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Alpha Protocol is the new Deus Ex
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Alpha Protocol is the new Deus Ex. This may seem like a strong statement, given the original Deus Ex's regard as an all-time great, but that wasn't always the case. Time has been very kind to it, and Alpha Protocol seems perfectly positioned to undergo a similar process. Both games' weaknesses are transparent, and both games' strengths point toward the future of video games. When Deus Ex was released a little over a decade ago, I remember reading a review in Computer Gaming World, which gave it 3.5 stars out of 5. CGW justified that score by pointing out glaring flaws with Deus Ex, primarily its ugly graphics and pathetic artificial intelligence. I remember that review specifically because, a month or two later, they printed a letter to the editor that said roughly "I was going to get angry because I obsessed about the game for two weeks, but as I started writing I realized your criticisms were entirely valid." This, to me, strikes at the very core of what makes a cult classic: a general, all-encompassing analysis may find obvious flaws that prevent full-throated praise, but for those who can forgive those flaws, the strengths aren't done better anywhere else.%Gallery-19776%
2012: the year in RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. What a fun, odd year it's been for role-playing games. The genre in theory is looking as good as it has for over a decade. In practice? The year was light on pure RPGs, even as aspects of role-playing spread to many of the year's best. Still, (almost) every month saw something interesting happen in the world of western RPGs, so let's look back, shall we?
How Morrowind and KOTOR defined modern RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. In the early 2000s, two Western role-playing games grabbed the genre and shoved it into new and surprisingly popular directions. Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002) and BioWare's Knights Of The Old Republic (2003) modernized RPGs' technology, expanded the audience, and created the two most popular models for the genre moving forward.Before these two games were released, the term Computer Role-Playing Game (CRPG) was commonly used to describe the games in this column. Ultima, Wizardry, Fallout, Baldur's Gate, these all came out on computers (at least initially), with DOS/Windows becoming the computer platform of choice as the decade progressed. But Morrowind and KOTOR were designed and released for the Xbox – and they succeeded there. The realm of console RPGs was opened to very different styles of game from the Final Fantasies which had dominated. This successful move opened entirely new modes of money-making, allowing BioWare and Bethesda to become some of the biggest developers in gaming overall.
Kickstarting (and not Greenlighting) traditional RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The rise of indie gaming has been fantastic for platformers, good for adventures and strategy games, great for puzzlers, but not exactly a windfall for role-playing games. There are certainly some out there, but RPGs don't have the level of variety that the genres I listed above do.We can see how this manifests thanks to the rise of crowdsourced, publicized successes and failures. Two of these have garnered a great deal of attention so far this year: Kickstarter (and other similar ventures, like Indiegogo) and Steam's Greenlight. The former has had plenty of press, and this writer is certainly excited to see the end results of Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity, as well as Shaker (when it comes back) and the currently-campaigning pseudo-sequel to the Quest For Glory games, Hero U: Rogue To Redemption. But these high-profile funding campaigns are notable because of their profile – they're RPGs made by people with expertise and previous success in the genre. It's rare (but certainly not unheard of) to see this kind of single-player, epic, story-driven quest outside of blockbuster games.
