I suggest this be a thread where we all contribute our favorite picks for awesome games you can find on gog.com. Blarg posted this gem of a site in the random **** thread awhile back - basically, they repackage old games from years past, wrapping them w/ DosBox or whatever is needed to get them to run on XP/Vista, and sell them for $10 or less. I've found myself spending more of my free time playing these games lately than console games, despite Resistance 2/GoW2/CoD5 still sitting unopened in my living room, so they have lots of good stuff available. My recommendations:

Disciples II: Gold Edition (2002, $10): Awesome turn-based strategy game with similar gameplay to the Heroes of Might and Magic series. You hire heroes, each of whom command an army, and go around the map battling other heroes for territory. The main differences are that you have a max of 5 troops in your army, and instead of purchasing large numbers of them HoMM style, these individual troops level up over time (as long as your army doesn't get defeated, you can always resurrect them) and upgrade to stronger versions of themselves. The gold edition package includes a ton of gameplay - the original game has one campaign for each of the four races, and the expansions add a second campaign for each race and a campaign for a new fifth race. If you like HoMM, you will probably love this game. Graphics aren't bad at all, still quite playable imo.

Heroes of Might and Magic (1996, $10): If you've never played HoMM before, this is a good intro to the series and turn-based strategy games in general. If you have played this series before, I think you'll likely find this game too much of a step backwards from HoMM 2 (which was basically the best game ever and improved over this first game in the series in soooo many ways, most notably allowing for a little more variation in armies and improving the AI significantly to make it more challenging) and a little too pricey (sure we're all ballas here, but $10 for a game that's 13 years old? plz).

Painkiller (2004, $10): Serious Sam-style FPS game that's actually pretty fun. It's one of the few games that Zero Punctuation (review link) has ever actually had anything nice to say about. That review sums up the game pretty well; there's non-stop action, and it's also 25% off until midnight EST tomorrow (Monday).

Chessmaster 9000 (2002, $10): I bought this the other day when I randomly felt like playing chess and discovered that what few "play chess against a computer online" sites exist generally suck, and I was actually pleasantly surprised by everything that's included in this package. There's a lot of training course type things you can do, and there are a lot of annotated games (like the chess version of poker training site videos, I guess) from chess pros that are really entertaining to listen to, even if I don't understand most of what's going on in them. There are about a million AI "personalities" you can play against, each with their own style of play and skill level, and I didn't have a hard time finding the right balance of difficulty.


So yeah, what other games are worth playing? I'll probably check out Jagged Alliance 2 ($10) at some point, and I'm curious if Fallout/Fallout 2 ($6 each) hold up very well over time (I've never played them) and if Descent 3/Freespace/Freespace 2 (all $6) are any good and still fun.

TBH fallout 1 & 2 have not aged particularly well, even though they are excellent games. Their main focus is story, not gameplay. It can be tough to get into since it is so deep and fairly complex to a newcomer. If you can get over the shortcomings, you will definitely not regret playing them.

The freespace games have aged well, and are really fun and unique. They are also quite deep, but not overly complex and both have really good tutorials that ease you into the gameplay. I'd recommend trying out at least one of these.

Just found out that they are releasing the Tex Murphy games. The first 3 are out now. 1 & 2 are available combined for $5.99, while Under a Killing Moon is $9.99. The final two games are coming out soon.

http://www.gog.com/en/page/newsletter_011/

I played the first two a few years ago, they're good enough if you love adventure games. Last month I "acquired" UaKM, would have paid for it legitimately if I knew it was coming. It was much better than I thought it would be, and even though the interface/movement is weird and arcane, the overall game holds up.

I'll buy the final two from GOG to show support since the developers want to make more. Something I find interesting is that a few years ago (after all the games were already out) they recorded a free serialized audio drama with the original cast (well, Tex at least) to resolve a cliffhanger that the final game left open. I'm looking forward to listening to it.

sweet site.

def going to be grabbing Jagged Alliance 2 and Fallout Tactics. Played these back in the day and enjoyed both. Recommended if you are in to turn-based strategy games. Wish they had Silent Storm (WW1/2 based TBS), been looking for that at the local EBGames used section for some time.

You still have Resistance 2 still unopened? Good, you can still return it, I wish I could. I still play RFOM online every day, they really fkd up R2.

Anyway, never heard of GOG.com and I like. Will be browsing all day.

If you liked the Ultima Underworld games at all, Arx Fatalis is pretty much Ultima Underworld 3, though not as good as the first two. Still, for $5 I'd recommend it.

