RPGs that are unanimously praised by people of refined taste that you never could finish.

[DalekFlay]

I'm not actualy a "hardcore RPG Player". My First RPG was BG2, and i played Fallout for the first time about 3 years ago. I tried some of the older RPGs based on Codex sugestions mostly, and while i found them ok, only BaK would be in my personal Top 10. keep in mind that i'm a storyfag, so combat centric games aren't my cup of tea. I can play them, but i won't love them.

We're all fags for something. I'm an explorefag and factionfag, hence my worship of New Vegas.

I started RPGing with Fallout but I went back and played quite a few from before that at the time. Really liked Lands of Lore but I guess I can't recommend it because it's not story-focused at all. Most others like Krondor and Might and Magic I couldn't quite get into at the time (though now I like Might and Magic more).

 

[MrBuzzKill]

they free me up to invent my own character's and imagine their development

Why stop there? You can just sit back and imagine the gameplay as well.

It's like P&P for people who don't have the actual imagination to play P&P.

Soo... like books?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I find, when I play IWD, that I care more for my characters because they are all my characters, that I have created and grown to love based on what characters I like to play with (filth pun intentional). I really care if any of them come close to dying.

When playing BG2 however, I get all these pre-defined unchangable characters forced upon me, hardly any of which I can either relate to or like.

I agree with that, I didn't particularly hate BG2 characters (at least not all of them) but I care more for my home made guys with stats weaknesses that I chose and the crappy names I gave them than for BG2 ones with their banal fantasy names and stupid stats. And the constant interruption for banter or personal quests... Irenicus sets the tone from the start :
"Must I be interrupted at every turn ? Enough of this !" Then again, mages tend to hate being interrupted.

Playing both games the first time was alright, but when it comes to replaying them, I'll take my own LARPing over Bioware's anyday. This being said, characters with personality is a valid idea and I think BG1 did a better job of giving personality to joinable characters without making them intrusive to the point of annoyance. Perfect balance would be JA2 AFAIC.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Why stop there? You can just sit back and imagine the gameplay as well.
Soo... like books?

No, you can't imagine gameplay because you can't imagine what happens next without spoilers. If you want your RPGs to be like books, that's fine, play Underail games, but if your playing a party-based, combat orientated RPG, then forced party characters are not required unless they are extremely fitting to the situation or too bland to be bothersome...

Which leads me onto:

This being said, characters with personality is a valid idea and I think BG1 did a better job of giving personality to joinable characters without making them intrusive to the point of annoyance. Perfect balance would be JA2 AFAIC.

And like PS:T the party characters were actually interesting, rather than "quirky irritating". In River of Time the party characters were bland but bearable, rather than "quirky irritating".

And...

banal fantasy names and stupid stats.

They didn't have appalling stats.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

They didn't have appalling stats.

Not (always) appalling, but definitely not those I'd have chosen. And seriously, 9 DEX vs 12 INT on a paladin or 8 CON vs 16 INT on a cleric...

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Not (always) appalling, but definitely not those I'd have chosen. And seriously, 9 DEX vs 12 INT on a paladin or 8 CON vs 16 INT on a cleric...

Lol, the never ending heritage of Bioware's natural tendency to troll to the max.

 

[TheGreatOne]

ITT, a guy thinks he knows more about gunplay mechanics than JE Sawyer, because he knows how to play Liberty Island in stealth after playing through DX ten times.

Think about how it feels for a first time player, FFS!

ITT a guy thinks that a man who is responsible for Alpha Brotocol and New Wages is some kind of authority on gunplay mechanics Just because people who make MS paint webcomics on deviantART can draw better than 6 year olds doesn't mean they work at Marvel

 

[ZagorTeNej]

ITT a guy thinks that a man who is responsible for Alpha Brotocol and New Wages is some kind of authority on gunplay mechanics Just because people who make MS paint webcomics on deviantART can draw better than 6 year olds doesn't mean they work at Marvel

I think Sawyer barely worked on Aplha Protocol (only HtH combat IIRC) but yeah certainly don't consider him to be authority on gunplay mechanics (which I felt were terrible in FNV) or combat gameplay mechanics overall for that matter. When he makes a game with average/above average combat sure but until then it's a lot talk but very lacklustre results.

 

[Slow James]

The Bard's Tale. Heard lots of great reviews about it over the years as a great comedy RPG with lots of versatility, but never picked it up until I got WL2, which came with it for free.

