Because those "fancy-schmancy" games push quality forward (well, usually)!
Maybe you don't see a difference between Doom 2 and Battlefield 1942. If that's the case, then you're probably one of the many people who's afraid to try new games out who's missing out on a shitload of fun. >_
Doom III, cause id software never fails to make the best FPS games.
Half-Life 2, even though I hate Valve for continuously bullshitting their fans.
Unreal Tournament 2004, because I like first-person-shooter games with lots of interesting extra stuff, such as vehicles and mission objectives.
Worlds of WarCraft, because I like MMORPGs when I have lots of spare time and Blizzard is the only company I know who seems to be able to make fun RPG systems.
Gran Turismo 4 'cause it'll be the best racing simulation.
Battlefield Vietnam because I'm a fan of BF1942.
I'm sure there will be tons of other great games in the year 2004, but either I can't remember themn off the top of my head, or I haven't heard about 'em yet.:P
If you both like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, you might want to check out the free multiplayer game, Enemy Territory ( http://www.splashdamage.com/download.php?op=viewdo wnload&cid=7 ). It's based on RtCW.
You might also want to try out Call of Duty - also a WWII FPS game. It's the best multiplayer FPS game available, in my opinion.
Battlefield 1942's (*yawn*... yeah, another WWII game - interesting how many WWII games there are, huh?) great too. You get to drive around in tanks, jeeps etc, and you even get to fly figher planes and bombers!
Unfortunately I don't really know many girls who are into computer games, so I don't really know what sort of games they'd like. I think MMORPGs have quite a high percentage of female audienc, but I'm not sure if you two are up for wasting a lot of time on a game. But if you both like RtCW, you should like the games I mentioned above.
In the last 6 years or so (I only got the Internet about 3 years ago, btw), I didn't buy any music. Not a single penny! (And that would have been the same even if I wouldn't have had the Internet to download music).
I'm the kind of dude who listens to music but who doesn't love music enough to spend his money on it. So regardless of the fact that I can get a lot of music for free, I just don't spend money on music. Another reason, I guess, why I don't spend money on music is because it's hard for me to buy the stuff I like. Mainstream music shops don't sell my type of music.
But there have been a few exceptions in the last two months. I found some really cool psy/goatrance tunes on Usenet which I liked so much that I bought some CDs (4 in total) via a online shop! Without the freedom of the Internet, I would have never discovered this type of music, and I wouldn't have spend any money on it.
Spongebob, read lafiel's comment about poaring a bucket of water on a golem, freezing him up and letting him loose in town.
In a real RPG where humans are sitting around a table, p'n'p rules are good. I only played D&D once or twice, but I'm sure it's fun if you get into it, because you can do whatever you want in those games.
Why can't you do whatever you want in a computer game? Because giving the player the ability to do whatever they want would take infinitly long to program!
I fully agree that games shouldn't be too focused. What I ment in my original post is that a RPG system should be focused, not the actual game. I also agree that DII is way too hack'n'slash, and that it isn't really open at all, which is why I don't really like the game. But the actual RPG system in the game is good though, imho.
GTA3 is cool, but it's still "focused". You basically do missions, hijack cars, drive around a 3D world, buy guns and kill people. It's more than you do in DII (and, in fact, a lot of other computer games out there, so I'm not complaining by any means), sure, but it's still pretty damn limited. Computer games will stay that way for quite a while, if not forever, because (as I already said) implementing features into a computer game takes time, and one cannot work on a computer game forever.
Well, DII might not tell you absolutely everything, but spells/skills are definitely far more documented/easy to understand than in D&D.
As for everyone playing classes in the same way - well, I'm not a DII expert, but I do think that there are a few different specialisations each class can go for and be effective at it. Maybe this isn't as developed as in Dark Age of Camelot (some classes have up to 3 totally different specialisation paths they can choose) or in Star Wars Galaxies (where you basically choose your own skills), but still, it's available to an extent.
I think Blizzard have learned a lot about RPG systems, and I'm pretty confident that World of WarCraft will have the best RPG system ever seen in a computer game.
I really dislike video games which are based on pen and paper rules, such as D&D. D&D is good as a pen and paper game, but it sucks in computer games. It's too slow, overly complicated (complexity is good, but complication isn't), and just too old.
Most p'n'p rules are way too unfocused. They give you tons of useless spells which you don't need, skills which you probably will never use, and they provide you with lots of absolutely insignificant statistics. This doesn't really matter in real role playing games, because humans can use their imaginations to put all those things to use, but video games are more limited, so they need focus.
