Recommendations Thread

[-Aaron]

Name: Little King's Story

Platform: Wii

Pros: It's highly addictive. It's Pikmin meets Rune Factory. You send your troops/villagers in unknown terrain to scout out potential land for the Kingdom, and potential spouses. You do this by defeating several guardians of the different areas. Once you beat a guardian, the land is ready for development. Different areas offer different buildings and social hierarchies. For example, an area of the kingdom is a thriving metropolis, while the other is a mining group. You can then recruit these villagers to be your loyal followers, and they offer different abilities. For example, a farmer can dig holes faster than anyone, a carpenter will build bridges to allow access to new areas of land, children can be sent up trees to get gold and other treasures. Given time, you can even marry your troops, and eventually, will provide an offspring for you to recruit. The death feature in this game is also pretty neat, since if one of your troops die in battle, they will be re-obtainable by cracking pots in a place called "Revival Beach". There is also a chance that they will not return, thus being gone forever. In the event that they DON'T return, your entire kingdom will mourn, and you'll notice that they're all wearing black. This isn't a graphics-heavy game, but I think the art style of this game is unique from other games, which take form in chalk drawings.

Cons: It can get grind-y at times. More areas means more construction, which in turn means more money needed to construct building in the area. If you're not fond of polygamy and in-breeding, this game is not for you. There are no limits in the marriage system of the game, so you can literally marry different people's spouses, and your own kids, your kids' kids, and so on, and they still produce a child. Granted, this is a minor detail and you'll forget it once you have a big enough kingdom, but you'll notice this early on since you start off with a small number of villagers. Also, the map system could be better.

 

[Jas0n]

Been replaying Dragon Age: Origins before I play Dragon Age 2, and anyone that hasn't played it needs to sooo:

Name: Dragon Age: Origins
Platform: PC
Pros: An amazing strategy RPG that's incredibly polished. Voice acting is perfect and the story is very involving.
Cons: I honestly can't think of any reason why you wouldn't play this game. Only "con" I can think of is that the art style may not be to some people's tastes.

 

[Psychonaut]

name: pokemon black (& white)
platform: ds (dsi, preferred)
pros: it's pokemon, again. the region only has new ones until post-game, so if you want some fresh faces that's a huge plus. new items, two new gimmick-ey battle types, and a whole slew of new (crazy powerful) moves. they changed up a lot from older gens, but it's still pokemon.
cons: it's pokemon, again. long story can be burdensome if you don't like it.

 

[Vex L'Cour]

Fire Emblem
Fire Emblem Sacred Stones.

Both are REALLY good Turn-based Stratergy games (think advance wars). It also involves RPG elements. You get given characters which you battle with, you're given certain targets within each stage to beat them (Beat <unit>/Defeat all units, etc). If you loose a character they're lost...FOR GOOD. And if you loose a hero then well, you get a GAME OVER (Or if you loose a certain unit you're supposed to protect)

 

[Psychonaut]

a bit late, but..

the potato sack.
PC
13 games, $40, works out to ~$4 a title, most are decent. + potatoes.

3 of them are $20 titles, so that's.. quite a bit off of those.

 

[Vex L'Cour]

a bit late, but..

the potato sack.
PC
13 games, $40, works out to ~$4 a title, most are decent. + potatoes.

3 of them are $20 titles, so that's.. quite a bit off of those.

mmmnnn.....

Potatoes...

 

[Psychonaut]

title: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
platform: PC
http://store.steampowered.com/app/12120/ <-- on sale today, $3.75

pros: an expansive sandbox world to play in, with tons of things to do. clothes, cars, houses, gang territory, side quest missions for cash, oh yeah, this game has it all. + plenty of story-side missions to do to keep you unimaginative types (such as myself) busy. great soundtrack, RPG style stats, awesome controls on PC. just make sure you tone down the mouse sensitivity.

cons: if you can't run it.
the graphics are kinda sketchy, since the engine chances the texture mapping based on the time of day, so you'll likely get blacker-than black characters at night, which will mess up a lot of the cutscenes, if that bothers you.
the game is old, so graphics aren't high-def, but hopefully your computer can run it on full specs, which will make up for it. significantly.
LOTS OF CURSING. so it's a no-no for you younger kids with protective parents, or who just don't want to be exposed to things that are presented in this game. lots of violence, lots of explicit language/content. watch yourself.

on the whole, this is the only grand theft auto game i've played and enjoyed, so so much. i played it on ps2, nutsacks compared to the PC version. have vice city and GTA 3 (and 1 and 2 if those count, they're in a bundle today for $7.50 for the whole pack), but this one is the best gta game. hands down.

if you haven't played this game, and are of age/willing to, you are doing yourself a great disservice.

if you don't want to sit through the story, use a save file somewhere online. easy peasy.