Picked it up and disliked the action combat, disliked the disjointed leveling, disliked the funky controls and found the humor to not be enough to make up for it. Got slaughtered five times in one of the first caves I went in by a bear that kept popping out of the walls and said "nope, not even going to pretend to enjoy this."

 

[Rake]

We're all fags

Judging by the traffic the DA:I thread gets, that's propably true.

 

[Jaesun]

I am, but there is no way in fucking hell I will ever play that garbage.

 

[Xbalanque]

The difference between IWD's character development and BG2's character development is an entirely personal thing. It's your own imagination's emotions versus spoon-fed forced emotions.

I find the concept that IWD doesn't have any character development to be unfactual, not because the game doesn't provide any, but because by not providing me any they free me up to invent my own character's and imagine their development for myself - like true P&P. I find, when I play IWD, that I care more for my characters because they are all my characters, that I have created and grown to love based on what characters I like to play with (filth pun intentional). I really care if any of them come close to dying.

When playing BG2 however, I get all these pre-defined unchangable characters forced upon me, hardly any of which I can either relate to or like. The game then gives me pre-destined quests and group interruption based on something that is beyond my control. Whether I can emote with any of them is entirely subjective and in most cases I honestly wish most of them would find their death. And I then hate the game for making me hate my party. It's like P&P for people who don't have the actual imagination to play P&P. To me, it's the very essence of dumbing down.

And this goes against the grain of most people, because most people don't have active imaginations. Most people love being given characters because they need to be given something to emote to, because their brain can't self-emote. I know, arguing that real characters is dumbing down compared to not giving anyone characters is possibly bizzare to you, right... but that's how it is and that's the entire problem of modern gaming - it's trying to replace imagination with definite and better images in order to replace imagination, because it now needs to sell to the lowest common denominator, that huge group of people with no imagination.

Whether I'm right or wrong, it makes no difference, I have no choice to be in the minority here in never finishing BG2 but replaying IWD countless times, societal statistics mean that no matter what I say I will be out-voted. But that is how I feel. Cut the crap and give me more game and if you want to go full-story, then do it properly, like PS:T, don't give me forced emotions and horrendous party character idiosyncrasies.

That's what makes a true RPG. RPG is about interaction with characters and accepting all its consequences . If you want to kill all the zombies, feel free to do it, but you will not get to know their stories or characters. In real life you can talk with every character and beat up everybody. That is why Torment is actually awesome - it makes you think that nothing is obvious because even typical opponents in many other games may have their story.

 

[Nas92]

Everyone here seems to love The Witcher but I hated it. I found the combat to be pretty horrible, the potion making gimmick retarded (especially with those very bad visual effects), and maybe it's only the beginning but the writing is uninteresting and, at times, outright horrible. The card collecting fuck game was just sad.
Another one is Fallout 2, though not for gameplay reasons. I find the mechanincs and such to be pretty neat, but the immature writing and the pop culture references just kill the whole game for me.

 

[ASTRAL]

The Witcher & Wizardry 8

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

That's what makes a true RPG. RPG is about interaction with characters and accepting all its consequences . If you want to kill all the zombies, feel free to do it, but you will not get to know their stories or characters. In real life you can talk with every character and beat up everybody. That is why Torment is actually awesome - it makes you think that nothing is obvious because even typical opponents in many other games may have their story.

I think you misunderstand me. I'm not talking about NPCs or story (per-se) I'm talking about forced party companions. How would you like it if your mother arranged your P&P session with all the people you hated? You wouldn't play it would you, you'd try to find your own group to play with. PS:T is like P&Ping with a bunch of uber-cool drug addled experts, IWD is like P&Ping with your closest friends, BG2 is like P&Ping with all the worst tards in the class because you're all the ones left at the end of the day having to stay behind for being retarded in class.

 

[Ninjerk]

true RPG

 

[MrBuzzKill]

I couldn't get into Ultima 7. I can never even get past the stables/starting area. Which makes me sad because it feels like there is a huge and rewarding game underneath...

 

[upwardlymobile]

I'm probably going to get hated on but Arcanum. I'll give some reasons why anyway:
Using technology is both underpowered and irritating to use with the shitty inventory system.
Worse, technology keeps you from using teleport which turns the game into a hair-pulling random encounter fest
There are tons of spells but almost all of them are shit and one of them (call fog) literally does nothing as far as I could tell
The dialogue sucks. I can't stand the endless fedora tipping m'lady shit and I often found myself unable to give the answer I wanted to.
It's amazing that it's still so buggy despite having been patched for 12 years.
The story is generic, scatterbrained and unengaging.
Constant pixel hunting. Devs seriously kill yourselves.
Dungeons were boring, especially because the combat system was so frustrating. But they would have been boring anyway.
If the game is about technology vs magic then why can't I make an impact on that struggle? I didn't quite finish it I'll admit so maybe you can right at the end but I think killing G. Bates should have had some impact.

