Sunday, December 10, 2006

Cobby's Top 5 Roleplaying Games

5.) Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines - This game has a great story trapped in a buggy game. Of course, considering the developer (Troika), that's to be expected. They had a very bad habit of doing this. If you play this, be sure to install both the last official patch (which made the game 85% playable) and the latest fan patch (that raises the playability to about 95%).

In this game, you're a new vampire out to carve a place for yourself in the vampire hierarchy. I know, it sounds kind of lame, but the plot is pretty involved and there are a decent number of ways to play through every quest.

4.) Baldur's Gate - This game is solely responsible for breathing new life into the RPG genre. It started the trend of moving RPGs away from the stereotypical grind (killing monsters for experience and loot to become more powerful to kill more monsters for experience and loot...) and placed a much larger emphasis on dialogue, story, and character development.

3.) Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn + Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal - The first game was, essentially, perfect. The sequel found some way to take perfect and make it better in every conceivable way. If you played the first game, you have the option to import your character to use in this one. You can also just make a new character, and with the new class options, this may be the better way to go, especially on subsequent playthroughs. And there will be more than one playthrough. This game is epic in every way, and there's simply no way to experience all it has to offer on one (or even two or three) playthrough(s).

2.) Fallout and Fallout 2 - I love both of these games equally which is why they're getting lumped together. The story of these games center around the West and Pacific Northwest some time after nuclear war turns America into a wasteland. Gameplay-wise, these games were true breakthroughs. Your options are almost limitless (within reason) as far as what sort of character you have. The same goes for choices within the game. Sure, there's an overarching plot, but how you get from Point A to Point B is entirely up to you. I can't recommend these games enough.

1.) Planescape: Torment - This is, quite simply, the best RPG ever made. Anyone that knows anything about RPGs will not dispute this fact. This game is as story-driven as is possible while still letting the player have actual options. Your choices have far-reaching effects on the story. How you play has a far-reaching effect on the story. Do you want to play a brute and just smash everything in your path? Go for it. But to get the most out of this game, it helps to invest some time developing those social skills and actually talking to NPCs. You can skip something like 90% of all combat, including the final encounters, if you talk to people instead of hitting them.

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