PC gaming 2002-2006

[Obiwanshinobi]

Why 2002? Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Big Mutha Truckers saw the daylight that year, inaugurating a generation of pretty solid, mostly multiplatform games, not ground-breaking technically, but respectably polished on PC, sometimes better off played there than on consoles (XIII says hello).
So it's not about the likes of Mafia - technically impressive and just as demanding on hardware (in their time).

What games do you think fit the bill? Other than the aforementioned (bar Mafia) and Freedom Fighters, Rogue Trooper, Total Overdose, Project: Snowblind, GTA: Vice City/San Andreas, Psychonauts, I-Ninja, Rayman 3, Second Sight, Psi-Ops, Mashed: Drive to Survive/Fully Loaded, Cold Fear, Area 51, Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, PoP trilogy, BG&E, Splinter Cell 1-3, Enclave, Sniper Elite, Thief: Deadly Shadows, The Chronicles of Riddick: EfBB, Conan (2004), LotR:TRotK, Richard Burns Rally, Colin McRae Rally 04/2005, Hitman: Contracts/Blood Money, Silent Hill 2-4 (hey, I was lucky to find only one glitch in 2), Kill.Switch, Nemesis Strike (I disliked something about aiming to be fair, but it's been a while), Shikigami no Shiro 1-3, Powerdrome, Raiden III, PES 4-6, Serious Sam (I think I'm gonna install the demo tonight), SW Jedi Knight II, THotD3, OutRun 2006, Sonic Heroes, The Bard's Tale (technically it's anthology), Commandos: Strike Force, Gun, Tony Hawk's (count 'em all), Dead to Rights 1&2, Darkened Skye, The Suffering 1&2...? Whew.

Some of them I did not play long enough to decide whether I liked them or not, but I've neither found nor heard anything bad about their PC versions in particular. I'd like some recommendations in this vein.

There are borderliners of course. Whether Jedi Knight II was multiplatform by design, or it was just ported to Xbox like H-L2, Doom 3, Far Cry and Painkiller is a rather academic question, considering technological gap between JKII and the latter. Same with Serious Sam, Arx Fatalis and RtCW. Then I suppose console versions of Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, MoH and CoD are mechanically different from their console counterparts in more ways than just the control method. Then there are countless EA sports games that speak in foreign languages to me, but I doubt EA botched any particular version badly.

In case anyone forgot what the question was, I reiterate: what multiplatform games on PC from 2002-2006 did you think were well made and didn't try too hard to compete with PC exclusives?

[Mortificator]

BloodRayne & BloodRayne 2 - Not nearly up to the level of DMC 1 & 3, but decent fun. I like the second a little better.

Grand Theft Auto III / Vice City / San Andreas - Sharper than the console version out of the box, and really benefit from mods to extend the draw distance.

Shadow of Destiny

The House of the Dead III

And it's just after your cutoff, but Tomb Raider Anniversary.

[shmuppyLove]

I was not aware Second Sight and Kill.Switch got PC versions ... interesting!

[Obiwanshinobi]

Couldn't get Shadow of Memories to work on my rig. I found GTAIII port way worse than VC and SA (same with Midnight Club II, so I didn't mention either). TR: Anniversary, yeah, is the type. As is Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie.
Is Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg well ported, anyone? Without GBA connectivity it won't be the same, but neither is SWON the same without split-screen.

[Gespenst]

Anything NFS, perhaps.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The question is, whether NFS games at the time were well built at all. First Underground might have been. I can't remember having issues with Hot Pursuit 2 either. As for 2005 Most Wanted, has anyone got consistent framerate in that one?

[heisenbergman]

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

[Obiwanshinobi]

Shadow Ops: Red Mercury and RPM Tuning deserve an honourable mention: first for superb optimisation, second for the split-screen mode (I can't think of any other PC racer that would have it). I didn't like Lego Star Wars (demo), but I seemed to be in minority in that respect; also, local co-op has to count for smething.
Star Wars: Republic Commando - the other day I found it better than it was in my memories.
Not too fond of Soul Reaver/Legacy of Kain series, but the PC versions were technically ace.
Scrapland - I don't think American McGee's name helped great deal, but it was the good kind of good looking.
Evil Twin: Cyprien's Chronicles - never got around to playing it, but - according to Wikipedia - the PC and DC (!!!) versions came out in 2002, whereas PS2 version - in December 2001.