 

[Himawari]

^ That game was so freakin' fun! Anyway... this is going to be long because I'm not good at summing stuff up briefly.

Name: Final Fantasy XII
Platform: PlayStation 2
Pros: The world is huge and quite beautiful. It's very non-linear after the first hour or so. You're free to go do sidequests or continue the main storyline whenever you wish. Although, certain areas are inaccessible until you get to a certain point in the story. The soundtrack is great, and completely orchestral, which suits the Medieval-like setting. Party member attributes are highly customizable; you choose what type of weapon they use and what type of armor they wear. Every type of weapon and piece of armor has its advantages and disadvantages, i.e. axes can deal enormous amounts of damage, but the damage they deal is inconsistent, so if you attack an enemy, you don't know if you're going to do 200 HP of damage or 2,000 HP. When your party members level up, you get to choose what to do with the points you get. The battle system itself is very enjoyable. There are loads, and I mean LOADS, of different spells you can use. I think there are around 6 different categories, instead of the standard white and black magic. Battle is in real-time, thank God, because random encounters were soooo tedious in the previous FF titles. I actually wanted to fight in this game because there weren't random encounters (if you don't know what random encounters are, all you need to know is that it's the most annoying, boring way to fight enemies imaginable). You control all three party members, but only one at a time. You can customize artificial intelligence for your party members using a great system called the gambit system, which I'm won't explain because the game will. Basically, you program how your party members behave when you're not controlling them, so they aren't making stupid decisions. For example, you can make it so that a party member will heal another party member if their HP is less than half. And there are way more gambits than that. The plot doesn't have unnecessary romance and there aren't any cliche dark brooding characters or lolicon girls. Basically, it's more mature. The main plotline is only a sliver of the whole game; there's SO much stuff to do in the game. I can play for over 100 hours and won't be even close to getting 100% completion. And the best part is that I'm not even sick of it yet, even after 100 hours As a game, it's excellent. I underlined game because the plot comes up a little short.
Cons: Vaan, the main character of the game, has as much personality as a rock. He's boring and doesn't even contribute much to the story. He's pretty much along for the ride as the other, more important characters, steer the plot. Penelo is the same story. Plus, her hair bugs me. Her outfit too. In fact, her whole appearance bugs me. There are other characters that are more engaging though, so don't worry. The plot itself is ok, just enough to keep me interested, but nothing enthralling. It's a typical evil empire trying to take over the world so we have to stop them against all odds type of thing. The last con I can think of is Yiazmat, the most ridiculous superboss in existence. It has the most HP of any enemy or boss in the entire series. How much HP, you ask? 50 million HP. Seriously. Beating it in two hours is considered fast for the average gamer. Usually you're going to spend an entire afternoon fighting it, even at high levels. The maximum HP you can do in that game, ever, is 9,999 HP. When its HP is below 50%, its defense raises and the maximum damage for a single blow becomes 6,999 HP, so the only way to get 9,999 HP in is to do a combo. If you manage to do maximum damage every time you hit it, and get a combo resulting in 9,999 HP every time you hit it after 50% HP, you still have to hit it at least 5,000 times; I say at least because I rounded the HP to exactly 50,000,000, when it's actually a little higher than that, 50,110,000ish HP. However, it's an optional boss, so it's not really a con, but I just wanted to complain about it.

Stubborn Final Fantasy fans say it's a bad game because they refuse to accept change. They say the soundtrack is boring because the famous composer for the series, the brilliant Nobuo Uematsu, didn't work on the soundtrack for the game. They went in with a negative attitude. Listen to the final boss music and tell me that's "unmemorable". They say it's boring, but they're actually referring to the plot. Final Fantasy has always been heavily plot-focused in the past, but FF XII deviated from that, and focused more on the actual game. All I can say is give it a chance, and don't go in with any biases. It's one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. It tends to be one of those games people either love or hate. But I encourage you to try it.

