"modern" games?

Remove all ads!

There are lots (majority?) of folks here whose favourite games is still an IE game. It's been years since BGII came out, logic would dictate there ought to be another one by now that could compete with it. After all, games are supposed to be getting better and better.

There's the fact that we're mostly RPGers. In FPS&RTS area, there are plenty good newer games around as far as i'm concerned.
Still, RPGs are a well established genre, after ressurection with original BG. And yet we only have IE games and occasional Arcanum and Morrowind. All of them are years old.
There arent any of their class that are newer than a few years. Some that had promised much came and dissapointed. Others never even tried to challenge the Lords of RPGs.

So, is it just the newer games' fault for not being popular & considered good on SP?
There are plenty non-D&D cRPGs, but they're too commonly too close to arcade action to attract a serious player used to BG masterpieces. Arcanum and Morrowind are an exception, obviously, but one of the precious few.

Or are we reluctant to admit the quality of the newer games. The classical "Back in my time..." "In the old days..." fond memories of the past.


Whatcha think?

 

It has nothing to do with "back in my time..." memories. I thought Star Wars: KoTR was great. It was not as indepth or challenging as the other games, but it was great. However, I guess even that's not considered new anymore.

 

RPG genre is pretty defunct as of now. Before Fallout 1 came out in 97, people played the gold box games just as most of us still play the IE games. Basically, we're waiting for the next big thing to move the genre along, and I can guarantee you it won't be something like KoTOR2, BG3, NWN2 or Fallout 3.

 

I don't think we should be complaining so much... We are still getting some good rpg's at the moment. The new Vampire game has recieved some rather good reviews and there are other games on the horizont that are looking good, especially KOTOR2... Further away, eldar scrolls: Oblivion is looking good, and i'm looking forward to getting into World of warcraft as soon as it is released i europe!

 

Oh WoW is awesome. But then that's a MMORPG.

RPG's are still too rare. Basically only those who can't or won't compete in the big markets even bother doing those. We roleplayers are the minority afterall. But it's been like this since forever. At least I don't remember there ever being a time when good RPG's were so common you didn't even know which one to buy. It's always been like this. One good game comes out, wait 2-4 years and then another comes. A few years more, and yet another one. I guess we'll get a good RPG some time in 2005. Hopefully unlike KOTOR (which was great), it'll be something with enough replay value to last for those few years like Fallout 2 and BG2 did.

[ December 01, 2004, 14:05: Message edited by: Foradasthar ]

 

Yeah, I don't want to play an MMORPGs. I've played Camelot because it offered a free month when it came out and got good reviews, but I just couldn't get into it. It was just dumb.. attacking monsters and leveling up. The ingame map features were absolutely horrible. I got lost so many times. People said to me, "that's what the physical map is for", but I'll tell you, that's just a feature they forgot to program. I think the game was pretty slow too. It just took a long time to do stuff. I could spend a whole day and not accomplish all that much. Walking around just wasn't fun to find your "level up area".

People were also so defensive when you picked apart this game's flaws too. They really thought nothing was wrong with it. They'd say satuff like, "How can you sit and bash the game I spend all my time playing" and yadda, yadda, not really offering any logical arguments why the game is good for them. They'd just take offense.

Meh. BG2 is so much better. While I can MMORPGS one day surpassing the limitations of RPGS, there is nothing matching the richness of scripted areas, backgrounds, dialog, voice acting and a directed storyline that is personal and not meant to be generic for millions of gamers at the same time.

 

Well...I have pretty high hopes for Dragon Age as of now, as well as the next game in the Elder Scrolls series...hopefully that will make amends for the lack of innovation in the RPG genre?

 

I don't know how many of you are informed about this, but the RPG genre is not the only genre in this situation.

The Adventure genre is in a similar situation. For years people have claimed that the Adventure genre is dead, and that the gamers should not keep on denying it. And it is no wonder, because not all the adventures that are released today are as good as in the "Good old days". But people tend to remember the good things, and forget about the bad things.

There are even discussions about what can still be called an adventure, and what can't. Most people like the traditional 3rd person, point-and-click games. The first person "Myst" games, and its clones are on the fringe. Games like "Tomb Raider" or the newer Indiana Jones games, that are called "Action-Adventures" by the indurstry are generally not accepted. The discussion, if how 3D graphics replace the familiar 2D backgrounds, is also heated.

We also have hopes for the future - some will come true, others will be shattered.

Now I am here, a gamer who loves adventure games, but also RPG games that are like Baldurs Gate (I have a hard time getting used to 3D games). I have accepted that the change in the adventure genre is not necessarily bad (as long as it doesn't contain action, or very little of it), but I can not imagine a RPG game that is totally different in design and control from the Baldurs Gate games - but I try.

Old habits die hard. This is very true of this situation, but I am confident, that one will always find a new (as in newly produced and published) RPG that will fit their taste, and that will make them feel at home.

 

I too have a hard time getting used to 3d rpgs unless they are FPS style rpgs like Deus Ex 1. NWN was returned a day after I bought it (although that was mainly due to the system I was running it on at the time didn't meet the specs).

Some of todays games are apparently good, but I know little about them... I don't read games magazines now so I know little about whats new and worth 30 - 40 quid these days. I get most of my info from the web now and that requires me to activly search for them. Something I rarely do.

