Looking for truly mature PC games.

[Ryallen]

I personally haven't played the game, but I've seen a few gameplay videos of it, and I'd say that a good recommendation would have to be This War of Mine.

It touts itself to be a survival game in that the game revolves around trying to survive in a country currently being ravaged by war. It's 2D, and while I don't think that there are any puzzles, it certainly plays more like a strategy game in that you can't just run in guns blazing. By day, due to snipers on the lookout for anything making so much as a twitch in the wrong direction, i.e. anywhere, you spend the day building various contraptions to aid in survival, such as makeshift ovens and beds, whereas by night, you spend going to various areas to collect materials to survive, like nails, boards, paper, tobacco, and so on.

Each character you get in the game is supposed to have some characteristics, such as a smoker and a carpenter or something to that effect. The characters can die, obviously, and there are a lot of ways that this can happen. For instance, sickness or hunger, or even just depression and then suicide.

And then there's the other survivors. While some are outright hostile and will try to rob you at a moment's notice, there's also the fact that some are just other people that you can stumble upon and accidentally get into a fight with. You can even rob them to help your own group survive, thus the shaky morality that you are looking for.

Again, I don't really have any experience with the game itself, but I'd say that it seems like a pretty good choice, given your quota. More or less because, as I've said before, I haven't played the game myself.

 

[Raine_sage]

There's a kickstarter for a game called "The Sand Plague" which is a remake of an old game which revolved around a small village suffering from a sudden onslaught of disease. You play three different characters each tasked with providing relief or insight in a different way. It's kind of horror-ish but I wouldn't say it's based entirely around trying to scare you. Mostly it's about making hard choices, surviving, and managing your resources so you don't succumb to hunger, disease, or the hands of the hysteric townspeople. I'm not sure when it's due out but I do know they made their goal so just something to keep an eye on.

I haven't played it yet but Sunless Sea is a trade/exploration game set on an underground sea, if you're familiar at all with the browser game Fallen London then this is set in the same world, but has actual gameplay. The writing in both is superb.

 

[kazann]

Played, but didn't like it, or not interested in:
- Max Payne
- Deus Ex

Planescape i can understand, thats definitely not for everyone, but Deus Ex and Max Payne? how the

 

[cleric of the order]

Paper's please,
Banner saga's great
Technically bastion, but it isn't very grimdork
Deponia's great, beautifully written,
Lone survivor, but that's a horror game
gunpoint's not that gritty and it has it's humorous but it's great and everyone should play it.
>that game selection.
man it;s good to know people think alan wake's dark I've spent to much time in the grimdork hole with 40k and JTHM
ALL OF KOTOR.
might as well evil within.
I don't know if there has been an oddworld pc port (there is) but that's what you are looking for more or less, uh barring the puzzels.
Sang and froid might be your fix.
(Man, i wish mature wasn't a key component, there are stories games with great stories that tackle them with humour.)
All of the age of wonder games i guess.
Tryian and under a steel sky is great, both are free of off gog
System shock
>implying not bioshock
Some times monster.
the stars are watching
homeworld
vampire the masquerade
beyond good and evil
to the moon
I have no mouth and i must scream
soulreaver and most o the legacy of kain series
Tex Murphy the series
jade empires of bioware fame
PSYCHONAUTS... but that's not- fuck you, play it if you haven't
Siberia, i think.
That's more then I thought I could think of, go wild hope you like 'em

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

3)Little to no puzzles. I don't want my progress to be hindered just because I'm stuck on a puzzle. I'm just not good at them, that's all, but if it's impossible to find a game without them, at least try to find a game with easy ones. I'll again bring out the example of Silent Hill, but I really don't want puzzles as hard as in this game, where you often had to interpret poems in order to be able to figure out the correct sequence of things.

This is unfortunate as you're ruling out most "mature" games, since they tend to have puzzles. But all games have puzzles, really. I never got far in any of the GTA games because my progress was hindered by me not being very good at aiming a gun cursor on enemies and clicking on them repeatedly, which the games made me do ad infinitum, and which is just another form of "puzzle", albeit more mindless. Then again in hindsight, it was probably a good thing I suck at simulated shooting - I only realised later that those kind of games are anything but "mature".

 

[AT God]

Depending on how you approach it, the Manhunt games are mature. People see them as juvenile blood fests and they can be that but I found the storylines to be fairly interesting and dark, the 2nd one more than the first.

