TOTAL NEWBIE: Seeking Fun, Non-Violent Games

I just got a brand new machine. I am not a gamer at all, but I want to get something really, really fun... just to see what this machine can do. Any suggestions?

It _has_ to be non-violent, not dependant upon killing everything in sight. I want massive eye-candy.

An adventure game. I have heard people talk about Myst, Amerzone, Syberia, Sinking Island, Paradise, etc. but what is out right now that my machine can do that would have an awesome storyline and stellar graphics?

Is Overclocked out yet? How is Penumbra: Black Plague? Does anyone like the Experiment? Do I need to play the previous Sam And Max games before jumping in at 204? Would anyone recommend Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin? Were the Nikopol books very violent?

What should I explore while I am confined to the bed? I haven't even unboxed my new Sager, but I will be confined to the bed for three days after an upcoming surgery.

What is a good adventure game for a beginner?

 

RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is just for you!

 

Funny, my five year old bough a $10 Roller Coaster Tycoon game last week. Couldn't get it to run on my old PC. Just sound, no picture; I'm thinking it was an old game and a new monitor, maybe? I dunno.

I don't think I want my Kindergartener to touch my Sager, though.

I did enjoy one of those roller-coastery games when I was in college (oh, 18 years ago) but surely there is a compelling game with a good story and sweet graphics that doesn't require me to blow people's brains out. No?

 

Hmmm.... how about one of those kiddy Harry Potter games ? Full of adventure and action as childish as it can get....

 

I actually use a harry potter game and roller coster tycoon.. I would get the first version of tycoon, it is the best for me. I like harry potter games, they're just not as fun imo.

 

Try Portal. Great looking game and pretty fun as well.

 

This game is for me, so it need not be "childish."

Or maybe you were meaning that only children don't think it is fun to kill people? In that case, a) I hope you're wrong, and b) oh well, I've been called far worse things in my life than childish.

Has anyone here played any PC games lately that don't depend upon violence (killing, fighting, blowing things up, guts, and gore) to entertain? No offense to people who get into that sort of thing, but it's just not my idea of fun.

 

Great suggestion!!

 

Seriously,I enjoy Star Monopoly still but thats way old. Check Yahoo games and MSN games.

 

yes, portal is a fun game also

harry potter game is here
http://shopping.msn.com/track/Track...:2004:3:66:10010:-1:-1:100:-1:1&u=prices.aspx


zoo tycoon is here
http://shopping.msn.com/track/Track...:2004:3:66:10010:-1:-1:100:-1:1&u=prices.aspx

mlb backyard baseball is here
http://shopping.msn.com/track/Track...:2004:3:66:10010:-1:-1:100:-1:1&u=prices.aspx

those all look fun

and @op, there is NO gory/bloody violence in harry potter.. maybe occasionally, but it's not like half life or games like that. Harry potter is an adventure game where you work to complete things, and use spells which are not violent. It is rated E for everyone on that link I gave you..

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding. That's not what I meant at all!!
I thought the game was for your "Kindergartener" whom you mentioned before...
The harry potter series is fine, especially for the adventure

 

Dreamfall:The longest Journey: The BEST story ever! IMO even better than many books. The ending made me cry.... Ull need time, coz once u get into the story, u wont stop before uve played it to the very end.
Fahrenheit(The Indigo Prophecy in USA): Very good, creative story. Nice gameplay mechanics too. Played it to end about 10 times now.

Play em!^^

Do u not wanna play violent games because of all the faulty media coverage or have u actually tried games of all the different genres?

edit: Get a Wii, there are A LOT of great, non-violent games for it.

 

Thanks, everyone. It might be difficult to believe, but I haven't heard of most of these games. Very helpful, indeed. Yes, the games are for me, but I do have kids in the house and they always see everything I do on the computer. Has anyone played Overclocked? Is it out, and if so, how gory does it get? How fun is Penumbra Black Plague?

