A good starting point for PC?

[PharmaceuticalCowboy]

I think you could easily have fun with each and every game that you named. I loved all those games for what they are. However, I would recommend The Orange Box, Mass Effect, and Bioshock the most (notice how they are all rather inexpensive now). However I did enjoy both Fallout 3 and GTA IV (it is a very poor port though), but not enough to recommend them at the $50 price point.

[zarathstra]

Fallout 3: Awesome. I played the PC version on my crappy 5 year old desktop, so your lappy should run it just fine on reasonable settings.

Mass Effect is great, and I've heard good things about the PC version. I haven't played that version (I have it on 360) though, so take that with a grain of salt

Orange Box: Get it, nuff said

I only played through a bit of Bioshock, but I really liked it. I ended up getting distracted and forgetting what was going on, and I haven't had a chance to get back to it. I've also played System Shock 2, and while SS2 is certainly a better game, I don't agree that Bioshock is SS2 for mindless idiots. Its a good game in its own right.

As far as DRM goes, yes, it is annoying, but most of the time its not a deal breaker. For instance, the thing with Bioshock and the 3 installs? Not as simple as that. If you install it on one computer, you've used an install. However, if you uninstall it from that computer, you get that credited back. As long as you have the game on 3 or fewer computers at once, you should be fine.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

You can get a PC that will play anything under the sun for about 700. If you want something remotely portable. A 14" lenovo T61 w/ nvidia 140m will do you nicely. I play Bioshock, Mirrors Edge, Far Cry 2, and even Crysis just fine on it. Source games run A+ on it though. So the whole orange box will be full res and full settings minus aa just fine.

[J T]

So, I've been catching up on the PC world quickly since I first posted this. My collection now inlcludes

Audiosurf
Bioshock
Braid
Defense Grid: The Awakening
Deus Ex
Farcry
F.E.A.R. Combat
Geometry Wars
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Left 4 Dead
Mass Effect
The Path
Rainbow Six: Vegas
Sam and Max: Abe Lincoln Must Die (ep104)
Splinter Cell
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
Super Street Fighter II: HD Remix
The Orange Box
TrackMania Nations Forever
World of Goo
Zeno Clash

I've got a bunch of other freeware stuff too. If you're interested click in my sig to see the details.

So far, most everything is running well. Unfortunately, FarCry won't install despite my best efforts. It's incompatible with Vista 64. Also, Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Zeno Clash are all a bit choppy in the movement, unless I really lower the graphic quality. Still playable though. I don't think I'll even attempt Crysis, but I do want to play Fallout 3 if the price ever drops.

[J T]

As I said before, I haven't had much to do with PC gaming since the early 90s. I'm sure there are some great games I missed between then and now. Do you guys have any recommendations that have stood the test of time?

[Flak Beard]

I've been out of PC gaming for quite some time myself. My PC is horribly outdated (Athlon XP 2600+ / 1GB DDR 333), but since I haven't used it for gaming there's been no reason to upgrade. It still plays emulators and surf's the web as good as it did when I built it.

I re-installed Neverwinter Nights the other day though, so I'll be spending some time with the ol' girl. Thinking about grabbing some stuff of GOG too.

[MrPopo]

I'd recommend you pick up X-COM off of Steam. You also might want to look into X3, which is a really fun space sim with a very heavy sandbox element.

[Erik_Twice]

I second all those recomendations because those games are amazing.

Civilization IV is, hands down, the best strategy game I have ever played. It has so much content it's not even funny. No game has ever been close. I kid you not, get it ASAP.

It also manages tokeep that amount of countent while being incredibly user friendly. Don't want to spend time on economy? No problem, you can do that. You want more micromanagement? Try Marathon speed.

Hell it even has an experience system for troops and it's a turn-based strategy game. Why play tactics games like Advance Wars when you have Civ IV?

And it even has a good multiplayer for such a long game! A must have for sure.

I would also recommend you the best economic simulation game ever: OpenTTD. It's Transport Tycoon but with tons of new content and with really cool internet play. The gameplay is just perfect, it's my favourite game ever.

I would also recommend Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 which has a very deep gameplay and it's really fun. The 3rd game did not really have nothing new and I found the gameplay highly constrained. You cannot really build underground or on height anymore and that was one of the best things about RCT as it allowed to build the park of your dreams.

[executioner]

As I said before, I haven't had much to do with PC gaming since the early 90s. I'm sure there are some great games I missed between then and now. Do you guys have any recommendations that have stood the test of time?

Go the Lucasarts route for adventure games. I personally recommend the first two Call of duty and Medal of honor games, I just finished COD2 about two months ago and it look quite good and was very intense. But play MOH first then COD because the later is a better series overall.

[Octopod]

Dude you got to get Fallout 3.