RPG Codex Top 50 cRPG's 2013 Edition (poll results)

[hoverdog]

Deus Ex is better than piece of shit Gothic?

Fixed.

double fixed

 

[Lord Andre]

Piece of shit Morrowind is better than Gothic? lol

The horror of logical implications.

But seriously why the fuck is Gothic so low on the list and why the fuckiest fuck is IWD 1&2 so high ?

 

[octavius]

Wizardry VI runs just fine on DOSBox.

Not sure why mine seems to take about 3 years to complete animations (spell especially) during fights then. The rest of the game seems to work fine, but encounter animations are sloooow. Maybe it was always that way and I just forgot :/

Crank up the CPU cycles! Ctrl-F12.

 

[Roguey]

But seriously why the fuck is Gothic so low on the list and why the fuckiest fuck is IWD 1&2 so high ?

Perhaps because it has an interface not made by or for humans.

As far as recent reviews Gothic experience impressions go I like this one http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-910

 

[Lord Andre]

But seriously why the fuck is Gothic so low on the list and why the fuckiest fuck is IWD 1&2 so high ?

Perhaps because it has an interface not made by or for humans.

As far as recent reviews Gothic experience impressions go I like this one http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-910

Ohhh, what's wrong dumbfuck ? No awesome button ? Funny link, made me laugh.

 

[Rivmusique]

As far as recent reviews Gothic experience impressions go I like this one http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-910

Apparently after more then 1 hour of play:

There’s only one thing for it: I fire up Google and download a PDF of the instruction manual. Nothing is getting between my man and his pickaxe.

I beat my breast and tear my hair a bit. This pickaxe must surely be bugged! Damn you, Germans!

I squint again at the hazy pixels and at the tiny text beneath them. Wait. Maybe it doesn’t say pickaxe. Maybe it says picklock. Okay, that probably explains why I can’t wield it as a weapon.

and then complains that combat is difficult when he is untrained in the style (and not using all the attack options, but whatever).

So you like it because the author is somewhat retarded right?

 

[Rostere]

As it stands right now you listed up to your top 25, but you were essentially voting them *all* as the best RPG.

Logically, the list (the compiled results of the poll) is a list not over the best games, but over the games which there is a consensus on that they should be on a "top 25" list. Since there is a certain correlation between these two types of lists, the result here is an approximation of a top 25 list.

Ideally, you should get a number of points to distribute among all the games you have played, this number being dependent on how many games you've played in the first place.

 

[Lautreamont]

If we has a DOS only based top 20 cRPG list, it would finally be actual

Can we please have this? A top cRPG list pre Fallout would be far more interesting to see. It may challenge us to be more selective and thoughtful if we're forced to jettison all the Black Isle, Bioware, and Troika games.

 

[Ermm]

Any chance of showing what was beyond top 50? I think that 7-11 votes for a game are kinda relevant.

 

[Saxon1974]

WHAT?! These are our top 15?! No ULTIMA... no MIGHT & MAGIC... no Wizardry?!!! Did people FORGET everything before 1998?!!



Seriously, these are great games but just seems to be a "best modern cRPGs" list, not of "all time". Man, maybe I'm just getting old......

My thoughts exactly. I mean icewind dales games above Ultima III, IV, V and VII. Also above any might & magic games. None of the classics i love are in the top 20, sad but yep getting old.

 

[octavius]

WHAT?! These are our top 15?! No ULTIMA... no MIGHT & MAGIC... no Wizardry?!!! Did people FORGET everything before 1998?!!



Seriously, these are great games but just seems to be a "best modern cRPGs" list, not of "all time". Man, maybe I'm just getting old......

My thoughts exactly. I mean icewind dales games above Ultima III, IV, V and VII. Also above any might & magic games. None of the classics i love are in the top 20, sad but yep getting old.

I'm older than you (assuming 1974 is your year of birth), but I still think Icewind Dale is better than any of the regular Ultimas that I've played.
But I agree that the list lacks many games pre Fallout. I especially miss the Gold Box games myself. The best one IMO - Dark Queen of Krynn -, which has the best tactical combat of any old school pure CRPG (Jagged Alliance and X-Com may be better for all I know) is not even on the fucking list!
Must be too many storyfags on the Codex.

 

[Lady_Error]

Must be too many storyfags on the Codex.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

 

[Excidium]

WHAT?! These are our top 15?! No ULTIMA... no MIGHT & MAGIC... no Wizardry?!!! Did people FORGET everything before 1998?!!



