Ahh yes, new run in...

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... well, what to pick?

I've just gone an' done me in a whole run from Candlekeep to Throne of Bhaal, and I'm kinda stomped. You ever had that feeling, where you had an entire library of games and no idea which one to choose next? And it's even holiday right now! Gaah!

 

There are about 500 games in my library right now and I've played maybe a third of them. Still, when considering what I want to play, I usually just decide decide to play one of my constants, that I've been playing for years, rather than trying something new.

Is it choice paralysis? A consequence of growing older? Has the quality of new games dropped to the point where I don't feel like they're worthwhile anymore? Is it all of the above? I don't know, but I do know what that feels like.

 

Well, I suppose the sky's the limit, when it comes to choices and genres. Not really limited to anything particular. Hell, I've got X-COM, HOMM, IE-games, strategy a la Starcraft and so on.

 

Do another run through of BG with a different PC.

 

I installed openxcom a while back, but on my first run I couldn't quite figure out how the interception works. Other than that, what I did a while back when I had the same indecision, is figure out what kind of game I'd like to play. I was feeling a bit like action, so I went that way, although I couldn't really stay with one game that way.

 

Well, if you've only played 1/3 of them, give something new a try. Maybe there is something you'll really like as much as the IE games.
Pick one of the older games in your library that you haven't tried, so that when you finally get around to the brand new stuff it will have been out long enough to be fully patched and you might have a newer computer that can run it better.

Although I have some games available I haven't tried, they are things I just picked up in October and November from a string of library "book sales" that had an unusual number of goodies. I decided to spread them out and only play one game at a time until I finish it, especially with Christmas around the corner. I haven't even tried my Christmas loot yet.

 

I actually don't buy games until they've been out for a couple of years and fully patched, so that's a moot point. It's just hard to get myself in the mood to install and play anything new these days. And if I do install a game and run it, I usually get busy with other stuff and then don't feel like playing it anymore.

On the other hand, once I do get in the mood, I tend to do a "marathon", where I play through as many games as I can before I run out of time. That usually amounts to about 4-5 games since there are very few short games in my library, but it's still nice to put a small dent into it.

 

I'm about to finish BG/TotSC and have a similar decision. All the games in my unplayed stack are over 12 years old, since I've been busy for a while, but the older games have appeal for me. I think it'll be either BG2/ToB, IWD/HoW, or TES:Oblivion for me.

 

I believe that is more of a nostalgia thing than an overall lack of quality.

 

It's also easier to get into, because you already know what to do, where you need to go, and you know the controls and game mechanics. I have the same tendency as others here to replay older games, and for me, that's largely because it's less effort to get into a game that I've already played before.

 

VTMB is a stone cold classic. It's the most Obsidian game I've played that wasn't made by Obsidian (although also reminds me a lot of Deus Ex in style). Ambition, bugs, genuinely meaningful RP'ing choices from character creation onwards... it kind of loses steam toward the end, though, in a classic case of over-ambitious developer syndrome (which only reinforces the Obsidian analogy, tbh). The soundtrack is also awesome, really well chosen licensed tracks & atmospheric original compositions that really nail the feel of the world.

And you can talk to lampposts.

 

Wizardry 8. NPCs with dialogue, it’s cheap!, Party of 6 with 2 NPC slots, hundreds of hrs of gameplay, most parties work so no need to triggger your restart syndrome over and over. I generally enjoy the series with 8 wrapping it up nicely.

 

You know, I never played the later Wizardry games. The early ones on the Apple II were "Nintendo hard" and I never finished them due to the ease you could get surprised and take a TPK no matter how high a level you were due to pure random chance.

 

Wiz 6-8 are all great games. Try’em.

 

Funny, the ones you advocate are the ones that are not on Asimov and therefore probably never made available for the Apple II family. Although I have no recollection of trying Wizardry V which IS on the site.

I realize that without Wizardry we'd have never had Bard's Tale, Final Fantasy, Might and Magic, or probably the Gold Box games, but the game was just too unbalanced in that you could easily get killed through no fault of the player and the game didn't really allow save scumming to avert this. I always hate luck-based elements like that.
It did not help that I'd already played all of the ones I mentioned above BEFORE I got my hands on an abandonware copy of it from ftp://ftp.apple.asimov.net in the mid '90s. Wizardry was the first and it showed.
On the other hand, if it were not for that and a quirk of the class change system and leveling system sometimes resulting in your characters getting weaker, I'd probably have said they were great games. Just a little more balance on the monsters so that if you make good choices and maybe grind a little you are sure to be able to survive a given level is all it would have taken.
As it is, I've had high level characters get surprised on a floor in the middle of the dungeon (with theoretically mid-level foes) and suffer a TPK before I could get a turn due to everyone being paralyzed, put to sleep, stunned, or otherwise incapacitated.
This happens in all four of the ones I've tried.

I don't know that I'd be willing to buy #6 or later without first pirating it to give it a try first. Not after the first four.
Now if I knew anybody around here who owned it, I would of course try it at their place rather than resort to piracy. That's how I discovered Dungeon Master among other games.

 

You can jump right into Wiz 8 as they completely changed the system in the last installment. It’s cheap on Steam. You can get 1-7 on GoG. 1-5 are definitely old-school slogfests to get thru, but The old-school gamer in me enjoyed them. 6-7 setup the background story for 8, but are not necessary to play it. 1-5 you can skip. You can import characters into 8 but I never have.

8 can be unforgiving at first until you fully understand the mechanics. But once you realize nuke mages are not going to win most battles then it will kick for you. Magic is better used to disable opponents. Damage helps of course, but you don’t get many one spell victories nuking. I have beaten it solo with a Fighter/Bard multiclass with no NPCs. Others went with solo Ninjas or even Bishops. I like the replaybility.

 

Don’t forget DMC.... with no shoes!