Editorial Top Ten Worst CRPGs

[Jason]

Tags: Alpha Protocol

<p>Matt "Matt Chat" Barton seems like a nice, mild-mannered guy, the kind of guy who you ask to help you move because you know he won't say no. Apparently, though, he's seething with an all-consuming rage <a href="http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/4205" target="_blank">towards a handful of RPGs</a>.</p>
<blockquote>#6. Alpha Protocol. Chris Avellone, what have you done? How could the same guy who gave us Planescape: Torment produce a flop like this, particularly when the premise (an "espionage RPG") sounds so fascinating? Just hearing that phrase alone makes me want to buy it. But, yeah, we just got another mess with more bugs than a public lavatory without any soap left. Like Dungeon Siege 3, I'm kinda reminded of a bunch of frat guys trying to bake a cake. But they didn't plan well, and now they're out of time, so they turn up the oven to broil thinking it'll turn out just as great in half the time. What really makes this game so galling is that you can't help but see that it could have--should have--been so much better. Perhaps the "alpha" in the title is a not so subtle clue?</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=3176" target="_blank">Over at the Rampant Coyote</a>, Jay Barnson instead shares RPGs he enjoyed but not many others did, including Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption.</p>
<blockquote>The game was excessively linear. The second half, set in the modern world, fell a little flat. The endings sucked (no pun intended). And the dialog could be wordy as hell. But I was okay with that. White Wolf&rsquo;s signature game world came alive for me with the first two acts of the game, taking place in medieval Prague.&nbsp; The setting &ndash; a mix of dark fantasy and real-world history &ndash; seemed very believable.&nbsp; Playing your character initially as an ultimately doomed crusader and monster-hunter,&nbsp; only to become the thing you once hunted &mdash; it was great stuff, long expositions and all.</blockquote>
<p>&nbsp;</p>

 

[Freelance Henchman]

#6. Alpha Protocol

oh ffs

 

[Trash]

It's always the quiet types.

 

[Excidium]

Wish I had played and liked any of those games so I could rage about somebody's opinion on the internet.

 

[J_C]

Although I LIKE ALPHA PROTOCOL THIS MUCH, and I don't know why is that game on the list, Matt is still a BRO. This is not the first time I don't agree with him, but he still makes good videos.

 

[Excidium]

Also there is a surprising lack of TES games in that list.

 

[Notorious]

Also there is a surprising lack of TES games in that list.

I think it's funny, he critizises LoL 3 for not being an RPG while all the Elder Scroll Games have little to no RPG elements (Outside of the stats) and are only "fun" games.

Still a great list, absolutely agree with #1 I can barley remember it, only that it was really bad. (Bought it because it had D&D on it, what a mistake)

 

[PorkaMorka]

#1. Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. Sigh. I once said that I would never mention this game because I was afraid that somehow, even by dissing it, I would be drawing attention to it and some idiot out there would be curious enough to seek it out. I'd like to think this game didn't really exist, and that I could somehow alter history so that it never existed. As you know, Pool of Radiance was my first long-term relationship with a role-playing game, and man I always wanted to go back. But when you do go back ten years later, your sweetheart has put on 300 pounds, lost her teeth, and is rolling around Wal-Mart in a motorized wheelchair with a confederate flag jutting out the back.

To say that this game was a disappointment would be like saying Julius Caesar faced a small obstacle during the Ides of March. Or that Pompeii entered a mild recession due to an annoying volcano.

Even the dragons are decrepit.Even the dragons are decrepit.I hate to even have to talk about why this game was so awful, but it's the same sort of thing wrong with all the games listed here: awful productions. Can you imagine the drama that must have been going on behind the scenes? Overbearing egos, vital tasks assigned to "coders" who had maybe made a mod or two, estranged publishers threatening to cut funding at any moment...Eventually people get fed up and say SCREW IT, just release this thing even though we all know it's a P.O.S. This publisher/developer/supervisor doesn't deserve better. At that point, a terrible fan reception is revenge; they can point at them and say "See, I told ya. Now I feel completely justified."

I remember one time a guy told me that he was really excited to play Pool of Radiance after he read my reviews and descriptions of it. But he said it was a bit dated, so he'd just play the updated sequel instead. Can you imagine my horror?

What really makes me maddest of all, though, is that it pretty much guarantees that no one will ever invest in such a project again. For all intents and purposes, turn-based is dead. We'll probably never see another great, AAA-budgeted CRPG again, because now it's "proven" that gamers only want action, action, ACTION! Intelligence? That's boring! What, do you think gamers actually have brains? Of course they don't.

So you see, these games aren't just failures we can laugh at and move on. They are failures that doomed my beloved CRPG genre to the nether regions of the indie scene. Now all we can ever hope for is yet another shooter game with some "rpg elements" thrown in to keep us from going completely brain dead.