 

Lego star wars is tons of fun, though violent in a cartoonish way, no blood though, it plays out the trilogies in legoland basically. Great fun for star wars fans of all ages. A game pad is highly reccomended.

http://www.lucasarts.com/games/legostarwarsii/

 

Try Grim Fandango! I just beat it, and the game seriosly rocks!

 

You do realize that there are games that are based solely on violence and those that are violent, but not driven by violence right? A game can be very violent, but yet that is not the primary method of entertainment. Take for instance Bioshock. It's violent (not extremely) but the violence is not the method of story telling.

Dreamfall was great. I also recommend Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit). It is also somewhat violent, but that is because part of the game revolves around trying to solve some murders. The story is pretty damn good, and the story telling mechanism is truly revolutionary imho.

It's kinda hard to find games that have heavy eye candy and yet don't have any violence in them.

Oh yeah... check out Lego Star Wars. It's so much fun!

 

DIRT, or NHL 08, Need for Speed Series

 

Pyschonauts is also a great game,platformer as well so lots of fun,funny story as well.

 

Thanks for the good suggestions.

Well, a lot of factors have shaped who I am today. Frankly, I really don't have a clue about what actual, concrete peer-reviewed research says about the effects of certain games-- but I hope I am media-literate enough to not base my choices merely on pop-journalistic coverage of sensationalistic topics.

1) Some of my best friends are now Quakers, and they have really made me think about violence in the real world. There's enough violence in the real world to make me puke (literally, I've made myself physically sick thinking about some of the stuff going on in the real world right now), so I just don't want to "go there" for recreation.

2) As I stated above, I think I have different cognitive abilities than my younsters in my house and there are just things that I don't want to expose them to, yet (and they will inevitably see me playing at some point). I have changed how I feel about a lot of things since I've had kids, and this is kinda one of those areas. I guess it is just an irrational thing in my gut. I might not be so sensitive to these issues if we didn't know so many people in actual warzones right now.

3) The only PC game I've played since college has been Star Wars: Galaxies and I didn't enjoy that. It was hard for me to find a profession that didn't require me to kill things, and the ones that didn't require me to go around killing things were totally boring. I quit playing it. Sure it was a thrilling game of life or death with those little bunny creatures that I needed to slaughter for their pelts; it was exciting, and all that-- but still, it's just not my thing. I enjoy playing the Wii with my son a lot more.

 

There is a huge distinction between real violence and virtual violence. Nobody in their right mind would consider the two to be equal, or even simillar.

The world is overflowing with violent movies/music/games, yet violence it at an all time low, in terms of history. Just look at how violent the past was compared to the present day (the middle ages anyone?). You can't blame violent media for criminal behaviour (there is no evidence anyway), it's about personal responsibility. I mean, just look at the news, it's more violent than any video game.

I understand your sentiment however, and it is very noble. I think in the end it all really comes down to taste. Some videogames just have very poor taste (like Payback) and are simply all about the violence. Try to avoid these at all costs.

Hollownail is very correct, good games are never really "driven" by violence, they are primarily focused on the storyline and gameplay. My two recommendations are Oblivion (great graphics) and Half Life 2 + episodes. In Half Life 2, you're mostly fighting the combine which are technically cyborgs anyway. You're right, I prefer fighting cyborgs in contrast to fighting human soldiers. But I love my COD4 anyway.

 

Omg! yeah, that game is awesome!

Another suggestion... Beyond Good & Evil. Another quirky platformer.

 

As previously mentioned, Portal.

 

If you like soccer and have (or can get) a gamepad, I recommend the latest Pro Evolution Soccer or Winning Eleven.... I spend hours on it, and the graphics can be really surprising...

 

Agreed. Portal is 99.8% violence free. The 0.2% is due to a small sacrifice and cake issues.

 

It wont stress your hardware like Crysis (which is violent), but Portal is an amazing game with virtually no violence. All you can do is make portals on walls.

Seriously. Portal. www.steampowered.com, get steam, then get portal.