The controversial, unbalanced narrative of Dragon Age 2
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Dragon Age 2 is one of the most controversial role-playing games of recent years. Highly anticipated after the successes of BioWare's previous two games, Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, it was released to strong sales and initially positive reviews. Yet it didn't take long before there was both fan and critical backlash to the game. What seemed like an unambiguously promising release turned into a lightning rod, and Dragon Age 2 went missing from many Game Of The Year lists. On the other hand, I noticed a small but extremely devoted cadre of fans, including some people who loved it so much that they immediately replayed it, four or five times, touching no other games for months.So it was with both trepidation and excitement that I finally approached Dragon Age 2, as I missed it on initial release and then was warned off of it afterward. Having finally played it, I can see what the fuss was about, both good and bad. Dragon Age 2 almost demanded to be controversial thanks to its structure. In a genre filled with narratively complete, balanced games, DA2 ambitions push it in less balanced and incomplete directions. That's risky.%Gallery-115856%
Diablo 3's long-term planning failures
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The more I read about, think about, and play Diablo 3 at high levels, the more baffled I am by some of developer Blizzard Entertainment's decisions. An examination of the design of Diablo 3, when combined with the company's public statements on the project, indicate confusion over the goals of Diablo 3, as if there was no conceptual development of Diablo 3 as an overall experience.Not having been present when decisions were made, I can't speak to the reasons behind Blizzard's choices. But however they were made, those choices have manifested in distinct, negative ways – which should have been easily predicted, yet oddly weren't.%Gallery-137262%
An RPG fan's guide to the Steam Sale
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. It's the most wonderful time of the year to be a PC gamer: the Steam Summer Sale! For those of us who are fans of Western/PC RPGs, this is a chance to get some of the best games available for prices that ought to make console fans jealous.This column is going up toward the end of the sale, so some of the best prices for some may have come and gone, but between the voting, the flash sales, and the fact that Steam usually uses the last day or so to repeat some of the biggest sales, it's possible to get the best prices again even if you missed the first round.
Can Ultima Forever be a worthy entry in the legendary series?
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. If there's any video game on the planet that demands a remake, it's Ultima IV: Quest Of The Avatar. As arguably the most important title in what I still believe is certainly the most historically important series in video game history, it's something that deserves to be played by as many people as possible. Yet the years have not been kind to Ultima IV. Unlike certain other games commonly cited as "needing" remakes, Ultima IV comes from an era before in-game tutorials and before the mouse had achieved market saturation. It is, unfortunately, just out of the range of accessible for many, regardless of its reputation. So when I first heard about Ultima Forever, I was cautiously optimistic. Perhaps a respectful remake could maintain the core of the story while appealing to a much wider audience. Of course what that "core" is may be different things to different people. For me, the core of Ultima IV is the combination of open-world mechanics, conversational freedom, and its rigid morality system. These aspects of the game work together to make Ultima IV an exploration of the world, its inhabitants, and one's self – which, at the time, also meant an examination of the player's relationship with computer games as a whole. Yes, it really was that special.
Voice acting in RPGs may be more trouble than it's worth
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Jennifer Hale, Nolan North and Troy Baker, among others, have become video game celebrities for their voice acting – deservedly so, given how entertaining they can be as characters like Commander Shepard or Nathan Drake. Recorded speech has become a significant component of most all games, notably RPGs, having grown steadily since the shift to CD-ROM games in the mid-1990s. Yet their importance isn't always apparent.I, for one, didn't realize their impact on games until just a year or two ago, when I commented on game designer Brenda Brathwaite's blog about how an RPG could be done cheaper and faster without many modern components, which included recorded speech. Brathwaite responded specifically to the voice acting component, saying that once her company started making RPGs with voice acting, they discovered that their writing and editing process had to be completed well in advance of what they were used to, with the actor's recording of his or her lines "baking" the narrative section in place much earlier than normal."Great ideas were left sitting on the bench because the time to record them (or render graphics) wasn't available," she said in her reply.
It's all too much: Why Mass Effect 3's Extended Cut ending can't possibly fix everything
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. BioWare's free response to the Mass Effect 3 ending hoopla, the "Extended Cut" add-on, was released this week. In many ways, it acts as a direct response to the most common criticisms of the ending. If your primary problems were that the ending choices weren't properly explained beforehand, or that it was unclear what happened to the universe and the specific characters after the climax, the "Extended Cut" will be a notable improvement. But it doesn't actually change the quality of the ending, it just adds more content.(Obviously, spoilers for the Mass Effect series follow.)
How Mass Effect 3's roleplaying roots empower the multiplayer
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. "I just want to see how this integrates with the single-player campaign," I thought, clicking on the multiplayer option in Mass Effect 3's main menu. I had no expectations of making it a habit. Like many people, when the multiplayer component was announced, I thought it sounded completely extraneous. Once I started playing, though, I fell for it, and have been putting more time into the multiplayer than the campaign.Arguments about whether Mass Effect 3 is a role-playing game or not have existed since the first game's release. Regardless of which side you take in those, Mass Effect does include many components of role-playing games, two of which are essential to the multiplayer's success: world-building and character development mechanics. Of course, there are simple gameplay reasons to enjoy the co-operative gameplay of Mass Effect 3 online. The levels are well designed for dynamic changes within matches, and waves of enemies seem ideal for both difficulty and time. But those things aren't what make it special.