Really have no idea why it gets so much attention.

 

[oscar]

The story is generic

You didn't play it very far did you

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Morrowind - not a bad game, I sunk many hours into it, but I always lose interest eventually. I can barely remember what the main plot was about.

ToEE (if that counts as unanimously praised) - nice combat system with mediocre encounter design and a horribly bland game in very other aspect. Tried two times, quit around the temple on both occasions.

 

[upwardlymobile]

The story is generic

You didn't play it very far did you

I stopped playing partway through tulla.

 

[Rake]

I'm the epitome of a Codexer.
Games Codex likes that i didn't like or kinda liked but didn't bother to finish:

Daggerfall
Morrowind
Wizardy 8
Deus Ex
Fallout New Vegas
Gothic
Darklands (this is in the category * kinda liked but didn't bother to finish)
Knights of the Chalice(see above)
Jagged Alliance 2 (this i actually finished, but it took me 2 years playing on and off, by the end playing a couple of hours per month just to finish it and be done with it. Can't say i disliked it, but didn't have a strong motivation to play it either)

Spoiler

inb4 ban Rake

 

[Slow James]

I couldn't get into Ultima 7. I can never even get past the stables/starting area. Which makes me sad because it feels like there is a huge and rewarding game underneath...

I feel like if Ultima 7 was made like Serpent Isle was, it would have been a better experience.

My suggestion? Use a spoiler-lite walkthrough to keep you from wandering too far off the path. The game is truly "do whatever you want" and can seem rudderless and without direction if you are trying to have anything of note accomplished within the first fifteen hours of playing.


God, that makes the game sound like DA:I...

 

[Keldryn]

Most of them, particularly if they were released after the year 2000.

I have a long history of starting a game, getting really into it, and then not having much time to play for a while due to real-life issues. It is not uncommon that I end up not sitting down to play it again for several months, at which point I've forgotten what I was supposed to be doing and I either quit playing or start over again. There are a number of games which I have never actually finished but which I have played the first 10 hours or so of 3 or 4 times.

As for specific games:

Gothic - I still really hate the UI/control scheme. Got it around the time it came out and never managed to stick with it for more than an hour or two because of the controls. Finally gave it an honest try again a couple of years ago and quite enjoyed it once I got more used to the controls. Another casualty of real-life events taking me away long enough to forget what I was doing.

Arcanum - Another game that I looked forward to and bought when it came out. Never got more than 3 or 4 hours into it. Terrible combat, tech characters seemed too underpowered, and buggy as hell. Also, the last time I installed it (probably a couple of years ago), it wouldn't even run, despite following instructions for making it work on a modern PC. I'm sure I'll try again someday.

VtM:Bloodlines - Bought this one on clearance after it had been out for a couple of years, and it still ran too slow on my (admittedly not up-to-date) PC. The controls felt rather floaty and clunky, and the loading times were long. Also buggy as hell and crashed a lot.

Temple of Elemental Evil - I'm seeing a pattern here. Another clearance find that was also buggy as hell and crashed a lot. I enjoy turn-based RPGs, but I found the combat to be very tedious and slow-moving, at least for standard encounters. I'm also not a big fan of D&D 3.5 rules. ToEE was one of the least interesting "classic" TSR-era D&D scenarios that they could have made a CRPG out of.

Daggerfall - I was entranced by this one for the first 20 hours or so, and I think only managed to finish one of the non-random plot dungeons. It dawned on me that the rest of the game was just going to be slight variations on what I'd already seen. One time, the game crashed and forced me to power off and restart. When I turned on the computer, the file allocation tables on all three hard drives (240 MB, 80MB, 40MB) had been wiped out. I'm sure that Daggerfall crashing was a symptom of whatever wiped out my hard drives and not the cause, but it's funnier to tell it that way.

Morrowind - I was really looking forward to this one, as it seemed to address what I thought was the biggest shortcoming of Daggerfall (massive and repetitive procedurally generated content). It had interesting lore and a well-designed world, but dull combat and boring conversations. I also really hate the character building system where the optimal strategy is to not tag the skills that you actually want to focus on, but the ones that you can control so as to optimize your level-up bonuses.

 

[Xenich]

/sigh

It is now clear why games today suck.