Western RPGs

I dunno. I just felt like starting a random thread about the Western RPG. Before I bought Morrowind two years ago, my entire experience with Role-Playing Games (Western or Eastern) consisted solely of Diablo. So yeah.

As far as I can tell, major Western RPGs include:

• Diablo (Took me four years to beat Diablo II with the expansion pack. To be fair, though, I didn't really play it on a regular basis and I started over with new characters twice)
• Fallout (Beat the first game, kind of stopped playing the second game because I couldn't figure out what to do next. I liked the first one, though. Haven't played the third one, although I do own the Game of the Year Edition for the 360)
• The Elder Scrolls (Beat Morrowind and vanilla Oblivion. Tried continuing with Shivering Isles but my computer kept on crashing. Currently trying Daggerfall, but the bugs are pretty frustrating)
• Deus Ex (Beat it. Intend on finishing Invisible War eventually, but I kind of lost interest. If Human Revolution turns out to be any good, I'll make it a point to finish Invisible War)
• Borderlands (Playing through it right now. Very fun game. The RPG Elements aren't so much fun, though, with the exception of the ridiculous amounts of loot. Not too happy with the Excuse Plot or wasted potential involving the setting, either)
• The Witcher (Bought it on Steam. Haven't installed it yet)
• Mass Effect (Greatest. Series. Ever.)
• Baldur's Gate (Played a little bit of it. Heard a lot of great things about it. Will probably buy it eventually)
• Icewind Dale (Seems very similar to Baldur's Gate. I wonder which I should play first? The general consensus seems to be that Baldur's Gate is better, but if I play Baldur's Gate first, does that mean I'll be underwhelmed when I play Icewind Dale?)
• Neverwinter Nights (Played the demo. Judged on that, I think I like it better than Baldur's Gate)
• Planescape: Torment (Seen lots of love for this game. I looked at the cinematic trailer and it does indeed look awesome)
• System Shock (The first game's controls are a little too much for me. Second game I can handle, though. I am a little intimidated though, I feel like it's going to be a very hard game)
• Dragon Age (I guess I'll get to it eventually. After all, the reviews were glowing and BioWare is known for making quality games. I dunno, though. It just seems a little... generic)
• Knights of the Old Republic (Just bought it used for Xbox from eBay. Haven't yet formed an opinion, though if it's better than the prequel films as some people claim, that'll be good)
• World of WarCraft (No. I liked WarCraft when it was a strategy game)
• Gothic and Dungeon Siege (I'm sorry, these games don't seem very interesting to me)
• Kingdom of Loathing (Not really a video game, but I used to play this alot. I don't know if I'll be comfortable getting back into it, though)
• Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (I know absolutely nothing about this game, save that it can be played in the first person, has a dedicated following, and has something to do with vampires)

Did I miss anything?

edited 23rd May '11 6:28:05 AM by RL_Nice

Plenty.

Try the Ultima series. Ok, so it's been a long time since one was made, let's not forget our roots, and I think they've remade them for a number of platforms.

edited 19th May '11 8:55:16 PM by blueharp

Expect disappointment from Kot OR and lots of it. Filler combat ho! 2nd game is decent.

Bloodlines is a spiritual successor to Deus Ex.

So did anyone besides me feel that Neverwinter Nights 2 was a dissappointing downgrade from the first game?

A lot of the coolness was sucked out...

Like how familiars were boring non-combat animals like house cats and rats in the sequel, whereas they used to be were pixies, mini-beholders, and fire breathing hellhounds in the first.

Or how they removed the portraits from the first game to give us Uncanny Valley portraits of the characters in it's place.

Or how the selection of monsters and enemies you fight were GREATLY toned down and less fantastic?*

edited 19th May '11 9:30:49 PM by Signed

Nethack!

For relatively recent (as in created after 1999):

Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura: It is considered by many as one of the legendary RP Gs, together with Planescape and Baldurs Gate. I am not one of them, but you may like it.

Divine Divinity: If you consider Diablo as an RPG, this one counts too. Its basically less serious Diablo.

Alpha Protocol: The game is extremely Your Mileage May Vary. I consider it amazing if somewhat flawed game.

Drakensang: A German Baldur Gate-esque RPG that was inspired by tabletop game that was not D & D or GURPS. And it shows, in a good way.

Risen: Similar to TES series or Gothic, sandbox RPG with Pirates, Ruins and Lizardfolk. Starts mediocre, continues to become awesome, and ends rather disappointingly and weakly.