[shmuppyLove]

Just tried out the PC version of Kill.Switch

Keyboard and mouse control feels pretty good, and load times are extremely fast (basically nil) from my SSD. Didn't try 360 controller, but since it's an older game, native support won't be there. It does have joystick support, so in-game remapping should be possible.

Resolutions only go up to 1024x768 (possibly fixable via hax?), and I don't it looks as good as I remember the PS2 version looking (not fixable). PS2 version also probably has some filtering going on, it looks more gritty. The PC one is very jaggy and pixellated (1024x768 on a 22" LCD doesn't help), which might possibly be mitigated with graphics driver tweaking; there were no in-game graphics settings.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I thought Kill.Switch PC demo looked poor back then. Not a patch on, say, Oni or Sniper Elite.
Speaking of which, Wii's got its share of funky ports of multiplatform games from that era. If Sniper Elite on Wii doesn't impress you, how about MDK2?
I almost fear to touch Chaos Legion. Not the same batch of bad ports as DMC3 and Onimusha 3, but since the first Onimusha port was even worse... You get the picture.
When I gave Dynasty Warriors 4: Hyper a spin, I couldn't get analogue movement controls to work; only 8 directions mapped onto thumbstick. Was it just my system or is the game like that no matter what? It would seem so.

[Gespenst]

The question is, whether NFS games at the time were well built at all. First Underground might have been. I can't remember having issues with Hot Pursuit 2 either. As for 2005 Most Wanted, has anyone got consistent framerate in that one?

HP2 onwards was just fine. I can't remember about MW other than the last time I played it (and Carbon) was on my subpar-spec PC, but several days ago I watched my friend playing it on mid/high-spec laptop and I think it ran quite smoothly, don't know about the FPS though.

Some more street racing games: Test Drive 7 (aka Test Drive: Brotherhood of Speed), Street Racing Syndicate, Juiced series, RPM Tuning, LA Rush.

[Obiwanshinobi]

When I watched my pal playing MW back in the day, I had no reservations, but having sat down to play it myself (on a computer all around faster than he had) it was playable, yet rather inconsistent. Framerate drops in places pretty much regardless of the graphics settings. In fact various settings made so little difference it could have been a placebo effect.
Not game-breaking, admittedly. Just a fly in the ointment. I have no idea how it affects netplay.

RPM Tuning takes place in LA, where I've never been, but I could tell it was, to an extent, patterned upon real places. Looked less videogamey to me than something like Underground.
I remember that Juiced preview in some games mag was the first place where I saw mentioned Burnout. The name had stuck in and rightfully so.

[okerlo]

Fable: The Lost Chapters was nicely done, too.

[Gespenst]

Dynasty Warrior 4 Hyper was one of my most favorite DW that was released on PC.

I recall DW5 was released on PC too, but I think it's Japanese only.

[Ganelon]

Two longstanding RPG series had sequels during this time period that I felt (and still feel) steered their respective series in the wrong direction: Morrowind and Ys VI. However, these games were certainly solid in their own right, seemed to resonate with a lot more mainstream players, and introduced plenty of new fans.

[Ruldra]

Richard Burns Rally is, to this day, regarded as the most realistic rally sim. If you enjoy that kind of game, go for that.

[drauch]

My cutoff for great games for PC is right around the year 2000. Hardly a game in that list that sticks out besides Riddick, although I'd still like to give Sniper Elite a shot.

[shmuppyLove]

So far Second Sight seems to be properly done. Mouselook and standard WASD controls, and aside from max 1280x1024 (and no widescreen), graphically it looks quite good.

[Obiwanshinobi]

My cutoff for great games for PC is right around the year 2000. Hardly a game in that list that sticks out besides Riddick, although I'd still like to give Sniper Elite a shot.

Max Payne is the daddy, although I know North American people can be rather embarrassingly critical of its narratives.
The list was not about "great" PC games, by the way. It was about (mostly multiplatform) games that were not particulary bad on PC.

[drauch]

My cutoff for great games for PC is right around the year 2000. Hardly a game in that list that sticks out besides Riddick, although I'd still like to give Sniper Elite a shot.