Zero substantive criticism - check
Excessive hyperbole - check
False statements - check - (After PoR:RoMD failed the industry did make another bad turn D&D based RPG - TOEE)

PoR:RoMD is not a good game. But after the patches and the fan speed patch, it's a solidly mediocre if somewhat overly streamlined turn based D&D dungeon crawl. It does have a lot of average quality encounters against generic monsters, but they are typically hand crafted, not random and they will at times have some interesting twists to them. It also earns bonus points for the ability to gain two permanent NPC followers to bring your party up to a robust 6 dudes.

If you really liked D&D and you were unemployed and you were chained to your computer and forced to play CRPGs you could definitely have some fun with a properly patched version of PoR:RoMD.

 

[Erebus]

Number 1 is certainly the worst CRPG I've played (not that I even came close to completing the first dungeon).

Can "Heroes of the Lance" really be called a CRPG, even if it uses one of the D&D settings ? Also, while the game is pretty poor, I seem to remember that the sequel is much worse.

 

[Roguey]

How appropriate that two Asselonian turds would be ranked side by side. Chris, Chris never changes. Though I doubt Matt even knows he was the lead on DtU considering his shock about AP.

 

[MetalCraze]

Also there is a surprising lack of TES games in that list.

Because TES games are not as bad as that catastrophic shit there?

 

[Silellak]

I'm not Alpha Protocol's biggest fan, but I'm not really sure it should be on this list, either.

For the record, here's my top (bottom?) 10:

10. Ultima IX
9. Ultima IX
8. Ultima IX
7. Ultima IX
6. Ultima IX
5. Ultima IX
4. Ultima IX
3. Ultima IX
2. Ultima IX
1. Age of Decadence

 

[Pope Amole]

Doods, instead of raging at some of the Matt's choices (which, although not properly argued about, could be more or less justified or at the very least not that dumbfucky but more opinional), rage at the comments at the Rampant Coyote article, where you can find such "guilty pleasures" mentioned as Darklands, Might and Magic 7, Bloodlines, original Dune (not quite an RPG, but still), Arx Fatalis and System Shock.

 

[Gragt]

You got to admit that those sorts of lists are really popular.

 

[Xor]

Oh man, I actually own Lands of Lore III.

You got to admit that those sorts of lists are really popular.

They're really easy to make and people tend to read them even if they disagree with the choices.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

These lists tend to be shit because people mostly talk about the same infamous stuff everyone knows about, not the real stinkers that few people heard about, because it was just that shit.

 

[Sceptic]

He's trying to make a list of worst 10 games in a category, and he fails to provide ONE single targeted criticism for ANY of them? And that's with the likes of MM9 and DtU on there? I mean, it's fucking MM9, and all you can criticize is "Simplistic character creation. Slow start. Lack of choice."? LACK OF CHOICE? In a fucking Might and Magic game?

Good god Matt, you suck.

Also, the lack of any pre-mid 90's CRPG is duly noted. He really should try Fountain of Dreams one of these days. I'm trying to remember some of the horrid CRPG's of my youth but it seems I've mentally blocked them out.

Half of these are "mediocre" rather than "truly terrible", and I agree this includes POR. Sure, it had a bug that made it erase your entire drive, and that alone is worth laughing at it until the end of time, but the game itself was nowhere near the utter mess that were DtU or Fountain of Dreams.

 

[Zomg]

No Baldur's Gate 2? It eradicated all hope of decency from the world, forever

 

[Marobug]

Ultima IX WASN'T that bad.
Yeah the combat system was broken and the story wasn't up to ultima standards but who gives a shit when you can travel through britannia in full 3d?
Back then that was teh shit, it's easy to diss it as POS 12 years later. Fuckwit

No Baldur's Gate 2? It eradicated all hope of decency from the world, forever

HERESY

 

[Spectacle]

Umm, Ultima IX was widely regarded as rubbish from the moment it was released.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

no one yet mentioned dragon age 2 in this thread?

wtf codex?

 

[Xor]

Dragon Age 2 isn't an RPG.

 

[SerratedBiz]

^ That.

Then again, neither is Alpha Protocol. (OH NO YOU DIDN'T)

 

[J1M]

Also there is a surprising lack of TES games in that list.

It's a list for RPGs.

 

[SCO]

Doods, instead of raging at some of the Matt's choices (which, although not properly argued about, could be more or less justified or at the very least not that dumbfucky but more opinional), rage at the comments at the Rampant Coyote article, where you can find such "guilty pleasures" mentioned as Darklands, Might and Magic 7, Bloodlines, original Dune (not quite an RPG, but still), Arx Fatalis and System Shock.

WTF

This is a outrage.


I am filled with inchoate rage. I shall protest in the next meeting of the landsraad. This will not go unpunished.