Anachronox: I am unsure if it counts, because it was deliberately designed like jRPG, despite being created by one of the big western studios. It was a first part of trilogy, but unfortunately the studio got under right after (barely) finishing the game. Still, the game is good enough to mention it.

For older games:

Wizardry: The only ones playable for today gamer is probably 8 and maybe 7. Nevertheless, Wizardry 8 is pretty accessible, being made in 2001 and distils everything that was good or awesome in old RP Gs while managing to avoid many of its faults. I recommend it.

Might & Magic: the apex of the series is probably 6 and 7. Extremely good if dated RP Gs and difficult to boot.

Betrayal at Krondor: Set in the same setting as Riftwar books, probably one of the best old western RP Gs.

Albion: Other one of the best old western RP Gs. One of the few settings that manages to believably and seriously mix Science Fiction and Fantasy, set in interesting and rather original world, even by today's standards.

There is, of course far more western RP Gs, these are simply the ones I managed to remember off the top of my head.

edited 23rd May '11 7:44:59 AM by Drakovicz

Divine Divinity/Divinity 2. Haven't played the first one but it looks like a Diablo clone while Div2 is more of an action rpg/hack and slash game. I've found Divinity 2 to be really fun from what I've played so far and it's pretty decent in terms of roleplaying as well.

I actually much prefer NWN 2 over 1. Storyline wise, I mean. It took until Hordes of the Underdark for the first game to reach its potential. The OC of both were weak, but Mask of the Betrayer may very well be the best PC RPG of all time. And So Z is the most accurate rendition of what playing tabletop 3.5 is like.

OP, if you liked Diablo, you might try Titan Quest. Which is Diablo set in Greece.

You mentioned Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate. I bought both at about the same time, and I prefer IWD 1 over vanilla BG 1. Both use Advanced Dungeons and Dragon rules which are... obtuse, but IWD gives you full party creation. It's quite fun to mix and match parties and playstyles. Of course, Baldur's Gate has a very alive and supporting mod community, impressive for being 13 years old and not meant to be modded...

Dragon Age *is* a bit of a disappointment, actually. I was kind of hoping that they'd make the setting and story really epic. I think they tried too hard.

You missed:

• Jade Empire, the RPG Bioware made between Mass Effect and Kot OR. It was a disappointment, sure, but what disappoints me the most is that it never got a sequel. Lot of interesting ideas there that never got a chance to shine...
• Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is the Victorian fantasy steampunk RPG. It's incredibly bugged, but the underlying ideas and themes of the game are glorious, and there's a patch for a lot of the problems.
• The Temple of Elemental Evil is another Dn D game made by the people who made Arcanum and Bloodlines. It's even buggier than either of those.

Interesting fact: the company that made those last two games was made up of ex-Black Isle employees, meaning that the same people worked on these two as Fallout, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale. Today their company is called Obsidian Entertainment.

• The Wasteland is the spiritual precursor to Fallout. Almost everything that Fallout did was based on this game. 1988 game though, so it's primitive.
• Alpha Protocol. Though it looks like a third person shooter, it isn't; hits and damage are determined by RNG. Very good, complex story. Poor shooting mechanics, unbalanced skillsets. Also, pistols.
• Arx Fatalis is sort of the proto-Morrowind. Came out a little before, looks similar. If you like the one you might like the other.
• Divine Divinity is a franchise I know nothing about. Except that it exists, and divinity is involved somehow.

EDIT: Half ninja'd. To regain honor, I point out that Puzzle Quest is also an RPG.

And addictive. Oh God it's trying to pull me back...

edited 19th May '11 11:41:57 PM by Watashiwa

Was Jade Empire really that disappointing (I never played it) or did it just go completely under the radar?

I've just been playing through Dark Messiah Of Might And Magic. I'm in chapter 8. God is the gameplay fucking hard.

I'm feeling the need to come to the defense of Dragon Age here. They're remarkably well researched if you know very much about Early Medieval history; a lot of the titles, posistions, ect. I think that looking at the series, searching for a retooling of the more flashy fantastical elements are arguably missing the point; it's the human elements that Dragon Age suceeds with — and given that both the final acts to Origins and Two revolve mostly around the conflicts between different human factions (Loghain/You and Templars/Mages) would support this view. Sure there are supernatural elements to both which instigate the conflict, but the ensuing conflict is always between groups of people, for the most part. (I'm ignoring the final level from Origins.)