 

[BellGreen]

^ That game was so freakin' fun! Anyway... this is going to be long because I'm not good at summing stuff up briefly.

Name: Final Fantasy XII
Platform: PlayStation 2
Pros: The world is huge and quite beautiful. It's very non-linear after the first hour or so. You're free to go do sidequests or continue the main storyline whenever you wish. Although, certain areas are inaccessible until you get to a certain point in the story. The soundtrack is great, and completely orchestral, which suits the Medieval-like setting. Party member attributes are highly customizable; you choose what type of weapon they use and what type of armor they wear. Every type of weapon and piece of armor has its advantages and disadvantages, i.e. axes can deal enormous amounts of damage, but the damage they deal is inconsistent, so if you attack an enemy, you don't know if you're going to do 200 HP of damage or 2,000 HP. When your party members level up, you get to choose what to do with the points you get. The battle system itself is very enjoyable. There are loads, and I mean LOADS, of different spells you can use. I think there are around 6 different categories, instead of the standard white and black magic. Battle is in real-time, thank God, because random encounters were soooo tedious in the previous FF titles. I actually wanted to fight in this game because there weren't random encounters (if you don't know what random encounters are, all you need to know is that it's the most annoying, boring way to fight enemies imaginable). You control all three party members, but only one at a time. You can customize artificial intelligence for your party members using a great system called the gambit system, which I'm won't explain because the game will. Basically, you program how your party members behave when you're not controlling them, so they aren't making stupid decisions. For example, you can make it so that a party member will heal another party member if their HP is less than half. And there are way more gambits than that. The plot doesn't have unnecessary romance and there aren't any cliche dark brooding characters or lolicon girls. Basically, it's more mature. The main plotline is only a sliver of the whole game; there's SO much stuff to do in the game. I can play for over 100 hours and won't be even close to getting 100% completion. And the best part is that I'm not even sick of it yet, even after 100 hours As a game, it's excellent. I underlined game because the plot comes up a little short.
Cons: Vaan, the main character of the game, has as much personality as a rock. He's boring and doesn't even contribute much to the story. He's pretty much along for the ride as the other, more important characters, steer the plot. Penelo is the same story. Plus, her hair bugs me. Her outfit too. In fact, her whole appearance bugs me. There are other characters that are more engaging though, so don't worry. The plot itself is ok, just enough to keep me interested, but nothing enthralling. It's a typical evil empire trying to take over the world so we have to stop them against all odds type of thing. The last con I can think of is Yiazmat, the most ridiculous superboss in existence. It has the most HP of any enemy or boss in the entire series. How much HP, you ask? 50 million HP. Seriously. Beating it in two hours is considered fast for the average gamer. Usually you're going to spend an entire afternoon fighting it, even at high levels. The maximum HP you can do in that game, ever, is 9,999 HP. When its HP is below 50%, its defense raises and the maximum damage for a single blow becomes 6,999 HP, so the only way to get 9,999 HP in is to do a combo. If you manage to do maximum damage every time you hit it, and get a combo resulting in 9,999 HP every time you hit it after 50% HP, you still have to hit it at least 5,000 times; I say at least because I rounded the HP to exactly 50,000,000, when it's actually a little higher than that, 50,110,000ish HP. However, it's an optional boss, so it's not really a con, but I just wanted to complain about it.

Stubborn Final Fantasy fans say it's a bad game because they refuse to accept change. They say the soundtrack is boring because the famous composer for the series, the brilliant Nobuo Uematsu, didn't work on the soundtrack for the game. They went in with a negative attitude. Listen to the final boss music and tell me that's "unmemorable". They say it's boring, but they're actually referring to the plot. Final Fantasy has always been heavily plot-focused in the past, but FF XII deviated from that, and focused more on the actual game. All I can say is give it a chance, and don't go in with any biases. It's one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. It tends to be one of those games people either love or hate. But I encourage you to try it.

WOAH. Please don't bump ancient threads! (IDK though, it's a sticky thread.)