Max Payne is the daddy, although I know North American people can be rather embarrassingly critical of its narratives.
The list was not about "great" PC games, by the way. It was about (mostly multiplatform) games that were not particulary bad on PC.

Oops, my bad. I admittedly kinda skimmed it a bit, but now that makes about a thousand times more sense.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Richard Burns Rally is rad, and I wasn't into "raelistic" car games at all. If this is anywhere near handling a real rally car, I can see the appeal now.

[Gespenst]

Last time I check RBR still have a strong modding community as well.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Anyone played Xpand Rally? I recollect it was praised by many PC gamers, but PC had neither WRC games nor Shox. All I remember from the demo is the option to put some fancy filters on and off, such as "film effect".

[ZellSF]

So if I'm getting this right, you're looking for cross-platform PC/Console games with superior PC versions from 2002-2006? Seems a weird time restriction.

Beyond Good & Evil isn't one of them btw. Letterbox widescreen and no support for analog movement really detracts from the PC port. Also good luck on getting it to work on a modern PC (not that you would want to today with the superior 360/PS3 ports available).

Outrun 2006 is a pretty lazy port. Higher resolution and more stable framerate (but if you want higher than 60fps you're out of luck). Just the basics you get for "free" by porting to PC. Of course it's still better than the console versions.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Beyond Good & Evil doesn't support gamepads, but that's the worst of it. It does in fact support analogue movement; controlling vehicles (with increased mouse sensitivity) is effectively the same as controlling Warthog in the PC Halo: Combat Evolved (now that wasn't a great port, but I like its vehicle controls, unorthodox as they are).
OutRun 2006's framerate being capped at 60 fps is such a non-issue I can't be even bothered retorting.
By the way, I don't think BG&E is a port. Just like Rayman 3, PoP trilogy and Splinter Cell, it seems multiplatform from the start.

So if I'm getting this right, you're looking for cross-platform PC/Console games with superior PC versions from 2002-2006?

Not necessarily superior. Merely good is good enough.

[ZellSF]

Beyond Good & Evil doesn't support gamepads, but that's the worst of it. It does in fact support analogue movement; controlling vehicles (with increased mouse sensitivity) is effectively the same as controlling Warthog in the PC Halo: Combat Evolved (now that wasn't a great port, but I like vehicle controls, unorthodox as they are).

I meant character movement, not vehicle movement.

OutRun 2006's framerate being capped at 60 fps is such a non-issue I can't be even bothered retorting.

Really just an example of why it's a lazy port, the loading times being locked to be equally as long as the console versions is another... Yeah it's better than the console version, but it's not a port I'd be giving any praise. It could be much better.


Advent Rising (widescreen broken)
Deus Ex: Invisible War (gamepad support broken)
Dreamfall

Were better than their Xbox versions. Going through Xbox games is a good way to add to your list I would guess. If I'm ever going to play Stubbs the Zombie, I'm probably going for the PC port for example.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Stubbs the Zombie was infamous for the same reason Halo was - the same, slow engine used in both. Then again, on more recent computers it might have waned into insignificance.
OutRun 2006 loadings are long, but I'm not so sure if these could have been faster on computers it was made for. I simply don't know what the bottleneck was there. The game engine is rather unlike most vehicular games at the time. Have a nice read. Considering: a) how complete (sheer amount of content), b) how multiplatform and c) actually released (all four versions) in 2006 it was, I find the PC one as good as I could reasonably expect.

I meant character movement, not vehicle movement.

The real problem was the lack of camera controls most of the time. Even BloodRayne has it without breaking the game, despite being more combat-oriented, so I see no good reason why BG&E wouldn't have it.
The bottomline, however, is that the game was good nonetheless (and on LCDs of today it will look better than any other version).

[Austin]

Painkiller. 'Nuff said.

[lilmanjs]

NFS: Carbon on the PC has given me many hours upon hours of awesome gaming and I think that was released in 2006? Something about that game made it tons better than Most Wanted 2005 for me. Probably because you could still outrun cops after running over spikestrips. Other stuff that was better than the console port? Only thing I can think of is Unreal Tourney 2003(which was pretty much ported to the xbox as Unreal Championship).

[speedlolita]

The search function has indicated that nobody has mentioned No One Lives Forever 2 yet. Sort it out!

Edit: Misread the Q. NOLF1 almost fits though.