Help me help Mike help himself (to Steam)

[Mephikun]

(maybe) Minecraft

Don't bother. Minecraft is a lot more hardware intensive than you think. Ask the guy who, it's technically his job to play Minecraft every day.

The Recommended Requirements list a GeForce 6 or a Radeon 9. Wow.

That list is from alpha. Extremely outdated, and the fact that they have it on their website is disappointing.

Realistically, you'd want a newer card, I used a 6670 for a while and it was buttery smooth. Although it lags sometimes on my sister's build that it resides in now, she has an A6-5400K as opposed to my Phenom II X4 965.

I could go on and on about Minecraft being overly intensive. And which parts to use if you wanted to play Minecraft without getting 5-10 fps.

EDIT: Wanted to pop in again and say that a year ago, I was (unfortunately, my first gaming rig died earlier that year, this was being used in the meantime) running on a rig with Dual Xeon processors @ 3.2 GHz each (granted it was a couple years old) with a 9400 GT and 2 GBs of RAM, and only got 30 fps on Minecraft, and it would crash every 5-20 minutes. Tried with other cards too, and all of them were laggy and unstable as well.

[fastbilly1]

Should be fine on your box:
Magical Drop V
Dogfighter
Dungeon Defenders

Might be too taxing:
Monaco
Orcs Must Die 2
Renegade Ops
Killing Floor

All should have controller support. I know all but Magical Drop V very well if yall have questions.

[noiseredux]

wow yeah Magical Drop V is only $5 and has online co-op. That's probably a great pick for Mike!

[fastbilly1]

wow yeah Magical Drop V is only $5 and has online co-op. That's probably a great pick for Mike!

Who doesnt love a quick round of Magical Drop?

[SamuraiMegas]

May I ask what your job is Mep?

Also, a game I recommend you pick up when it ges on sale is GMod. There's so many modes to play, so many mods, it can be pretty much anything you want. Even a elevator sim.

[noiseredux]

wow yeah Magical Drop V is only $5 and has online co-op. That's probably a great pick for Mike!

Who doesnt love a quick round of Magical Drop?

Fast, you win this thread! Me and Mike played MDV for well over an hour tonight and we both loved it. Great suggestion!

[mjmjr25]

Yep - great pick. Ran great on my lowly rig - no dropouts, no delays, it was flawless and we had a blast. Graphics were legit. I have to say - i'm really impressed w/ steam thus far. Gonna have to do some serious thinking on this...

[fastbilly1]

I saw noise was playing Magical Drop but didnt want to say anything. I am usually on steam every Thursday with a bunch of my college friends - Ack included. But any other time yall want to play something and see me online I am game. I may not be great at the title, but I am always up for a good game.

I will highly suggest only picking up the titles you will play in the immediate future right now and make a wishlist of titles you want. Steam Sales are dangerous things and you dont want to blow all your gaming budget before they start. Case in point, I bought Magical Drop V during the summer sale for $1.25, and with the way it is trending, Bioshock 3 should be sub $10 this Christmas.

And even though it is not on steam and is singleplayer, since you are a shooter fan you have to play Raptor:
http://www.gog.com/game/raptor_call_of_ ... 10_edition

[FerretGamer]

Steam is awesome.

That's it, that's my pitch. UPGRADE THAT RIG! DO IT!

[Menegrothx]

Two words: doujin shmups. If you're big into shmups, Touhou series alone makes owning a PC mandatory.
Top 20 doujin shmups
SHMUP forums top 20 Doujin games (as voted by the users):

1.Crimzon Clover
2.Touhou 12: Undefined Fantastic Object
3.Kamui
4.Hellsinker
5.Touhou 07: Perfect Cherry Blossom
6.ChoRenSha68k
7.Touhou 08: Imperishable Night
8.Judgment Silversword
9.Touhou 10: Mountain of Faith
10.Blue Wish Resurrection (+)
11.Samidare
12.Touhou 06: Embodiment of Scarlet Devil
12.Eden's Aegis
14.Hitogata Happa
15.ring^-27
16.Satazius
17.RefRain Prism Memories
18.Jamestown
18.Hydorah
18.Exceed 3rd
Honorable Mentions:
Alltynex 2nd
Cardinal Sins
Diadra Empty
Ether Vapor
Fast Striker
GuwangeDash
Infinity Danger
Last Hope: Pink Bullets
Pipilio
RefleX
rRootage
Seihou Banshiryuu
Seihou Shuusou Gyoku
Solid State Survivor
Stella Vanity
Touhou 05 - Mystic Square
Touhou 09 - Phantasmagoria of Flower View
Touhou 11 - Subterranean Animism
Touhou 12.5 - Double Spoiler
Touhou 12.8 - Great Fairy Wars
Trouble Witches
XOP Black Ultra
XOP Ultra
XOP Ultra Special
ZenIchi

3. Genres - Y'all know Mike. He's into arcade-ish stuff. Fighting, shmups, puzzle games, platformers, etc.

Why get into PC gaming if you're not going to play PC games? That's not to say that there aren't PC exclusive fighters, platformers, shmups etc, there's plenty of the latter two, but other than lower price point when it comes to downloadable games, I don't see any advantage in choosing a PC over consoles if you're intending to to play console/arcade style games with a gamepad. PC offers an advantage (games you don't see at all on consoles/arcade) only when it comes to games that use a lot of buttons and/or need precise&fast on screen controlling (ie mouse). And mod support&custom server hosting, but that's mostly in online games.

I don't mean to discourage him from getting into PC gaming. If he has run out of console&arcade SHMUPs and fighters to play, then it makes sense to start going after the PC exclusive games in those genres. Though there's probably more of them on older computers like MSX, Sharp X68000, C64 and Amiga than on modern PC/Steam, and from a collector&retro gamer perspective those are better choices as they're more console like (hook in to TV, take less space, no need to install games, just insert the cartridge/floppy and play+there's atari style controller ports).

Super Meat Boy (the most notable super-hard platformer on PC)

Actually, that "honor" goes to I wanna be the guy. Unlike Super Meat Boy, it hasn't been released on consoles