XBox RPG Recommendations?

I need a new RPG - I’m getting too old and slow for shooters, and they’re all pretty samey - for my XBox: the only ones I have are KoTOR, which I’ve clocked about 6 times, and KoTOR 2, which I’ve clocked twice. Loved the first, wanted to love the latter: if only they’d finished it…

Something with a bit of depth that will keep me amused during the long winter evenings, ideally; less combat and more story oriented would be good, and single player only: gaming, like masturbation, is a solitary vice. The only other titles I know of are fantasy ones - Fable, A Bard’s Tale, and I’ve heard Morrowind recommended a lot but know nothing about it. Any suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Go with the Morrowind, Game Of The Year Edition. You can pick it up used for $10 at most places and you’ll be playing that sucker for a looooong time. It’s exactly what you want, if you don’t mind the Elves-Orcs-Barbarians thing.

Get Jade Empire, by the same company that made KOTOR. And I’d also recommend Bard’s Tale. It is a lot of combat, but it’s also one of the funniest games I’ve played.

I’ve had Morrowind since its release, and I’m still playing it. (Though I’ve taken a break to play Oblivion.)

It’s a game where you can literally do anything you want. You can be a thief, a soldier, a religious devotee, an assasin, or any combination thereof. There are hundreds of lost shrines and ruined cities to explore. You can follow the quest lines, or just run around and explore. Unlike Fable, you can leave the paths and explore through the landscape-- you can climb a mountain, if you like, or swim the rivers to the ocean. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

I’m not a good gamer, since I didn’t grow up with a controller in my hand. If you like, I could share the cheats I use to take away the frustration factor.

Another vote for Jade Empire if you like the KotOR style (who doesn’t), though not good if you don’t like Kung Fu adventure stories.
Fable, Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance (1st is better than the sequel), Bard’s Tale are all good fantasy roleplaying games, and cheap now.
XMen Legends (1 and 2) are great even if you don’t care for Super Heros that much, fantastic if you are an XMen fan.
Elder Scrolls is very good, but takes loads of time and I actually consider it the worst of those I mentioned, though not a bad game at all.

I don’t know of multi-player online games, if you want to do that someone else will have to help you out.

Please do! I bought the game half for my kids, half for me, but I’ve never actually played for more than about 20 minutes at a time.

Please do! I bought the game half for my kids, half for me, but I’ve never actually played for more than about 20 minutes at a time.

I’ll Nth the recomendation for Morrowind. Do make sure to get the Game of the Year Edition because it has the two add ons, Bloodmoon and the other one whose name I suddenly can’t remember. Also, I’d highly recomend that if you get a used version, make sure that the one you buy has a copy of the paper map with it. I found it invaluable.

Sounds good - open-ended wandering would be fun: It’s an older release, though, isn’t it? What’s it like graphically? Is it party-based or do you wander on your own?

As long as you have not seen Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the XBox 360, you should find the graphics on Morrowind to be fine.

It is not party based - you wander alone (technically there is one part in one of the expansions (Tribunal (it comes with the Game of the Year edition)) where you can hire a mercenary to work with you, but that is VERY minor). Wandering is really the point. Even if you wanted to play straight through the main quest, I think you’d have a hard time because your character is so weak at the start. You need to do some side quests and cave exploration to get your stats up.

If you have problems, there is a message board devoted to the Elder Scrolls games (Morrowind’s full title is Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind) located at elderscrolls.com. I’m not going to direct link, because I don’t think we’re supposed to do that.

Great - looks like Morrowind it is; I can pick up a second-hand copy pretty cheaply. Thanks for all advice and suggestions - keep 'em coming if anyone has any other good ones.

The cheat codes for Morrowind: (Works in both regular edition and GOTY.)

[spoiler]

For refilling your life bar: black, white, black, black, black. Press A until bar is full.

For refilling Magica: Black, white, white, black, white, black. Press A until bar is full.

For refilling energy: black, black, white, white, black. Press A until bar is full. [/spoiler]

Sell all your weapons to The Creeper in Caldera (he’s in Ghorak Manor, on the second floor.) He pays full price for them. I suggest putting a Mark spell on the spot right in front of him, because when you’re overloaded, you can recall right in front of him and sell all of your heavy weapons. He also buys Dwarven and Dwemer items, potions and dishes (forks, knives, plates, bottles.)

Good places to steal when you’re first starting out and are broke:

–Caldera, Ghorak Manor. On the very top floor, there’s an orc who has boxes of armor and weapons. All he does is yell at you if you steal them (you don’t get reported.) Up in the rafters, there’s a sword and a pile of gold. (Jump on the rock to see up there.)

