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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2974 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 19, 2026

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I mentioned this in another thread, but I finally have a gaming PC. I am far behind on gaming. The newest console I have is from 2012. I never had a gaming PC. I am open to any games of any genre from the last 30 years. I love RPGs, but open to anything. Bonus if it’s cheap.

Buddy, you are in for such a treat. If you are serious about anything from the last 30 years, you are in for a firehose of fun you can scarcely imagine.

But first, install Linux Mint, or CachyOS, or whatever your preferred form of Linux is. Microsoft Windows is over, and your computing experience will be much more pleasant (not to mention faster and more responsive) with any of the popular Linux distros. They all run windows games virtually out of the box these days.

Since everyone else is focusing on new trash from the last 10 years, let me offer a broader prespective.

  • StarCraft (1998) - I still think this might have one of the most finely honed RTS campaigns of all time. Just flawless.
  • Quake 2 (1997) - I consider this the peak of a form of shooter that died for a long time post Half-Life. It's all about rule of cool in the level design, and enemy attack patterns you can actually anticipate and dodge. Fun weapons too.
  • Might & Magic VI (1998) - Possibly the best Might & Magic ever. First one that didn't constrain movement to a grid, massive open world, tons of quests and loot, so many fun ways you can upgrade your characters, including quests for advanced classes. Might & Magic VII is better in some ways, some people liked that you got a castle. I never cared for the fact that the story put you on a deadline.
  • Half-Life (1998) - The FPS that completely redefined how FPS were made. Environmental story telling at it's best, and IMHO better than it's sequel.
  • Baldur's Gate (1998) - I replayed this a few years ago and absolutely adored it. A relatively low power AD&D powered RPG. It's a tight 10-20 hour experience with a little bit of everything you could possibly want in an RPG. See Icewind Dale if you want more of a dungeon crawl experience, and Planescape Torment if you lean more story and role play heavy.
  • Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns (2001) - My love for this game is inexplicable. Just a very unique take on an RTS. Kind of a left field pick I will admit.
  • Max Payne (2001) - The game that invented bullet time! And more or less set in stone the way Remedy Entertainment made games and told stories from this point on. If you like it, you'll probably like everything else Remedy made (Max Payne 2, Alan Wake, Control, etc)
  • Morrowind (2002) - Another possible high water mark for the Elder Scrolls games. Massive, and alien, open world. No level scaling in the world. Hits are determined by stats and not timing or player skill like later games. Probably the last pure RPG in the series before Oblivion moved it more in an action direction.
  • Arx Fatalis (2002) - A dungeon crawl RPG in the spirit of Ultima Underworld. Just you, an underground labyrinth, and whatever you can scrounge along the way. I never actually beat it now that I think about it.
  • Tron 2.0 (2003) - Probably a better sequel to the original movie than what we actually got. I remember really enjoying it, but it's been forever since I last played it. Another left field pick.
  • Painkiller (2004) - The first FPS where bunny hopping wasn't just a thing you could do, but actively required to handle the raw quantity of enemies, as well as get to certain areas. Fucking love it. Can't speak to the sequels though.
  • Darwinia (2005) - An indie game before indie games were really a thing. It changed a lot over the years. I still have an old CD-ROM copy with gesture controls and all sorts of nonsense, since that was hip at the time. I think if you get it now of GOG or something it has more traditional controls. Sort of an RTS? Sort of a god game? You'll see.
  • Titan Quest (2006) - Do you like action RPGs? Probably one of the last best ones. Then THQ went out of business and they all formed a new game studio and made Grim Dawn, which is also pretty damned good.
  • Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War (2004) - I always found the campaigns for this game underwhelming, but the Dark Crusade expansion had a really fun campaign mode for all the playable factions. Something like 8 of them I think? It got a little out of control.
  • Sid Meier's Railroad (2006) - I never liked train games. Maybe this isn't even a very good train game for the people that really love train games. But it worked for me.
  • Legend of Grimrock (2012) - An old school grid based, real time dungeon crawler RPG, in the style of Dungeon Master. Strongly recommend.

That's probably enough for now. Have fun.

Sid Meier's Railroad (2006) - I never liked train games. Maybe this isn't even a very good train game for the people that really love train games. But it worked for me.

Still my favorite train game by far (unless we're counting Factorio). Hard to get it to work now though.

Railroads! is fast-paced, fairly intuitive, plenty of variability, and a full game doesn't take too long. It's just fun in a way that I mostly don't find other train games to be. I think because it's optimizing for gameplay instead of trying to be a realistic simulation.

Also, and this is big, industries actually set up near their input resources! One of the things that drives me crazy about, for example, Transport Fever 2 is that there'll be one brick factory and one source of stone and they'll be on opposite sides of the map and it can take literally years to get a shipment over. Oh, and then there's no market for the finished good anywhere nearby even once they're made. The placement just makes no sense. TF2 gets around this by making every shipment worthwhile to deliver, more or less, which isn't how things work!

Railroads! instead encourages the player to prioritize the placement of high-value lines to make money quickly, and then invest that surplus in developing more complicated supply chains and industries. While also managing stock price and heading off opponents, of course.

Finally, there's just enough maintenance/upgrade pressure to scratch my itch, without it becoming a sprawling nightmare to manage like TF2.

The only real complaint I have about Railroads! is that the train table mode has no option for restricting town growth, so instead of setting up a picturesque little train table it always ends up as sprawling cities.

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