RPG of the Year
And so here we are. Choosing an RPG of the year for 2008 is asking for trouble. It's like being presented with a variety of different dog turds on platters and being asked to "pick the best meal". It's not a choice. There is no choice. There are only two decent games in the list I even bothered playing this year. One of them isn't an RPG (Mount & Blade), the other (The Witcher) is just barely an RPG (if you go by the vague, broad definition of "it says RPG on the box") but wasn't actually released this year. Sorry but patches, no matter what you call them, don't count. What else is there to really consider? Mass Effect? I'd rather not. Fallout 3? In the
words of Barack Obama: "Shoot. Me. Now."
Jeff Vogel's Avernum 5? Sure, if this was the "Stop making the same fucking game over and over again and for the love of God, find a new engine please" Award (Unfortunately there was an error at the printers and we were forced to skip that award this year). Sadly, we must admit the truth. There were no RPGs released in 2008. And I mean the real kind of RPG. The kind Blackisle Studios or Troika used to make. The kind where choices actually affected stuff that mattered, where you had multiple ways of creating your character, where you could choose what play-style or weapons to use and it would affect how you played the game, where you weren't railed through area after area in a pre-defined order, where you actually had some say in what you did and how you did it, where you could even join the bad guys. The kind that weren't over-loaded with stupid. The kind that were even fun games to play. There hasn't been one of those RPGs for years.
... but we have to be like all the cool kids and give it to something, right? Journalistic integrity demands it! We wouldn't be a prestigious mainstream RPG news magazine website if we didn't just slap the title on whatever it was we felt deserved it this year, patted ourselves on the back and told each other it was okay, RPGs will be better next year.
Oh no wait, we aren't one of those places.