Games of comparable quality to SC2??

[Dragon]

On the subject of adventure games, I've always been partial to the Monkey Island and Quest for Glory games myself. Good luck finding them at this point, though.

As it turns out some guys at AGDInteractive have rewritten and repainted some of the Quest games and they're freely available.  There's also The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition coming to XBox live arcade.  I must confess I never really liked the the Quest games nor the Monkey Islands games which is a double bad for MI:SE as I don't like Guybrush's new style either.  An adventure I did enjoy was Full Throttle.

[Angelfish]

World of Warcraft is most certainly the best game I've ever played. For me, it brought about an incredible new way of playing games; collaborating with eachother to achieve a common goal like killing dragonz and stuff . It's, like starcontrol, totally immersive and has a unique and well thought out universe filled with humor and fun things to do . Too bad it's waaaay too addictive and timedemanding for me to still be playing it, but it's still the best game I've ever played, by far.

Furthermore, I really enjoyed Mass Effect, which is a game which clearly lended A LOT from star control. The game is mainly story-driven with a lot of witty dialogue, albeit not with the same quality of star control. The space exploration and planet landing stuff is also quite clearly inspired by star control, but upgraded a bit for the modern age. The rest of the game is a first person shooter, by the way

[Rider]

Third person rather, but mostly you're correct. It's actually one of the few games I've recently bought after trying it out for a bit (the other one on my to-get list would be Plants vs Zombies). It's pretty good actually.

Star-control 2 had a magic to it that very few games have been able to duplicate. The best game I can think of that shares this would be Psychonauts. For me, barring a 5 minute speedbump in getting into it, it was a magical experience in and on itself. If you haven't played it, and don't mind platformers, it's a definite winner!

[Angelfish]

Yeah, I forgot it was third person .

[spinsane]

So I hate to admit how flippant I am, but I found PS:T too tedious in the end. The AD&D engine really held the game back in terms of playability. Trying to have classes and what not where they really didn't need to be- heck, you can't even play most of the game without a certain stat distribution, which got pretty frustrating. An alignment system was also pretty pointless. I enjoyed fallout 1/2 more for its mechanics, but the story in PS:T, while it is good, just isn't quite there. The lack of focus and the excessive amount of sub-quests really makes the game move a little too taoist-like for me.

I had played homeworld before, but I found it to be a little too boring- I did finish it though.

I am enjoying LBA, it's easy enough and kind of fun and engaging, some of the stealth aspects are neat. The Combat system totally blows and the story is really weak, but there is some magical element that makes it really enjoyable. Though, now that I've gotten to the rebellion island I'm really disappointed....


Mass Effect looks like SC3, but I'll see if my computer can handle it.

D - is a pretty intense game. It has a magical quality to it that almost makes you afraid to play it.

[Lukipela]

I am enjoying LBA, it's easy enough and kind of fun and engaging, some of the stealth aspects are neat. The Combat system totally blows and the story is really weak, but there is some magical element that makes it really enjoyable. Though, now that I've gotten to the rebellion island I'm really disappointed....

Glad to hear it. I posted that game because I feel the same way. The story is mostly there to give you some incentive and explain all the odd stuff they dropped in, which is a pity since it could have been much more. I rather enjoyed the combat system, once I figured out how to use it. That ball isn't very intuitive. LBA2 makes things easier in that you get a few more weapons and harder in that outdoors is full 3D, making aiming really tricky. But there's something magical about that world, in the same way that I feel that the SC world is magical. Damned if I know what though.

Regarding System Shock, the second game in the series is really awesome. Not a lot of characters in it though, even though the atmosphear (haha) is brilliant. I wish they'd make a third game in the same vein.

[Dabir]

Homeworld's great for breaking, like when you're faced with a megaenormous fleet and can distract every single ship with a proximity sensor, then sneak up and steal them whilst they're chasing something they're never going to catch, or when you order a Support Frigate to repair every single Drone from every single Drone Frigate you have, which causes the drones to stick with the support frigate rather than their parent drone frigate - impractical but fun.

[gihren]

Hmmm...I may have a few for ya.

Earthsiege 2.  I actually never played the first one, but that didn't change the quality of 2 one bit.  Interesting ideas, excellent sound/graphics quality (for its day) without losing the merit of story, though it is a linear plot (though what you do in one mission can change another).  Not an adventure game, it's a mech game, but damn fun.

Final Fantasy [insert number].  I can vouch that 5-8 are good (7 & 8 are the best, never actually finished 5 or 6, but got through a good bit), if that's what floats your boat.  Nobuo Uematsu is a musical genius.

Starshatter: The Gathering Storm felt like a good space sim.  RTS and Sim in one.  I hear X3 is also good. 

