What RPG to play... choice of five.

Kuuso on 17/1/2011 at 00:56

Alpha Protocol for sure. It shares many positive traits with Deus ex, meaning an interesting story (without the scifi parts, but nearly as goofy), memorable characters, choice-making and multiple ways of solving dilemmas both combat and storywise. In a way, you can make it the game you want it to be. You can sneak, shoot or talk your way through. You can ally or make enemies with people/factions that change levels quite drastically.It's the only SP game that I've bothered to replay in recent memory.

My only complaints are that there's too many parts you can't ghost your way through (or maybe I suck, but there are some fights definitely) and the story might seem a bit disjointed the first playthrough, especially at start.

Morrowind I never got into, mostly because of the combat being utter shite. The world, cities, factions and quests were interesting, but fucking hell that combat was awful. Fallout 3 is Fallout hollywoodized, meaning explosions, in-your-face unfunny humour (eurgh that robot), shite characters with horrible modeling and voiceacting. Oblivions engine sucks (well I guess it's technically morrowinds, but anyways). It does, however, make a believable wasteland and it's really fun wondering around for the first hours. New Vegas tightened up the writing and questing, I guess it's better, but I didn't finish it. Fallout3 I did. I think that's it really, New Vegas does feel like a big expansion pack after all. Shivering Isles is the worst decision. Sure, they have made nice new areas, but there's so much wrong in Oblivion that's it's just not much fun.

gunsmoke on 17/1/2011 at 02:43

Alpha Protocol. I have spoken my mind on this game already enough times to puke. Though Fallout 3 GotY is a CLOSE second.

Also, why is ghosting a pre-requisite for games now? Honestly, how many gamers play their shiny new games this way nowadays?

Tonamel on 17/1/2011 at 02:51

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

There seems to be a lot of love for this on here but Metacritic scores put me off. Oh, what's that? Who trusts Metacritic anyway? Well I certainly don't think they are a go to for how good a game is since the big releases (BioShock?) tend to get kow towing official magazines over-inflating scores. But I do pay some attention to lower scores since there is no incentive for anyone to downgrade a game unless it deserves it.

From what I've heard (my computer won't run it :() the first hour or so is kind of dismal, and then after you get into the meat of the story it's fantastic. Reviewers tend to have so many games and deadlines to deal with that I wonder if many of them got to the fantastic part.

twisty on 17/1/2011 at 02:59

New Vegas, imo, in hardcore mode. I chose that mode on my first and only play through just to see what it would be like and although I initially regretted making that choice due to the extra difficulty, it made the game even more interesting and challenging as making the wrong decision can really put you in a world of bother.

icemann on 17/1/2011 at 03:56

For me I'd pick Fallout 3 then New Vegas. F3 has a much better start it compared to NV, has slightly more gameplay on offer (hours wise) though alot of the areas are very copy paste. Regardless its a really damn fantastic game. AND there's a fuckload of excellent DLC for it (except for the last one) which = another 30 hours of extra gameplay roughly. Probably more. So all in all it offers the most gameplay.

Then go play New Vegas after that as going for F3 to Vegas is much more advisable than going from NV to F3.

Koki on 17/1/2011 at 07:16

You should play something good, like the entire Baldur's Gate saga with the Trilogy mod and Ascension

june gloom on 17/1/2011 at 07:29

That's hilarious. Got any other jokes?

Sulphur on 17/1/2011 at 07:30

Quote Posted by Subjective Effect

There is a lot of love for it here, but I think we've done a reasonably good job of addressing the caveats as well. It's not inordinate gushing while sweeping all the bugs under the carpet at the same time; the game does have its issues. We've spoken about those at length in the AP thread, as well as things we think that the game does rather brilliantly, which very few press sites seem to have recognised.

Metacritic at the end of the day serves up a generic average of what the gaming press thinks, and you don't get a neat bullet point summary of +good and -bad for any given game to make up your mind with.

Kuuso on 17/1/2011 at 08:08

I do think that some reviewers might have only played Saudi Arabia bit. It's true that the first missions don't compare to the later ones (mostly because you haven't really unlocked much skills yet). The game did crash on me four times on the first playtime, but I think I've only encountered one crash after that. The game doesn't like tabbing to windows at all though. The game does seem like it could have used a month of even a few to be polished, but the ambition the game has makes up for it, in my opinion.

Ghosting I brought up because I don't think it's a necessity, but because it's an option in game, yet you are forced to fight anyhow. You even get perks, if you do it. So if you go into the game stealth-oriented with noiseless takedowns being your forte, it's a bit frustrating when such an option-heavy game thrown you into a forced fight.

Nameless Voice on 17/1/2011 at 09:10

As I said before, I haven't played AP yet, but something that I feels is really necessary in a Deus Ex-type game is being able to get away without killing as much as reasonable possible. DX is one of the only games where you can get away without killing a single character (admittedly, only by using an exploit, as you're meant to have to kill at least one...)