ShadowPaladin V1.0

It's not feasable without looking ridiculous. Unless of course you fancy having a BBQ in the corner of your room.

Anyway to get back to the point. Last thing I read said that it was possible that the PS3 wouldnt include a hard drive but it wasnt definate. But even so , if MS are planning to give away Live with the 360 isnt a harddrive an essential rather than luxury anyway?

Already have one of those. Interesting thing is that 8 consoles wont actually fit into a home theatre unit

Thanks. I'll stick it on the list and probably pick it up during the next lean game time.

Yep when you have a wife and her sister with a bunch of consoles space becomes a big consideration. Plus the hassle of having to constantly plug and unplug things.

Back then I never used to buy more than one or two games per console for that very reason.I didnt want to be stuck with 100's of useless titles when the next machine came along. Plus of course the PS2 changed the rules when it came to backwards compatibility. You could hold on to your old Xbox and play Xbox games, but I'd rather not waste the space.Plus of course you can usually trade in the old unit when the new one comes along too. The other issue is that when you have your shiny new console and you finish with the only game you happen to be interested in, then it gathers dust. Bit like my PSP currently does. Thats why I'd give the DS the edge over the PSP because between DS releases (there was nothing I wanted to play for around 3 months) I played GBA games and so the unit was worth having. Otherwise it would have been far more sensible to wait a year and get both the hardware and the software at a much cheaper price. Having a Blu Ray player built in will probably mean the PS3 will cost about

Anyone played it ? I was planning on renting it but it didnt show up at Blockbusters and I'm not sure if I want to buy it since there are about 10 games released this month and early next month so I'm not exactly desperate to play it.

Somehow that dosnt suprise me.

I think it goes beyond that. I'd be seriously pissed off if I owned more than 5 Xbox games and they were not backwards compatible. The other major issue with the 360 is it has a DvD , now thats obsolete tech even today so what do you think it will be in two years time ? Thats why I'm very dubious about getting one. Aside from one game I've seen which happens to be an MMPORG I'm kind of underwhelmed since it seems to be a case of more of the same with prettier graphics and extra

Perhaps you would like to explain the attraction then. Because I think my grasp on it is perfectly aquequete since I've been familiar with the series since Arena. If those things are not confined to the TES series, then they are hardly a selling point are they since you get that plus more robust gameplay and an engaging story in other RPGs.

Makes you wonder how MS is going to pull off backwards compatibility without a HD dosnt it ?

Whatever floats your boat.

What does Killer refer to? I would say that TES also have a solid representation for the "Simulationist" (in the role-playing sense), in somewhat the same way as the GTA games, although less robust in some areas and more in others, and "Fantasist" (sort of a second-order Explorationist, interested in a fantasy history, culture, politics and other intangibles). That's in addition to the more infantile attractions like progression (stat and loot), virtual achievement, virtual importance, etc. that are probably the bulk of what makes the games profitable (...like most of the successful games we historically call RPGs). <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually I think it could learn a lot from GTA. GTA is packed with content , and the access to vehicles speeds up the travel time and exploration quite significantly. Perhaps most importantly, it's worth exploring since you can turn up some very interesting things when you go off the beaten track. Lets not forget GTA also has a strong narrative too. Lets be honest the missions in Morrowind are like watching paint dry compared to those in GTA. However the idea that only the TES series has these things is quite frankly laughable. The majority of RPGs I've played have a political structure, history and all those other things usually presented in a far less dry fashion too.

Fable was mildly entertaining. The combat system wasnt horrible and curiosity about what was behind the doors kept me playing. Glad I returned it, but it would have been ok as a rental.

One other factor in exploration is that it is a one off. Once you have explored, unless content is randomised then your always going to know what is at that location. Which is another reason why solid game mechanics are important, be it in a story based or non story based game.

Probably because DaggerFall didnt have a third person view.

No doubt that Morrowind does exlploration well. I've said that from the start. As well as having an entertaining few days exploring. However that in itself is fundamentaly flawed since by exploring I broke the difficulty curve of the plot beyond repair and thus became very bored when returning to it since there was nothing to hold me there beyond the mechanics. While at the time of Arena and possibly Daggerfall the games were innovative, MMPORGs do what they do and so much more, they are pretty much obsolete which is why it's hard to buy anyone seeing them as the future. Explore enough and one Deadric ruin is the same as any other Deadric ruin and likewise anything else. Once you realise that, then any impetus for exploration is gone. Exploration gamers are better served by MMPORGs anyway since they are ever changing. I'm a bit of an exploration gamer myself but I still think Morrowind is empty and the mechanics are dull. Since that really hasnt changed much since Arena I doubt Oblivion will either.

Don't worry you will come to the same realisation eventually. It just takes some people longer than others to see how pointless the game is.