For a WWII flight sim, IL2: 1946 is 6 games or so in one ($20). It feels like flying an airplane, with guns and bombs and people trying to kill you.  Not monotonous.

Full Throttle - story game about bikers.  Interesting, funny, fun.

Deus ex was fun until school took my time away.

[Rider]

Oh man, I almost forgot!

Day of the Tentacle.

[/thread]

[Megagun]

Homeworld looked nice, sounded nice, but played... not so nice... Homeworld 2 plays far, far better, but doesn't have the awesome atmosphere of the original..

Now, here's something I totally forgot myself: Space Rangers 2.
(I made a nice post about it back in the days on the UQMF, but they're currently down for maintenance! I'll stick a link to it in here when it's back up, meanwhile:)
Space Rangers 2 is a relatively unknown adventure/RTS/spaceshooter/RPG hybrid from some crazy unknown russian developer, and happens to be quite like SC2 itself, but in a much more vibrant, in-depth universe (smaller scale!). Basically, you go around solar systems to make money by doing missions, mining minerals, finding artefacts, killing pirates, or doing piracy yourself. In a way, it's like Elite, only much more accessible due to a nice interface, the fact that it is 2d rather than 3d, and it's turn-based design (which is executed in an amazingly useful and nice way!).

Where the game shines (and its russian background shines through) is the adventure parts. Every now and then, you can accept an adventure mission where you need to accomplish a certain task, from participating in a violent flycycle race, to managing a ski resort, to saving a guy who has been kidnapped. Unfortunately, the writing in these adventure parts isn't top-notch, as the translation from russian to english is not so good.  Also, if you manage to get jailed in SR2, it's not just "game over", no, you get to actually play through your sentence time in a nicely detailed ingame adventure game, including cockroach races and fights between inmates!

There's also some other parts to it, like a small and basic RTS part (one of the things that is splitting the SR2 community apart into those-who-like and those-who-hate), and a little action, melee-esque game.

At one point in time, an expansion was released that added new RTS maps, new adventure missions, and new equipment (hulls, special shields, new special artefacts). This was then picked up by Stardock, who polished the rest of the game (mostly writing) and are now selling Space Rangers 2 alongside with the expansion: http://www.impulsedriven.com/sr2c

Metacritic of the original, without-expansion for all you lazies: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/spacerangers2dominators

[Tiberian]

I think that the only games that are "equally good" with SC2 are:

Fallout 1
Fallout 2

[Cedric6014]

Hmmmmmm

The games I got the most enjoyment out of:

Knights of the Old Republic
Really good story, sympathetic characters, super graphics. Rare game that made role-playing fun. And has lightsabers

UFO Enemy Unknown
Funnily enough, I'm playing it right now. Sectopods havent gotten any easier to kill. Another game which captures the essence of atmosphere

One Must Fall
Big fighting robots! HIGHLY recommended - you can download it I'm sure.

X-Wing
A fantastic game when it came out, you really felt like you were flying an x-wing (which was the idea i guess). Although I found some missions almost impossible. And it was pretty tricky managing all the keys  AND the mouse. Had to force my little brother to be my artoo unit. I never played TIE Fighter but I gather it fixed these issues somwhat.

SC2 is the best though, no question


Overrated: Baldur's gate
Found myself squinting at the screen the whole time. Okay story but awful cheesy dialogue. A bit too nerdy all round really

[Bleeding Star]

I'll have to add a few me-toos for:

X-COM/UFO: very atmospheric and fun. I love the sense of progress as you finally start unlocking the decent equipment. Can be super-deadly and frustrating though.

TIE- fighter: Fantastic space-sim with interesting, varied, and often incredibly difficult missions. Nice to see things from the perspective of the Empire for a change. Also, shields are for pussies. Cedric, it's a zillion times better than X-wing and worth a go if you can stand the aging graphics.

Planescape-Torment: Fantastic and involved RPG with a thought-provoking storyline, good enough to make up for the quirky interface and game mechanics.

I'm currently obsessively playing Age of Wonders, which is a lot of fun but not really in the league of SC2. I don't play many recent games so my knowledge is all a bit out of date.

[Lukipela]

I'm currently obsessively playing Age of Wonders, which is a lot of fun but not really in the league of SC2. I don't play many recent games so my knowledge is all a bit out of date.

First game, second one or Shadow Magic? I loved the two later games, but the A.I is painfulyl thick. After a while in each level you get to the point where you know you're going to win, but you also know that it'll take another two hours to massacre all the A.I's free troops.

[Dragon]

Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic is still a firm favourite here.  I'm even willing to forgive the retarded AI because it's just so beautiful.  I've spent many, many years waiting for the sequel (or spiritual successor) to Master of Magic and Age of Wonders is as good as it gets.  Although if AoW:SM's AI was dopey MoM's was out and out broken .