Review The best RPG ever made

[katzenjammer]

The big-budget PC game industry has gotten extremely conservative and even more risk-averse than the console game industry.

I don't know about that. Fable 2 is shaping up to be a real trailblazer on the gaming scene.

 

[Keldryn]

I don't know about that. Fable 2 is shaping up to be a real trailblazer on the gaming scene.

I haven't been following much regarding Fable 2, so I can't comment on that. But the consoles certainly have their fair share of conservative, risk-avoiding games. It just seems to me that the big-budget PC games are even more so. Unfortunately, games like Okami and Psychonauts had very poor sales, while junk like Kingdom Hearts 2 cleaned up.

Almost anything new in an RPG would be innovative, however. The genre has become extremely stagnant and derivative of itself, on both PC and (especially) console. Maybe the 1-button melee, 1-button magic, 1-button ranged combat system will bring something new to the table. It sounds intriguing, but it's far too early to make any judgements (not that this will stop anyone).

 

[Twinfalls]

Do not confuse 'deliberate dumbing down' with 'innovating'.

 

[Hazelnut]

Hey Keldryn, nice to see you again after so long. Welcome back. So, ever gonna change that av there then?

Oh, and Oblivion is definitely not a casual game. It may be more streamlined than its predecessors, and it may not be what you want it to be, but a game of that size and scope and the amount of play time to get through it all is the antithesis of casual gaming.

I think it depends how you define 'casual gaming'. I define it more as how easy a game is to pick up and put down - i.e. play at your convenience, rather than the size, scope or time it takes to play. A deep and complex game can be hard to pick up again after a few weeks of not playing, but casual games such as Oblivion are pretty easy because you're led by the hand and the game tells you everything - no memory required.

 

[Argh]

There are stories of players witnessing a computer controlled thief being pursued through the town by the sentries in a random AI event

I hate this part of the game. You may have a 1 and 10 chance of seeing one of the designated thieves in the game get hunted down and eventually killed for stealing something worthless like a piece of fucking bread.

I stopped playing after i was arrested on a road by a knight patrolling and i was with the two most important people of the empire (escorting the son of the emperor with the monk leader of the elite guards) :shock: . And that because i had in my inventory a simple piece of paper / notes / letter (i don't remember exactly) that i took in a house before and kept for one reason or another. So i had stolen stuff !

Oblivion is a beautiful game (and even in this case, NPC faces were too much repetitive) and somewhat original / innovative game, that's all.

 

[Texas Red]

Uh, how exactly is Oblivion innovative? Complete level scaling is innovative?

 

[MetalCraze]

Uh, how exactly is Oblivion innovative? Complete level scaling is innovative?

it has fast travel you know. And a GPS system! Have you ever seen a GPS in a middle age styled fantasy games? It seems dwarves finally built satellites and launched them into space!
Progress man progress!

oh wait. Oblivion does not have dwarves. Innovaaatiiiiive!

 

[Black]

Oblivion is a beautiful game (and even in this case, NPC faces were too much repetitive) and somewhat original / innovative game, that's all.

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V
Not my though :<

 

[MetalCraze]

Nice ASCII art, Black

 

[OccupatedVoid]

Did he take a blow to the back of the head?

 

[User was nabbed fit]

It'd explain the splitting headache.

 

[Argh]

I like Ascii Art, but there i don't see what it's suppose to be ...

After, i just say that the game was somewhat original ... that is there was some interesting parts, but not enough for an overall good experience, other than visually ...

 

[Xerxos]

I like Ascii Art, but there i don't see what it's suppose to be ...

After, i just say that the game was somewhat original ... that is there was some interesting parts, but not enough for an overall good experience, other than visually ...

Oblivion? Original?

Daggerfall was original. After that it was mostly dumbing down the character system...

 

[Black]

I like Ascii Art, but there i don't see what it's suppose to be ...

Because you have no imagination- that's why you find Oblivion original.

 

[Keldryn]

Do not confuse 'deliberate dumbing down' with 'innovating'.

Was Ultima VII's completely mouse-driven interface where the left button represents you hands and the right button represents your feet innovative or a deliberate dumbing down of the 20-odd specific keyboard commands from Ultima V (already reduced to about 8 in Ultima VI)?

Hey Keldryn, nice to see you again after so long. Welcome back. So, ever gonna change that av there then?

Nice to be back. That's my usual behaviour on message boards though. I'l be around for a while, posting on everything that catches my interest, then I'll get busy with life or just get bored and disappear for months on end, only to re-surface when the inspiration strikes me.

Do I need to change this avatar? Nobody likes Wasteland anymore?

I think it depends how you define 'casual gaming'. I define it more as how easy a game is to pick up and put down - i.e. play at your convenience, rather than the size, scope or time it takes to play. A deep and complex game can be hard to pick up again after a few weeks of not playing, but casual games such as Oblivion are pretty easy because you're led by the hand and the game tells you everything - no memory required.