Seriously, these are great games but just seems to be a "best modern cRPGs" list, not of "all time". Man, maybe I'm just getting old......

My thoughts exactly. I mean icewind dales games above Ultima III, IV, V and VII. Also above any might & magic games. None of the classics i love are in the top 20, sad but yep getting old.

I'm older than you (assuming 1974 is your year of birth), but I still think Icewind Dale is better than any of the regular Ultimas that I've played.
But I agree that the list lacks many games pre Fallout. I especially miss the Gold Box games myself. The best one IMO - Dark Queen of Krynn -, which has the best tactical combat of any old school pure CRPG (Jagged Alliance and X-Com may be better for all I know) is not even on the fucking list!
Must be too many storyfags on the Codex.

Not really, it's just that the game isn't too popular. The top of the list is basically every Black Isle/Troika/Obsidian game.

You people need to stop being retarded for a second and realize this is a list of popularity, not of quality. Shouldn't you be proud your game is not appreciated by the unwashed masses? M:

 

[Gregz]

It is a good list. I like the laurels particularly.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-910

Jesus.

Then Diego fucks off, leaving me punched and alone on an empty beach. I have started Gothic with literally nothing to my name except for some tight trousers and my ponytail. I try to work out how to move only to find everything largely unresponsive. Eventually I hit on trying the cursor keys and, sure enough, I go lurching triumphantly across the beach.

Booyah baby. Now we’re cooking with gas.

And then I die. A shaft of blue lightning comes down from nowhere and kills me.

If you go there, there's menacing bolts of lighting sparkling around doing their best to tell you "NO WRONG WAY TURN AROUND BEFORE YOU DIE". Ferret Brain indeed.

 

[Roguey]

She couldn't tell the difference between a lockpick and a pickaxe either.

Not her fault these oldass games have uglyass unclear graphics. M:

 

[octavius]

Must be too many storyfags on the Codex.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Well, as I see it computer and video games are not the best medium for stories. I prefer books and movies for engaging stories.
To me games are more about problem solving and tactical combat. Especially resolving complex combat is what computers are good at.
Computer games are to me more about "intellectual" than emotional entertainment , while with books and movies (fiction) it's the other way around.

 

[SearchEngine]

You say that under the assumption that computer games are meant to revolve around only tactical rpgs/strategies and that playing games like Pools of Radiance for a long time is going to somehow make one an intellectual as a person rather than in terms of just the genre. Fact of the matter is computer gaming doesn't make anybody anymore intelligent than bookworms analyzing the meaning of Ethan Frome or film snobs discussing what makes a movie art. Games, computer or not, are at their core activities meant to entertain. Whether the entertainment is intellectual is one thing, but games that are not necessarily intellectually demanding doesn't mean they're not meaningfully made nor does it mean that being part of the top in the genre should always have to mean we should look at just perfection and nothing else.

 

[octavius]

You say that under the assumption that computer games are meant to revolve around only tactical rpgs/strategies and that playing games like Pools of Radiance for a long time is going to somehow make one an intellectual as a person rather than in terms of just the genre. Fact of the matter is computer gaming doesn't make anybody anymore intelligent than bookworms analyzing the meaning of Ethan Frome or film snobs discussing what makes a movie art. Games, computer or not, are at their core activities meant to entertain. Whether the entertainment is intellectual is one thing, but games that are not necessarily intellectually demanding doesn't mean they're not meaningfully made nor does it mean that being part of the top in the genre should always have to mean we should look at just perfection and nothing else.

Tell us more, Mister Science. And preferably without putting words in my mouth.
My point was merely that I prefer games that force me to think, rather than games that is designed to make me feel. Nobody said anything about games making one smarter.

 

[SearchEngine]

Tell us more, Mister Science. And preferably without putting words in my mouth.
My point was merely that I prefer games that force me to think, rather than games that is designed to make me feel. Nobody said anything about games making one smarter.

#1: I'm a miss.
#2: When you said: "To me games are more about problem solving and tactical combat. Especially resolving complex combat is what computers are good at. Computer games are to me more about "intellectual" than emotional entertainment, while with books and movies (fiction) it's the other way around", it just comes across as computer games were meant to make one more of an intellectual than any other media.

 

[octavius]

Tell us more, Mister Science. And preferably without putting words in my mouth.
My point was merely that I prefer games that force me to think, rather than games that is designed to make me feel. Nobody said anything about games making one smarter.