 

[Prof Gallows]

Dude, you really gotta stop with telling people not to bump stuff. There is a report button. But that person contributed to the thread, there are certain exceptions for the bumping rules.


I'm recommending Torchlight and Torchlight 2. It was on sale not too long ago on steam, it's also on the XBL Marketplace. It's similar to the Diablo games, and if you preorder Torchlight 2 you get the first Torchlight for free.

Pros: Lots of loot and endless dungeons. The dungeons are randomly generated and you will always get a different one each time you go to a new area. Torchlight 2 has co-op, so you can play with friends if you want to. The classes have different skill paths you can choose from, so you can make your class unique to your style of play.

Cons: The games are pretty new and not a whole lot of people really know about them.

 

[SockHead]

Bumping stickied threads is 100% okay. Why do you think they're stickied in the first place?

Anyway, I'm here so I might as well recommend a game.

Name: Brutal Legend

Platform: Xbox 360 & Playstation 3

Pros: If you like the music genre Heavy Metal, you're going to love this game. Even if you aren't familiar with it, you'll learn to love it. The world of Brutal Legend is completely original. You'll find lush yet creepy forests, harsh snowy terrains, wave crashing cliffs, and just about everything else. And could you guess that everything is themed Heavy Metal? You'll find amps in the bushes, statues carved into mountains of rock gods, and everything in between. Creative companions and enemy's are another thing you'll find in Brutal Legend. For example, one of the first companions you'll meet are headbangers. Yeah, headbangers. And of course, all they do is attack with they're heads. I mean they're rock hard! (very punny) Oh yeah, did I mention this is an Open World game? Yeah, that's another thing that makes this game awesome. Lots of things you can do, like find collectibles and visit landmarks. It's awesome.

Cons: I don't think Brutal Legend knows what kind of game it is. First it starts off as a hack and slash game. But as you progress through the story, it turns into a Real Time Stradegy game. That may not be a con, but if you don't like those types of games, it definitely is one. Also the story is a little lack luster, but it's not terrible bad. It's actually quite good. Just nothing amazing. The final boss is another complaint I have. It's ****ing hard. It took me a good week trying to beat it. Actually, as you progress through the story it just gets harder and harder. Almost impossible. Almost. The ending just really isn't worth all the work it takes. Luckily the game's beauty makes up for it.

Yeah so if you're up for a challenge, get this game. I think it's really cheap now. It came out in 2009.

 

[AnimalCrossingStyles]

I'm liking this game atm
You build worlds and fight zombies it sounds childish but it's very addictive!
Name: Minecraft
Platform: Ipad
Pros: Pocket edition is actually very good!
Cons: No pocket edition can match the real PC game

 

[Juicebox]

I am currently addicted to Spore, and I recommend fans of the Sims.
Name: Spore
Platform: PC
Pros: There are a ton of different ways to play the game. Customizing your little creature and getting it to grow is super addictive and fun. It's rewarding when you finally get to civilization, because it's watching your own creations grow up. On top of that, with the customization options, you can make some pretty silly looking creatures.

Cons: Cell stage sucks. The first part of the game is extremely aggravating, and it only gets better once you finally turn into a creature. DNA points can be a little hard to rack up, and your creature is going to do a lot of dying before it goes on to tribe stage. Not only that, but civilization gets boring after awhile, and it is hardly worth it to get to space travel.

 

[oath2order]

I am currently addicted to Spore, and I recommend fans of the Sims.
Name: Spore
Platform: PC
Pros: There are a ton of different ways to play the game. Customizing your little creature and getting it to grow is super addictive and fun. It's rewarding when you finally get to civilization, because it's watching your own creations grow up. On top of that, with the customization options, you can make some pretty silly looking creatures.

Cons: Cell stage sucks. The first part of the game is extremely aggravating, and it only gets better once you finally turn into a creature. DNA points can be a little hard to rack up, and your creature is going to do a lot of dying before it goes on to tribe stage. Not only that, but civilization gets boring after awhile, and it is hardly worth it to get to space travel.

Spore is amazing, even though you described the cons as basically saying "This game sucks". I'd love to see the game as like Spore 2 and they update it.