The surprising accessibility of older RPGs
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. One major problem with loving role-playing games is that old titles can be hard to accept due to difficulty. RPGs are particularly vulnerable to this because their focus on plot and core mechanics over technology mean that they age well. Fans and critics view games in the genre over a historical continuum of relative equality, instead of simply making the assumption that better technology makes for better games.While mechanics and storylines may be roughly comparable, interfaces have definitely improved, and this is the problem. It's one thing to say that Wizardry VI has the best and most complex class system in gaming, but quite another to try to play it without knowing that you need to draw or find maps of its dungeon. Alternately, I can't count the number of people who I convince to try the original Fallout, only to see them getting frustrated at its difficulty spikes, lack of effective auto-save, and occasionally obtuse item manipulations. It happens to me to sometimes, especially with games that I didn't play when I was younger, which is why I was surprised recently to fall in love with Might & Magic III: Isles Of Terra.
The delightful smoothness of classic Japanese role-playing games
This week, Rowan Kaiser and Kat Bailey have switched roles -- with Rowan taking lead in this week's column focusing on the wonderful world of Japanese role-playing games. I was only defeated once in Suikoden. Even that was an accident – I thought it was a fight I was supposed to lose. Calling the game "easy" is something of an understatement. With a little bit of planning, you can win virtually every fight in the game, including the final boss battle on auto-pilot using the "Free Will" option in the combat menu. Yet, despite this easiness, Suikoden is one of my favorite Japanese role-playing games. "Easy" isn't the right term for it exactly. Instead, Suikoden is smooth."Smoothness" isn't a common criteria used to judge games. If anything, it's the opposite. Getting the difficulty level just right, so that the game seems like a challenge but is completable with practice, seems like it's an ideal. Or, you can use Sid Meier's model of games as "interesting choices" – but if the game isn't challenging, those choices don't seem to matter, right? I think acceptance theories like those are part of the reason that Japanese role-playing games are considered less important than they used to be.
What makes role-playing game combat good?
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Last week's column on changes in role-playing combat systems through history ruffled a few feathers, so I thought it would be a good idea to discuss what, in my opinion, makes for good RPG combat systems. I had no intention of sounding like I hated turn-based combat (since my two favorite RPGs use it!), or that every new game was better than old. Responsiveness may be the single most important component of a good combat system. I mean "responsive" in a broad fashion, specifically encompassing four different forms of responsiveness that can all work together: pace, information, animation, and sound. Responsive pace means that when you press the button to have something happen, that thing happens quickly. In Jagged Alliance 2, one of the greatest tactical RPGs of all time, you click your mouse and you immediately see what happens. Your choices register instantly. Or, in games like The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Daggerfall, your sword follows your mouse when you hold the attack button, and you see the effect instantly. On the other hand, there are games like Anachronox, a fascinating Ion Storm homage to Japanese classic Chrono Trigger. Anachronox does extremely well at setting a tone for the game with interesting characters and narrative, but its sluggish combat is a major drawback and renders the game extremely frustrating in battle-heavy areas.
(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The Kickstarter success of Wasteland 2 may be one of the most important developments in Western role-playing games in years. It could re-open the doors to bringing back party-based, less cinematic role-playing games of the sort that have been largely gone since the mid-1990s. The trick, however, will be in using a style of combat that assures both quality and popularity for Wasteland 2. Because if it simply follows in the footsteps of the original Wasteland, it may have problems on both of those fronts.The original Wasteland was released in 1988, towards the start of a transitional era for role-playing games, both technologically and creatively. The core mechanic of role-playing games of the era -- combat -- started to shift, and lose some of its importance.
