Horrible Indecision!

As the title suggests, I'm rather some difficultly deciding on which games/series to begin playing from a rather ... ample backlog of games. Isn't this an irritating feeling? But because I'm a terrible individual, I would be honored to have the input of this lovely community. To make things "simple", I figured the easiest way to determine this would be to have you do the heavy lifting and choose five games/series. If you want to give a reason why, that would be fantastic. Whichever game/series has the most would be the one I begin. My adventures in gaming will also be posted either here or on a blog (if I decide to stop being lazy and get to creating that).

This list is 50+ games/series that I've narrowed down. All are on the PC games.

(SPOILER)
Alan Wake Series
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Analogue: A Hate Story
Anodyne
Batman: Arkham City
Braid
Cart Life
Cave Story+
Chantelise
Closure
Company of Heroes Series
Darksiders Series
Dead Island
Dead Space Series
Deus Ex Series
Evoland
F.E.A.R. Series
Fallout: New Vegas
Fortune Summoners
Grand Theft Auto Series
Half-Life Series
Hitman Series
Home
Homefront
Jade Empire
Just Cause 2
Lone Survivor
Max Payne Series
Monkey Island Series
Metro 2033
Overlord Series
Penumbra Series
Psychonauts
Recettear
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series
Saints Row: The Third
Shank 2
Spec Ops: The Line
Superbrothers: Sword & Sorcery EP
They Bleed Pixels
Tiny and Big: Grandpa's Leftovers
Titan Quest
To the Moon
Splinter Cell Series
Tomb Raider (2013)
Total War: Shogun 2
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
The Walking Dead
The Witcher Series
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Ys Games
Bulletstorm
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
The Saboteur
Mercanaries 2
System Shock 2
D&D games (Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights)

My vote is The Walking Dead. It has such a good story from what I've played of it (currently playing it right now).

I will say that Analogue: A Hate Story takes like 2 or 3 hours to beat if you ever want a game to just go through really quickly. It's pretty enjoyable too.

I've played quite a few of the games on your list :D, I'll only reccomend the ones I played a fair amount of.



Anodyne - Kinda old-school Zelda-y
Cave Story+ - Just, yes.
Chantelise - Pretty fun, but can get annoying.
Evoland - First unique game I've played in a loooong time.
Fortune Summoners - Pretty good, by same people as Chantelise.
Just Cause 2 - Blow up everything red, how can that not be fun?
Psychonauts - Fairly fun.
Recettear - Alchemy type game, similar to Atelier series, by same people as Chantelise.

Batman: Arkham City - Great open-world sequel to the first Arkham game.
The Walking Dead - It's not a long game and it's one of the most emotional things I've ever experienced (outside of life). Play it!

The Deus Ex series is one of the best videogame series you are ever going to play, period. The original is easily one of the greatest games of all time and Human Revolution is one of the best games released in recent history. This should really be at the top of your to-play list.

XCOM Enemy Unknown should be second on your list. It's not quite as good as the original but it is still a very good game. One More Turn syndrome will really hook its claws into you with this one. It's fantastic.

Third: Disregard Neverwinter Nights, play Baldur's Gate. BG2 is one of the all-time classics and I'll let Laddy come in here and explain why.

Fourth: System Shock 2. See above.

Nothing else on the list compares to the above games. New Vegas and Shogun 2 are pretty good but really if you haven't played the above games yet they should really be first on your priority list.

Well, hello~

First, BG2 has a very good storyline with extremely well-developed characters, meaningful choices, and excellent writing. Second, the combat is extremely tactical, and despite being difficult, the startling amount of options you have tactically makes each battle loads of fun to not only prepare for, but fight. BG2 is Bioware's opus, and it's a shame that Mass Effect gets all the love when it couldn't hold a candle to BG2's greatness.

BG2 is a masterpiece of atmosphere. The soundtrack, visuals, and voice acting are top-notch, and this game can be pretty damn dark, even gruesome, at times. Plus, you get to be a god. Get it.

Other great games are Deus Ex, System Shock 2, X-COM: Enemy Unknown, Planescape: Torment, Fallout: New Vegas, The Witcher, and Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines.

I heard nothing but good things about Spec Ops: The Line, To The Moon, Tomb Raider, and The Walking Dead too.

- Whatever Ys game you have I'd suggest playing first. Those games are way too fun.

-Jade Empire's a pretty sweet gem from before Bioware jumped the shark. Pretty short too, so you can't make an excuse to not finish it!

- Only ever played the demo for Braid and enjoyed that.

I can't provide any input on much of anything else, sorry!

Well I just played two game of your list.

Deus Ex : Human Revolution - This game has great gameplay. Graphic no doubt. And the story was interesting. What I like about this game we can choose what we want to say, but choosing options. Like talking to people. Games like Skyrim and Mass Effect also Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning. Gameplay that can choose what our character want to talk about, I love games like that.

Kingdom of Amalur : Reckoning - Gameplay of this game using Third Person. And like many RPG games this game has a vast virtual world. Graphics of this game I can say good. Has an interesting storyline. And like Skyrim. We can enter which group we want. The difference in this game we can enter all the groups. So it is quite confusing with many quests from the various groups that we're in, but it also includes important. Since this is the main side storyline that should be done. Side quest of this game also includes a lot. And also sometimes hidden. Games like Deus Ex: Human Revolution we can choose what we want to talk about that character. And in this game we can make a character like Mass Effect and Skyrim. So I highly recommend this game.

But this is my opinion. And the choice is yours.

I'd split up the list in genres, and then play the ones with the best critical reception first. After that, skip out on titles that don't add many new things to the genre. This should be the easiest for shooters/action games, because they tend to be very similar. Don't play the entire series, just the first one, or the second only if it brings a lot of improvements.

Thanks for everyone's input. This is a great list of games that looks like I'll be working on first before I get to any others. Deus Ex will be the first I play, but I think I've decided to work on the games you all listed before I start any others. I'll probably end up posting a list of those elsewhere and probably my haphazard gaming style as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kotora

I'd split up the list in genres, and then play the ones with the best critical reception first. After that, skip out on titles that don't add many new things to the genre. This should be the easiest for shooters/action games, because they tend to be very similar. Don't play the entire series, just the first one, or the second only if it brings a lot of improvements.

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The reason I won't do that is because, honestly, that thought process of seeing what they add makes no sense to me. Take the thought process using films as the replacement for games. If I were to take a genre of films, say Drama, it would whittle the list of watchable films to maybe one or two. Denigrating a whole host of films that are all enjoyable. Just because it adds nothing does not mean it should not be experienced or critiqued on its own merits.

Granted, I personally enjoy playing a series. Most of it tends to be for story reasons. If I had listed, let's say, Call of Duty on there, then I'd understand the thought process a little more but I would still play the games. In fact, I still play Call of Duty and Fifa games despite there inherent ability to differentiate themselves from one year to the next.

P.S. This may not have made much sense thanks to drinking and being in the sun all day, but whatta ya gonna do.

Will I be able to enjoy Deus Ex: HR without playing any of the other games in the series?

Yes. DE:HR works perfectly well as a stand-alone title, especially because it's technically a prequel. There are of course throwbacks and references to the prior games but nothing really major.

By the way Nicolas, congrats on choosing to play Deus Ex! The original can be a bit of a tough game to get into but it's very rewarding when you do.