Purkake

Yeah, I like to play some Jagged Alliance 2 every now and then(especially with the mods), X-COM wasn't bad either. The difference here seems to be that people still keep making rpgs, but the mechanics get simpler and more repetitive while the story loses it's importance and the focus shifts on action. Strategy games have pretty much lost all progression, there are no new(good) tactical squad-based games(Silent Storm was the last one) and big scale strategy games are either horribly simplified (C&C3) or just remakes of the old games (Starcraft 2). The last good one was Company of Heroes and I abandoned that after they let the machine guns damage tanks in Opposing Fronts.

The year is almost over and I find myself pondering over the future of rpgs, the western kind to be specific. There have been quite a few rpgs this year NWN2: Storm of Zehir, Mass Effect (PC), Fable 2 and Fallout 3. While most of them were ok, I still find myself going back to Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment and the Fallouts. Those games are almost 10 years old, but I find replaying them to be more entertaining than playing through most of today's rpgs once. Baldur's Gate still has an active fanbase and modding community after 10 years. How many other single player games have that? There have been a few really good rpgs since then (Mask of the Betrayer, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines), but there seem to be fewer and fewer with each coming year. The future doesn't look too bright either. I look forward to Alpha Protocol, the Alien RPG and Dragon Age, but (western) rpgs seem to be few and far between. So I ask you, is it even viable to make a rpg like Baldur's Gate 2 in today's market with increasing production values and risks? Will the future of rpgs be first person action rpgs with some arbitrary stats tacked on?

Just finished the game. At first I though the ending was going to suck, but then the REAL ending came and I loved it. So go play it if you haven't already, it is worth it just for the story.

Ah yes, the good old days when PC games actually ran on PCs and you could reinstall them more than twice... Rockstar was probably going to release it this fall in whatever state it was in and make a quick buck. They probably didn't care much for the PC money as it is much less than what they have already made on the consoles. Also, there are way better games to play at the moment anyway so save your money and time. For some reason I am always more tempted to replay my old games rather than any of the new ones. I guess this is the future of the PC - crappy console ports and very few good games.

Yeah man, whatever floats your boat...

Yeah, I think I'll stay as far away from that as possible and enjoy Zero Punctuation. Seriously, who the hell are those 2 weird guys? Yug and Matt from AustralianGamer.com. Yahtzee occasionally does podcasts with them, and they're pretty interesting to listen to. I'd prefer if we didn't have to see their faces though the show is pretty decent. Yeah seeing Yahtzee look at you with his cold stare does not make for good TV.

Yeah, I think I'll stay as far away from that as possible and enjoy Zero Punctuation. Seriously, who the hell are those 2 weird guys?

I haven't finished the game yet. I think that making interesting boss fights (both in mechanics and story) is something that very few games get right. Usually it just comes down to a normal fight with a ridiculously powerful bad guy (Baldur's Gate 2, Final Fantasy VII) or some kind of special made-for-boss system that works really badly because it is only used a couple of times.(older platformers, Beyond Good and Evil) Or they just resort to a really long QTE like in Two Thrones. Hmm, maybe this could use its own thread... EDIT: One game that really comes to mind here is Max Payne. The boss fights tried to be innovative, but in the end you either had to shoot the (normal human) boss character in the head a hundred times or do some really elaborate stuff like shoot the BOLTS! out of a chandelier to drop it on their head or shoot two cable anchors to make a TOWER! fall on a helicopter.

The.. h8ers? It's getting great reviews across the board. There are a bunch of haters saying that the platforming isn't hardcore enough and that no death makes it too easy. And too be honest, almost all AAA games get great reviews across the board. Someone in one of the gaming podcasts was seriously h8ing on it.

Just got this on PC. No DRM what-so-ever = epic win First of all, this game runs very well(30-40fps) with all settings on max and no Anti-Aliasing on my 2.66GHz AMD Opteron/2GB ram/Radeon x1950pro 1280x1024. Secondly this game is PRETTY, not your average washed-out, bloom-riddled Fallout 3/GTA IV/Farcry 2 pretty, but pretty like a painting. I was surprised that my hardware could render something so pretty. It looks way better in action than on screenshots. I have played a little of all the previous Prince of Persia games. Never finished any though... Sands of Time and Two Thrones were okay, but Warrior within was horrible with mouse/keyboard. I really love this one. The characters are really well written and believable, the story is okay and it plays well even with mouse and keyboard, not a big fan of gamepads on the PC. The platforming is pretty fun and after an hour I can get the Prince to do what I want without failing too often. The camera doesn't get in the way most of the time, either. I have never been a huge fan of 3d platformers, so I love the Elika-chekpoint thing. I usually just give up if I have to single long part for more than four times. I don't think it makes the game too easy, it just lessens the frustration of redoing stuff. The combat isn't that great, though. You have 3 different kinds of moves: sword, claw and magic(Elika) and block. You use those to make combos and beat down the enemies' health. You usually just fight big single boss-monsters. There is some variation though, some of them are immune to your attacks and need to be pushed off ledges etc. I haven't seen any cutscenes that I though were too long or boring. The banter between the Prince and Elika is really charming, as well, it doesn't feel forced and is genuinely funny most of the time. I also really like the characters. The Prince is charming Scoundrel, not unlike Han Solo, who makes witty remarks. Elika is a sassy princess, who tries to fix the world, she is all business. So don't listen to the haters, this is not a hardcore platformer, it is a beautiful story that includes platforming elements. I would compare it to World of Goo, which was not just a puzzle game, but also a charming experience. Or if you have seen it, Pushing Daisies, which even when the plot isn't that great, draws you in because of the beautiful world and charming characters. PS. This is just a couple of hours in, I haven't completed it yet.

