METRO 2033 - it will stress even the top of line pcs. Not a bad game either, not the best tho. It has the best repuatation of being "that game" that you should get to show off your awesome machine. Better graphics then crysis and also has full DX11 features. Batman Arkham City and BF3 are the best looking games out right now imo.

Good games on PC that are technically impressive?  I can name a few.
 
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series - PC exclusive open world games, FPS/RPG crossover.  I can help prepare you for this game, since I recommend playing Clear Sky first after learning just the backstory of the series (since this one is a prequel), followed by Shadow of Chernobyl (first game released, second game chronologically), and then Call of Pripyat.  This game also has a lot of mod content.  Shadow of Chernobyl exceeds visually (for its time) especially because of its presentation.  Clear Sky has excellent graphics (although looks a bit too "pretty" in my opinion), while CoP, despite having the most updated engine, looks bland but this is fixed by various mods.
 
- Metro 2033 - While it is on consoles, it definitely isn't a console port.  It has some of the best graphics and sound effects out there, combined with decent usage of PhysX, fantastic atmosphere, great storyline, great gameplay and survival elements, and so on.
 
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent - The latest horror game from Frictional Games.  Nobody makes horror games like they do.  This game is widely believed to be the scariest PC game of all time.  The atmosphere is amazing and it has a great storyline.  Gameplay is great, I believe similar to their previous games (Penumbra).  You can't fight your enemies, instead fleeing and hiding from them.  It has way more object interaction than console games, good length, puzzles, and does almost everything right.
 
- Crysis - Fantastic game all around.  As most people know it came out in 2007 and (without dispute) held the crown for graphics technology until 2010 when Metro 2033 challenged it.  It was a good challenge but Crysis still comes ahead and it does not even demonstrate full engine capabilities.  Graphically it outdoes Battlefield 3 in many ways. The SDK is amazing!  The sandbox single player and multiplayer beat out all other modern FPS games of a similar genre (action).  
 
- Crysis Warhead - More linear than Crysis though, but has slight visual improvements.  It is even more cinematic than Crysis.
 
- Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason - Many people believe this game is boring, although this isn't surprising seeing as how the most popular games these days are mindless, easy, fast paced shooters.  Cryostasis is a great story-driven horror game and also has some of the best PhysX demonstrations to date.  Unfortunately, it is only challenging in a few areas and has no difficulty options.  I still recommend it either way.
 
- Serious Sam 3: BFE - This game brings back old-school FPS gameplay.  It is a very fast, 16-player cooperative FPS that does not let up.  Very fun game and it has more graphics options than any other game I've seen (yes, even more than Crysis).  It even has in-game FXAA and more surprisingly, in-game SGSSAA!  You don't see that these days.  It has a lot of other eye candy features that are very rare such as parallax occlusion mapping and subsurface scattering, and it did surprise me as a graphics marvel.  Check out my review for this game here.
 
- Killing Floor - A PC exclusive co-op game.  32-player co-op is something I haven't seen elsewhere.  You fight all sorts of creatures and while the default maps are defensive, you'll find more modded content than default content when joining servers (including some campaign maps).  
 

EVGATech_IanJ 

I prefer ARMA II. 

I like the level of realism, compared to other combat games that are currently available. 

 

 
I haven't played ArmA II, but from what I understand the scale of the maps especially modded ones are unrivaled by most other games.  The graphics also look impressive but it is supposed to be a huge resource hog.  I cannot wait for ArmA III.  The main complaints about ArmA II are the AI and the boring single player campaign, but the developers plan to improve these things drastically and so far things are looking spectacular.  It will have RPG elements in the single player and so much variety in the gameplay.  Too bad that won't be until 2012.  I do recommend checking out this demonstration, jimmycricket.  Visually it seems to outdo most games in most aspects.  The final map size in single player will be 600 km straight up with no loading screens, with about 400 km of it being strictly terrain.  All explorable of course indoors and outdoors, and they also say it will have full scale destruction.  Best graphics + PhysX?  This is the game that will make me get a new GPU.

jimmycricket

Metro2033 I have but can't get pass the part where I'm in the missile silo and got those glowing gas balls and I have to basically escort this guy (dumb b**tard keeps dying)

Do any of these games support DX11 and maybe PhysX?
Serious Sam 3 just came out, right? Isn't like Duke Nuke'em?