– Caldera Mage’s Guild. You can go in there and go to the back of the building where there’s a door. Open it, and then close it behind you. Clean the place out. Sell all that stuff to the lady who runs the shop called The White Haven in Balmora. (She has the most money of any apothecary.)

– Aid-Ruhn. First, steal and sell all the weapons in the crates in the guard towers. You have to wait until the guard goes downstairs to do this. Then, after you’ve stole and sold all of that, go into the Manor District. In every manor, look for the guard’s quarters. They have expensive clothes and amulets that you can sell to the clothes shop that’s on the bottom floor of the Manor District.

Where to get the ultra-cool items:

–Balmora Mage’s guild. Join, and run two missions for the Kajhit near the teleportation pad. (One is collecting flowers and the other is collecting mushrooms. IIRC, you can find both of these things at Seyada Neen.) The third thing she asks you to do is to plant a fake soul gem in Galbradir’s desk on the top floor. Galbradir will walk away, and if you catch her on the ramp and talk to her, that’s where she’ll stay, permenantly. Steal all of the soul gems off of her desk-- they’re really powerful. When you get a very high-damage weapon (I wouldn’t do it with anything lower than a glass sword) you can take the soul gem to an enchanter and have the sword made magical. Note: DO NOT try to do this in Balmora, where you stole the gems from-- they’ll expell you and try to kill you for stealing from them. Go to Aid-Ruhn to have it done. It’s really expensive when you have the Grand Soul Gems, so choose wisely which weapon you’ll enchant.

–Powerful swords. After you’ve got your combat ratings up to, say, forty or so, you can start going to the Daedric shrines all over Morrowind. There are Golden saints there, and Dremora Lords, both of whom usually have kick-ass weapons that are yours after you kill them. Save before every battle, because if you don’t like the weapon they had, you can reload, and they’ll usually have a different one. (Saints usually have glass weapons, Dremora usually have ebony.) Soon, you’ll have more awesome weapons than you know what to do with. (You can summon a Dremora when you’re inside the shrine by stealing something off of the altar.)

More on theft (you can see how I played the game!):

– Sometimes, you’ll have to buy weapons from The Creeper to give him enough money to buy the stuff you just brought in. (He has five thousand, but many swords cost a lot more than that.) Buy back enough stuff to cover the cost of what you want to sell him, then hit the black button and “wait” twenty-four hours. Then start selling back the stuff you bought. You may have to do a couple of days worth, depending on what you had to buy.

–If you don’t want to sell the stuff right away, you can just drop it on the floor of the room he’s in-- none of the other NPCs will bother it.

–If you’ve been caught stealing, recall back to the Creeper, and drop all of your stuff on the floor before you go outside, that way it’s not seized when the cops catch you.

–If you enchant a sword, suddenly it’s not stolen merchandise any more. Likely, you’ll get extras of all your equipment, but you can use the low-level Soul Gems to enchant armor or other items you don’t want to lose if you get arrested for some reason. (Hey, accidents happen. I’ve stolen by accident when I was wanting to talk to an NPC but clicked on a surrounding item.)

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.

Morrowind is great. There are probably only two downsides to it, occassionally the frame rate slows down (I don’t really care about that kind of thing as long as it is playable), and, if you are used to games where your path is kind of laid out for you, i.e., where you get guided in the right direction, you may find Morrowind overwhelming at first. They just put you in the world with some basic instructions to go see someone, after that it is up to you.

I particularly like the way you can just be a trader and travel the world collecting things or making potions to sell. If you have the right skills you can always make some money.

Oh, some parts of Morrowind scared the crap out of me.

Yeah, I remember when I first started playing and went to Moravyn Manor in Aid-Ruhn. I could hear the monsters growling in the basement, but thought I could take them. It was as dark as the inside of a cow (and I had no torches,) and all of a sudden, I was attacked by this hideous zombie creature. I actually screamed.

Obliovion is worse for that-- the music is simply intense. Think “horror movie” suspense music when you’re in a dangerous place. My heart pounds, and once my torch went out, suddenly plunging me into total darkness. Yeah, I screamed again.

All this talk of the Creeper, and nobody’s mentioned the talking mudcrab merchant? He works much the same way, except he’s got twice as much money to spend … the downside is, he’s not terribly obvious. (He lives on a little island in the south - just south of some dwarvish ruin or other - and he looks like, well, a mudcrab. Try talking to mudcrabs in that area before you kill them … )

One I forgot to mention, but great for Starwars buffs of all ages is the Lego starwars adventure game. It really is great even if you are a grown up, and has a neat two player option.
Does anyone know what the next offering from the Knights of the Old Republic / Jade Empire team will be?