Hello, As I have surfed the internets I have come across another overlooked but totally awesome game - MindRover. Basically it is a build your robot tank and battle your friends/cpu, but there is a twist: you program the robots and have no direct control over them. At first it sounds like no fun, but the programming is done graphically and is also pretty intuitive. There is also a pretty decent tutorial to get you started and additional game modes include races, object gathering, mazes and sumo. As a student in computer sciences I find it really interesting. You can get the demo here

Got any good examples? Of the top of my head? Hacking in Fallout 3. Bar games in Fable. That dice game in the Witcher. The dice game in the Witcher was essentially broken, before the enhanced edition. Oh man, I loved that dice game. It was the one light in my otherwise boring playa/monster hunter routine.

Well I meant that the minigame is required when I want to hack something. Sure I can just not hack stuff, but where's the fun in that? Hacking could have used a "force" button as well...

Got any good examples? Of the top of my head? Hacking in Fallout 3. Bar games in Fable. I though you were talking about button-mashing and QTEs. Hacking in F3 was one of the better minigames, but it was still tedious after a while and going through all the symbols to find the "bonus" ones got really old really fast.(maybe I just suck at mastermind). I think that minigames are better as an option that adds something extra, but isn't required.

Got any good examples?

Well in Dead Space when the tentacle grabs you, you can still use your gun. I think that this is doing it right, they kept the existing mechanic, but added an interesting twist. It would probably be pretty stupid if the monsters couldn't grab you and just clawed at you with bad animations. One solution would have been to implement a real melee system to deal with close combat. Another, worse, idea would be instant death when you get grabbed. I don't have the perfect solution, but I don't think that mashing a button is very fun, innovative, or even immersive(one bad animation for all the grappling). I haven't played God of War, so I can't really comment on that.

I would much rather have it happen as a cutscene or not happen at all than to have some stupid button-mashing "game" so that I feel like I did something. If you can't make it look cool with the normal gameplay mechanics, it's time to go over them again IMHO

Yeah the ending is amazing and that music is sooo good. That was like a shot of pure nostalgia. Also you didn't mention the most awesome moment, when Raiden stops a ship!!! with his hand. Now that's what I call AWESOME!

ToEE used turn-based combat, considerably faithful rule implementations, and even adapted an actual WoTC adventure. It also didn't felt anything like Pen and Paper. Yeah, ToEE had some pretty awesome combat, but I don't see them making a turn-based RPG.

And then it would probably be 360 exclusive and then 6 months later maybe ported to the PC. Yay!

actually, that's the one thing that might make D&D more appropriate for crpgs. previous editions were PnP, which does not seem to translate well to the computer, and hence we end up with the strange bastardization that everyone manages to find something wrong with. taks Yes, but without turn based combat, it doesn't matter which edition you use, it will never feel like real PnP. I don't have a problem with using D&D for crpgs, it has worked reasonably well so far. I find 4e's obsession with balance and standardization of everything horrible. All the classes are bland and feel pretty much the same. Most of the rules have to do with combat and they managed to stretch that out to boredom by gimping damage output and pumping monster HP up. Sorry, but I don't believe that 4ed would add anything to future D&D crpgs.

Whatever you do, stay the hell away from D&D 4ed. It is dumbed down for quick PnP play, please don't bring this abomination into any video games.

Snake is suffering from accelerated aging because he is a clone. Also check wikipedia, but beware of spoilers.

I find it to be the best game BULLFROG ever made. I read somewhere that this noname china development studio will pay EA for the license only if it make some good income, it sounds as everyone could take this ip and then just pay EA some % of the income. And this company so far made only 2d grind-heavy mmo's with ****ty anime graphics.. it's really (f***in) sad Theme hospiral was good as well.

There are just too many similarities while playing it. The devs might have just really liked System Shock, but I think that it is true. Blasphemy! Madness!