Most of the adventure games people have listed are great (Sam and Max: Season 1 is on Steam, and I've been loving it), Indigo Prophecy, Dreamfall, etc are all great, but NO adventure game will be stressing your system. They still look amazing though, but that is because adventure games don't have to do as much as FPS games in terms of graphics to make things look brilliant. That's why Myst could run way back when, it wasn't actually rendering the backgrounds, but rather displaying pictures onto walls.

While it does involve killing (transdimensional overlords bent on subjugating and destroying humanity), I'd recommend buying the Orange Box (again, Steam) which includes Half-Life 2 and sequels Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2. If your kids see it, they'll understand how important it is to rebel against an alien-run police state. Also, the violence is HL2 is not based on bloody 'gibs' which is where people explode into component body parts after being 'fragged'. Instead, there really isn't any blood, and enemies are never broken into parts (except, in certain cases, the zombies).

But yeah, Portal, no violence. Amazing Game, possibly one of the Best Games of 2007...plus it will give your hardware at least a medium workout.

 

i play violent games on pc and that calms me down to be sober in real life... hehehe.. where would you be able to get a headshot from 50 -70 yards out in real life...

heheheh!!!!

 

Need For Speed? Good graphics, non-violent.

 

I recommend Sam & Max as well, even though it looks childish, it is actually really fun, I am in College and I played the game with my sister, and both of us enjoyed it. Then again, my sister watches me play all kind of games, includes the violent ones...but I believe that children have the ability to distinguish between fake and real violence, but that's just my opinion. (I do every now and then tell her that game are not real, don't do what ever you see on my screen. lol)

Now Indigo Prophecy and Dreamfall are both EXCELLENT adventure games, but there are, of course, violence. The violence is not the main concern of the game, but it is part of the driving force that moves the game forward at various part of the story. Perhaps you can play through those part when your youngsters weren't watching, then those games are well worth considering.

 

If the railroads! is allowing for sometime of game before crashing is a funny game that looks good

 

i play patrician 3. although you do get attacked by pirates occasionally the extent of the combat is black dots coming out of the side of the ship. it revolves around trading and buying and selling. it may sound boring but you can pick it up for $5 (reasonably old so not graphic intensive) but it is a good fun non violent game that requires a bit of strategy.

or you could try sim city 4.

 

there is no killing in portal. its 100% a puzzle game. and its great.

now, as far as penumbra, the game is definitely not kill-centric. the thing is a story, but it CAN be scary. the mood is very very creepy the whole time. imo its probably worse to expose someone young to that than a brutal frag fest.

UT3 is horrible if you really think about what is going on, but the colors are vivid and because there is no emotion and no consequence that corresponds to it, its more of a big virtual game of laser tag. penumbra is designed to make you think to solve physically realistic puzzles, and also freak you out while you are doing it.

my opinion is that exposure to violence does not lead towards a tendency to act violently. but if i had a kid, i wouldn't let my young kid play penumbra under any circumstances (not because of the long term shaping consequences, just because it would scare him unnecessarily), but I would probably let him play UT3 or HL2.

im not trying to argue about the effects of exposure to violence in youth... just recommending you avoid penumbra. its basically a horror / adventure game.

 

Portal, Need for speed, sim city 4, are good choices. Looking at ur computer specs i reckon you bought it to play hardcore games of some sort, weird lol.

 

Portal is a great choice. There's some violence, but you aren't required to participate, you just get shot at.

Psychonauts might appeal to you. It's funky, psychedelic and very colorful.

Any of the lego games would be excellent. There's some violence, but it's cartoon violence; you might be uncomfortable with that however.

I like bejeweled if it helps. Word games or puzzle games also appeal to me.

The Flight Simulator series should work too.

Incidentally is that a Bothan?

 

Private Nurse is also really good.Very sad story but very well done.

 

You aren't a gamer at all and you purchased that setup? =\

 

Yeah, I kind of agree. I've done a ton of research and have found major problems in research that says it does have an effect.
But yeah, no reason to let a 6 year old play GTA or what not. But once they're like... 13 they should no right from wrong anyway...

