CRPG Games to play 2-person

My girlfriend and I like to play CRPGs together. Currently our favorite is the Avernum series; we play it with her on the keyboard controlling the spellcasters, picking up items, navigating dialogue etc. and me on the mouse, moving the party around and controlling fighters and archers. Plus the fact that $25 gets you 600+ hours of entertainment and plot is a nice bonus of that series.

However, we're nearing the end of A5, so we'll need a new game soon. We might go back and do the Geneforge series next, though we started it once and lost our save game in a computer upgrade, so we'd have to start the first game over. :-( But I'm curious if there are any other CRPGs people think might be suitable for two people to play together.

IIRC, Baldur's gate could network so two players could control different party members, which would be pretty cool. Do any other games do that or something like it? Old games are fine, we don't really care about graphics. We have both macs and PCs to play on, and I could probably talk myself into buying a used PS2 on eBay.

(Not MMORPG's, please, I hate level grinding with no plot! I've tried lots of MMOs and was always insanely bored in just a few hours.)

Thanks much for any suggestions!

NWN is the obvious option. You can co-op the OC and expansions, although user-made mods designed for multi-player work far better.

Yes, NWN mods should keep you happy for years. Some are simply brilliant!!

NWN is indeed the clear way to go. For not very much money you can both get the full NWN with all expansions and even some of the premium modules in one package, and even with those alone you've got a lot of game hours. Then move into the free modules to download and you've got hundreds upon hundreds of hours of gaming, for an initial outlay of around $50-60 combined.

BG2 is good fun in MP as well, as are the IWD games. But NWN will definitely give you the most for your money.

I prefer IWD series over BG series for MP. When you MP, there are always some ppl who'd rather skip dialogues. BG2 without dialogue/NPC interaction is just plain boring. And no different to IWD.

NWN is awesome for MP because there are so many to choose from!

Well, if you don't mind old-school, Bloodwych had a really innovative 2-player option. A had a tonne of fun with that playing with/against my bro. It was the 80s though!

I asked about LAN RPGs a while back in this thread:

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2929

IMHO Icewind Dale, Baldurs Gate, and Neverwinter Nights are best for network play in that order. We also had fun with Dungeon Lords and Lionheart, but they are games with SEVERE issues and you should try the demo before getting them.

As for hotseat on one PC we downloaded an oldie called Hero Quest from www.the-underdogs.info yesterday. It's an early 90s implementation of a tabletop game with some 30 or so dungeons to clear of baddies. Fun but with limited longevity. The interface and graphics (VGA sound and Adlib sound make it look very good for an early 90s PC game, it's one of few games from that era that looks better than the Amiga version) had aged surprisingly well and we had a blast with it for the whole evening. You can run it under dosbox (available from www.sourceforge.net). I'd estimate it takes 10-20 hours to get through all the dungeons.

As a teenager I also tried playing various turn-based party RPGs (Goldbox series, Demons Winter) in hotseat, but it tends to get very slow and is nothing I recommend.

Originally Posted by Gallifrey
For not very much money you can both get the full NWN with all expansions and even some of the premium modules in one package,

Depends where you live. Unfortunately I don't remember having seen a version of NWN here with the premium modules included.

NWN Diamond is the version you're looking for, Alrik. Gold was OC + SoU, Platinum was OC + SoU + HotU, Diamond was Platinum + premium modules.

Yes, and I haven't seen it here, as far as I can tell.

I do have all official expansions, though.

Checked: Doesn't exist here. What you call "Platinum" is named "Deluxe" here, and "Diamond" doesn't exist.

Serves you right for getting HoMM5 Gold before us!

Perhaps international distribution is incredibly complex, but I'm really surprised that there's a need for different titles and different availability. Is software affected by regional protocols like DVDs are?

No, but the rights might differ. Different publishers might sell games in different countries, although not always.

Beyond Divinity, for example, was distributed by *several* different publishers, and Ubi Soft here. They didn't restock, by the way: Once the game had sold out, it was not possible to get it here again. Only relatively late it became available again through a few compilations.

Maybe Atari believes that Germans are not worthy a Diamond edition.
(Which would add to the already fairly bad reputation they have for me.)