What're YOU Playing? I

[sarcasticface]

Catan anyone?

[RevanFan]

Catan anyone?

I know it's a modern classic board game... but I hate Catan. I don't know if it's the pace or the randomness or the trading, but something about it just doesn't mesh with me.

If we're talking board games, I played Viticulture: Essential Edition with the Tuscany expansion recently. I also played Pandemic with several expansion modules; at least one from each expansion. And I just recently acquired Ticket to Ride: Europe, Star Wars: X-Wing Second Edition, and the Moor Visitors expansion for Viticulture.

[jose21crisis]

So my game rotation right now is composed of Madden 08, MVP Baseball 05 (I pick sports games based on what's happening in the world. Since baseball was the thing right now, I picked MVP), Deus Ex (As in, the first one), Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (Probably the game that frustrates me the most, because the game's AI is amazingly good, and even the easist difficulty is tough. Hell, the only thing the difficulty does is add more hostiles), Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Raven Shield, SWAT 3 and 4, Halo: Combat Evolved, DEFCON, Uplink, Hitman: Codename 47, Contracts and, for a while, Silent Assassin (Game's alright, but the AI is hyper jumpy, and it is nearly as buggy as Sonic '06).

[RevanFan]

Hitman: Codename 47, Contracts and, for a while, Silent Assassin (Game's alright, but the AI is hyper jumpy, and it is nearly as buggy as Sonic '06).

Silent Assassin is definitely the hardest game, because if you so much as flinch the whole level will start shooting at you on sight.

I've not finished Blood Money, but it's fantastic from what I have played. And I actually just got done doing Silent Assassin, Suit Only in Sapienza in Hitman 2, so you know I love that game haha.

Also, I'm really not sure what the point is of playing Codename 47 anymore, since Contracts remastered its best levels. Let me know if you disagree with that statement.

Have you played the rest of the games in the series? Mostly Blood Money and the newest ones? Absolution is... ugh. It's a decent action game. It's a terrible Hitman game.

[jose21crisis]

Silent Assassin is definitely the hardest game, because if you so much as flinch the whole level will start shooting at you on sight.

I've not finished Blood Money, but it's fantastic from what I have played. And I actually just got done doing Silent Assassin, Suit Only in Sapienza in Hitman 2, so you know I love that game haha.

Also, I'm really not sure what the point is of playing Codename 47 anymore, since Contracts remastered its best levels. Let me know if you disagree with that statement.

Have you played the rest of the games in the series? Mostly Blood Money and the newest ones? Absolution is... ugh. It's a decent action game. It's a terrible Hitman game.

Yep, Silent Assassin is tough. There were points (specially late in the mission) where I got seen (because disguises don't really work) and just started shooting my way out. Fortunately, Contracts and Blood Money toned down the AI.

Blood Money is really good, is pretty much the golden standard of the series, and one of my 3 favorite stealth games (The others being Metal Gear Solid 3 and, my personal favorite, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Funny that after those games, the series declined into more action based games (Absolution, MGS4, which wasn't that actiony, and SC: Double Agent and ... Conviction). MGS and Hitman did come back up, with MGSV and Hitman (2017). Splinter Cell, like nearly everything Tom Clancy ... not quite yet (I'm not a great fan of R6: Vegas or Siege. They are solid shooters, but they are terrible at being R6 games, to the point that Rainbow Six is an artifact title), except for HAWX, which was never bad ... but I'd take Ace Combat over HAWX)

Codename 47 is a fun, if flawed, game. Contracts does have its best missions (Fortunately they ignored the massive Colombia missions that were an exercise in running and shooting), so missing C:47 just means missing some story that's covered on nearly every introduction.

I did play a bit of Absolution. It is not that bad at being a stealth-action game, but slapping the title "Hitman" forces it to live up to a super high standard (At the time, Blood Money. Nigh impossible to beat). It didn't quite make it. Similar to Splinter Cell: Conviction. It had to live up to the standards that Double Agent (Not that high for the PS3/X360/PC, sadly deemed the canon version) and Chaos Theory (Nigh unbeatable), and didn't make it. As for the newer games in the series, haven't played them, but I watched videos and they look awesome.

[sarcasticface]

Portal 2, anyone?

[RevanFan]

Portal 2, anyone?

Not in a long time, but it is a great game.