Name: Harvest Moon: A New Beginning
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Pros: Seriously better than the other games in the series if you're a fan of customization. You get to plan out your entire farm. The plot isn't much, but it's a Harvest Moon game, you can't expect much.
Cons: The first season is horrible, because it's essentially non-stop tutorial. The text in the tutorials moves slowly. The meal time for villagers is long and you can't give gifts during it. The cutscenes for when the plaza shops is way too long and slow.

 

[oath2order]

I have a lot more games to recommend.

Name: Harvest Moon DS
Platform: Nintendo DS
Pros: It's actually a good game for the DS.
Cons: The glitches are horrible. It seems like the developers were trying to do too much in one game.

Name: Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
Platform: Gameboy Advance
Pros: Probably my favorite Pokemon game.
Cons: Emerald is probably better than both of these, due to the upgrades in it, but these are still good.

Name: Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Platform: Nintendo 64
Pros: It takes a dramatic turn away from the other games in the series. It's a nice change.
Cons: The time travel system could be annoying if you're used to the other games.

Name: Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Platform: Gamecube/Wii
Pros: Going along with the dark theme of Majora's Mask, Twilight Princess is also one of my favorites. It's one of the darker games in the series, and I'm not just talking about the lighting. Both, however, are a welcome change.
Cons: The darkness, of course, could be annoying for those not used to it. Also the City in the Sky.

Name: Paper Mario
Platform: Nintendo 64
Pros: Everything. This game is the perfect RPG for the system. It definitely stands up to the test of time. The humor in the game is amazing.
Cons: This game is perfect.

Name: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
Platform: Gamecube
Pros: It takes everything from the first game and runs with it. The first game, you were implied to be on a stage. This game, it takes that and expands on it. You literally feel as if you are in a theatre, acting out the plot of this. It's just amazing.
Cons: It's a little dialogue-heavy at times.

Name: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Platform: Xbox 360/PS3/PC
Pros: Great game, the plot is pretty good. Solid gameplay.
Cons: It can be laggy the longer you play it, but that's a console problem. The glitches are ridiculous though.

 

[Aloha]

Namehoenix Wright series
PlatformS/3DS(5th game coming Fall)
Pros:Each game has nice storyline.Its a really unique game from the point of view,you'd never think being a lawyer was this fun.Good replay value.
Con:It gets a bit annoying when it comes to the part where you're in court presenting evidence,and hearing testimonies.You have a health bar and for every thing you do wrong,it deducts points from the bar.Once the bar is empty,you lose the case.At some parts in the game,you may be stuck.

 

[Big Forum User]

Name: Elite Beat Agents
Platform: Nintendo DS
Pros: Has a mix of popular songs and ancient songs. Also it is kinda mostly easy.
Cons: It took me 6 MONTHS to pass the final round of level 2, there are only 4 levels, and they cover all the songs

 

[Myles]

Name: Scribblenauts Unlimited
Platform: 3DS/Wii U
Pros: Amazing open world, lets you create virtually anything. Very strategic game. Best Scribblenauts game yet.
Cons: No multiplayer server, which would be nice for group puzzle-solving and exploring.

 

[Aome]

Name: Tera: Rising
Platform: PC (MMO)
Pros: Free to play, awesome combat system, decent character customization, interesting classes/races, controller compatible, 100s of hours of playtime, beautiful graphics, nice armors, super helpful customer support with fairly quick response times. Love this game so much I talked my mom into buying me a years worth of the optional Elite status you can pay monthly for even though I've usually be against monthly subscriptions of any kind.
Cons: It's an MMO that has a large player base so global chat is more often then not; horrible. Has some bugs/glitches just like any other game.

 

[Alienfish]

Name: Conception II: Children of the Seven Stars
Platforms: 3DS and PS Vita
Pros:
- Good storyline and interesting characters
- Average difficulties; not that overly hard like i.e Demon Gaze and stuff
- Good designs, not too "common"
- Easy menus/gameplay
- Vita version is region-free
- Alright voice-actors for the English version
- Awesome sense of humor

Cons:

- 3DS is not region-free, and we don't have it yet or will get physical I guess unless they changed their mind.
- A bit too much kawaii/school-life/schoolgirls for some perhaps. I love it though.
- Can get a bit repetitive but not a grindfest so both pro and cons for this.