[QUOTE="Ek-Andy"]The Witcher is a great game, but just like most good PC exclusives it's overated to the moon and back. It's certainly up there with the best, but as usual you have PC gamers out right stating that it is the only real role playing game this gen, which is complete nonsense. Which reminds me of another incredibly overated RPG, Fallout, which is no where NEAR as good as people make it out to be. Yeah it's great, but no, it's not the pinacle of roleplaying games, it has some amazing flaws that people seem to conviently forget when they accuse other RPGs of exactly the same thing at the same time. It hasn't aged all that well, and I don't see any reason why I should be blown away by the atmosphere either, for a start everything looks the same and not to mention that enviroments have little detail, which in turn dosn't leave much room for an impressive atmosphere. It's dated at best . Back to the Witcher. It's more or less the same case with The Witcher. The roleplaying options are pretty good, and they took a unique approach to that, but the game it's self is pretty much linear regardless of the choices you make, save for mabye a few atlernate quests based on a few choices, and mild changes to the gameplay, something which is greatly exagerated. There arn't really many choices with real consequences anyway, mabye about 12. The game is also a technical mess in places. I've enjoyed Knights of the Old Republic 1/2 (On consoles, by the way.) more than probably all RPGs I've ever played.
I can't stand the hypocritical cynical critism PC gamers hand out though, it drives me nuts. "If it's not from before 2002, it sucks." I've gone off on a tangent though. It's just when people talk about particular games as if they are the only good ones in their genre of that generation it immediatly makes me think of PC gamers and rants about Fallout. I'll just go back to enjoying my rubish console games now.
skrat_01
That was a bit too much of a spiteful rant about how much you dislike PC gamers talking about PC RPGs pre 2002..... Fallout was/is an amazingly progressive game, even by todays standards the way you effect the world, and your interaction with it is unlike any other game. Same goes with Fallout 2, which essentially expanded on the idea. There is no such thing as the greatest of X genre, however its undeniable Fallout is a very important title. Personally I only played it a few years ago, and I was admittedly astounded by how good the game was, moreso when factoring in it was released in 97'.The Witcher does indeed have linear progression in story.... however the way the story pans out, and changes is non linear, even if its fundementally in a linear structure. The reality of most games that are story driven, is the design will always be fundementally linear. Take it away and you will have a more sandbox role playing enviroment like Mount and Blade which lacks the focus on story driven core. On the topic of consequences and decsions, compared to most role playing games, The Witcher tackles it much better than all the current crop of RPGs
. Titles like Mass Effect and Fallout 3 dont really hold a candle in this respect, however they do things differently. Anyway PC gamers are always going to be fond of these older titles, as they are benchmark role playing games of their platform, and are still playable to date, and still provide ample amounts of entertainment. Console gamers do the same about their favourite past *insert system title*, the difference is the longevity of a PC game outweighs a console one, due to the ability to playback any old title. However games like Chrono Trigger have gotten remakes, which is great to see, and services like XBL Classics are pushing older titles to the consumer - just as services like GoodOldGames on the PC make older titles available to the consumer. However take this into account. You dont hear PC gamers complaining about multiplat titles Morrowind or KOTOR, and titles like Oblivion, while they get hammered by certain PC gamers, it still has a huge community, and fanbase (the mods and sales alone speak volumes) as does titles like Fallout. It really is alot less black and white as you put it in that regard.
It's just that I'm sick of hearing about how good Fallout is, and how bad modern RPGs are more than anything. I've played better games, much better games. The Witcher is one of them. Fallout is fairly dynamic with the way it deals with Roleplaying, but at the same time the gameplay is bland. Too bland to be as good as people say it is. It's qualities are often exagerated. The plot is nothing special for a start, the dialouge is mildly amusing at best, unless you play with low intelligence, but that's one extreme. People often go on about how much freedom you get with your character creation and how important that really is in changing the gameplay. In truth if you get the Advanced Power Armour early on you can play the game anyway you want, which is completely contrary to what people tell you. The only thing which completely changes the gameplay is low intelligence, and even then all that does is create amusing dialouge and leads to less freedom. It's still entertaining and worth playing, but it's just not what I would expect from a game hailed as one of the best of its kind.
The Witcher has a dynamic story, and it's pretty good, but there are essentially only 3 routes with a couple of other options that have a milder affect on the plot which don't actually change gameplay all that much, not as much as people make out anyway. It handles roleplaying fairly well, but at the same time it's choice system isn't really any better than with Mass Effect, which we now know will affect ME2. Some things which seemed a bit inconsequential (*Spoiler* Such as the bug (Can't remember what it's called, starts with an A.) queen being eliminated or left alive *spoiler end* Can't remember the tag.)will have a greater affect later on, and even ignoring that alot of your choices already had a large impact in Mass Effect anyway. In terms of Plot it's not really as good as Mass Effect either, and it's not as well written either. It's voice acting is also inferior. The plot is not bad, but it's dervitive in many places, something that ME is also accused of (I'm not going into details because I'll spoil it, but it's been done a million times.).
I'm not saying it's Black and White either. I know people have diffrent tastes regardless of platform, but going back to before the release of Fallout 3 the amount of hate that game got was ridiculous. Every single topic filled with the same nonsense, it got to the point where no one could actually discuss the game because the foums were ruled by haters. That annoyed me alot. I also hated Morrowind, alot. That's another game I don't understand the love for. I couldn't stand it, and I'm fairly tolerant with games.
Nevermind though, it dosn't matter. Overall I just don't like the nostalgic and pessemistic attitude that alot of posters take.
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