Coming back to RPG games.

So far as high-end games from the last couple years that might fit the requirements, the main ones have already been mentioned: Dragon Age, NWN2 & Mask of the Betrayer, etc.

If you drop the requirement that it be the sort of game that puts your hardware to the test, then Knights of the Chalice (pure awesome) and Avernum 6 fit perfectly. They're not pretty but what they do, they do right (KotC in particular blows every other turn-based combat RPG out of the water).

And if you're willing to have the game be from the last ten years instead of the last two, then the big ones that fit the bill have been mentioned: Baldur's Gate II, Icewind Dale I/II, Temple of Elemental Evil, Wizardry 8.

Games that you should play:

- Ultima 7
- Baldur's Gate Saga
- Icewind Dale 1-2
- Planescape Torment
- Arcanum
- Anachronox
- Fallout 1-2-3
- Might&Magic 6-7-8
- Wizardry 8
- Divine Divinity
- Beyond Divinity
- Vampire The Masquarade: Redemption&Bloodlines
- Temple Of Elemental Evil
- Star Wars: Kotor 1-2
- Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall&Morrowind
- Arx Fatalis
- Fable
- Dungeon Siege 1-2
- Gothic 1-2
- Risen
- Dragon Age
- The Witcher
- Drakensang
- Neverwinter Nights 1-2
- Divinity 2

I understand you want a new engine. But in my experience it has never been about graphics, unless of course it's a text-based game. That being said, I would strongly recommend Wizardry 8. You will not regret it.

This is a pretty good list of what's worth playing (except for the Dungeon Siege games, lord, stay away from those!!!!)…

Originally Posted by Gokyabgu
Games that you should play:

- Ultima 7
- Baldur's Gate Saga
- Icewind Dale 1-2
- Planescape Torment
- Arcanum
- Anachronox
- Fallout 1-2-3
- Might&Magic 6-7-8
- Wizardry 8
- Divine Divinity
- Beyond Divinity
- Vampire The Masquarade: Redemption&Bloodlines
- Temple Of Elemental Evil
- Star Wars: Kotor 1-2
- Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall&Morrowind
- Arx Fatalis
- Fable
- Dungeon Siege 1-2
- Gothic 1-2
- Risen
- Dragon Age
- The Witcher
- Drakensang
- Neverwinter Nights 1-2
- Divinity 2

ANd out of those my favorites with full party capabilty are Icewind Dale 1, Baldur's Gate 2, and Wizardry 8. However Morrowind and Divine Divinity are worth playing even if you're only controlling one character at a time.

Planescape: Torment, Arcanum and Fallout 1/2 allow you to have more than one character but the party/combat systems are pretty weak - but they are still excellent titles for other reasons.

Temple Of Elemental Evil has THE best turn based combat (well maybe aside from Wiz 8) but it's very barebones as far as story and the writing is atrocious. If you ever played the old Gold Box D&D games though, TOEE to me is reminiscent.

Downloading Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold.
Could not find Wizardry 8
available as a download.
Should keep me busy for a bit.

Thanks for the help.
Keeping lists saved "just in case" I get sucked back into rpgs.

Actually the style of fighting that the older rpgs were (turn based?) is what I am looking for.Punch in spell,fighting move ect..let it play out (drink some coffee) and have another go.
I was looking at Wiz8 and character creation looks great but I don't see the game available for download and it looks a bit dated.
I would like to test out my new laptops power a bit.:-)
I am assuming there are no "newer" games out there that fit my need.

Party play.
Open party creation.
Turn based battle.
Game engine newer than say 2008.
Medieval type theme.

Thanks for the ideas..been checking them out all day.

How about Drakensang [2009] (Review on GameBanshee)
- Traditional party-based RPG
- Uses popular The Dark Eye P&P ruleset. Much like D&D.
- Over 40 hours of gameplay (some say +60!)
- Turn-based combat with option to pause
- And most importantly, not console dumbed down!

It has it flaws, but generally the reviews have been quite favorable. And some of those issues you can fix with the fixpack. Check the forum here in RPGWatch too.

