The Madman said:
Picked up NOX the other day when I saw it on sale from gog.com, remember it from when the game out as a friend owned it but I was never able to enjoy more that a few tastes as it wouldn't run on my old computer at the time.
Anyway picked it up and started playing it just recently and I'll be damned, it's actually really damned good. How'd a hack & slash of this calibur made by Westwood of all companies become so quickly forgotten? It's fantastic.
I was always a big Westwood fan, so when this came out I picked it up immediately. I had a shitton of fun playing through the single player, but, surprisingly enough, it was the multiplayer that I thought was really fun. Running around blowing other people to smithereens with magic, or swords, or fucking conjured golems was a blast. I'm sad they didn't get to do more of that sort of thing before EA shut them down... bastards.
Other than that, I found that Port Royale was extremely fun. It's a pirate game, although it's more than that. You start out with a single ship, but can make money through trading, fighting, or doing odd jobs. As you make more money, you can purchase more ships. Through combat you can commandeer others, and all the while you can build up reputation in various towns and cities around the Caribbean, build up a manufacturing/production empire, and make more money that way. All the while there's a "main quest" where you're searching for your father or something, but I almost completely ignored that. Quite a fun little game, and rather addictive.
Earth 2150 and its expansion gave me quite a bit of fun during their time. Not your classic RTS game, but there's a lot about it that's fun and unique. You can customize your units to have certain weapons or armor on them, but the most interesting thing I found is that, at the end of a mission, you spend time to take your units and money back to your main base, where they can then be re-deployed on the next mission, or saved for another one.
Um... I've always thought Homeworld is never talked about enough. I seriously think it's the best RTS game ever made, and I know that a lot of those who have played it would agree with me. Excellent story, good gameplay, and tons of fun. Lots of replay value too, since your first time through is always ridiculously hard as you figure out the ins and outs of the system. At this point I can end the game with well over 100 Ion Cannon frigates, which will fuck just about everything up.
Oh, and to toss in an MMO, Earth and Beyond holds a special place in my heart. It was extremely fun, and had the potential to be amazing. If it weren't for EA it would have been, but, once again, they decided to come in and shut Westwood down, then proceeded to shut E&B down without giving it a chance. It wouldn't have ever gotten the player base of WoW without a lot of changes - near the end things could get boring if you didn't have a good group to play with - but it was still rather spectacular. If you're interested, a group of players have got a free version running, although it's limited to 200ish players at a time. It can be buggy, but it's still a fun thing to check out if you're out of other games to play.