Pah. You kids and your game-console “role playing games.”
A real role-playing game is played with a GM and paper and pencils and dice and lead figures and old rickety folding tables and great big bags of Doritos.
(Not that I actually like Doritos, mind you. Fritos or good old-fashioned salted tortilla chips were more my speed. But I digress.)
Ahd for the real role-playing game genre, nothing made by the hands of Man can ever hope to approach the grandeur and majesty that is … Champions! The Hero System that underpins Champions is, quite simply, the best RPG System in the universe. It was a generic universal role-playing system before Steve Jackson even coined the term “generic universal role-playing system,” let alone decided he could get away with turning said term into a registered trade mark.
RPG: Dungeons & Dragons
CCG: Legend of the Five Rings
Tradional card games: Euchre
War games: Xeno Games’ alternate version of Axis & Allies
Traditional board games: Chess
Athletic games: Football
FFVII is a console RPG
Diablo II is an arcade clickfest
3X: MOO2
FPS: unreal tournament
RTS: starcraft
3X space exploration 2D shooter RPG: starcontrol
X-Com is the epitome of a squad level tactical turn based combat RPG
RPG is perhaps too generic to use alone. how about
dice & paper RPG
computer RPG
console RPG
arcade RPG
FPS RPG
RTS RPG
ORPG
MMORPG
3X space exploration 2D shooter RPG
and squad level tactical turn based combat RPG
etc etc
FPS: Half-Life. Deus Ex, if you wanna get a little more hybridy, but Half-Life is still the FPS (especially including all the mods). Halo was a weak imitation, IMO. Some beautiful graphics and outdoor areas, but lazy indoor levels and lacklutre enemy AI, plus a crappy story left much to be desired.
3rdPS: Max Payne 1/2. Drooool.
RPG: Fallout 2 or Baldur’s Gate 2. Yummy, the both of them. No other game comes close the epicness or character development of these two. Baldur’s Gate 2 gets the slight nod from me for its inter-party relationships and the romantic possibilities for your main character. That level of submersiveness gets me giddy.
RTS: Age of Empires 2. I’m a sucker for historical games, but IMO, AoE2 and StarCraft are the two most perfectly balances RTSs ever, and in RTSs, balance IS the game.
TBS: Civilization 3. It has its shortcomings, but it’s easier to handle all at once, leaving the player to concentrate on what he/she likes best, be it city building, politiking or warfare. Many other TBS games force you to micromanage other aspects of the game, and if you don’t want to… too bad for you.
MMORPG: Shadowbane. This sucker wasted 4 months of my life. It’s a terrible game, really, except for the fact it’s still better than EQ.
FPS, Single Player: Half Life
FPS, Multi Player: Halo
RTS: Rise of Nations
Adventure: Curse of Monkey Island
3X: Civilization III
RPG: Planescape: Torment
Since Mr. Naz and I have some differing opinions, here what we came up with:
FPS: Metroid Prime. I’m not huge on multiplayer, so all I need’s a really good single-player adventure. Which MP is. (Mr. Naz nominates Doom, although he loves MP too.)
Horror: My first thought was Silent Hill, and then I remembered Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem. So creepy that I haven’t been able to finish playing it.
RTS: I don’t really play these, but Mr. Naz nominates Starcraft. (If I had to pick, I’d choose Pikmin, although it sometimes induces psychotic hatred.)
Adventure: Mr. Naz says Legend of Zelda (NES), I say Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time.
RPG: Final Fantasy 3 or Final Fantasy 7. Unanimous.
Multiplayer: Goldeneye (Later games may have been better, but this one really set the standard.) My vote, although Goldeneye was a great game, is Super Smash Bros. Great party game.
Platformer: Super Mario Bros. 3 is Mr. Naz’s choice, and I have to agree, but I also have to put in a nomination for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Thank God! I was reading through this thread, thinking I was in some sort of parallel universe. “Mario Kart is the best racing game ever?? Have none of you yokels ever heard of GT3??”
Luckily, I’m not insane after all.
Uh, I quite like the Tomb Raider series. Is it OK to admit that?
And now for three categories that won’t get shown on the “Video Game Awards” show:
Roguelike: ADoM (copyright Thomas Biskup)
Sports management: International Cricket Captain 2002 (Empire Interactive)
Gambling sim: Hoyle Casino (Sierra Interactive)
Never did like shoot-'em-ups, don’t have a console so racing games are pretty much out, and, though I like sports games, I’ve never played one that I would call truly “great.”
Console RPG: Earthbound
Computer RPG: Planescape: Torment
FPS: Doom II (Quake I is a very close runner up, but was hurt by the enemies’ inability to navigate the environments, I thought)
Adventure: Metroid Prime
Platformer: Yoshi’s Island
RTS: Broodwars (Starcraft expansion)
RTS that isn’t really an RTS: Pikmin
TBS: Moonbase Commander
Fighting: Super Smash Brothers: Melee
Sports: Fight of the Sumo Hoppers (Hah!)
Elastic Bike Simulation (EBS): Elastomania
I should justify my decision of Torment for the computer RPG position. Although it had some major gameplay flaws, the things that RPGs are supposed to do were done so brilliantly that it deserves its position at the top of my list. Fallout 2 was, I’d say, a better designed game (more interesting combat system, for example), but wasn’t as deep in conversation, story, or character design. It was still excellent in these areas, though, so gets runner up. Some of the humour was brilliant, too - I’m definately going to have written on my tombstone ‘You should see the other guy’.
Also, no, it’s completely not okay to admit to liking Tomb Raider. On the other hand, upon observing that Coldfire is a mod, I withdraw that opinion.
I don’t get all the hullabaloo over Half-Life. I thought the story was fairly boring, but I loved the engine and the mods (just got done playing Counter-Strike). The game couldn’t hold my interest.
FPS: Goldeneye
FPS Multi: Halo
Sports: Tom Landry Strategy Football
RTS: Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
Arcade: Galaxian
2D Platform: Super Mario World 2 (Gameboy)
Puzzle: Tetris
