Without combat, at least "twitch and shoot" combat.

Relaxing type of game would be good (although I realize this is probably not a "relaxing" type of crowd.)

Er, Fallout 1 and 2?

Otherwise, are you looking for stuff like Bejeweled or Plants vs. Zombies?

Dangerous Waters. And get the printed manual from Subsim.com. Very relaxing and cerebral.

Or Silent Hunter IV if you prefer older boats.

Sub sims are slow paced, relaxing, and very rewarding when you slam a torpedo home after stalking for awhile.

Cheers!

Rick...

Have both of those on the Android phone, not aware of Fallout? What is that like?

Yeah, had SH3 via Steam, could reload it, I guess.

Actually was thinking more on the lines of Spore, or something like that--no real pressure, and funny (or at least, entertaining) graphics.

Curse of Monkey Island? One of the funniest games of all time.

Fallout is post-apocalyptic RPG, turn-based, old graphics (coz it's an old game...) but very fun game. And it is a "proper" RPG, wherein you can solve problems with a gun, by diplomacy, or by science. However, some things are always best solved with a gun.

Fallout is a very large scale RPG. I've not played 1 or 2, but 3 is based in a post-nuclear-apocalyptic, 1950's USA. You head out into the world with basic commodities, and work your way up through armour, weapons and skills which reflect on how you play the game. It's very open in the sense that you can be a bad guy, loot people and murder your way to the top, or you can play the good guy, who talks his way out of confrontation and earns an honest pay. Or of course anything in-between!

It's an excellent game, but you need a lot of time to see a good return on the game. Personally I faded away from it after about 20 hours of gameplay, after feeling the game got a little repetitive.


Now, I'll probably get some stick for sounding like every other gamer kid of December 2011, but, I'm going to have to vote for Skyrim if you're not already playing it. It's made by the same developers as Fallout, and the concept is very similar, however you're playing in the typical fantasy world of magic, sword and shield.

I've honestly never been one to jump at that type of thing, but after all the rave reviews, and what seems to be the entire gaming population being taken over by it, I had to give it a go. For whatever reason it may be, I am totally in love with this game. All the reasons I got bored of Fallout don't seem to be getting to me yet (after 60+ hours of gameplay). They seem to have hit a home run with it, because it's truly one of the best games I've played. It's much slower paced than Fallout, primarily because of the huge natural and beautiful world it's set in, and I think having no firearms speaks in volumes.

Other honourable mentions would have to be the Stalker series (Similar RPG style, however set in Post meltdown Chernobyl/Pripyat - a world that completely fascinates me - both in game, and in real life!), although it's suffered the same drop that Fallout did for me, and of course firearms aren't particularly relaxing.

The Silent Hill games are fantastic, particularly 2 and 4 IMO, but of course you have to be into scary stuff! Very slow paced however, so you can sink a lot of hours in without getting strained.

OK, going to try Fallout from GOG, hope it works.

Spore was a great game, but I was done with it in a few days, and never picked it up again. Will Wright had big hopes for its replayability, but personally I never saw it.

Syberia is about as adventure immersion as you can get. Solving riddles to move along in the adventure.

SHAAAZAM! I've got it!

Postal 2. You can get the whole thing with expansions and all over at gog.com for cheap!

If you want it low key, all you have to do is behave and do things like go to the store for milk, return library books, etc. Do it all at your own pace. You can wander off and explore town for hours before you bother getting the milk if you want.

On the other hand, if people start getting under your skin, you can whip out a machete, or climb up on top of a tall building with a sniper rifle, or go nuts with a veritable plethora of weapons. There's even a napalm launcher. It works well on passing marching bands.

Not to mention the opportunity to Taze people, pee on people, set fires, rob banks, all that sort of thing. You can even bust people upside the head with a shovel if you're so inclined.

It's a good test of character. You can complete the entire game with no violence. Sort of a first person everday life sort of thing.

Or, you can blow a fuse and go nuts if they get on your nerves. Your choice. And your character comments on things. He's hysterically funny. You'll laugh out loud.

Cheers!

Rick...

Non Combat, but has FPS :
Portal 2, Portal 1.

Hilarious, mindful, pretty, and you can just sit there if you like.

Non FPS, but with some combat:
Shogun 2 Total War, lots of moving armies, that type of stuff, and the thrill of battle is there, but you can autoresolve you if you like to instead of going to the field.

For a relaxing change of pace:
Machinarium

Sold.

Portal 2 was great.

I also enjoy SimCity 2000 in DosBox. Light, yet involved enough that it can give you trouble to get things just the way you want them.

Sid Meyer's SimGolf was a relaxing game. I found it almost hard to fail in that one. Building the courses and refining them was a good time waster. No idea if this game is still available.

I'd also recommend "The Dig" on Steam. Played well on my Win7 machine and had an interesting story.

Sorry for all the oldies, hehe.

RollerCoaster Tycoon? The best "Tycoon" game ever, IMO. Great fun, and endless possibilities.

Personally out of all the games in the Fallout series I've played (2, 3, New Vegas) I prefer Fallout 2 the best. Great game, turn based combat (unlike 3 & NV), isometric perspective. Plenty of Easter Eggs too and plenty of humour.

