Please Help a Deployed Soldier Stay Busy | Game Advice

[Wastedslayer]

My brother in law is going to be shipping off to Afghanistan in approx. a week. He has asked me to load some games onto an external hard drive for him to play during his stay (9 Months). The problem is he has limited resources in the laptop department.

Here is his Laptop: http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/L740/L745-S4310/

I need a list of games that will be playable using this hardware. Doesn't matter the type of game (RTS, Shooter, RPG, Etc). Online play means nothing either.

I want to thank anyone in advance that contributes as this means a lot to him and I.

- Wasted

 

[cheesy999]

look up "Intel HD Graphics 3000" on this list if you want some ideas of what would run at what graphics settings

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

alternatively most games over 5 years old should run fine

 

[brandonwh64]

The Intel GFX is were its going to kill him. I have a IBM Laptop that I used on my first deployment and it had similar GPU in it and I was only able to play game like starcraft, and HL1 games on medium. It was so bad I ended up having my wife ship me my desktop to play real games. Also he could do emulators like NES, SNES, N64, PS1, and more! I recommend a nice controller or a N64/PS1 controller to USB adapter.

 

[Wastedslayer]

Thank you so far guys! And I understand he will need to play some older games, so feel free to throw those out. Starcraft1, Is Diablo II all online now? Age of Empires, Rise of Nations Etc. Maybe Doom or Quake. Idk.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Morrowind

 

[Tatty_Two]

The early "Total War" games from the series, I started playing them about 9 years ago so I would guess that he would be able to run the first couple.... great games too.

 

[Maelstrom]

Also he could do emulators like NES, SNES, N64, PS1, and more! I recommend a nice controller or a N64/PS1 controller to USB adapter.

I think this would be good as well, including GBC/GBA emulators. Load up pokemon and you're good to go! (I'm serious though, pokemon is a lot of fun, imo). An xbox 360 controller works wonders. Really easy if it's wired, just plug it in and windows will install the drivers. You have to buy an adapter for the wireless ones but the benefit is, I believe, that you can run up to four controllers (so he could play with fellow soldiers).

 

[Sir B. Fannybottom]

Get him WoW I've spent more time on that than any other game

 

[TC-man]

Hi,

I guess he will really enjoy these games, although he need a good gaming mouse:

Diablo 2 (there's single player mode);
Torchlight (single player mode only);

FarCry;
Deux Ex 1 (may need unofficial patch since it didn't work with Windows 7, if I remember it correctly);
System Shock 2;
Half-Life 2;
Portal;
Left 4 Dead;
Hitman 1, 2, 3 and maybe 4;
Splinter Cell 1, 2, 3;
Max Paine 1 & 2;

Puzzle Quest;
Bejeweled;
Peggle;
Zuma;
Plants vs. Zombies;
Geometry Wars;

Civilization 2, 3 and perhaps 4;
Sim City 4;
The Sims 1, 2 and 3;


I guess some of the newer games can run decently with Intel HD 3000 in low settings.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Oh maybe the original Unreal and AVP2 as well.

 

[xfire]

Serious Sam II, NFS underground II, GTA: San Andreas, Angry birds.

 

[Rule-R]

With DosBox:

Original Transport Tycoon
One Must Fall 2097
Raptor
Wolfenstein 3D
Commander Keen 1-6
Etc..

Oldschool

 

[brandonwh64]

Get him WoW I've spent more time on that than any other game

Internet in Iraq and afghan are not the best in the world so WoW is out of the picture.

 

[TheMailMan78]

Quake 3 man! It still has a huge following online! So does BF2. He should be able to run that on low. Also a large following. Quake 3 does great on a dial up connection too if need be.

 

[DigitalUK]

the first HALFLIFE should be fine as well.

 

[AsRock]

Torchlight and Trine 1, not sure about trine 2.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Counter strike 1.6... STEAM are charging for the game. but there are loads of places online where you can find it for free via DDL or torrent. obviously you can support steam by buying the game from them. but steam hasnt done any work on it except for taking the 'model' and making CS:S

If hes got a few buddies with laptops and other shit there - Im sure he can managed to get a small 5 or 10port network hub (or even a wireless one) so he can set up a small LAN game.

Playing against bots can be fun but it gets real boring pretty quick.

 

[arnoo1]

guitar hero!! lol

 

[Red_Machine]

I used to game on a similar GPU, but a little older. The GMA X3100 was actually the first Intel GPU to have hardware transform & lighting, along with DX10 and proper shaders. I managed to run a good few games on it, including Crysis!

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2 (need to turn grass off, otherwise it crashes)
Star Wars: Empire at War
Civilization IV
Command & Conquer: The First Decade (make sure to get the unofficial patches!)
Vampire - The Masquerade: Bloodlines (make sure to get the unofficial True Patch)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

My Alienware laptop also uses the GMA 4500M HD which is the same as his laptop, and that could run Total War: Shogun II at low settings pretty well.

 

[DonInKansas]

Baldur's Gate series, yo.

 

[brandonwh64]

A thing you will have to realize fellas is as I mentioned before, The internet is absolutely HORRIBLE over there in those countries. Its also down right expensive so games without an internet connection work wonders!

 

[D4S4]

i can't believe nobody mentioned gta: vice city.

 

[Peter1986C]

I am not sure about it, but the Hitman series (especially part 1 and 2) should run. Empire Earth, Age of Empires, The Battle for Wesnoth (turn based strategy, fantasy stuff and a free/open source project).
I would have suggested Tremulous but the network may be a problem (even with my glass fibre-quality network I have high ping sometimes with a lot of (mostly U.S. based) servers so guess what will be the case in Afgha (beside the prices like Brandon said). And the latter game does not have bots (probably because of likely glitchy wall-walking behaviour of the alien faction, if they automated it).
GTA 2 (now freeware, and dl-able from the Rockstar Games website) is a nice one too. The radio station talks are pretty epic.
Renault Truck Racing (freeware) may work as well as Colin McRae 2.0.

 

[Wastedslayer]

I think we have a solid list going here.

 

[brandonwh64]

i can't believe nobody mentioned gta: vice city.

Yea the GTA games up to the fourth will work perfect!