And, I'm always confused that a lot of the problems that The Witcher had, Dragon Age has too. Yet they're celebrated elements of TW, and in DA they're problematic. (Two factions, neither of which are particularly friendly (Arguable somewhat averted in TW 1) Railroading, which is far worse in the Witcher. A lack of subtlety when it comes to being "dark" and "gritty".) At least Dragon Age is competantly written. Even in the "Enhanced Edition" there's terrible voice acting, particularly from the leads, and some of the descicions made about story design are completely bizarre, translation regardless.

(I did like quest/act structure on the whole though. Just thought it was often terribly paced and incomprehensible. The characters don't talk like people.)

Jade Empire was a good game. But it was always going to struggle given how different it was.

edited 20th May '11 12:04:45 AM by Nicknacks

^Aside from being really hard is Dark Messiah any good? My only experience of it is the opening cinematic getting riffed by Unskippable which didn't make the game seem that good at all.

I agree with most of your complaints about The Witcher (apart from rail roading which was far worse in DA 2 although Origins does it a lot better) although I personally think the ending makes up for a lot of the flaws.

edited 20th May '11 12:12:01 AM by ShadowScythe

I used to be a serious Avernum fanboy, though after six games you could practically taste the chief developer's own frustration with the formula. Never as big on Geneforge, but you've gotta have some fondness for a series best described as Bioshock meets Shin Megami Tensei. Haven't tried Avadon yet, but it seems to have gotten a positive reaction.

Nicknacks: Part of the problem with The Witcher is that we came in on the end of the story. The games are direct sequels to the books, two of which have been released in English. Most of the characters in TW already know each other, even if only by reputation, and they talk like it.

My problems with Dragon Age relate more to my own expectations. I had two problems with the game, one story related the other gameplay related. The first is that I thought the game was going to be about dealing with the consequences of your deals with the devil. The various alliances you forge over the course of the game should go BOTH ways, else none of the factions would bother agreeing to them. Some of the clauses of the treaties should have made the conscientious player uncomfortable, but trying to renegotiate has dangers of its own. I expected that there would be real consequences of every decision, and that they outcomes wouldn't be readily apparent.

The event that killed my enjoyment of the story came pretty early. I was doing the Redcliffe questline, and I was told that I had to make a decision about what to do with Connor. I was told that I could kill the kid, sacrifice his mom or run to the mages for help. I thought I was finally faced with the first of the serious choices in the game. Obviously killing the kid or his mom was wrong, but if I went for help, I was giving the demon enough time to break free. So I chose the morally "right" thing to do... and got a happy end. It was so anti-climatic. The developers made the decision easy, for all the characters language about it. I did like the bit where Redcliffe is slaughtered if you leave before they need your help; but the failure of the later scene destroyed my interest in the franchise.

The second problem I had was with the gameplay. It seesawed too hard between challenging and impossible, especially in the random encounters. Fighting wasn't fun at all either, no glee to be had in ludicrous spell effects (BG 2: COW!) or madcap martial arts.

I really really wanted to like DA, but it seemed like a step backwards in so many ways.

I agree with your point regarding Redcliffe. Perhaps it could have been improved by forcing you to have completed the Circle Tower quest line with the mages surviving before going to Redcliffe caslte, or have at least two mages in the party in order to provide enough raw magical energy.

I also thought it was a little too easy to save all the mages in The Circle Tower. It took me three run throughs to realise you could fail that, stupidly enough.

Re:The Dark Messiah. Combat's great, if tough. The plot's not great, with at least two characters randomly vanishing for no good reason, and is occasionally reminiscent of God Of War, at least in structure. There's a first act set in a city, a lengthy second act set in a temple (and it is long. That one dungeon seems to be at least half the game!) and there's a return to the city in the third. Characterisation's minimal, and not too interesting. There's a nice varition in weapons and magic. Sneaking's absolutely no use I've found, unless you put a lot of points into it. Oh, and poison effects are an absolute bitch. Less said about The Temple Of The Spiders, the better. The enemy types, though, are nicely varied. RPG elements are minimal, being two story choices and some upgrade choices.

Re:The Witcher, I don't think that's a good enough excuse. In the same way that DA 2 and The Witcher 2 should be satisfying experiences without having played Origins or The Witcher 1, The Witcher should be satisfying without having read a series of books that may not even be available in your country. It's why the character's amnesiatic, after all — it makes exposition more "natural". Or should do...