Private nurse? Sounds like one of those weird Jap Hentai games

 

my whole beef with the exposure to violence leads to violence is that it takes all the humanity and personal responsibility out of the equation. if monkey see = monkey do, then what is it that separates us from any animal, or any machine? i know someone else mentioned something like this earlier, but i think that free will is the one thing that sets us apart from anything else in this world. you can wikipedia free will if you want, or take a philosophy class, and just sit there in awe of how amazing the ideas behind the concept are, and then you'll understand how i feel, at least. even if you don't agree with me.

 

YOU MONSTER IT WAS MY FRIEND EVEN IF YOU NEVER LOVED IT!!!!

(Note: This will make sense once you play Portal )

 

Sup, Kentucky buddy. I'm not sure how much I have to add that hasn't already been said.

Portal - Portal is a great game, hands down. It's just so much fun. It's also entirely a puzzle game, so I suspect that you would be okay with the how the game is played.

Lego Star Wars - This game is cartoonishly violent. You're going to "kill" lego people with a light saber or blasters, but if you die, you pop right back in. When you do die, you just fall into a pile of little lego bricks. Seriously the whole game is adorable and it's hard to play without a smile on your face.

Psychonauts - It's a great platformer, among other things. The game is a lot of fun, and is only occasionally violent. You will be forced to defeat enemies, but at heart, you're playing a psychic kid at a psychic summer camp and it's more campy and good-natured than anything else.

Honestly, since you're going to be passing time recovering, just stop worrying about the finding the awesomest looking games evar and find stuff you think sounds fun. Myst will probably eat some time (and it's also pretty, well, pretty). http://nifflas.ni2.se/ has some really great little adventure games. Knytt Stories, Knytt, Within a Deep Forest - all are cute and fun and well, you'll see what I mean. They're also free indie games.

https://typo3.digipen.edu/index.php?id=986 Synaesthete is a great rhythm game. Play it with decent headphones. Heck, half the fun is just getting into the soundtrack.

You may or may not like Cave Story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Story

Oh! I forgot Aquaria! http://bit-blot.com/aquaria/ I think this might be right up your alley. Not really violent, mostly adventure game set with beautiful and stylized artwork in an underwater setting. It's more about exploration than anything else. Really it's just neat.

And don't discount regular flash games, by the way. Some of them are remarkably well done and look surprisingly good. You can just google around to find those.

 

If you can get them to run, some of the 3D Chess games are great,not Battle Chess which is a bit violent. And you have a couple of good sports and golf game like Tiger Woods with a flight sim or two that focus on civilian aircraft.

Some of the better games do not always have "stellar graphics" but focus on game play.

 

i would go as far as saying that all of the better games focus on gameplay (some incidently have good graphics, but good graphics do not make a game good)

 

Cave Story is pretty sweet. There's quite a bit of violence though. Quite a number of people/robots/rabbit-like creatures/snot-like-blobs get shot/crushed by rocks/sliced to bits. Oh and blown up. It's quite cute though.

 

Try Crysis (get the mod that replaces the gun with a toaster, bullets with kittens and enemies with brooms)

 

I think the OP's extreme feelings towards "violence" are a little much for any real adult games to be played.

Seriously, SWG was too violent?! If you think that game is too violent I think you should reconsider the whole pc gaming thing. It's obviously not for you.

 

By the OP's definition of violence there isn't any real games that they can play.

My only recommendation would be puzzle games, even some of them may be considered too violent. /shrug

 

Monopoly world edition

 

Solitaire?

 

A fun game without killing anything? Does it exist? The problem here is games are primarilay designed with MEN in mind, and most enjoy killing of some sort, becasue it is an innate nature of our being. Evolution has come only so far.... Try an emulator with mario 64 or somthing, how about a racing game... Dirt comes to mind. Im not trying to be a dick here but most games involve some form of death, or post mortum evaluation.

here ya go:

http://70.84.248.90/~fetchga/Games-D5-140406/curveball.swf

 

you could try the sims 2. thats a lot of fun and non violent plus theres tons of expansions.

 

as i said. patrician 3.