 
For that part of Metro 2033, just run ahead of him and shoot the pods that those round things (Amoebas) come out of.  This will make them stop respawning.  Use whichever assault rifle you have.
 
Of all the games I listed, Metro 2033 is both DX11 and PhysX.  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat is DX11 as well. The rest are all DX9, Crysis and Crysis Warhead having some DX10 effects.  Amnesia uses PhysX as well as Cryostasis.  However, DX11 hardly makes a difference in any game.  Tessellation has not been properly implemented in any game, Battlefield 3 included.  The only benefits DX11 has brought to games is increased multi-core CPU usage (mainly visible in Battlefield 3).
 
I haven't played the new Duke Nukem, but everyone is saying that Serious Sam 3 is what Duke Nukem Forever should have been.  All I know is that Serious Sam 3 is a fun game that did well in my review (85/100 overall).

EVGATech_IanJ

I prefer ARMA II.

I like the level of realism, compared to other combat games that are currently available.  The terrain/scenery is also amazing.

Add to that there is a F2P version available on Steam. They call it a demo, but it's the F2P version.

boredgunner

jimmycricket

boredgunner

jimmycricket

Metro2033 I have but can't get pass the part where I'm in the missile silo and got those glowing gas balls and I have to basically escort this guy (dumb b**tard keeps dying)

Do any of these games support DX11 and maybe PhysX?
Serious Sam 3 just came out, right? Isn't like Duke Nuke'em?

For that part of Metro 2033, just run ahead of him and shoot the pods that those round things (Amoebas) come out of.  This will make them stop respawning.  Use whichever assault rifle you have.

Of all the games I listed, Metro 2033 is both DX11 and PhysX.  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat is DX11 as well. The rest are all DX9, Crysis and Crysis Warhead having some DX10 effects.  Amnesia uses PhysX as well as Cryostasis.  However, DX11 hardly makes a difference in any game.  Tessellation has not been properly implemented in any game, Battlefield 3 included.  The only benefits DX11 has brought to games is increased multi-core CPU usage (mainly visible in Battlefield 3).

I haven't played the new Duke Nukem, but everyone is saying that Serious Sam 3 is what Duke Nukem Forever should have been.  All I know is that Serious Sam 3 is a fun game that did well in my review (85/100 overall).

Is Crysis & Crysis: Warhead more of a open sandbox type game like FarCry 2
Or more linear like Crysis 2?

I've tried doing the run and shoot but they seem to pop up quicker and he walks so F'ing slow

Well in that Metro 2033 part don't just shoot the round things rolling at you, shoot the pods they come out of until they explode.  This way they can't respawn.  Crysis is a sandbox game for sure, Warhead is a lot more linear.  It isn't like Far Cry 2 since I played that one for around 2 hours and uninstalled it.  It was too repetitive.  Crysis 2 makes me want to puke.  

I got it when they were still giving actual discs with the vireo cards, don't even think I made it to an hour before I uninstalled it
Ok I get it, so shoot the pods and not what comes out, DUH why didn't I think of that
Crysis 2 looked nice to me but I hate being in a big beautiful environment and can't explore it.
Has the DX11 bugs been worked out of Batman AC yet?
I was hoping that this game they would let us go in and explore all of Gotham City, no some little rinky dink corner

Civilization V, Starcraft II, World of Warcraft, Just Cause 2,.

Hard Reset is an awesome PC only game.  You basically kill robots in a Blade Runner type setting.  It has an old school shooter game play style, but with modern graphics. It looks really good with ultra settings and FSSx4.

Thanks for the recommendations gunner. Anybody looking for a good FPS (including me) will have a good selection to choose from. I'm also looking forward to Arma III, some of the gameplay was 3rd person, I hope that was to show that's it's switchable (I only like playing 1st person).

HarryD

Thanks for the recommendations gunner. Anybody looking for a good FPS (including me) will have a good selection to choose from. I'm also looking forward to Arma III, some of the gameplay was 3rd person, I hope that was to show that's it's switchable (I only like playing 1st person).