What makes a good RPG system in my opinion? *Simple*, but *significant* statistics and *clearly* defined classes (if applicable), skills and spells which are *all* useful and *fun* to use.
To be honest, I don't know many games which achieve this. I can only think of Diablo II (which is only half-way there - some stats/skills in DII are still a little useless [although the upcoming patch will probably improve on this]) and WarCraft III (that's right... I think this game whichh is mainly a RTS game, has the best RPG system). In WarCraft III, all the stats (armour strength/type, hit/manapoints, strength, agility, intelligence, damage (bonus) etc.) are significant and simple to understand. Same with the special skills/spells. There are few, but they all rock - they are useful and unique, they are fun and they look cool! Unlike many p'n'p games, the stats/skills/spells are clearly defined. The developers of this don't try to hide any facts and want the players to find out what everything does and how it works. All the player needs to learn is when to use the skills/spells - when they are most effective. I think the MMORPG EverQuest also has a decent RPG system, although definitely not perfect.
The Baldur's Gate games and Neverwinter Nights (recent games I've played based on p'n'p rules) could have been a lot better if the developers would have created their own RPG systems, imho. Even very heavy modifications to the p'n'p rules which a game is based on is OK, I think, but very strict conversions of p'n'p rules into computer games result in failure
I think the typical, pure adventure game genre died out because pure adventure games were boring.
All you did in them was read text, click some action icons and click on objects/characters on the screen to interact with them.
The actual "game" part of adventure games was usually pish.
What was good about adventure games then? The story (and all the elements of it, such as the characters)!
Can only pure adventure games have that? Well, apparently years ago most game developers though so, but of course that's not true. Any type of game, be it an RTS, a FPS or whatever, can, and should have, a great story!
I'd quite like to see some new, innovative adventure-focused games, though. The game "Blade Runner" was quite cool, imho. It was similar to typical adventure games, but it was non linear, there was a bit if action (you had your little blaster which you could use), it has a awesome atmosphere (thanks to good graphics/sounds).
Anyway... to conclude, imho pure adventure games suck and are boring, but the actual adventure element is important and should be a part of any good computer game.
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Because those "fancy-schmancy" games push quality forward (well, usually)!
Maybe you don't see a difference between Doom 2 and Battlefield 1942. If that's the case, then you're probably one of the many people who's afraid to try new games out who's missing out on a shitload of fun. >_
Doom III, cause id software never fails to make the best FPS games.
:P
Half-Life 2, even though I hate Valve for continuously bullshitting their fans.
Unreal Tournament 2004, because I like first-person-shooter games with lots of interesting extra stuff, such as vehicles and mission objectives.
Worlds of WarCraft, because I like MMORPGs when I have lots of spare time and Blizzard is the only company I know who seems to be able to make fun RPG systems.
Gran Turismo 4 'cause it'll be the best racing simulation.
Battlefield Vietnam because I'm a fan of BF1942.
I'm sure there will be tons of other great games in the year 2004, but either I can't remember themn off the top of my head, or I haven't heard about 'em yet.
If you both like Return to Castle Wolfenstein, you might want to check out the free multiplayer game, Enemy Territory ( http://www.splashdamage.com/download.php?op=viewdo wnload&cid=7 ). It's based on RtCW.
You might also want to try out Call of Duty - also a WWII FPS game. It's the best multiplayer FPS game available, in my opinion.
Battlefield 1942's (*yawn*... yeah, another WWII game - interesting how many WWII games there are, huh?) great too. You get to drive around in tanks, jeeps etc, and you even get to fly figher planes and bombers!
Unfortunately I don't really know many girls who are into computer games, so I don't really know what sort of games they'd like. I think MMORPGs have quite a high percentage of female audienc, but I'm not sure if you two are up for wasting a lot of time on a game. But if you both like RtCW, you should like the games I mentioned above.
File-sharing made me spend more money on music.
In the last 6 years or so (I only got the Internet about 3 years ago, btw), I didn't buy any music. Not a single penny! (And that would have been the same even if I wouldn't have had the Internet to download music).
I'm the kind of dude who listens to music but who doesn't love music enough to spend his money on it. So regardless of the fact that I can get a lot of music for free, I just don't spend money on music. Another reason, I guess, why I don't spend money on music is because it's hard for me to buy the stuff I like. Mainstream music shops don't sell my type of music.
But there have been a few exceptions in the last two months. I found some really cool psy/goatrance tunes on Usenet which I liked so much that I bought some CDs (4 in total) via a online shop! Without the freedom of the Internet, I would have never discovered this type of music, and I wouldn't have spend any money on it.
Spongebob, read lafiel's comment about poaring a bucket of water on a golem, freezing him up and letting him loose in town.
