Talking to my brother the other day, I realized I hadn’t used my Wii in about 2 years, my 360 in well over a year and sparsely use my PS3.  Even my PC games are limited (though I play them more for the mobility).

Here’s a list of the PS3 games I’ve played in the last 12 months.

• Uncharted 3
• Batman: Arkham City
• Infamous 2
• Deus Ex

The kicker is that they all came out within 30 days of each other.  I did get Skyrim on my PC (the bugs on consoles and lack of mods is annoying) but other than that, I can’t think of another PS3 game I would want.  I dislike FPS games and CoD is one of the worst offenders.  I won’t by any more EA games, so Mass Effect is off the table.  Kingdoms of Amalur is an EA game too and sounds pretty good but it’s cut.

I’m left with indy games and MMOs.  SWTOR was a breath of fresh air while leveling and then tried to compete in a saturated market at max level.  Rift is solid.  WoW has some crack thing going for it, where everything just works.  Grimrock is crazy solid fun.  Remanum has a nice market game (and I love numbers).  There just seems to be less to look forward to, though perhaps it’s just nostalgia.

Good Old Games has made a lot of money off me, simply because the games there are almost all AAA quality, take hours to complete and really contrast the crap that we have to wade through these days.  Odd that I look forward to the past.

I’ve been reading quite a lot about nostalgia in regards to older RPG games.  The thing about nostalgia is that it’s quite often seen with rose colored glasses.  See any recent MMO launch being compared to WoW at launch for a great example.

Still, there is something to be said about older games.  XCOM is still one of the best games (if not the best) I have ever played and I played it again a couple years ago with the same dread turning corners.  FF6 (or 3 here) is my absolute favorite Final Fantasy.  I played that for hundreds of hours over the years.  Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana are right next to it, with the former on my DS and iPhone.  Look at today’s RPGs though and most are forgettable.  In an age where MMOs rule the RPG market, the single player versions feel like they need to sell games to everyone, when they actually disappoint everyone.

Dragon Age: Origins,  Bioware’s first 3D foray into the D&D realm, was met with great reviews, a lot of sales and happy fans.  Sure, there were pacing issues but on the whole, the system worked rather well.  Dragon Age 2, taking a more action-oriented approach, alienated critics and fans and sold poorly (compared to the first).  It was a dumbed down approach, rushed out the gate and made to appeal to a wider audience.  Which it didn’t.

FFXII was a drastic break from X.  It was practically an MMO in terms of mechanics and that threw a lot of people off.  It was a dance rather than a strategy.  FFXIII was a joke of “press A to win” with pure MMO roles.  The days of everyone attacking, using the proper abilities at the right time seem to be gone.  Either you’re a tank (literally taunting the enemy), a healer or some other niche role.  There’s no strategy there, the game is cake.

When I look back to the classics very few western games make the cut.  Ultima is one, though only the middle of the pack.  It was less about numbers and more about choices, which in the end, is exactly what an RPG should be about.  Fallout is another one, where the balance between combat and dialogue was perfect.  Baldur’s Gate is another example but that’s 100% D&D, not a true IP.

Japanese games though, wow.  Grinding comes out of that country but something happened during the 90s to smooth the curve.    If I compare The Dark Spire’s encounter rate (1/5 steps) and the need to grind to move on next to Chrono Cross’ open-ended, easy play style there’s a huge difference.  Then again, the Dark Spire (or Dragon Quest I guess) is less about the story and more about the fights.  The Chrono series has always had a great balance between what’s happening outside and inside of combat.  Pacing of it all just seems to make the experience enjoyable.  Your choices matter.  You had a vested interest in your characters, who all had multiple dimensions of depth.

If you’ve played FF6, try and explain Terra’s character and progression.  Then, compare that to Lightning in FF13.  Heck, Robo in Chrono Trigger has more exposition than Balthier in FF12 – all without voice overs or cutscenes.

Today’s RPGs are RPGs in title only.  In the end, there’s not much difference between the latest Batman game and World of Warcraft – mechanically.  You learn a dance, repeat that dance, win the game.  Except Batman has a decent story, defined success criteria and a reward for completing something other than yet another mountain to climb.

There’s something to be said for the simple mechanics of older games.  I didn’t need a 30 second cutscene to show me how powerful my characters were.  Beating a boss 6 times your size, just scraping by, learning a new methods of combat was super rewarding.  If I was to play only that I can see how I would get bored at some point, which explains the MMO fatigue to a degree.

