Suggestions for RPG's to try please

[Ceefer]

I need some ideas for RPG's to try that will play on my little Medion laptop (1.6 ghz Pentium M, 512mb, integrated SiS661 graphics). Obviously nothing recent will be likely to run very well (though having said that Guild Wars plays beautifully!), so we're probably talking about 2 - 3 year old games.

Surprisingly, Morrowind plays very nicely on this laptop, but I've played it to death and need something new.

I tried Diablo II and thought it was OK, but I don't like the fixed camera angle and point-'n'-click isn't really my cup of tea anyway.

Then I tried Neverwinter Nights but it didn't run well at all - very choppy. Also, I thought it was somewhat similar to Diablo II. I would like a proper 3D environment and a first/third person perspective.

Any suggestions?

[Ferral]

Not really leaving it open with what you're after. Most RPG's are either the point and click typ or the hack and slash type.

Quite surprised you can't run Neverwinter Nights to well, simply awesome game start to finish. Anyhows with me loving RPG's heres a few suggestions !

Dungeon Siege 1 & 2 (theres an expansion for the first one also) First one came out around the same time as Neverwinter so you may find performance to be a bit lacking again. It does tend to be swaying towards the hack and slash type though.

Planescape Torment, made by Bioware also. Point and click type RPG but no large parties. This is my favourite RPG from Bioware pre Neverwinter Nights but it isn't rendered in full 3D like Neverwinter. Looks more like the Baldurs Gate series.

Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 plus expansions. Once again 2D backdrops but extremely good stories. Full parties of 6 in both the games so I found managing combat a bit tedious pausing and unpausing to set attacks etc. Preffered Planscape over these.

Icewind Dale, this also uses Biowares 2D engine to run it. Party of 6 again but they mainly done their own thing during the combat so not as tedious. I loved the setting on this one being in the snowy mountains of the Forgotten Realms. Once again preffered this to Baldurs Gate series.

KOTOR 1 & 2, not bad Star Wars games. First one was far superior I feel but very buggy. Decent enough games but I found my attention swaying towards other titles at the time.

The games I've mentioned and played there I had no real probs running them, Dungeon Siege ran fine on a Geforce 3 with 512 ram and Duron 1700+ at the time as did the earlier Bioware games mentioned. Definately go with main prob as the 512 ram and SiS graphics like you mentioned.

[dkmech]

Planescape Torment is supposed to be very good and very funny (if a bit pixellated by todays standards). I bought it on budget but never got round to playing it properly.

Fallout 2 is great too - set in a post apocalyptic near future world that. Should run fine on anything since its old. Might be too old though.

[HyeongSeong]

How about fable ?

[kalniel]

Ferrals list hits everything I would have recommended.

I'm not surprised NWN doesn't run well though - it's a surprisingly demanding game and uses OpenGL which a lot of integrated cards struggle with.

[mike_w]

Planescape Torment, made by Bioware also. Point and click type RPG but no large parties. This is my favourite RPG from Bioware pre Neverwinter Nights but it isn't rendered in full 3D like Neverwinter. Looks more like the Baldurs Gate series.

This is a game that I was interested in getting, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere. I considered looking on eBay, but just never really did!

[SteveC]

IMO, there seem to be fewer decent PC RPGs released recently.

But going back a few years there are some great games such as:

Final Fantasy VII,
Gothic (1 and 2),
the Ultima series,
the Might and Magic series.

One particular classic (getting a bit old, requires something like the DOSBox emulator) is Betrayal at Krondor. It's based on Raymond E. Feist's riftwar novels, and is known for its particularly engaging storyline.


I agree with dkmech too - Planescape: Torment is excellent, I would say.

[Blademrk]

If you liked the idea of diablo 2 but didn't like the fixed camera angles try darkstone. it's pretty much a copy of Diablo with a non-fixed camera and you control 2 characters at once.

Revenant - another Diablo style game (actually It's proberbly more like Ultima 8 than Diablo - the only ultima game I've played)

There's also silver (zelda type rpg).

Planescape: Torment is also brilliant - if you can find a copy

[charleski]

System Shock 2 is worth a look.

The best place to look for these old games is ebay. There are sellers on amazon who stock them as well, but for rip-off prices. (I found someone selling a copy of SS2 on Amazon for £80...)

[merlin2001]

the whole baldurs gate series will offer you a lot of hours play and prob. represents best of breed for the 'story-driven' rpg's out there (as opposed to the more open-ended style epitomised by TES:Oblivion etc.) Currently a decent price compiliation of them knocking around in the shops for a decent price.

[zulander]

Eh?? maybe its me but wheres Deaus EX??? class