A couple Questions

[dewayne26]

I thinking of getting the witcher, is it worth it?

 

Any other good games out preferably rpgs. I tried my hand at shooters i cann't stand them. Stratagy I kinda can do but i lose interest real quick.

[Boba Rhett]

As I understand it, a newer version of The Witcher is about to be released. If you're going to get it I'd definitely wait a few weeks to pick that version up. As for whether or not it's worth it, I have not played it enough yet to say yea or nay. It looks very promising though.

 

Have you played Morrowind and Oblivion yet? I'd wager Morrowind is the best rpg ever but it is a little old. Oblivion is its predecessor. It's very pretty but kind of broken compared to Morrowind. There are some patches to re-beautify Morrowind as well.

 

Do you like vampires? Vampire, The Masquarade: Bloodlines. It feels a lot like Morrowind it it's gameplay.

 

What about an rpg/shooter such as Deus Ex? Deus Ex is going on, what, ten years of age but is still one of the best games ever. Ever. Also in this same vein is S.T.A.L.K.E.R. which, after patching and installing several non-official patches becomes a very good game as well. It's sequel prequel is actually being released in about two weeks.

 

There's also god-view rpgs such as the NeverWinter Nights 1 and 2. I loved the first one. Haven't gotten a chance to play the second much yet. Along this line of gameplay there's also Diablo II and the Fallout series but that's getting fairly old school.

 

 

Oh, almost forgot, Mass Effect was released for PC not long ago. Felt kinda like an RPG lite to me but it's a really great game with a great story to boot.

[Achilles]

I agree with much of what Boba Rhett says above. The Witcher is a very fun game (for adults!) and well worth the money, but it's also better to wait for the re-release.

 

Morrowind kicks butt. Oblivion is prettier and has more bells and whistles, but Morrowind has a far better story. You can probably find the Game of the Year edition for $20 and it comes with both expansions (neither of which I cared for, but did add new features to the game itself).

[Arátoeldar]

The Witcher is most definitely worth the money. As Boba & Achilles have posted. You should wait for the Enhanced Edition to come out. According to Wikipedia the EE will be out on September 16, 2008. Take the release date with a grain of salt.

 

If you have any more questions, ask away.

 

To me the best TES game is Daggerfall. It has the best plot.

[mimartin]

I haven’t played The Witcher, but considering Boba Rhett and Achilles’ recommendation I may give it a try. Their recommendation got me playing Morrowind and I have to say I am very grateful to them both. Morrowind was a real pleasure to play.

 

Oblivion was a great deal of fun to play, but I played it before playing Morrowind so I was not holding it up to that high of a standard.

 

NeverWinter 2 was not great, but the expansion Mask of the Betrayer is a very good story.

 

I’d also recommend BioShock. It is a shooter, but includes leveling up, weapon upgrades and morality choices. It has an excellent story IMO. I am not a big fan of shooter, but BioShock is an exception to that rule.

 

Must resist writing about Mass Effect. Can’t stop myself…. What Boba Rhett wrote. Who am I kidding. Like Boba Rhett wrote, it is RPG lite and in places plays more like a shooter than a RPG, but as President of the Mass Effect fanboy club I would highly recommend it. Good story, very pretty, lots of bells and whistles and plenty of good NPC.

[Ascendant_Justice]

I've never played The Witcher, but it looks pretty cool. I think I'd like it as it supposedly has a lot of great choices/consequences, as well as clever political layers and racism issues . You should research it yourself.

 

In regards to Morrowind vs. Oblivion, Morrowind is far superior. As everyone else has said, Oblivion looks sweet and has great eye candy, but you'll notice its many flaws and shortcomings fairly quickly after you get over its improvements over Morrowind. It really caters to a more casual audience, whereas Morrowind is much more appealing to serious RPG players. There are plenty of mods that really improve the graphical appearance of the game, anyway.

 

Edit: Ah..and mimartin shares my love for Bioshock. I guess I don't really think of it as an RPG. Games like this, Half Life, Deus Ex, System Shock, all fit into their own little classes to me. I can't call any of them just straight up shooters or RPG's, and that's what makes them great. Bioshock does have plenty of RPG elements while maintaining FPS gameplay, but, you can go through the whole game primariliy using a wrench so it's not too shooter-ish . I highly recommend it to anyone.

[Achilles]

I think I'd like it as it supposedly has a lot of great choices/consequences, as well as clever political layers and racism issues .

These things are all true. The Witcher is the only game I've ever played where I've experienced genuine anxiety over game choices. The writers put you in some very deep, very gray situations and ask you to make a decision. Unlike most games there is no obvious "good" choice or "bad" choice. No option that is more like the character that you are supposed to be role-playing over another. I found myself having to get up and move around while making a decision more than once.

 

Not sure if that's what you'd call a "ringing endorsement", but there's my 2 cents nonetheless.

 

PS: Plus there's adult language, gore, and nudity

[Rabish Bini]

Warlords Battlecry II

However, it's an RTS, actually an RPG-RTS, so like you said, you might not enjoy it, for me though it's the BEST game ever made. EVER.

 

But I would recommend Evil Genius. It's kinda old, but it's great fun, although it's part-strategy, you get to build a doomsday device and get minions and henchmen and build evil lairs and stuff, great fun

 

(Never played the Witcher)

[mur'phon]

The Witcher, what Achilles said, sometimes you don't realise you have made a big decicion, only to have it bite you in the back (literally).

 

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Best game ever, and you can probably pick it up in a bargain bin.

 

Evil Genius: Awesome game, but try the demo first.