Originally Posted by toolguy
Downloading Neverwinter Nights 2 Gold.
Could not find Wizardry 8
available as a download.
Should keep me busy for a bit.

Thanks for the help.
Keeping lists saved "just in case" I get sucked back into rpgs.

Good luck with Camera….

Yikes! I would NOT have recommended NWN2 to somebody who has been gone from the RPG genre for more than 20 years! Oh, well. Toolguy, if you like it you're golden because virtually every other major ROG release in the last 10 years is better! And of you don't like it, don't give up hope because virtually every other RPG release in the last 10 years is better!

I'm a bit surprisid anyone would recommend the NWN games and not mention KOTOR? Same formula, but better execution.

Originally Posted by Konjad
Yeah, but Drakensang is boring piece of shit with retarded characters and dialogues and over-shiny-next-gen-graphic so I wouldn't recommend this.

It was quite an success in Germany.

Originally Posted by purpleblob
Good luck with Camera….

Installing MotB includes the official camera patch. I never played the game with the "out of the box" camera design which was supposed to be so brutal, but I never had any complaints with the camera I had. That game just failed to grab me, much to my dismay. After all the time I spent with NWN1 (I was one of the 5 people that actually liked the OC ), I had high hopes for NWN2. Can't really pinpoint where it "failed" for me, but I never made it past building your keep.

Installed game and it crashes as soon as I walk outside…
Went to the forums and looks like there are all sorts of patches/fixes ect. and lots of folks having issues with the game crashing.
I have a new asus lappy with latest drivers. None of my other games crash.

The one thing I wanted to avoid was messing with crap to get a game running.
Guess I just need to grab a "newer" coded game (ie.Dragon Age).
Looks like I just blew $40.00 on a game I can't play GRRRR.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
It was quite an success in Germany.

That's why I believe Germans are insane.

Originally Posted by Konjad
… boring piece of shit with retarded characters …

To the OP: This says more about the poster than about Drakensang, so please ignore it.

Drakensang is one of the more old school RPGs of this time and very recommended.

Originally Posted by toolguy
Installed game and it crashes as soon as I walk outside…
Went to the forums and looks like there are all sorts of patches/fixes ect. and lots of folks having issues with the game crashing.
I have a new asus lappy with latest drivers. None of my other games crash.

The one thing I wanted to avoid was messing with crap to get a game running.
Guess I just need to grab a "newer" coded game (ie.Dragon Age).
Looks like I just blew $40.00 on a game I can't play GRRRR.

It is most likely your graphics card drivers…I think thats what itw as for me.

Could be.
Brand new vid card and only one driver choice so I can't upgrade or roll back.

What vid card do you have?

NWN2 worked for me on XP64 so I'm sure it will work on Win64. I personally didn't like the game, so I haven't re-installed it on Win7, but since older games work fine there's no reason this shouldn't.

geforce gts360m

Hmmm, laptops are always a little bit dicey for games, but NWN2 should be just fine on something like that. There are certainly lots of updates and patches but the game's updater should handle all that itself and put you right on the latest version. And, by "as soon as I walk outside" I assume you mean as soon as you pop out of your house for the first time. So the basic graphics engine is working….

Hmmmm…. new laptop… have you done a memory test on it yet? There's a built-in memory tester in Vista/Win7, just type 'memory diagnostic' in the search and it should show up.

Back to the original topic…..

Yeah, NWN2 is a pretty good choice. If you like it, you can move on to Mask of the Betrayer and Dragon Age. Dragon Age does have nicer graphics but it also has that ultra-stupid updater that's done via a Windows service instead of, say, an updater program. Great game once you get the updater working, though.

Party creation is a bit different these days. Instead of making your whole party yourself (which can result in the uninitiated player making an incredibly gimped party), you make your first character and then the game hands you additional characters. Once you get the additional character into your party, you can control the skills they pick but the initial creation is done by the developers. After not too long, you'll have more party members than you can take on an adventure so you'll be able to pick and choose just which of the characters you actually want. It works pretty well.

NWN 2 is not a bad choice, though I still think if he wants turn based with whole party management he should play TOEE first.