Recommend me a game based on...

[DrStupid87]

...Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic.

So I recently installed this old game and have been glued to my computer for the past few days straight. It feels like strategy and turn based combat done right. But I've had my fill of it now and was wondering if you guys know of any other titles that might be similar to it.
Not so much for the actualy gameplay or even the genre, but the item customisation. I loved it! It was an easy to use and balanced system to create tools your heroes often really needed (tunneling anyone?). That's a massive thumbs up for me.
When Oblivion: Shivering Isles was released, I read the blurb and it said "...create/smith your own items" but it was a massive let down. You were only given basic (two) types of ore to forge set items with.
If there's anything out there with a robust and easy to use "create your own gun/armour/item thing", please let me know.

Best answer gets a cookie and my best internet love.

Cheers!

 

[DrStupid87]

Shameless bump.

 

[Kair]

In Dead Rising 2 you can combine items to make new weapons. They break after a while though so you better get used to making your favourite weapons.

 

[Nikolaz72]

Ehm. . . the other Age of Wonders? I mean a thing I believe you would like is Heroes of Might and Magic II - III. Maybe IV. But thats it, I doubt these is much other out there like it.

 

[Kyle Roberts]

Well theres minecraft a game where you do everything your self like make a workbench then a pickaxe to get coal make torches kill a cow get leather make armour use pickaxe on stone make stone pickaxe mine iron smelt iorn with furnace mine diamond mkae diamond armour swords axes ect..

Its a really fun and balanced indie game but thats my opinion build houses and stuff to protect against monsters and so on. Its addicting though when you turn it off you realise your house could do with another 15 or so levels.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

ummmm i just saw an extra credits video about games that are under the radar. one sounded like it matched your description... try to find it and watch it.

 

[DrStupid87]

Dead Rising 2 - Played it, had fun with it then got bored.
Minecraft - Lost a good month of my life playing that. Waiting it out until it's release.
Heroes of Might and Magic - Heard lots of good things and have just bought a copy off Amazon. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for the recommendations. Black Ops got pretty good with customisation but it's still a little bare. Hopefully some dev out there will make custom everything easy and a reality at some point.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

When Oblivion: Shivering Isles was released, I read the blurb and it said "...create/smith your own items" but it was a massive let down. You were only given basic (two) types of ore to forge set items with.

The item 'creation' in the Elder Scrolls games focuses more on taking existing items (Elven Longsword, Exquisite Robe, Steel Cuirass, etc) and enchanting them with different magical properties as opposed to taking raw materials and creating items out of nothing.

For actual item creation in an RPG I suggest you look at the original Neverwinter Nights, which allows you full reign to craft all types of arms and armour. It also has quite a few MMO sites like Arelith up and running, if MMOs are your thing.

As a side note, as far as I understand it (not having played it yet) the whole purpose of Minecraft is built around resource/item crafting.

 

[DrStupid87]

I've done NWN1 + NWN2. Both were fantastic games and yes, the item craftign was good fun if a little demanding.
When I say custom items I kinda mean this:

Imagine being given a simple editor that let you build your own firearm from scratch.
You choose these basic features first:

Type of gun (Pistol, rifle etc)
Material for gun (Iron, steel)

Then the next screen or so would let you choose:

Barrel length (longer means more accuracy)
Barrel Width (Wide bullet = reduced range but way better damage)
Barrel count (Number of barrels, so you could have a gatling pistol or one that fires 4 rounds at once)

That's the basic gist. The reason I liked the item crafting in Age of Wonders Shadow magic was that it let you choose whatever stats you liked. So if you were stuck in a cave, you spend a few turns making a tunneling item or something like that. There was a kind of flexibility there that I haven't seen in any game since.

Minecraft is amazing. It is resource finding and item gathering but it's still in beta and just as Zero Punctuation said, there's still room for improvement.

 

[New Troll]

Parasite Eve. Closest game I've ever played to what you're after and was fun.