 
Yep it is switchable.  I'll be playing it in first person too.  

I never did finish Metro 2033 cause I kept running out of Gas Mask Filters, they are not easy to find, I think I stopped once I got to some Library place.

_Nite_ 

I never did finish Metro 2033 cause I kept running out of Gas Mask Filters, they are not easy to find, I think I stopped once I got to some Library place. 

 
 
What difficulty were you on?  I didn't have this problem on normal mode or easy mode.  Also the only difference I noticed between normal and easy is that easy gives you much more (too many) supplies, and I think your gas mask is more durable.  You still seem to die just as easily.  Harder difficulties are probably just ridiculous, since in FPS hard = aimbot enemies and die in two monster scratches.
 

peeler05

Get crysis if you dont have it. It is about as non linear of an fps as you can get. You can roam the jungles and chose your own path to finish an objective. It looks really cool too, but it is not dx11.

 
Well there are open world FPS games that also have RPG elements.  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. dominates this genre.  Fallout is popular, but I put 2 hours into New Vegas and it was very boring, not to mention Fallout won't show off the OP's hardware (NV doesn't even have shadows).  I'm going to be honest here - no game is DX11.  Some claim to be and use tessellation to the smallest extend on very few objects, but no game really takes advantage of it.  Metro 2033's "DX11 DOF" reduces FPS by nearly 50% and it looks worse than Crysis DOF.  BF3 just has increased multi-core or multi-thread usage, so I guess this is the truest DX11 game out there.  Visually there are no traces of DX11 benefits.  Maybe Crysis 2 takes advantage of DX11 features, but I wouldn't know since I hate its setting, its gameplay features (I did play it briefly before DX11/high res texture pack came out), and I hate every bit of footage I've seen of it.  

I can't stand RTS games
 

peeler05

The worst part about Metro 2033 was the stealth part. That would have ruined the game for me, had I not had my laptop out with the youtube video walkthrough playing :0. And yea, the dof in that game is the biggest joke of a setting in the history of video games.

 
There are quite a few stealth parts.  What is wrong with them?  Metro 2033 has better stealth gameplay than any FPS I've encountered.  Unlike other games, the enemies cannot see you in pitch darkness.  They might hear you stab someone because lots of times, stabbing causes your victim to scream in pain.  

Most RTS (real-time strategy) are not console, too many buttons on the keyboard and CPU intensive by nature of having too many A.I. characters.  I recommend DX10 flavored World in Conflict even though it is 2yr old.
 
Crysis 2 while also for PC's, I don't see how it can be a port just because a version exists for consoles simply because the minimum GPU requirement is five times the graphics of any console and Ultra details will exceed 1.5GB of Vram.

_Nite_

boredgunner

_Nite_ 

I never did finish Metro 2033 cause I kept running out of Gas Mask Filters, they are not easy to find, I think I stopped once I got to some Library place. 

 

What difficulty were you on?  I didn't have this problem on normal mode or easy mode.  Also the only difference I noticed between normal and easy is that easy gives you much more (too many) supplies, and I think your gas mask is more durable.  You still seem to die just as easily.  Harder difficulties are probably just ridiculous, since in FPS hard = aimbot enemies and die in two monster scratches.

I think I was using just 1 step below the hardest difficulty mode. It's been a long time since I played it so don't really remember, I may give the game another try later, but its hard to play those types of games now after being so use to open world Free Roam games like Skyrim, Fallout, Oblivion, Stalker, Just Cause 2, GTA, Mafia, etc etc

 
As someone who loves S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (I bet you're surprised), Metro 2033 turned out to be a very impressive.  The campaign is worth it.  It just won't have the replay value of some of the games you mentioned.  

peeler05 

The third level stealth part (where that dude gets captured) was the worst for me. The game doesn't do a good job teaching you how to stealth (ie throwing knifes at ppl backs, picking them up) and idk that part was just brutal for me. I am impatient though and dont really like stealth games ;o 

 
 
Yeah I don't like having my hand held while I play games.  No tutorials, just my own knowledge and instinct.  This part was all common sense to me.