I see "casual gaming" as not only how easy a game is to pick up or put down, but also how much of an investment (of time and energy) is required to progress in or complete the game. I would define a "casual gamer" as someone for whom gaming is not a primary hobby. A casual game is one that such a gamer can pick up and play for a few minutes whenever the urge strikes them and they can be having fun almost immediately. Probably not coincidentally, these are pretty much the same definitions that the industry uses.

Veteran gamers have a ridiculously skewed view of difficulty and accessibility of games. Navigating a 3D world in a video or computer game is a fairly complex skill, and it's not something that comes naturally -- despite the fact that we live in a 3D world.

I know a lot of people around my age (33) that were "left behind" during the mid-to-late 90s. They were finishing college or university, starting full-time work, getting married, and/or starting families. Most of them played games on the NES, Genesis, or SNES, and often some PC/computer games like the Sierra adventure games and some tile-based 2D RPGs.

Those years brought up the Playstation, Saturn, and Nintendo 64, and 3D accelerators on the PC. Practically the entire industry switched over to 3D over the course of a few short years. Game controllers went from 4 to 8 buttons and a D-pad to dual-analog sticks, d-pads, adn 10 to 12 buttons. The complexity of playing games increased dramatically over those years, and for those of us who played through that transition, it was relatively gradual. If you take an adult who was comfortable playing games in the early 90s but who did not really play games in the late 90s through early 2000s and hand them Oblivion and an Xbox 360 controller, they are likely to be utterly lost.

Oblivion is "streamlined" or "simplified," but only if you've been playing 3D RPGs for the past 10+ years. "Hardcore" gamers demand that their games get more and more sophisticated and remain challenging, yet they become a more and more exclusive group every year. That anyone could actually call Oblivion a "casual game" and keep a straight face about it is telling as to how skewed veteran gamers' perspectives have gotten.

Bejewelled is a casual game. Oblivion is not.

I don't actually see "no memory required" as a bad thing. If you're playing the game through to completion over the course of 2-3 weeks, then I can see how that makes it less challenging. I can't count how many games I've started, played for a few days then wasn't able to come back to until 4 months later, only to have to start over again because I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing. Or, in the case of games like Metroid Prime or Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, I knew what I was supposed to be doing but I was too out of practice to actually get through the challenges at that stage of the game without working my way up through the earlier ones again.

"Hardcore gamers" are eventually going to grow up, move out of their parents' basements, get married, have careers, and start their own families. As the average age of gamers gets older, the more this will hold true. Those of us who spent dozens of hours playing games in our teens and early twenties still have gaming as our primary hobbies; we just have a lot less time to spend on them, and we still want to play the same type of games. But they do need to be built around our lifestyles too, not just the lifestyles of college students.

 

[Argh]

I like Ascii Art, but there i don't see what it's suppose to be ...

Because you have no imagination- that's why you find Oblivion original.

Somewhat original / innovative was perhaps not the good expression to describe the game, which is rather classiical medfan. I was thinking at some situation where i had fun at the beginning, mostly. Anyway ...

That said, instead of talking bluntly about my imagination, could you not describe your art ? Do you lack words :wink:

 

[Keldorn]

With it's improved recruitable NPC/Party depth, I'll say that Fallout 2 is the greatest Rpg of all time.

It's a shame that some folks haven't even played it.



SHAME.

 

[Mareus]

SICK

For the love of everything that has any value, reading the crap about how Oblivion is the king of RPGs made me almost vomit :shock:

For the love of any art that is left in the games, someone please shoot me. It pains me to read such shit even after so much time.

 

[DraQ]

So, you're going to run around unearthing each and every thread mentioning hype surrounding Beth's malformed brainchild?

Shooting you begins to look like an option.

 

[RK47]

I like Ascii Art, but there i don't see what it's suppose to be ...

Because you have no imagination- that's why you find Oblivion original.

Somewhat original / innovative was perhaps not the good expression to describe the game, which is rather classiical medfan. I was thinking at some situation where i had fun at the beginning, mostly. Anyway ...

That said, instead of talking bluntly about my imagination, could you not describe your art ? Do you lack words :wink:

argh can you name us some RPGs you've played so we may understand your perspective better? I can understand people claiming oblivion to be original if it's actually their early RPG played.

 

[MetalCraze]

are you aware you're replying to the 8 months old post?

 

[RK47]

oh my god.

 

[Black]

God has nothing to do with your threadomancy. Probably because god doesn't exist.

 

[Mareus]

So, you're going to run around unearthing each and every thread mentioning hype surrounding Beth's malformed brainchild?

Shooting you begins to look like an option.

Hey, like i said i m a new guy in town and i have some catching up to do. I was just reading topics on Fallot 3 subject and commenting a few things. Its not my fault topics about Fallout 3 are connected with Oblivion. Then i went to see Best RPG's ever made, thinking its about old games or something, but noooo... it was about Retardillion again, so i just gave my comment. And one other thing .. retardillion is so hyped that its really hard to control my desire not to comment.

Sorry if it bothers you, but i didnt ask you to follow my every comment, did i? :wink:

 

[Dementia Praecox]

Sorry if it bothers you, but i didnt ask you to follow my every comment, did i? :wink:

Acting retarded is asking for a reply to your comments around these parts.