Diablo's Descendants
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. With Diablo 3's release date set, I decided to take a look back as the series' legacy --and play some of the better Western-style action/role-playing games around. Last week I talked about how Fallout, not Diablo, became the model for a generation of blockbuster role-playing games.But Diablo did wield some influence. The first initial wave of clones didn't make much of a splash, but around the time Diablo II came out in 2000, the action/RPG style began to grab more attention. In 2002, Dungeon Siege and Divine Divinity were both released to some acclaim, but they never really fit the model of a Diablo clone. Dungeon Siege was as much Ultima VII and Baldur's Gate as it was Diablo, while Divine Divinity merged many concepts from Fallout and similar games with a real-time core. Missing from both? The constant clicking that, to me, defined Diablo.
The year role-playing games broke
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The most important year in western role-playing history was also its worst. The late 1980s and early 1990s were an obvious Golden Age, as RPGs were the drivers of innovations in graphics, interface, complexity, and narrative in Wizardry, Ultima, and the Gold Box series. That came to a screeching halt in 1995, when the once wildly popular genre suddenly became devoid of games.The genre was rebuilt after 1995, but it looked very different. The companies and franchises which had dominated withered away, replaced by the ones we know now: Fallout, BioWare, and Blizzard. All these started shortly after 1995, and the only residual series from before, The Elder Scrolls, squeaks in with its first installment in 1994. So what changed, and why did it change?The chief contributing factor was the rise of the compact disc for storage. Games comprised of a dozen ungainly 1.5 megabyte floppies were growing more and more common, so the CD, with 500 megabytes, was a godsend (or so it seemed). All the other technological advances: better sound and music, voice-over, 3-D polygonal graphics, full-motion video, etc, could be used with CDs. This made games bigger -- but it also made budgets bigger, teams bigger, and development times much longer. Role-playing games and their developers struggled to adapt.
Lighten up!: On thematic consistency in role-playing games
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. One of my all-time favorite role-playing games features a militaristic, near-fascist race of rhinoceroses who walk on two legs and wear uniforms. When you encounter them, they slide across the game screen, waving their muskets and cutlasses. They also fly spaceships around the galaxy, and are considered one of the most powerful empires in space, along with their spider-like rivals. It's a fantasy world.The game is Wizardry VII: Crusaders Of The Dark Savant, released in 1992. The setting and story aren't what make the game great (see: the mechanics of the class system) but they are part of the whole, pleasant experience of the game. Yes, the setting is utterly ridiculous, but that's not a point against the game. If anything, it's a benefit. It's not serious, and it knows it's not serious, so why not just do fun weird stuff, like take on an army of blue-skinned theocrats aligned with an empire of spiders?
East Is West: How Two Classic RPGs Prove the Stereotypes False
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. "Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," - Rudyard KiplingConventional wisdom holds that role-playing games are easily divided into two categories: Japanese and Western, or, before the technical lines got blurred a decade ago, console and computer games. We can name the stereotypes easily. JRPGs are story-based, WRPGs are system-based. JRPGs are action-based, fast, and simple, whereas WRPGs are strategic, slow, and complex. JRPGs have bright, cartoonish graphics and catchy music, WRPGs have realistic graphics and darker music. JRPGs linear, WRPGs open. In JRPGs, your characters are given to you, in WRPGS you create your characters. And so on.It's not true, though. What's more, it never was.
The Rhythm Of The Quest in Fallout 3 and New Vegas
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Have you ever been horribly frustrated by one part of a game, only to think of it as the best and most memorable section of that game in retrospect? It's the ruins of D.C. for me. I played Fallout 3 on the PC a year or so after release, so the first thing I did was load up on mods, introducing different play balance, graphics, more weapons, and most motivating of all, more music for Galaxy News Radio. But at the start of the game, GNR is in trouble and the station's signal is weak. So I went to fix it as soon as I could. When I went into the ruins of D.C., I wasn't ready. By heading in that direction almost immediately, I skipped doing smaller-scale quests, which would have provided more experience and better equipment. D.C. was a slog. I scrambled for ammo, for health. I explored nooks and crannies that I didn't need to, because I hadn't even really figured out the game's compass yet. It was nail-bitingly tense, it was fresh, it was new, it took me hours. It was a pain, too. I died multiple times, but oh was it magnificent.
