The Gamer's Thread (Rant of a Geek)

[Ñólendil]

Hope this doesn't belong in the Entertainment thread, as I've posted it here in Gen. But I guess it probably will be moved.

I was wondering if there are other gamers out there, specifically of the geeky RPGamer variety.

For the decidedly non-geeky, RPGamers are "role-players", people who play role-playing games. Most people (at least in the U.S. or Japan) have heard of the Final Fantasy series (a wonderful series). RPGs are more centered on story-telling and statistic building than other games. But like virtually all games, the gameplay is centered on killing things.

Anyone who will read my review of War of the Ring (which will be put up in Isengard) will know I'm as RPG as they come. I know afro-elf is out there too. I guess I'd like this topic to be a general discussion thread of PC and video games, particularly the RPG. What's everybody playing? What do you like about RPGs?

I'm attached to the story-aspect of it. There are a lot of bad stories in RPGs, (Tales of Symphonia is the most recent pain I've come across) but every once in while you get a gem. A lot of these plots, such as the one(s) found in Knights of the Old Republic, or Final Fantasy X, would make for great movies, or books. Games like these do almost the same thing that reading a good fantasy does, it fills that creative need in me. I especially like the (very rare) non-linear RPGs, where the player is given choices about the progression of the plot (usually Good or Evil).

To me, the greatest RPG I've ever played was the afore mentioned Knights of the Old Republic: exciting real time combat, a wonderful plot with twists and branches and two different endings (Dark Side or Light Side), great graphics and good voice acting. Nothing can ruin a game like bad voice acting. Perhaps coming in second would be a game that I never finished, a PC one called Arcanum. Came out in '02. Horrible graphics in that game, and compared to others of its time, not very exciting combat. But it was a great classless skill progression system, with an interesting dynamic of magic schools and technological disciplines, and, again, the plot was great. Developed by Troika, which is a team made up of former Black Isle Studios members (Baldur's Gate series), but it's hard to believe that Troika went on to make (the horribly titled) "Temple of Elemental Evil", which I didn't like very much. Very shallow story.

Currently NAMCO, the company that brought us the horrendous (but very popular) Tales of Symphonia, is publishing a game developed by some of the creators of Xenosaga, called Baten Kaitos. It comes out this month, and I'm looking forward to it, although I don't think it will great, I do think it will be good.

And I can't post this in Entmoot without talking about The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age, the first RPG based off the movies. That's out now, but I haven't played it. Anyone out there playing that? Don't know if I will--I'm too attached to the books. If only an ambitious risk-taking developer would create an RPG based off the books that WASN'T on the GBA. My condolences to anyone who played Fellowship of the Ring on Game Boy Advance. *shudders*

And, my apologies to anyone who has read through this and has no idea what I'm talking about.

Currently playing: The Saga of Ryzom, a MMPORPG (Mass-Multi-Player-Online-Role-Playing-Game), with a unique sci-fi-fantasy setting. Very good game, but not a lot to do yet, still feels like it's not quite ready for release, although it came out two months ago.