The Witcher all the way!

The Witcher if your Pc can handle it and just stock some of your favorite RPg titles Buying enough of them should let you survive till next sale. i always recomend the same titles- Anything even remotely connected with balck Isle Studios.

Heroes of Might and Magic series.
Buy the whole set and you can stay busy for 1000 hours, easy.

Yes, it is horrendous, utterly horrendous. Bland & boring story and repetitive gameplay does not make for a good game. Everything just feels incredibly hamfisted, like a pen & paper RPG session with 12 year old kids who tries to be dramatic (yes I played RPGs when i was at that age, I know how horrible it really was when looking back at it!

Anyway, I'll place a * next to the games that I find to be extra good.
RPG:
Planescape torment*
Ultima 7*
Ultima 4-6
The Witcher
Betrayal at Krondor
Divine divinity*
Fallout 1-2*
Gothic 1*-2*-3
Lands of lore*
Realms Of arkania 1-3*
Arcanum*
Might & Magic

Adventure:
Beneath a steel sky*
Broken sword 1-2
Gabriel knight 1-3
The last express*
The longest journey*
Real Myst*
Phantasmagoria
Sherlock Holmes: Secret of the silver earring
Syberia 1-2*
Still life
Tex Murphy 3-5*

My problem is that I've still promised myself to pass on GOG those unplayed games that I already own in CD format, and seem to work already fine in Win7 64bit. So basically I will buy only interesting games that would otherwise fail on Win7, not to pay only for a noCD crack (albeit with some even that makes sense, some multi CD games...).

My findings so far:

+ The Longest Journey: original has lots of problems in Win7, so buy the GOG version.

+ Return to Krondor: original works otherwise fine in Win7, except that Intel Indeo videos don't work, and the update patch does not work on win7 (but then the UK version I have is already up to date, so I have no need for that). I think I'll buy this from GOG too.

- Giants Citizen Kabuto: The original seems to work without hitch in Win7, so I'll pass the GOG version.

- Seven Kingdoms 1-2: originals work fine in Win7 (the first one needs the "kill explore.exe" trick to fix the colors), so no buy from GOG.

- Fallout: The original has the same color problem and installer does not work, but there are workarounds for the installation problem, so I think I'll pass the GOG version.

and many more to test... It doesn't make much sense though, saving a few bucks with hours upon hours of testing games. I'll probably break at some point and buy games regardless if I own the CDs already. I could play them on XP or Win98SE as well, though...

Try using this program to fix the colour issues, it has helped me with quite a few 2D games with the colour issue in Windows 7 (such as Age of Empires and StarCraft): w7ddpatcher

Extract the files anywhere you like, then run w7ddpatcher.exe. Click 'Patch', then browse to and select the game .exe you want to patch. You should then see some text appear in the patcher program window (Windows Aero might switch off and on again during the process) and a message "* Patching complete! Enjoy your game!".
If everything worked correctly, try running the game you patched - hopefully the fixes applied will have fixed the colour problem; if not, the game should continue working as it did before being patched.

I've got my eyes on Arcanum, can anyone elaborate a little on it?

Thanks I might try that, but then so far making a bat file with "kill explorer.exe" has worked fine for me so far for an odd game.

When I said earlier that I try not to buy GOG games that I have on CD already, I may have to revise my stand because it feels like there is a tiny crack in the inner circle of the third Freespace 2 CD, and I haven't even used that game/CD before. I think it is ok now, but might get worse later. I'm not sure but I might have bought that game used long time ago, so it was possibly the previous owner to blame.

I could of course try to salvage the CD(s) with some CD imaging software etc., but is it really worth it considering the whole game costs a couple of bucks on GOG now? :)

I think I end up re-buying GOG versions of more and more games that I have on CD already, not only due to ease of use (no hunting for latest patches from www.patches-scrolls.de etc.), but because it is even more permanent than a physical CD, albeit so far original CD games have been quite durable for me.

Unbalanced, buggy and about as newbie friendly as Counterstrike's community (as in: really not).

That said, it is a pretty interesting game in its own right. But more the kind of thing I was left wishing they'd made a better job of than anything.

The vanilla campaign isn't bad. It's not Baldur's Gate, but not excruciating.

The expansions are improved, but still not incredibly amazing.

The fan made modules (and there are tons) are the main draw, and there are some insanely high quality ones that beat most other full RPGs.

You can get hundreds of hours of fun out of NWN if you're willing to look around at some of the fan made modules. It's like buying 30 great RPGs at once. Highly recommend.

Its a Troika game, which means the following things:
Buggy
Poorly balanced
Absolutely wonderful!

What Arcanum has going for it is its setting, which is incredible. They have put a lot of work into creating a world that feels believable and interesting. And there is a lot to do in this game, several major cities all with plenty of quests. Many quests have multiple solutions, both depending on what skills you have and your own moral compass. In this game being able to talk your way through a situation is often an option. Also, there are a lot of followers that you can acquire, and if you are a charisma/talking type character, you can use them instead of relying on your own brute force.

That being said, the balance is poor. Charisma monsters are usually the best characters, and magic is better than tech. You can still beat the game as a techie (I've done it), but it is harder than doing it as a mage-type character. Also, the game has some difficulty spikes that can be rather nasty, more so for techies than mages (the first spell in black necromancy will get you through these rough spots).

If you like CRPGs, then you owe it to yourself to give this game a try.

Thanks a bunch for the last three comments. The bug'iness and unbalance'iness can really put me off of any game so I doubt I'll be getting Arcanum.

Concerning NW - I'm buying it.

I imagine you are experienced in the field of NWN mods. Any chance you could throw me the names of some good ones?