Alright. So I borrowed Kingdoms of Amalur: Recjoning off a guy at work the other day. Started playing it on Sunday and have so far clocked up over 16hrs of gameplay on it. And I've barely touched the actual main story missions. I'm mainly doing side quests, and have now started doing faction missions. It's fair to say, I am very much loving it.
This is a bit weird for me, as for years I was always very much anti RPG games. It goes back to trying some Final Fantasy game on the PS One. It just wasn't for me. I didn't get the whole turn based thing. That coupled with bizarre characters and an impenetrable story lines meant that it just wasn't for me. The game that changed it all was Dragon Age: Origin. A friend of mine had it and was raving about it to me for months. I kept my view that all RPG's were crap and that he was talking out of his arse. Eventually I gave in and borrowed it. Turns out it was ME that was talking out of my arse. But how? Why? Had I been wrong about RPG's all this time? No. I've now established that it's JRPG's that are rubbish, not RPG's :lol While I still hold my (possibly misguided) belief that all Japanese RPG's are bobbins, I've found that many western ones are...what the kids are calling "Shit Hot".
Dragon Age will probably go down as my favourite game of this generation. I was free to act how I wanted. Kill who I wanted. Make every immoral choice I ever wanted, and not be penalised for it. In the early stages I convinced a moter to kill her child. All kinds of amazing choices came my way. And generally I took the option labelled "Dick Move". Another joyous standout was letting a village of short people be taken off for slave trading, in exchange for a tiny piece of evidence I needed. Such fun!
I never played Dragon Age 2. I didn't like the demo. It put me off greatly. When the reviews for the game started coming in, I knew I had made the right decision. But now I needed another RPG to sink my teeth into.
Last summer I gave Divinity 2 a go. It was decent, but truthfully it just wasn't as much fun as Dragon Age.
In the winter, the big one dropped. Skyrim was here. I hadn't played any other Elder Scrolls games, so had high hopes for this. And bloody hell, was I disappointed. What a steaming pile of cack. Quite how anyone enjoyed that game is beyond me. I like open world games, but I also like open world games that have something to do in them. Again, it lacked the character interaction of Dragon Age. But everything about it just bored me. The aimless wandering, the villagers who would never forgive or forget just because you tried to kill their children a couple of times (the kids no sold my sword swings worse than John Cena!). I genuinely found nothing to do in the game. No, this was not the game for me.
So 2012 came along and after the last burn, I was hesitant with Amalur. Rather than run out any buy it on release, I waited. And waited. And then forgot all about it (SSX and Fifa Street distracted me - which does lead me to think that maybe I do have attention span issues). It was only, in fact, the current hype buzz about The Witcher 2 and Risen 2 that made me remember Amalur. Those three games this year means it looks like being a pretty awesome year.
So what RPG's do y'all go in for? If any? Does anyone like/get JRPG's? I appreciate someone must as they still sell, but looking at some emo haired girly boy swing a sword twice the size of their body doesn't make sense to my brain.
Come, share your love for the playing of roles. What other games has my short dalliance with the genre left me missing?
Alright. So I borrowed Kingdoms of Amalur: Recjoning off a guy at work the other day. Started playing it on Sunday and have so far clocked up over 16hrs of gameplay on it. And I've barely touched the actual main story missions. I'm mainly doing side quests, and have now started doing faction missions. It's fair to say, I am very much loving it.
This is a bit weird for me, as for years I was always very much anti RPG games. It goes back to trying some Final Fantasy game on the PS One. It just wasn't for me. I didn't get the whole turn based thing. That coupled with bizarre characters and an impenetrable story lines meant that it just wasn't for me. The game that changed it all was Dragon Age: Origin. A friend of mine had it and was raving about it to me for months. I kept my view that all RPG's were crap and that he was talking out of his arse. Eventually I gave in and borrowed it. Turns out it was ME that was talking out of my arse. But how? Why? Had I been wrong about RPG's all this time? No. I've now established that it's JRPG's that are rubbish, not RPG's :lol While I still hold my (possibly misguided) belief that all Japanese RPG's are bobbins, I've found that many western ones are...what the kids are calling "Shit Hot".
Dragon Age will probably go down as my favourite game of this generation. I was free to act how I wanted. Kill who I wanted. Make every immoral choice I ever wanted, and not be penalised for it. In the early stages I convinced a moter to kill her child. All kinds of amazing choices came my way. And generally I took the option labelled "Dick Move". Another joyous standout was letting a village of short people be taken off for slave trading, in exchange for a tiny piece of evidence I needed. Such fun!
I never played Dragon Age 2. I didn't like the demo. It put me off greatly. When the reviews for the game started coming in, I knew I had made the right decision. But now I needed another RPG to sink my teeth into.
Last summer I gave Divinity 2 a go. It was decent, but truthfully it just wasn't as much fun as Dragon Age.
In the winter, the big one dropped. Skyrim was here. I hadn't played any other Elder Scrolls games, so had high hopes for this. And bloody hell, was I disappointed. What a steaming pile of cack. Quite how anyone enjoyed that game is beyond me. I like open world games, but I also like open world games that have something to do in them. Again, it lacked the character interaction of Dragon Age. But everything about it just bored me. The aimless wandering, the villagers who would never forgive or forget just because you tried to kill their children a couple of times (the kids no sold my sword swings worse than John Cena!). I genuinely found nothing to do in the game. No, this was not the game for me.
So 2012 came along and after the last burn, I was hesitant with Amalur. Rather than run out any buy it on release, I waited. And waited. And then forgot all about it (SSX and Fifa Street distracted me - which does lead me to think that maybe I do have attention span issues). It was only, in fact, the current hype buzz about The Witcher 2 and Risen 2 that made me remember Amalur. Those three games this year means it looks like being a pretty awesome year.
So what RPG's do y'all go in for? If any? Does anyone like/get JRPG's? I appreciate someone must as they still sell, but looking at some emo haired girly boy swing a sword twice the size of their body doesn't make sense to my brain.
Come, share your love for the playing of roles. What other games has my short dalliance with the genre left me missing?