Blood Money is really good, is pretty much the golden standard of the series, and one of my 3 favorite stealth games (The others being Metal Gear Solid 3 and, my personal favorite, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Funny that after those games, the series declined into more action based games (Absolution, MGS4, which wasn't that actiony, and SC: Double Agent and ... Conviction). MGS and Hitman did come back up, with MGSV and Hitman (2017). Splinter Cell, like nearly everything Tom Clancy ... not quite yet (I'm not a great fan of R6: Vegas or Siege. They are solid shooters, but they are terrible at being R6 games, to the point that Rainbow Six is an artifact title), except for HAWX, which was never bad ... but I'd take Ace Combat over HAWX)

I adore the new Hitman games, but I have very little experience with MGS or the Tom Clancy games. Any you recommend as a starting point?

[jose21crisis]

I adore the new Hitman games, but I have very little experience with MGS or the Tom Clancy games. Any you recommend as a starting point?

For MGS, I started with MGS1 on the PSX. I'd say a solid starting point would be MGS3 or MGS4. MGSV would be good as well, but that game is by far bigger than the other two. Just be ready to be watching cutscenes for nearly 70% of the time you play. A lot of plot happens in those. IIRC, the end scenes of MGS4 take a FULL HOUR. MGS is possibly the most story-driven game series ever.

As for Tom Clancy, you got some choices. Rainbow Six is the resident counter terrorism tactical shooter. The first game was pretty tough (the AI needed work, plus occassional bugs) but it was alright. The second game was pretty solid on it's own right, but the AI still was decent at best. With the R6 series, the biggest thing (At least the first 3 games) was the planning stage which, depending on mission, took about 30 mins to an hour to deal with, for about 3-6 minutes of action. The best starting point would be R6: Raven Shield. It's on Steam as Rainbow Six 3: Gold, which features Raven Shield and the first expansion pack, Athena Sword. (It has a second expansion pack, Iron Wrath, which was released for free). Then you have R6: Vegas and Vegas 2 which are the mainstream, story driven versions of R6. Both are pretty good (and hard) shooters, Vegas 2 is superior in my eyes. In between is Lockdown, which as far as everyone is concerned, does not exist. Siege is mostly multiplayer with a smallish single player campaign.

Next is Ghost Recon, which is Rainbow Six jacked up to military special forces, which means bigger maps and possibly bigger headaches (And, usually, less hostages). The planning phase is ditched, so nearly everything is thought out mid mission. The best starting point would be Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, which pretty awesome. You could start with Ghost Recon Original, which to many is the best in the series bar none. That one has an amazing AI. Wildlands is also around (Not bad at all) as is Future Soldier (Decent, story driven too). Ghost Recon 2 is ... Alright, but is covered by the shadow of Ghost Recon Original.

Finally you have Splinter Cell, the resident stealth series. The first one was pretty solid, even with it's "3 Alarms and the game is over" condition. Then the second one, Pandora Tomorrow, took the difficulty and shot it through the roof. It had "Get seen and you fail" a plenty. The best starting point would be Chaos Theory, the third one. Solid difficulty curve, plenty options, game is great. Then came Double Agent, which is average, then Conviction, which like I mentioned is like Absolution. Finally came Blacklist, which would also be a solid starting point because by far it has the most options available to go about a mission (You HAVE to be stealthy on the first 4, Conviction forced you to kill a bit, Blacklist lets you use both, except for a single coop mission).

You also have HAWX, which is air to air/ground combat. Not bad but, like I said, I'd take Ace Combat any day.

[jose21crisis]

Forgot to mention, there's also the resident RTS game, EndWar. Basically a military style rock-paper-scissors RTS, which is pretty solid IMO.

And finally my personal favorite series would be the SWAT series. Police Quest: SWAT was a FMV game that really forced the procedures on you and, like every Sierra game back in the day, clicking wrong would kill you. SWAT 2 was an RTS that was tough to deal with (having to control 5+ units to deal with a single suspect, and having the suspect shoot a few of your guys, was common). SWAT 3 went for a more traditional FPS look, and did a damn good job at it. SWAT 4 is, to me, the best game of the bunch (It is darker than SWAT 3, but in illumination and story wise. The AI is superior ... Most of the time. You don't have generic guys as teammates, their conversations can be quite funny at times) SWAT 3 was somewhat story driven, SWAT 4 didn't really have a connected story, aside from the expansion pack. I'd say I'm biased to SWAT 4 because I worked on a pretty big mod for it, so there you go.

[RevanFan]

I've actually played Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Came pretty close to finishing it actually. But I haven't played it in many years. Splinter Cell... I've always heard that Chaos Theory is amazing, so that is where I would start probably. Rainbow Six is the one I know least about, so your advice definitely comes in handy.

As far as I am aware, between myself and my mom (whose Steam account I occasionally share), we have pretty much every Tom Clancy game, so I am not limited in what to play first. Just want to know the most "accessible" starting points, and which games most resemble what the series is all about.