Another reason I still play older PC games is that my main PC is getting on a bit, it isn't worth my time and money to play slightly sluggish games that require 20% of my HD space. Half Life 2 (which I'm sure is a good game) needs 4Gb of space to install. Thats insane! I know that it is becoming standard to have 200Gb HD's but I don't enjoy buying a new OP system everytime I want to play the latest games.

Although the topic is about the quality of the games themselves, I feel that modern games processing requirements are advancing faster than people are willing to upgrade their hardware.

The Elder Scrolls 4 looks brilliant. The screenshots on the main website are supposed to be ingame (which I believe is true) - but I wonder what kind of system will be required to play it at its best?

I have bought more PS2 games this year because I'm guarenteed to have a game that at least runs without ridiculous slow down.

Another thing that nags me is the exploitation of brand names or calling an original named game a 'BG-style' rpg or ripping of another game's format and/or engine and slapping some fancy graphical effects and the occasional original feature in there and think that makes a number 1 hit. This isn't to say that I dislike sequels (where this practice is most common) - I love them, a sequel expands upon the previous games success and has every right to do so. Examples of this is BG1 and 2, Metal Gear Solid, the Total War games, the Elder Scrolls series, etc. What I'm refering to is things like BG3 which unless its definatly a prequel, is shamelessly ripping off a great name. I am aware of the fine line between rip offs and sequels however. The Final Fantasy games have no continuous story, set in new worlds and only seem to have the brand name and chocobos in common. What make them different to rip-offs is that they are almost always well made and, to me, the name signifies who has made the game as much as anything (I like a good Civilisation game made by old Sid and not the Call to Power rubbish that copied it)... but maybe I'm wrong.

Have developers forgotten that gamers are not all super rich addicts that will spend every penny we have on upgrades and overly priced games that have been rushed through development to exploit a franchise name? To be honest, I get the impression that developers are competing with each other to get the best looking graphics on the shelves rather than the most innovative and well thought out gameplay and storylines. There are exceptions to this thinking, but when you go into a game store next take a look at what is on the shelves...

 

Good points all, Malovae. For those of us who feel we shouldn't constantly shell out dough for increasingly beefy games, there's always The Underdogs, which I use extensively.

 

Good points Malovae again. I agree, and that is why I always play 5 year old games like BGII. and 5 years ago when BGII came out, I was playing Civilisation II (which at the time was a 5 year old game). I never play the latest (and hence 'modern') games.

And because I only play 5 year old games, I pretty much only end up playing really good games that people are still recommending years after they came out.

 

I dunno. I mean, yeah, okay, games requirements have gone up. You can still enjoy, say, Rome: Total War with a 1.4 ghz and a decent video card, and it's a vast improvement over its predecessors--for one thing, you can actuallly break infantry lines with cavalry, rather than having the cavalry stop dead as soon as they reach the opposing line.

Word is the source engine's not too hard on low end systems, too.

Anyway, basic point is that there're still a fair number of new titles that can be enjoyed with a low end system.

 

Meh, I have an X800 Pro and an Athlon 64 3400+ and I've been playing X-COM for the past few days.... Games set on low settings generally aren't much fun.

 

There are exceptions which have been mentioned. I highlighted the Total War series, and I know the specs were not too bad for Rome: TW.

There will be games that are suitable for low-end machines for a while... but there is still an increasing number (mainly FPS and high profile games) that are coming close to needing top whack.

 

Granted, but that's always been true of FPS and 'twitch' games, with rare exception.

As for low settings not being fun...well, they've never bothered me

 

The framerates are what bother me, I played UT2k3 on a computer at work and the crap framerates troubled me to no end. I don't see the point of playing a game if you can't see it in all its glory.

 

I was first hooked on computer RPG's with Ultima III. I played it over and over! I proceeded to buy the first two and then each new game in the series and loved them all up until the last two. I especially hated Ascension, because I had grown so fond of the party based system and isometric view, and was just not wowed by the 3D graphics. After that, I was pretty much out of the whole computer gaming scene for a while. And then I happened to download a demo for Baldurs Gate, and felt as if someone had read my mind and had made the game specifically for me! Needless to say, I am a huge fan of IE games and I just don't feel that 3d games like NWN are nearly as fun. I'll play FPS's on occasion to kill time, but they're almost all the same to me and never replayable. Obviously no game will appeal to everyone, and I'm probably pickier than most since I tend to mainly stick to D&D or medieval setting games. ToEE had promise, but bugginess killed any replayability. As Foradasthar said, I'll probably just have to wait until the next cycle of really good RPG's...although I have my doubts that it will happen as soon as 2005.

 

I'd much rather play a old-looking 2d or isometric game than any 3d games earlier than Half-Life, I guess it's just a matter of aesthetics, but I just can't stand crappy 3d. However, it's much easier to jump into an old 2d game such as Ultima IV or X-Com: UFO Defense.

 

I still play my good old IWD 1. Compared to BG and BG2 and IWD2 this is IMO the best CRPG that I've tried.
Compared to 3-d games I had very bad experiences with 3-d games like morrowwind and NWN and actually all 3-d games.

The problem with theese 'modern' games is that the characters are way too complicated to control, and I am having a hard time finding directions... With the 2-d IE games it was so much simpler. Just click and go...

SO - What's next ? I would like to see a FIRST PERSON 3-d CRPG. I often fantasized about going through something like Baldurs Gate or Icewind Dale in First Person CRPG style.... Now that COULD be the future..

 

There is one, Morrowind... not D&D rules, but its quite indepth.