 

[The Madman]

And since you're all unanimously recommend Bloodlines, I think I'll finally give it another chance. One thing, though: I've been hearing that starting from a certain version, the unofficial patch basically turned into the creators' personal playground, where they, quite aggressively, changed the game's features, including adding and removing content at their leisure. Which version should I download to play the game as intended, without any unnecessary third-party changes?

When installing the fan patch there's an option whether to include all the fan made stuff or stick close to the original game minus the bugs and glitches, I obviously suggest the later but it's up to you. All the stuff the dev has been adding in of his own volition is optional.

And if you don't mind some light puzzle solving might I also recommend The Longest Journey and it's subsequent sequels? There's some puzzle stuff in the first and second game, but it's pretty simple stuff with the exception of a few head-scratchers. But if you don't want to deal with that mess at all TLJ is one of the few games where I'd say just read a walkthrough, the gameplay is irrelevant and the puzzles rarely particularly clever, it's the story that counts.

 

[Blow_Pop]

I'm going to second Beyond Good and Evil and Psychonauts (even though I'm still stuck in the gorram meat circus level grrrr)

Shame you don't like Bioshock cause that's one I woulda suggested.

*looks at all my games* damn. I have a lot of puzzle based games. OH!

Older game not sure if a newer version exists or if you have to mess with your computer to get it to work but well worth it, American McGee's Alice(I fell in love with that game ages ago) I've also heard Alice: Madness Returns is good (follows same storyline from the first so I hear) but I've barely played it and am stuck in my PS3 version of it(of course if I could get the motivation to game that might help get me unstuck).

 

[Bat Vader]

Based on your criteria I have to recommend The Cat Lady. While it is classified as a horror game it is more creepy horror and not jump out horror. There are some puzzles in it but they are extremely easy to do. The story is engaging and the characters are very well written.

It does have multiple endings. It is a point and click side-scroller about a 40 year old woman named Susan Ashworth that deals with depression. I highly suggest picking it up.

 

[octafish]

Paper's please,
Banner saga's great
Technically bastion, but it isn't very grimdork
Deponia's great, beautifully written,
Lone survivor, but that's a horror game
gunpoint's not that gritty and it has it's humorous but it's great and everyone should play it.
>that game selection.
man it;s good to know people think alan wake's dark I've spent to much time in the grimdork hole with 40k and JTHM
ALL OF KOTOR.
might as well evil within.
I don't know if there has been an oddworld pc port (there is) but that's what you are looking for more or less, uh barring the puzzels.
Sang and froid might be your fix.
(Man, i wish mature wasn't a key component, there are stories games with great stories that tackle them with humour.)
All of the age of wonder games i guess.
Tryian and under a steel sky is great, both are free of off gog
System shock
>implying not bioshock
Some times monster.
the stars are watching
homeworld
vampire the masquerade
beyond good and evil
to the moon
I have no mouth and i must scream
soulreaver and most o the legacy of kain series
Tex Murphy the series
jade empires of bioware fame
PSYCHONAUTS... but that's not- fuck you, play it if you haven't
Siberia, i think.
That's more then I thought I could think of, go wild hope you like 'em

You snuck a truly disturbing pit of despair disguised as a game in there.

I'd suggest Alpha Protocol, The Longest Journey, or VTM:Bloodlines but I don't know what to do with someone who didn't like Planescape: Torment.

 

[malkavianmadman]

Try out this war of mine. Really a great game.

And I also second Vampire. To this day I have never played a level as atmospheric as the hotel

 

[cleric of the order]

I'd suggest Alpha Protocol, The Longest Journey, or VTM:Bloodlines but I don't know what to do with someone who didn't like Planescape: Torment.

Yeah it was a head scratcher for me too..
The first thing I saw when I entered where was post planescape.
Maybe I just play too many gameplay driven games or somfin because a lot of the games I play aren't really mature in the way I suppose our op wants.
And I have no mouth but I must scream IS what op was sort of asking for,
They asked for it man.
This is what happens when you fuck with the dustmen.

 

[ObserverStatus]

I think there's a big difference between "dark" and "mature," but Knights of the Old Republic II is both, can't go wrong with that one. Just be sure to get the unofficial patch, the quest triggers can be a little stubborn at times.

 

[ninja666]

snip

Boy, that's a long list you made there. Some of these I've played, in some I'm not interested at all, most of them I don't know. It's gonna take me a while to research all of them. You get an A for effort.

Depending on how you approach it, the Manhunt games are mature.

It doesn't matter how you approach it - they aren't. They're just murderfest stealth games, albeit with an exceptionally good atmosphere and genuine sense of dread.

There's a kickstarter for a game called "The Sand Plague" which is a remake of an old game which revolved around a small village suffering from a sudden onslaught of disease.

