had with FPS, even my dad wants to play it lol

 

i tend to avoid racing games because its no fun if you dont have a wheel

 

YOU SHOULD get Half life 2 mate. and if you ask me ,Bioshock is EPIC. and COD4 is a great military FPS

 

Agreed with The Orange Box, Portal was a blast.

That, Bioshock and COD4 for great FPS games.

Mass Effect is an interesting FPS/RPG, but only really if you're into RPG's.

World in Conflict and Company of heroes for strategy/tactics.

There's probably more, but these are the ones that made an impression to me.

 

World in Conflict and Company of heroes and Tiberium wars, and soul storm

racing i still like NFS most wanted, and maybe carbon. police chases are way fun.

FPS, COD4, Half life 2, counterstrike source is way solid

GTA san andreas, if not GTA IV.. (i dunno if it has come out of the PC yet )

 

oo i liked GTA san andreas. vice city was good too.

anyone remember sega crazy taxi? hehe it was addictive

and simpsons hit and run

 

I really enjoyed Gears of War. Its probably the best first person shooting experience in the last two years.

If you dont like playing through a story and much rather shoot everything in sight by pitting yourself against online players, Unreal Tournament 3 would be your game.

I have both games and play them all the time; and i get bored of most games easily. So i guess those games are testaments to how captivating a well designed shooter can get.

And for upcoming games, like everyone's been saying, fallout 3, starcraft 2, and far cry 2 are good to look into.

 

yup fallout3, starcraft 2, far cry 2, nhl09 are mostly the games ill buy in 2008

 

Warhead runs far better and looks better at the same time.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/909/909584p1.html

The best game I've played since 2006 is Company of Heroes, also, try Bioshock.

 

Bioshock is my favorite right now, TF2 is pretty sweet.

 

Command and Conquer 3 - Tiberium Wars

Need for Speed, Carbon

Quake 4 - same thing like Quake 3 though, little better

Minesweeper

Mafia is pretty good. I never finished it though, stopped towards the end

and of course - Age of Empires 2 The Conquerors

 

its kind of weird seeing tiberium wars lol, given i used to play tiberian sun on my ancient 200mhz pentium. it ran horribly slow but i loved the game.

 

I played it on a pention 100mhz and 24 ram
believe me or not even played red alert 2 through on it but that was VERY slow

You guys forget Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Double agent
Sam Fisher rocks!

 

Heroes of Might and Magic V, Fantasy Wars, and Galactic Civilizations 2 (same people as Sins of a Solar Empire...make sure you pick up both expansion packs) were some good turn-based strategy games in that time frame...

I liked both Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter games as tactical FPS...and the first Rainbow Six Vegas was fun...

And I was probably one of the few people who liked Prey in the FPS genre...it is short and it has a somewhat contrived Native American spiritualism...but the game is genuinely creepy...within minutes, you're watching your grandfather get...oops, don't want to give it away...

Rise of Legends, Supreme Commander, and Act of War were also good RTS games...the story for Rise of Legends is a bit convoluted (so if story is really important to you, beware), but the background is unique in the RTS genre...everyone talks about Company of Heroes and World in Conflict, but I actually preferred Act of War...

Neverwinter Nights 2 (along with Oblivion which has a different focus from NWN 2...more FPS with Oblivion) should tide you over until Dragon Age is released...

And for action RPGs, there's always Silverfall (great idea...not executed very well but still kinda fun to play...your character can end up looking a lot stranger [ie steampunk] than the characters in Dungeon Siege) and Titan Quest (disclaimer...I did not finish Titan Quest...I lost interest in the Greek thing) until Diablo 3 is out...

But in the end, if I had to pick (3):

1. Call of Duty 4 (if you don't have it on the 360)
2. Gears of War (if you don't have it on the 360)
3. Sins of a Solar Empire

PS. I will not speak of my guilty pleasure. It's the first game (console or PC) for which I ever paid $50, and I think everyone but me hates it. And then I found another game that would have scratched that itch (Alien Shooter: Vengeance) for $10. So, the $50 I paid for the new game makes me feel embarrassed, but I enjoy the game.