The classics are classics for a reason – they are good if not great games.  They make you want to come back time and again.  The things they have in common are magic and when you find it, you remember it and cherish it.  Maybe we have to go through more rocks today to find those diamonds but when we do, boy does it put a smile on my face.

It’s no secret I love RPGs.  There’s just something about the numbers and the randomness that’s attractive.  Plus, the instant save/reload to try that damn enemy once more and beat that RNG!

I think the oldschool aspect – not seeing your character, the 4 directions of movement, pure numbers, hard difficulty – really simplifies the RPG down to it’s basics.  Dark Spire scratched my itch a few years back on the DS and that was truly a D&D RPG with all the limits you’d expect.  Nice and portable, brutally hard, complicated mechanics.  I loved every minute of the pain.

Legend of Grimrock  is a PC game that came out today and though it isn’t as hardcore in terms of lack of detail it makes up in oodles of atmosphere.  You can hear that spider crawling around you but you can’t see it.  Checking every wall for a secret nook.  Avoiding the rampaging troll at the last second.   There’s no town and no vendor.  Just you and the never ending floors.  A neat take on magic is that you need to select glyphs to cast a spell but you need to learn the spell first from a scroll.  It slows down magic casting a bit but since magic ALWAYS hits, its a pretty powerful thing to manage.

There are only fighters, mages and rogues and you’re set in a 2×2 formation, with the front 2 taking all attacks until one dies.  You have 4 races, with humans the jack of all trades, minotaurs the tanks/beefs, lizardmen as the rogues and insectoids as mages.  You get 4 skill points per level and get to invest into one of 6 linear skill trees (with a cap of 50 per).  Spend enough points, unlock new stats, benefits, resists or abilities.  There’s a certain amount of planning needed for each role, which is a blast.

Traps, hidden switches, teleports – fun stuff to make the levels different.  Even though the levels look familiar, there’s always something to push you forward.  A minor goal of unlocking a door or solving a puzzle splits the zone into smaller pockets, making it a series of adventures rather than a slosh through endless enemies.

It’s too bad more companies don’t do something as simple and effective as Grimrock.  I’m getting tired of the action adventure/rpg mishmash, with just a drop of RPG.  The basics can be hardcore, oldschool but still a lot of fun.  More please!

My bad, should have found this a while ago.

Quite an effective piece that tries to convey the Mass Effect story issues by comparing it to Lord of the Rings.

Simply put, the failure of the ending of Mass Effect is so absurdly large, that all the hard work and amazing gameplay preceding it is shunned.  It would be like eating the best apple pie ever made, only to find a worm in your last bite.

There’s a bit of debate these past few months about what exactly is a casual player and what gamers have as expectations towards the gaming sphere.  Some people think we’re too entitled, others that the terms being used are useless.  This is a natural growing process of the medium as it becomes more and more “mainstream”.  It’s still not acceptable in the way movie-philes are seen but it’s made great leaps and bounds from the basement geek stereotype.

Games like Uncharted, Zelda and Fallout are able to tell pretty amazing stories all while combining interesting gaming mechanics.  The most important part though, is player investment.  When you feel like Zelda is worth rescuing, you’ll re-try that boss for the 10th time.  When that colossus falls from the sky, you have an ounce of regret when you absorb its soul.  When you’ve put weeks into perfecting your MMO Raid Dance and finally accomplish something noteworthy with your group, it’s fulfilling.

The difference here is that the investment in an MMO is social.  You can play a single player game, experience the story, be impacted, want to take that next turn (damn you Civilization) and in the end, it’s an attachment between you and the game.  MMOs flip that where the mechanics force you to invest your time and through that time spent, you foster new relationships with the other players.  There’s a reason EQ guilds were so strong, it took weeks to get anything done.  You spent 75% of your time in chat waiting.  WoW’s insta-grouping mechanics means that you don’t have time to breathe, let alone type something down and build a community.

So as we move forward in this medium, with two opposing styles (single and multi player), one has to wonder which one is the true “game”?  Maybe both can be, just like there’s multiple types of films and books.  Should the mechanics of a game “force” you into being social?  Should there be adequate reward/reaction for being supportive?  Perhaps there’s simply too much focus on the player instead of the world and at that end, the world really is just a set piece rather than something the player wants to be a part of.