Time consuming games.

I have a friend who is spending 2 months in France, and besides sitting at the beach, he wants to find some time consuming games. There is one issue though, it's not the greatest system, some Gateway. Has an Intel t5800 (2.0ghz) and an Intel gma950. Also, it shouldn't be an online game as he won't have any internet there. But it can require an online registration because he doesn't leave for another week. I have suggested the Sims 3, but were not sure if he could run it. Any suggestions?

 

Roller Coaster Tycoon Deluxe, with the Corkscrew Follies and Loopy Landscapes expansions included. If he manages to finish every park during those two months, I will personally mail your friend 5 dollars. And it will have no trouble running on a netbook.

Older strategy games will probably work, and can sap considerable time. Age of Empires II is solid gold in that regard. It runs on crap systems, and is still one of the finest strategy games ever.

 

Lol nice description of the laptop. These are probably safe titles.

Rome Total War
Age of Empires II
Stronghold Crusader

 

gta 3 might run.

 

Haha, it's the laptops that Best Buy or Target sells with the 4gb of RAM being the main marketing scheme.

He and I used to spend hours playing AoE II, then the graphics just kinda went "eh" for us and got frustrated with the no Attack run button. Ill tell him to take a look at Rome Total War, and I believe he already has Stronghold Crusader (that's the second one right?)

 

Well you can try Oblivion: Elder Scrolls, it's like on of the biggest games ever, but I dunno about this whole specs thing if it can run it or not.
You can try a demo before buying it to see if it works or not.

 

Ahh, how could I forget Oblivion, have it for xbox, wanted to pick it up for PC also just to see how good it could look. I bet he would be able to run it. Got any links to the demo, google isn't bringing me anything.

 

Diablo 2 and the Lord of Destruction expansion pack. Challenge your friend to finish all 3 difficulties with the 7 different characters within 2 weeks, that will keep him occupied along with the other suggestions already given.

 

lol

Ya I think it is the 2nd one. The first was Stronghold. Don't get Stronghold 2, it's not as good. So ya, Stronghold Crusader FTW! wheeee

 

O, I think he has 2 then, I loved the first one. Boiling Oil FTW. Ill tell him about Crusader.

 

I don't know how I ever got away from that game. That game is the most time consuming game I've ever played and I'll recommend it to anybody who has a ton of free time. Good call Mastershroom.

 

He would spend way more than 2 months with WOW.

 

He can't and won't play WoW.

 

Sims 3...time passes unnoticeably by as you play.

 

Ah, but how well could he run it is the question?

 

don't worry. he will be too busy watching all those pretty French girls in bikini...

 

Mount and Blade.

You have to download it, but after that I don't believe you need the internet. I've heard great things about it, and you don't need the internet to play it, however, I'm not sure about the min specs.

 

tbh, he can't watch them all day, he would, but he can't.

 

France? Beach? Two months?

Dude, tell your friend to leave that laptop @ home. Playing games isn't exactly a chick (or otherwise) magnet if you know what I mean.

 

Haha yea, but he's not always the most interactive person. Pretty lazy also.

 

Visit Gog.com for all the classic titles that would run well. It all depends on what games he likes too.

From gog.com:

- Freespace 1 & 2 if he likes space shooters
- Beyond Good and Evil
- Far Cry
- Giants: Citizen Kabuto
- Unreal GOTY
- Darkstar One (Space 4x)

Other games not on that site I recommend:

- Starcraft
- Warcraft 3
- Oblivion (use oldblivion if he has trouble running)
- Knight of the Old Republic 1 & 2
- Civilization 2 or 3 (4 doesn't do so well on GMA for some reason)
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- Sins of a Solar Empire (complete time suck if you like slow paced RTS!)

 

neverwinter nights?

 

Definitely Starcraft. Can't think of any other ones I'd play. I wouldn't spend two months completely on the computer without internet though. Maybe he should get some emulators and play RPG games?

 

ZSNES + Final Fantasy V

This game is sooooo long and awesome. I started it in grade 12 comp science (2000), and finished last year at work finally. lol

 

It won't run on a GMA 945 even using oldblivion.

I tried it on my brother laptop, it will run at 15 frames per second on the lowest settings and it crashes everytime you save or fast travel.

 

Strange. I got it to run on my Eee, of course resolution is 1024x600.

 

Maybe it was the drivers, idk.

 

Wow, didn't realize that the intel gma5 was that week, what a buzz kill. Hmm, even on 800x600 he couldn't get a good framerate?

 

Nope, the cpu was partly to blame too being a 1.86 dual core but still :\

 

baldur's gate 1/2, fallout 1/2, planescape: torment, icewind dale, diablo 1/2 if he likes rpgs imo

 

Tiberian Sun and Total War Mods and FireStorm addon, Red Alert 2 and DeeZire Mod, Yuris revenge and DeeZire Mod. BattleZone 2 + Fleshstorm and Forgotten Enemies Mod.

 

His is 2.00 ghz

 

It runs on a GMA 950, but horribly, you can only run it at the bare minimum of detail, it looks very washed out, no lighting, etc. I tried this on my Sony Vaio TZ.


I would recommend Civilization 3, I've wasted too many hours on that game. Civilization 4 would also run poorly on a GMA 950.

 

diablo 2 + Lod, AoE 2 AoM +titans expansion. red alert 2 (u can have a lot of fun editing the rules.ini files to make custom units and abilities)