Just checked what it is. Turns out it's a remake of Pathologic - a game that got me hooked from the first minutes in, but couldn't play it because of unbearable graphical artifacts and game-breaking bugs. I hope that this time they'll avoid stuff like that. All I can do is wait. Thanks for the heads-up, though. It'd have just gone under my radar if not for you.

Planescape i can understand, thats definitely not for everyone, but Deus Ex and Max Payne? how the

I didn't like Max Payne for its core - the bullet time, because it required absolute perfection from you. If you screwed up a jump and missed some of the enemies in slow-mo, you were dead meat cause the action was too fast once it got back to the normal speed. As for Deus Ex, it's my general repulsion towards RPG/FPS hybrids. In most cases (Deus Ex included) thay can't decide what they want to be and what you get is an FPS with dialogue choices and a tedious-as-fuck inventory system. For me, it doesn't really work out well.

Try out this war of mine. Really a great game.

Just watched some gameplays of it. Looks really good, but I think I'm gonna wait till the price drops.

I'd suggest Alpha Protocol, The Longest Journey, or VTM:Bloodlines but I don't know what to do with someone who didn't like Planescape: Torment.

As I said before, it was the gameplay part that made me not like Planescape Torment. Story itself sounded pretty interesting and I wish I could go and play it, but the game is too tedious for me.

Alpha Protocol sounds like something right up my alley. I'll read up some more of that.

The Longest Journey sounds interesting, too, but it's a point & click adventure game, so I bet there'll be a lot of puzzles to overcome.

I also reinstalled and tried to play Vampire a few hours ago. Couldn't stand it. It's so clunky and floaty I can't believe it uses Source as its engine.

Based on your criteria I have to recommend The Cat Lady. While it is classified as a horror game it is more creepy horror and not jump out horror. There are some puzzles in it but they are extremely easy to do. The story is engaging and the characters are very well written.

It does have multiple endings. It is a point and click side-scroller about a 40 year old woman named Susan Ashworth that deals with depression. I highly suggest picking it up.

You got me interested. I remember someone recommending it to me the other time, but for some reason I didn't want to pick it up. I guess I'll give it a shot.

I'm going to second Beyond Good and Evil and Psychonauts (even though I'm still stuck in the gorram meat circus level grrrr)

I still have both Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil somewhere. I never got into any of them, though. Maybe if I give them a try now, I'll appreciate them more, now that I'm older and everything (I got Psychonauts when I was 15, and BGaE when I was 12).

Older game not sure if a newer version exists or if you have to mess with your computer to get it to work but well worth it, American McGee's Alice(I fell in love with that game ages ago) I've also heard Alice: Madness Returns is good (follows same storyline from the first so I hear) but I've barely played it and am stuck in my PS3 version of it(of course if I could get the motivation to game that might help get me unstuck).

I never really liked Alice games. I don't know why, but there was something in them that made me stop playing every time.

I think there's a big difference between "dark" and "mature," but Knights of the Old Republic II is both, can't go wrong with that one. Just be sure to get the unofficial patch, the quest triggers can be a little stubborn at times.

I'm always hearing good stuff about this game and kinda want to play it, but I wonder - do I need to know the events of KOTOR 1 to be able to fully enjoy the sequel?

 

[Bat Vader]

Snip

After you finish The Cat Lady let me know what you thought of it.

 

[Darks63]

If you liked the look of This war Mine you should also check out Deadlight it has a similar look and gameplay to it.

 

[shiaramoon]

Try Dishonored. It's a fantastic game with a great story. It's the first game to cause me to experience a truly intense emotional upheaval because of the story. I can't say more without spoiling the storyline.

 

[Squilookle]

Yeah, now that you say it, maybe Mafia 2 is a bit out of place there. I'm not looking for something as simplistic as that game, to be honest. Recommend something else now that you know this.

Have to say, forget about Mafia 2 and L.A. Noire and give the first Mafia a shot. Honestly one of the most mature game storylines I've ever had the pleasure to experience. Much more varied gameplay to it than the lacklustre sequel, too.


One of those games that will leave you thinking about the story long after it draws to a close.

 

[malkavianmadman]

I would also suggest KOTOR 1. KOTOR 2 in my mind is rubbish.

 

[ObserverStatus]

I'm always hearing good stuff about this game and kinda want to play it, but I wonder - do I need to know the events of KOTOR 1 to be able to fully enjoy the sequel?

Having a basic understanding of who KotOR 1's main character was helps, but for the most part the sequel does a good job of explaining what you need to know about KotOR 1.