Spalls Hurgenson <
spallsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>It is somewhat disturbing to me when I realize that I have played all
>of those but one (Heroine's Quest). Many I gave up long before I got
>to the end-boss and most of them I still have the disks for, though. A
>good number I actually did finish.
By my count, of the 72(!) games listed in the top "70":
Never even heard of: 2
Don't own: 18
Owned but unplayed: 13
Played but unfinished: 14
Finished: 25
That's actually more finished games than I thought there'd be. If game
requires me to mindlessly grind at the end to finish I usually declare
mission accomplished and move on to the next game.
>Going through that list, I realize how I don't miss the old Bard's
>Tale/Wizardry type RPGs at all. Even as other RPGs better embraced the
>idea of role-playing, those continued to remain rooted in old-school,
>mechanical combat where the only goal was to kill everything.
>Meanwhile, the Ultimas and similar games were trying to introduce plot
>and character to the genre. I remember how agonizingly dull I found
>Eye of the Beholder 2 as I labored through its mazelike levels, and
>how disappointed I was when the much-hyped Lands of Lore was just a
>graphical rehash of that game.
I loved those games. The early Wizardry games were too hard core for me,
I enjoyed Bard's Tale 1 and 2. Eye of the Beholder 1 and 2 and Lands of
Lore 1 were amazing evolutions (and also more accessable) of evolutions
of Dungeon Master, a genre that's still alive to today in the form of
games like Legend of Grimrock and Etrian Odyssey IV.
On the other hand I don't really like the direction the Ultimas went after
Ultima V. Sure they upped the story, but they completely dumbed down game
play with Ultima VI and VII. The graphics looked prettier but the more
realisitc one-scale-fits-all approach also made Britannia seem smaller.
It felt like you're were playing in a theme park, not an entire world.
Mind you while the list has brought back found memories it hasn't made
me too eager to play any of these game again. Partly because I don't
have as much tolerance for clunky UIs some of these games had, but mostly
because I've got a big backlog of games I haven't even touched yet.
>On the plus side, at least none of the modern "action-RPGs" like
>Diablo or Titan's Quest made the list. I still bristle when they are
>considered role-playing games ;-)
Eh... it really discredits the entire list by excluding these games.
Diablo is more an RPG than Deus Ex, even though I think Deus Ex is the
better game. Star Control 2 and Mount and Blade are also great games,
but calling the former an RPG is a big stretch and the later absurd.
If games like these can make the list, than Diablo and all of its clones
should be under consideration as well.
Other notable ommissions are the Bard's Tale and Eye of the Beholder
games you mentioned earlier, modern indie games like Recettear, Legend of
Grimrock and Dungeons of Dredmor, and any of the MMORPGs. I wouldn't
count it as an RPG, but given all the other first-person shooters with
RPG elements on the list it's a big surprise not to see either of the
Borderlands games in the list.
Ross Ridge
--
l/ // Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
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rri...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
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http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/
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