Your 5 Favorite Games That Are Not Civilization

To those who have said "UFO: Enemy Unknown" / "X-Com: UFO Defense" (i.e. the original X-Com game); I'd like to recommend XPiratez. It's set in the X-Com universe, with plenty of X-Com lore; and it's feature packed with huge amounts of different tech, weapons, aliens, and pretty much everything. The main bad thing about it is that it's just too much content for someone who isn't a fairly serious gamer.
 
karadoc said:
To those who have said "UFO: Enemy Unknown" / "X-Com: UFO Defense" (i.e. the original X-Com game); I'd like to recommend XPiratez..
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Seconded!
Also, I can recommend Meridian's playthrough on YouTube (just search Meridian - I don't link to it, you'll find it easily enough) of said mod.
I know Starving Poet is also going to start streaming his X-Piratez playthrough this weekend (friday is his first X-Piratez stream, if I remember correctly). You'll find that both on Twitch and YouTube (and maybe on other streaming-sites as well).
 
I have a sixth game to mention (I know, I'm cheating! :p )

I've been playing Cities:Skylines lately, and it's a lot of fun. I never knew I'd be good at being a Mayor.

Now if I could just keep the industrial section of town from burning down...
 
1. HoMM 3
2. Crusader Kings 2 (when they release CK3, I will wait for a real complete version though :sad:)
3. Minecraft
4. Empires Dawn of the Modern World
5. Europa Universalis 3 Divine Wind

Honorable mentions would include:
Mount&Blade Warband, Sims 2 (nobody admits they play Sims, but the shenanigans...), CounterStrike CZ, Pokemon (like with Sims, but here it's the occasional challenge run and my lack of effort to find other enjoyable games on mobile), Stronghold Crusader, Team Fortress 2 or HoMM 4 and 5, all of these also have high replay values but I probably haven't played them as much.

Civ 4 would rank somewhere between 3rd and 6th, those 4 are all pretty close.
While I did try Civ 5 and EU4 due to liking their prequels a lot, I have less than 100h combined in them, too much stuff that threw me off.
 
Lots of other strategy games like...
Galactic Civilization series
Age of Wonders (especially 3)
Endless Space, Endless Legends
EU IV
Crusader Kings 2
Banished
Planetbase
Thea,
...

And classic and new RPGs like...
Divinity series
Elder Scrolls series
Baldur's Gate 1 and 2
Dragon Age series
KOTOR series
Witcher series
Shadowrun series
would love to mention Arcanum or Planescape: Torment but can't play them anymore
...

Then again we also organize board game nights regularly with friends and I also DM two tabletop RPG campaigns...
 
Honorable mentions also go to Bioshock, Portal 2, Skyrim, XCOM Enemy Unknown, and The Stanley Parable.

Guess I don't actually like strategy games as a genre as much as I thought. It's just that Civ is really good :thumbsup:
 
1: Deus Ex. Tied for best game ever made with civ 4.
2: Elder scrolls 3 Morrowind.
3: Max Payne 1 and 2.
4: GTA 3 and up.
5: The Heroes quest series from sierra.

I also loved Zelda OOT, Sids Pirates, The Sims series, Age of Empires series, and the command and concur series. Fallout 3 and up are also awsome,, oh and half life series too. O crap did I not say Quake? Well quake 1 and 2 were pretty good but Holy crap I forgot about Thief 1 and 2 as well,,,, Well Id definatly bump Heroes quest for Thief,,,, O crap. I just remembered I played "No One lives Forever" 1 and 2 even more then the Max Payne. OK,,, Umm,, God damn it. Oh crap,, what about Railroad tycoon and KOTOR. OK,, Umm I can't do this.
 
Max Payne 1 and 2 were indeed fine games..nice combo of action/story/noir

"No One Lives Forever" - I think I tried that game once, or a demo. Female spy thing right? I think it was supposed to be pretty good, but kinda under the radar. (It may have been on Yahoo.. about 10 years ago Yahoo actually had a streaming game service with most major titles. You literally rented games and streamed them..some stuff was downloaded, but the game was wiped as soon as your time ran out. Never really seen anything like that service since, although Gamefly might have tried it for a while)
 
This is really hard.
Gone for ~10 (no particular order).

  • CK2; The 1st Paradox grand strat I managed to get into. My god that game has eaten so many hours!
  • FTL; Games don't have to be AAA to be truly outstanding, just challenging, rewarding, and fun.
  • Portal; 1st 3.5D game I ever played; In terms of storytelling it demonstrated that less==more if you do it with style.
  • Medieval 2: Total War; pinnacle of the franchise in terms of gameplay, and had the most interesting era too.
  • X-Wing; My 1st PC game! 1st 3D game too! The simulation-like gameplay, and story rich missions that tied in with the films was so satisfying. Religiously played the entire franchise. All awesome. (though XvT was a bit of a misstep)
  • Deus Ex; From the main menu through to the endings, this game oozed epicness.
  • Jedi Knight 1 & 2 (1 had better story & maps, 2 had the better gameplay & graphics; both were awesome)
  • Colonization; Haha! You didn't say we couldn't include spin-off franchises! In many ways I actually found Col better than Civ.
  • Half-Life;
  • Homeworld; 1, 2 & Cataclysm; all great in their own ways.
  • Frontier: Elite 2 When games were small (in both size & scope), along comes FE2 & gives you an entire galaxy to be Han Solo in! For the time, mind bogglingly immersive, and tbh it's still pretty damn good today!

I'd like to give some credit to iD, but neither Doom nor Quake were particular good games; just great tech that inspired others to make great games. (case in point, 4 of my top ~10 games appear to be iD tech!)

Honourable mentions:

  • SOTS; Achieved something that no other game has managed; the perfect balance between RTS combat, and turn based 4x strategy.
  • Chivalry : Medieval Warfare; best melee combat game. Period.
  • KOTOR
  • C&C: Generals (C&C1 & Red Alert were equally good for their time)
  • Diablo 2 (Tbh It's more of a terrible addiction than a good game, probably shouldn't be promoting it!)
  • GTA ( 2 < franchise < 4)
  • AvP (1999); Only truly scary game I've ever played. f**k facehuggers and crawling through narrow pitch-black ducts!
  • Transport Tycoon
:edit:

After reading a few of the posts in here, I have to agree, Max Payne should probably be in my Honourable mentions. Bullet time, mind bending dream levels, stylish film noir & good story - very memorable game. (which I shamefully forgot about!)
 
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Good to see another nod to Medieval 2: Total War. I probably would not have gotten into Civ, if not for that game. Tons of hours spent there.
 
lymond said:
"No One Lives Forever" - I think I tried that game once, or a demo. Female spy thing right? I think it was supposed to be pretty good, but kinda under the radar.
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I envy people who can still play a game like this through for the first time. It's a spy game and although it kind spoofs the spy movie genre, It doesn't get as silly as Austen Powers. If you haven't played it yet your lucky because like Deus Ex or Max payne or Civ 4,,,, They just don't make them like that anymore.
 
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