Unless of course you come to a gap you cant jump. Then you dont have much choice in the matter unless you fancy a another 2 hour walk to get back. Leveling can have the same issues, but I've come across anything thats needed leveling on that sort of scale.

I played MMPORGS for 12 years off an on. I think of them like the Matrix and this can be seen when people finally quite. You can tell people they are nothing but level grinds, which is indeed true , but it wont matter until they hit that realisation point themselves. However people can still realise this and carry on playing because they have friends there. In many ways the friends mirror what the story does in a story based game. They give you an incentive to play beyond the flawed mechanics. Now the Elder Scrolls dont have that. You can lose yourself in the game for a couple of days, but once you realise what your doing has no point then there is nothing to keep you there. There are no other people in Morrowind which makes your argument flawed when you apply it to such games. I have no problem with it when it comes to MMPORGs. With all due respect that dosnt give you a wide perspective on the issue since there are games already that tackle some of the issues you have. IE they are non linear, they have strong mechanics independent of the story etc. If Oblivion actually does something worthwhile, then I will reasses the situation. But not based on hype alone. The reson FMV is used is it is the best method currently of telling a dynamic story scene. People remember the characters in these games, I couldnt tell you a single NPC in Morrowind without looking it up, thats how bland they were. Anyone arguing that is missing the point. You have both the gameplay and the story. If Sqenix felt the gameplay wasnt important, then they wouldnt change it every game. The latest FF is like no FF that has come before when it comes to gameplay. Likewise other JRPGs have totally different gameplay even if they keep the same strong narrative structure. If we shift across to Bioware/Obsidian, then it's the characters which attract the most attention. And those characters are there to ease the transistion from a multiplayer game to a single player game. It beats me why Bethesda dont just take the Elder Scrolls series online. In Morrowind, you wander off alone spend days (sometimes real ones) all on your lonesome traversing an empty world. The best anology of a game like Morrowind is being the only player in an MMPORG.

But you cant tape the key down to do that.. That really goes to show just how flawed things are since they made the tasks so boring I dont want to be involved with them. Even combat is a snooze fest. Outside of exploring, a novelty which soon wears off the games have nothing much to recomend them.

Is serenety worth watching or should I wait for the DVD rental ?

Except that the whole game is based around repetative tasks which wont raise sufficiently through normal gameplay. But feel free to share your method of improving your jumping skill.

It's really quite simple, in both the case of an MMPORG and a PnP RPG the non narrative approach relies on the party dynamic, or the presence of other thinking people who you hange out with to create you own stories. Without those other people the whole thing falls flat. Thats why narrative is so important it replaces what is is lost by reducing a group experience to a solo one. At some point the technology may exist to counter that shortcoming, but I already used words to that effect in my previous posts. Your wrong although not totally. A good game can stand on it's own gaming merits and be enhanced by the addition of cinematics, but likewise weak gaming mechanics can be overlooked if you have a strong story compelling you. Obviously I do enjoy them for interactivity or I would be watching movies rather than playing games. But that interactivity doese not have to come at the price of a narrative. Rather it can enhance it. With a game like Morrowind once you realise how banal the whole thing is, much like an MPORG then there is nothing else to keep you playing. And since I've never come across an RPG which offers challenge on a gameplay mechanic level , the story becomes vitaly important to keep interest. Your compltely wrong since Star Ocean shares nothing with any of the FF series (although XII might come somewhat close). How Star Ocean plays is quite different from how FF plays even FF from game to game will have very different mechanics. And equally Oblivion is a rehash of Morrowind , as Morrowind was of Daggerfall and it was of Arena. Actually I and others feel that Morrowind was a step back from daggerfall since it lacked many of the gameplay elements that Daggerfall had. Where as the only real change in the interactivity of the FF series has been to abondon the overland map in favour of a more direct approach. What cinematics have done for the FF series is to make them more involving ,actually they have won awards for it. If people have such short attention spans that they cant sit still through a cinematic , then thats something they probably need help with.

But when you only get paper thin and uninteresting characters the price is too high. Morrowinds characters were awful, there was nothing to involve you in the game beyond wandering around in the sandbox. The gameplay was equally poor so while a game could get by without a story , it would require some pretty steller gameplay to make up for it. Without a purpose any advancement is a waste of time. Roleplaying has always been about telling a story, the very fact that you only have a single character will always make games like Morrowind inferior. When your traversing large expanses of empty nothing it's what makes MMPORGs bearable. What you dont seem to understand is that FMV does not preclude gaming, rather it enhances it. It draws you deeper into the world and increases your understanding of it. Even if you strip away the FMV in Star Ocean you still have a better "game" than Morrowind on it's mechanics alone. What you lose is the purpose and the plot but the gameplay elements remain superior. So without a purpose or plot and with weak gameplay to boot you dont have much of anything when it comes to Morrowind once the novelty wears off. You can claim you make your own entertainment, but thats a time you could better spend improving your actual life.