Other game recommendations

Has anyone else played any games they can recommend? I put the Witcher and Mass Effect (XBox 360) on my Christmas list.

I'm not just looking at brand new games, either. Anything in the last year or two would be fair game. I'm usually into RPGs, but have also enjoyed some sims (Silent Hunter III). I generally stink at shooters, but when I get my new PC I may take a look at Crysis, Half Life 2, and a few others. I did enjoy Battlefield 1942 a few years back, but never got good enough to brave venturing online, where I suspect the real fun was.

I did end up getting both the Witcher (PC) and Mass Effect (Xbox 360). I have only played Mass Effect for a few minutes, so don't really have an opinion on it yet, other than that the graphics are sweet, and the user interface is horrible.

I've played the Witcher for maybe an hour so far, and am REALLY digging it. I'll have to see if it wears off after it is no longer new and shiny, but the gameplay (combat; the interface) is really cool, and the graphics and character animations are nice. I'm not far enough into it to know how good the story is, but I have high hopes as I've been having lots of fun with it.

My new PC is on order, and should be here in a few weeks, so I still will need to get a shooter at some point.

Well, I just downloaded the Call of Duty 4 demo . . . and realized what an old fart I am. The shooting part I could do, but I really had not much of an idea what was going on. Someone was shouting at me . . ."Jackson! Get that machine gun!" and I was shouting back at my monitor "WHERE?!?!" I figured out I had a little objective icon on my compass, but that didn't help too much. I'll try it again in a bit, but it really seems geared either towards people who know the maps, or are FPS veterans. *sigh*

I did the same thing with Oblivion (for the Xbox 360 though). I played it constantly for a few weeks, and then stopped. I don't even remember why. Maybe that was when NWN2 came out. I do remember that I almost wished I hadn't started down the main story path, as the sidequests and exploring were more fun than the whole Oblivion gate thing.

I had the same issue with Morrowind, Bedeo. I have started and stopped that game a few times. In the summer of '06, I played it for a good week and finally was really getting into it, but not enough that I kept at it.

Regarding KOTOR 1, I think that might be my favorite single player game. The last third of that was amazing. For that last part of it, that was the last time I couldn't put a game down. KOTOR 2 was fun, but buggy and unfinished.

The Witcher, though, really has me hooked now. I highly recommend it as well.