In a real RPG where humans are sitting around a table, p'n'p rules are good. I only played D&D once or twice, but I'm sure it's fun if you get into it, because you can do whatever you want in those games.
Why can't you do whatever you want in a computer game? Because giving the player the ability to do whatever they want would take infinitly long to program!
I fully agree that games shouldn't be too focused. What I ment in my original post is that a RPG system should be focused, not the actual game. I also agree that DII is way too hack'n'slash, and that it isn't really open at all, which is why I don't really like the game. But the actual RPG system in the game is good though, imho.
GTA3 is cool, but it's still "focused". You basically do missions, hijack cars, drive around a 3D world, buy guns and kill people. It's more than you do in DII (and, in fact, a lot of other computer games out there, so I'm not complaining by any means), sure, but it's still pretty damn limited. Computer games will stay that way for quite a while, if not forever, because (as I already said) implementing features into a computer game takes time, and one cannot work on a computer game forever.
Well, DII might not tell you absolutely everything, but spells/skills are definitely far more documented/easy to understand than in D&D.
As for everyone playing classes in the same way - well, I'm not a DII expert, but I do think that there are a few different specialisations each class can go for and be effective at it. Maybe this isn't as developed as in Dark Age of Camelot (some classes have up to 3 totally different specialisation paths they can choose) or in Star Wars Galaxies (where you basically choose your own skills), but still, it's available to an extent.
I think Blizzard have learned a lot about RPG systems, and I'm pretty confident that World of WarCraft will have the best RPG system ever seen in a computer game.
I really dislike video games which are based on pen and paper rules, such as D&D. D&D is good as a pen and paper game, but it sucks in computer games. It's too slow, overly complicated (complexity is good, but complication isn't), and just too old.
Most p'n'p rules are way too unfocused. They give you tons of useless spells which you don't need, skills which you probably will never use, and they provide you with lots of absolutely insignificant statistics. This doesn't really matter in real role playing games, because humans can use their imaginations to put all those things to use, but video games are more limited, so they need focus.
What makes a good RPG system in my opinion? *Simple*, but *significant* statistics and *clearly* defined classes (if applicable), skills and spells which are *all* useful and *fun* to use.
To be honest, I don't know many games which achieve this. I can only think of Diablo II (which is only half-way there - some stats/skills in DII are still a little useless [although the upcoming patch will probably improve on this]) and WarCraft III (that's right... I think this game whichh is mainly a RTS game, has the best RPG system). In WarCraft III, all the stats (armour strength/type, hit/manapoints, strength, agility, intelligence, damage (bonus) etc.) are significant and simple to understand. Same with the special skills/spells. There are few, but they all rock - they are useful and unique, they are fun and they look cool! Unlike many p'n'p games, the stats/skills/spells are clearly defined. The developers of this don't try to hide any facts and want the players to find out what everything does and how it works. All the player needs to learn is when to use the skills/spells - when they are most effective. I think the MMORPG EverQuest also has a decent RPG system, although definitely not perfect.
The Baldur's Gate games and Neverwinter Nights (recent games I've played based on p'n'p rules) could have been a lot better if the developers would have created their own RPG systems, imho. Even very heavy modifications to the p'n'p rules which a game is based on is OK, I think, but very strict conversions of p'n'p rules into computer games result in failure
True. Just because there aren't any pure adventure games with flashy graphic engines doesn't mean it's not feasible.
Look at Grim Fandango - good (for its time) 3d engine!
---Seriously, go buy Thief 2, System Shock 2, or Deus Ex. Yes, they are a First Person perspective, but they are very much an adventure genre.
---
Yup! I just played Deus Ex a few months ago, and the adventure (and RPG) elements of it really r0x0r! I can't wait for for Deus Ex 2!
I think the typical, pure adventure game genre died out because pure adventure games were boring.
All you did in them was read text, click some action icons and click on objects/characters on the screen to interact with them.
The actual "game" part of adventure games was usually pish.
What was good about adventure games then? The story (and all the elements of it, such as the characters)!
Can only pure adventure games have that? Well, apparently years ago most game developers though so, but of course that's not true. Any type of game, be it an RTS, a FPS or whatever, can, and should have, a great story!
I'd quite like to see some new, innovative adventure-focused games, though. The game "Blade Runner" was quite cool, imho. It was similar to typical adventure games, but it was non linear, there was a bit if action (you had your little blaster which you could use), it has a awesome atmosphere (thanks to good graphics/sounds).
Anyway... to conclude, imho pure adventure games suck and are boring, but the actual adventure element is important and should be a part of any good computer game.