[Pavlos]

I’d also recommend BioShock. It is a shooter, but includes leveling up, weapon upgrades and morality choices. It has an excellent story IMO. I am not a big fan of shooter, but BioShock is an exception to that rule.

BioShock's strength is not the plot, if you ask me; it's the brilliance of symbolism and imagery. I'll quote an article which you may (or may not) see going up on SWK in a few... years :

What writer Ken Levine’s games lack in emotional intelligence they make up for in sheer brilliance of symbolism. A piano loaded with explosives set to go off if the musician makes a mistake provides us with an allegory for the pressure of performance. A confrontation with the somewhat insane Doctor Steinman takes place under three crucified bodies, the central crucifix raised higher than the other two producing something that looks awfully like the crucifixion of Christ on Golgotha, unnervingly suggesting that even this atheist ‘utopia’ hidden from view by the shroud of the ocean is not beyond the judgement and sight of God.

 

BioShock is the Blade Runner of video games. There is no emotional investment in the plot or the characters but the setting is so beautiful, the imagery so powerful, and the philosophy so intriguing that it becomes easy to overlook its flaws.

I reckon you should play it for intellectual, not emotional, stimulation.

[Det. Bart Lasiter]

BioShock's strength is not the plot, if you ask me; it's the brilliance of symbolism and imagery. I'll quote an article which you may (or may not) see going up on SWK in a few... years :

 

I reckon you should play it for intellectual, not emotional, stimulation.

I think the art style is definitely a major selling point for the game too. That and Ryan. I mean, the guy gets sick of government getting in his business so he builds an underwater city. Let's see you Ron Paul supporters match that

[stingerhs]

i'd be careful, though, if you've already played Oblivion and you're looking to play Morrowind. don't get me wrong, Morrowind is a fun game with a great story. a lot of people mentioned how great Oblivion's graphics, but don't forget that those graphics provide a lot of compelling and interesting features that just flat out make you want to explore the area more and more. Morrowind lacks this, and it can be a bit of a shocker whenever you first start to get into the game if you've already played Oblivion.

 

if you can get through that, though, there is a lot of fun to be had in Morrowind.

[Emperor Devon]

Morrowind is a fun game with a great story

 

wait what

[Boba Rhett]

No, it's true. You have to do a lot of quests and read a LOT of the books in game to piece it together though.

[Emperor Devon]

I did. That's why I'm baffled someone's calling it great.

[mimartin]

I reckon you should play it for intellectual, not emotional, stimulation.

Never really looked at BioShock that way, but I can find no fault with it. I believe the perfect atmosphere brought out an emotional response in me because I did care about what happened to the Little Sisters.

 

Let's see you Ron Paul supporters match that

[Achilles]

I did. That's why I'm baffled someone's calling it great.

Hmmm.... Well, I guess we can't see eye-to-eye on everything.

[Emperor Devon]

Hmmm.... Well, I guess we can't see eye-to-eye on everything.

 

Holy potatoes, we don't agree?

 

Morrowind's plot read more like a historical account than an actual story to me. The backstory was interesting, and Bethesda was successful in producing an incredibly detailed world whose legends and lore I was interested in learning. But at the same time I never came to care for what few characters were present in the story, and while their histories were interesting they in themselves (as actual characters) weren't. For the most part they had little depth or development.

 

So while the overarching plot was interesting, the individual people within it weren't terribly much so (the lack of party members is party to blame for this). That combined with how linear the story is made it, as I said above, come off more as a historical account than an actual story.

 

I'd say it ranged from okay to moderately good, but I wouldn't call it great.

[Pavlos]

Never really looked at BioShock that way, but I can find no fault with it. I believe the perfect atmosphere brought out an emotional response in me because I did care about what happened to the Little Sisters.

Levine's attempts to depict the utter destruction of Rapture and its decent into anarchy essentially robbed its inhabitants of their humanity; which is sad of its own accord but aside from the fear-factor and the oppressive mood there's very little to BioShock emotionally speaking.

 

Though it attempts to make me weep over the inhabitants lives as I find the improbably placed audio diaries, I am unable to associate the voices of those people with the insane, dehumanised spilcers because of precisely that -- they have been dehumanised. It doesn't pull my kicking and screaming through the range of all my emotions, from high to low, like - say - The Empire Strikes Back does. There's no love-hate relationship with our protagonist as in Jane Austen's Emma, where we feel simultaneously in love with and angry at our meddling little matchmaker; a similar emotional response can be brought about by Kreia.

 

That's not to say it's a bad game. I love BioShock -- I just wouldn't play it for the emotional journey because there isn't one for me.

[Corinthian]

What? Somebody actually LIKED the manipulative elderly hag-beast that you weren't allowed to ventilate and/or space because of flaws within the game engine?

 

I agree with you about BioShock, though. When contemplating the prospect of slaughtering or saving the Little Sisters, it was more of a 'Let's see...I'd rather have the good ending. Besides, you get presents if you save them." It was like asking me if I wanted the chicken or the ham - not exactly a decision that wracked my soul.

[Serpentine Cougar]

If you like the JRPG style of gameplay or want a good story, I'd recommend Final Fantasy X.

 

The only game mentioned so far that I've played is Morrowind, but my opinion of the game is that it's just a big time sink. There's better games for story (IMO) - if that's what you're looking for.

[Corinthian]

If you like JRPGs, play FF6, 7, Chrono Trigger, or Tales of Phantasia. Final Fantasy X's only real strength is the fact that it has voice acting - the problem being that the voice acting is really quite bad.