If you prefer something a bit more modern, but with guns (turn based combat, it's not a FPS) you could try Jagged Alliance 2. The plot is simple - you're a mercenary who's contacted by the deposed ruler of of a fictitious country called Arulco. He wants you to retake the country from the despotic dictator (his ex-wife Really!). You start off with a bit of cash, and you hire merceneries, outfit them, and capture the country sector by sector. Requires quite a bit of strategising - who to recruit (not all mercs get along with each other; some are better are others - there are those who can't hit the broadside of a barn), how to finance your operation, what sectors to capture first and so on. I had great fun and played the campaign thru' multiple times. Plenty of humour in it too.
Wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JA2

Firaxis is making a remake of the game, I'm looking forward to it.

Out of the Park Baseball

Railroad Tycoon 3

Plenty of good ones out there:

I'm not much for MMO's, but I've been having fun with Star Trek Online, which is free now.

Defense Grid...very fun, well produced tower defense. Works great with a controller.

Frozen Synapse...it's like the planning stage of the old Rainbow Six games, but turn based. Have to play it to get it, but a lot of fun to kick back with.

DEFCON: Everybody Dies. Simple to learn, but complex to master. Based on the "Wargames" look.

World in Conflict....just plain fun, eye candy, blow stuff up in many many ways.

Battlestations Pacific....enjoy the fun parts of war at sea. RTS, but you take direct control of battleships, torpedo bombers, transports etc.

Chronicles of Riddick Butcher Bay

Spinter Cell Chaos Theory

Star Wars KOTOR

Star Wars Empire at War (very addictive, but not complicated)

chess

Victoria 2?

One of the Civilization games. Civ V can lose a lot of hours of your life. Steam has a demo if you want to give it a try.

Get some fishing game. I recommend Bass Pro Shop: The Strike. Don't forget to get a six-pack, some chips, and your favorite music to go with it. Now that's relaxing.

Monkey Island 1&2

He, he! Op, unfortunately you specifically rejected ... shooters in your request, otherwise I would have told you Left4Dead which for me at least is very relaxing, provided that I do not play for more than 45 minutes (becomes boring).

Skyrim!

It makes you feel powerful and if the mountain vistas are not relaxing, then nothing is.

Global Thermonuclear War

Wait, you do NOT want to play that one, actually. The only way to win is not to play.

Portal 1 is cheap and doesn't take long to complete while being very satisfying.



The Jedi Master

X3 Reunion/Terran Conflict. Just cruise around space, trade and blow stuff up if you fancy.
Lord of the Rings Online. Like many other MMORPGs these days, it has a limited Free-to-Play version. But you can just wander around the Shire for many hours and just take in the sights... screenshots

Myst

Kerbal space program . Kind of a sim lite, but a lot of fun.

how about The Sims it's not really a sim as we think about them, or Skyrim

I'm finding myself enjoying the point and click/hidden object games. Relaxing/tells a story/puzzle solving and atmosphere.

- I currently have Dire Grove and Sleepy Hollow.

- I recently bought two adventure games called Adam's Venture 1&2. I've been playing through the first and its enjoyable. No combat but it uses the Unreal Engine so it has nice visuals and physics. Tells a good story and uses Bible stories and scripture. Set in the 1920s.

- Terraria 2d side scrolling platformer that lets you mine and build from your materials. Has combat but its more akin to old nintendo games. Cheap on steam.

- I haven't tried it myself but Minecraft sounds like your thing too. I'm interested in getting it.

Minecraft is great. I played back in the free days, and my brother owns the current version. Easily the kind of game where you can waste hours making the world just the way you want it.

I'm usually pretty exclusive to sims (RoF, IL2, SH5) but I picked up Mass Effect cheap ($7.95)just after Christmas... it's been a lot of fun.

I'm not a shooter type player at all, and I like that in Mass Effect you can hit the space bar, pause the game and set up the attack. Until I figured that out I had trouble with the husks at the first "tutorial" stage, but since then it's been a lot of fun... gorgeous game with a decent story and great voice acting. I'm about 2/3 of the way through ME amd I'm looking forward to picking up ME2 when I finish it. I may wait until ME3 comes out in March, there might be some deals.

I like adventure games too, if I were to recommend only one it would probably be Riven (the second Myst). I'm currently playing The Book of Unwritten Tales with my 6-year-old son... it's quite good and has more humour (well... the Myst games don't really have any humour).

Yes you do! That's the DEFCON game I mentioned. Your kill counts are in the millions. LOL

The latest version of Fritz Chess would be nice.

Bookworm Deluxe from Popcap Games is an addictive time-waster if you like that sort of thing.

Or how about BridgeIT or Pontifex from Chronic logic? Design bridges, build them, then test them to see if your design was good or if you'll fall to your death.

You could also pick up 18 Wheels of Steel: Extreme Trucker 2 and relax on the road.

Cheers!

Rick...

The Fallout game I recommend is Fallout 1 and 2. They are 2d-isometric turn-based RPG games. Fallout 3 IMO did not capture the Fallout universe, it was just Oblivion with guns and VATS and set in the Fallout setting.

Should be cheap now from GoG.

I'll second Skyrim. Its great just exploring the woods hunting and listening to the awesome score to the sound of wind blowing through the pine trees and watching clouds drift through the cold high mountains. But you can't stay away from the awesome combat. I just unlocked my last word of my three-word dragon tongue phrase that allowed me to shout a cave bear down a hill with my voice!

Fallout 1 & 2 are great choices. I found the writing (humor, culture references, references to previous Fallout games, etc.) in New Vegas to be of nearly the same quality as Fallout 2. I liked New Vegas a lot more than Fallout 3. Recently I've been playing mostly Skyrim and Arkham City, both are quite a bit of fun. Also like the STALKER series.