Another thing that bugs me about The Witcher. Women being raped. God damn there's a lot of it. It's not gritty or edgy if you flood the game with it.

edited 20th May '11 1:55:31 AM by Nicknacks

Most of those rpgs do happen to be PC.(not that all of them are) There's less console ones, admittably. Quest 64 is the only one that wasn't mentioned off the top of my head.(and there's some people who actually like it for not being cliche as hell, despite being fairly baren)

...I haven't played a single game listed so far(besides what I said). I've only played jrpgs otherwise. :\ I don't know why...

"At least Dragon Age is competantly written"

Gaahahahahahhahaha

"there's terrible voice acting"

That's why you turn on Polish voices.

"A lack of subtlety when it comes to being "dark" and "gritty"."

Outside of the sex, TW makes it work sometimes. DA is bad heavy handed, with characters covered in blood and even less mature sex. At least TW has a main character that it makes sense for everyone to drop their pants around (He's sterile and immune to disease), DA was just masturbatory fantasies.

Most of Dark Messiah's cutscenes are skipable actually (and HL style pseudo cut scenes are much rarer after act 2). It's also only really hard on "Hard" mode.

edited 20th May '11 6:21:16 AM by deuxhero

Dont forget the Fable games. No 1 was pretty generic, but it really starts to shine in 2 and 3.

Jade Empire is AWESOME! Not a disappointment at all, except that theres no sequel. Its flavor is refreshingly different from your typical mwestern medieval style fantasy, i love the combat, the world is carefully thought out, and the story has a MAJOR twist.

The Knights of the Old Republic games rock! The best Star Wars games ever made. Number one has an incredible twist, one you never see coming but which makes perfect sense in hindsight. Most fans didnt care for Kot OR 2 as much, but i liked it even better, because there are a lot more items, feats, and Force powers, plus you start out as a Jedi and can level past 20.

I just started playing Mass Effect. It's interesting so far.

I'd seriously contest the Kot OR games being the best Star Wars games out there; they are going against the Dark Forces and X Wing series after all.

And Kot OR 2 was criminally rushed (Lucas Arts' fault) and had a narrative that simply didn't respect the Star Wars franchise (Obsidian's faults). That kinda killed it for me.

"didn't respect the Star Wars franchise"

How so? Is Bioware's awful good/evil choices how the series is "meant" to be?

Fable freely admits it tries to be as casual and dumbed down as possible, don't go near it.

edited 20th May '11 6:52:44 AM by deuxhero

I just didn't like their treatment of the Force; other sources within the franchise have stated time and time again that the Force is benevolent until someone (a Dark Side user) corrupts it. When something made by a third party goes against a principle pillar of the universe; it troubles me.

Though Kot OR 1's evil options were over the top to the point of stupidity sometimes. I've yet to play a game a game with evil choices that go beyond screwing everyone just because you can.

The Dark Forces series and Xwing games were and are great games. When JK came out, i thought it was the coolest game ever. Heck, i played level mods when i finished the game. My brother and i were addicted to TIE Fighter.

But KOTOR takes the cake. But thats just my opinion. I respect yours. :)

I also admit that the evil ending "Dark Emperor" in JK is cooler than KOTOR's evil ending.

Also, Fable is meant to be casual and dumbed down. I was saying i love numbers 2 and 3. Its just the first one that was only okay for me - although i love the ghost sword, lightning, and enflame spells!!!

"I've yet to play a game a game with evil choices that go beyond screwing everyone just because you can."

Mask of The Betrayer. Hell, even Kot OR 2 did this in places (It's Obsidan's strength).

"other sources within the franchise have stated time and time again that the Force is benevolent until someone (a Dark Side user) corrupts it"

When? All the times I recall are statements from characters that I can't trust to be unbiased on how light/dark balance works (Read: Old Jedi Masters strongly against the dark side and pro "light" side), there is plenty of established "The Force is a tool" stuff (and "The Force is lazy writers" as well) stuff.

edited 20th May '11 7:07:43 AM by deuxhero

About the Force being benevolent till its corrupted... the sources are conflicting. Different EU writers say different things. Basically it comes down to what certain characters believe about the nature of the Force. Its a major subject of debate.

The fact that Lucas (who trumps any other writer, literally. Star Wars has a damn caste system to determine what is canon...) has said that the Force was benevolent until abused kinda puts the topic to rest. Anyway I don't want to veer off topic into a Star Wars canon debate.

On the subject of Obsidian and evil options; I played through Fallout New Vegas and found that a lot of the options were harming people for no benefit to oneself. And its hard to keep negative karma when killing fiends (in complete self-interested self defense) is considered "Good".