#1: I'm a miss.
#2: When you said: "To me games are more about problem solving and tactical combat. Especially resolving complex combat is what computers are good at. Computer games are to me more about "intellectual" than emotional entertainment, while with books and movies (fiction) it's the other way around", it just comes across as computer games were meant to make one more of an intellectual than any other media.

Why do you think I wrote "intellectual" in quotes?

 

[SearchEngine]

Why do you think I wrote "intellectual" in quotes?

I don't know. Why don't you tell me?

 

[Zetor]

(snip)

I especially miss the Gold Box games myself. The best one IMO - Dark Queen of Krynn -, which has the best tactical combat of any old school pure CRPG (Jagged Alliance and X-Com may be better for all I know) is not even on the fucking list!
Must be too many storyfags on the Codex.

Honestly, DQK, where most of the 'tough' enemy encounters were about who presses their delayed blast fireball button first or whether the player has cone of cold/PWK to get rid of the only real threats (dark wizards)? The story was a disjointed mess, the areas were wildly inconsistent with inexplicable switches between Serious Business and comedic relief like that hawkbluff [?] place with the various passes you had to collect (btw, I have a particular hate-on for Naulidis and the entire underwater portion.. yeahh, let's just dump fireballs and rememorize lightning bolts, STRATEGY!) and high-level ad&d combat is not very interesting or fun. DKK was better in just about every way except for graphics.

Combat in the gold box games is a prime example of something that was good for its time (late 80s, early 90s), but was overshadowed even by console srpgs in the 90s, and can't even hope to compete with squad-based tactical games like JA2 or XCom (not that first or second ed AD&D is really conductive for tactical RPG gameplay in the first place). If you take the combat out of gold box games... you're not left with much.

Note that I still had three gold box games on my list (Buck Rogers 1, POR, DKK) because I used to play the crap out of them and thought they were the best games ever back then, but I'll be the first to admit that it's 90% nostalgia speaking.

 

[octavius]

Honestly, DQK, where most of the 'tough' enemy encounters were about who presses their delayed blast fireball button first or whether the player has cone of cold/PWK to get rid of the only real threats (dark wizards)? The story was a disjointed mess, the areas were wildly inconsistent with inexplicable switches between Serious Business and comedic relief like that hawkbluff [?] place with the various passes you had to collect (btw, I have a particular hate-on for Naulidis and the entire underwater portion.. yeahh, let's just dump fireballs and rememorize lightning bolts, STRATEGY!) and high-level ad&d combat is not very interesting or fun. DKK was better in just about every way except for graphics.

Yes, the main problem with high level GB games was that Delayed Blast Fireball was too overpowered. And if you rest after each encounter it's of course too easy to just spam the DBF.
But the enhanced Draconians often required some though to safely dispose of.
Also, DQK had excellent encounter design, I think, with a very high static to random encounter ratio. Most of the game, it was one challenging and unique encounter after the other, and with an "only rest once per day or only after clearing a dungeon" policy, things get more interesting when you have to conserve your spells.
I agree the story was weak, probably the weakest of all the GB games, but then I don't play the GB games for their stories.
Oh, and I loved Hawkbluff. Good mapping challenge. :D

Combat in the gold box games is a prime example of something that was good for its time (late 80s, early 90s), but was overshadowed even by console srpgs in the 90s, and can't even hope to compete with squad-based tactical games like JA2 or XCom (not that first or second ed AD&D is really conductive for tactical RPG gameplay in the first place). If you take the combat out of gold box games... you're not left with much.

Note that I still had three gold box games on my list (Buck Rogers 1, POR, DKK) because I used to play the crap out of them and thought they were the best games ever back then, but I'll be the first to admit that it's 90% nostalgia speaking.

Well, I still play the GB games and FRUA and I still think the combat is good, but not as good as the Baldur's Gate games, Icewind Dale and Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic, though. I can't compare it to console games, 'cause I just can't get into games with that horrible anime art style. And JA2 and X-COM are still on my play list. I'll probably play the first X-COM game later this year, so then it should be interesting to compare.
But when discussing combat systems, I think it's important to also take into account the encounter design. A game like Knights of Legend had quite acomplex and unique combat system, but the most boring encounter design of any CRPG I've played. The GB and IE games are not the best combat systems on paper, but they easily have the best encounter design of any CRPGs I've played. And that is why I love them.

 

[SearchEngine]

I'm curious. How do you feel about the encounter design and combat of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale II?