Thanks UU2 is one of my fondest gaming memories I think I’ll check it out.

I bought this as per your recommendation, then I realized "wow it's really old" and looked up the newest version. Apparently, you can get the newest (2007/2008+) version for only $20, so thought I'd mention that to people who are considering buying a chess program.

That said, this program will probably be sufficient for players who don't know what the hell they're doing still (myself included), and probably couldn't tell the difference anyway.

Thanks for the link Goofy, I've been looking for a point n click game as you may have seen from my thread, and just downloaded Beneath a Steel Sky for free. Result.

You'd better take my advice and do Gabriel Knight 1.

Been playing Disciples 2 obsessively for a couple months now and still not close to tired of the game. Best ten bucks I've dropped in a long time.

I think Fallout 1 and 2 hold up well, but they come from a day when people took longer attention spans for granted. Games in general were tougher then, and even installing them was often such a bear that gamers were already self-selected for patience. So a game that took a little patience then seems like it takes tons of patience today. It also is a game that is inherently slow and methodical -- combat is paused and everything is very step by step. There's no RTS or FPS feeling of scrambling to keep up at all. But judged on its own terms, the games are as good as ever.

I got a bunch more GOG games but really haven't been gaming that much lately in general, so haven't tried them out yet.

I got, but have not installed, Descent 1 and 2 for 10 bucks combined, and they were some of the most fun games I've ever played, so if you can handle the blocky graphics, I'd say they're well worth it. Truly exciting dogfights with tremendous freedom of movement and quick response from your flying whatchajigger craft. Very fun combining laser shots, mines, flak, different types of missiles, too. Some environments are very tight, and some pretty big. The "bosses" are actually pretty darn fun to figure out, not tedious like I find they are in many games. Only thing is, I find gameplay markedly inferior when you're not using a joystick, so there's that expense to think about too.

I think when Silent Hunter 2 comes out (a very very highly rated submarine sim) I might get that.

Second Arx Fatalis, wish they would make a sequel for that it.

Fallouts are obviously the very definition of awesome too. I think I've played them both once a year since they came out.

FreeSpace 2 is definitely worth it as well.

Go to Strategyfaqs for walkthroughs and Strategy First forums for play ideas imo. The manual is crap and figuring out what to do relying on that alone is really tough, but the walkthroughs and forums make it pretty easy. There is advice on cookie-cutter groups and play styles, variations, really odd ways to play just for the challenge, how to capture a capital city, etc.

FWIW I've been playing each side through on the first game twice, because it's fun to see how different styles play. They really do make a difference. The game is quite replayable. GOG also has links to extra skirmish maps.

I'm having a hard time settling into Baldur's Gate II. I read like every Forgotten Realms book in high school, so the subject matter is very appealing, but I never played Diablo, etc., and so the game style is a little foreign to me.

That's not on GOG silly. It is on Gametap, but I would not recommend joining them at this time because their new beta software is almost unusable.

Although to continue the OT on BG, I had the same problem with BG1 when I tried it years ago. I got to like "Chapter 3", but hadn't actually been doing much of the side quests or anything so wasn't prepared, didn't understand how leveling up worked, etc.

You could try playing Planescape: Torment. Same engine, but the combat is not difficult and it's very story-heavy. That might help ease the transition, and it's a great great game anyway.

Nobody has mentioned Duke Nukem 3D for $5.99:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/duke_...tomic_edition/

I think it's more likely than not that we'll see a new FPS Duke game at some point in the future despite the recent setback, and I want to play this for historical value anyway because I never have.

It's definitely a lot of fun. Probably uber blocky by now.

Part of the charm.

Duke 3D is probably a better pickup on XBLA for the multiplayer, which 10 years later is still awesome.

I don't think there will ever be an amount of brokeness achieved in my life that I will jump at the opportunity to save 25% off of $10

It is amazing how $2.50 off is an irresistible bargain! For some reason, it took forever to download Painkiller, failed a few times along the way, but now has finally finished. Looking forward to the carnage.

As a Mac user who hasn't played too many games, another nice thing about GOG is that most of these games seem to run under Crossover. Not having to boot into windows is a nice treat.

Painkiller was indeed pretty fun.

There's a sale every week, if not two sales, and it's amazing how excited the forums get over it. I get excited to save 10 bucks, because that's how I roll, but two or three bucks doesn't really do it for me. GOG's games are cheap enough that I either want them or don't.

How do they handle these games with widescreen monitors? Are there bars on the sides, are the resolutions somehow modified without distortion, or are they (god forbid) distorted?