Herr Mike said:
The implication that there is something wrong with making a game easy to get the hang of is a bit whack, to be honest. There are several games I tried and gave up on, as a younger man.
I agree but, like you, I never had a problem with Fallout. That said, I did read the manual and did take their repeated suggestion of saving to heart.
PaladinHeart said:
I think unpredictability belongs more in a non-tactical game. What if you were playing something like.. Warhammer, and you've got 30 pikemen lined up against 15 approaching mounted units, and they all get a defense bypasser (by some stroke of luck) and kill half your regiment that was pretty much designed to take out those riders? Taking this knowledge then you can apply a strange logic where "more critical% = win" and the game becomes easily exploitable.
Criticals only happen on lucky dice rolls just like hits in Warhammer. Dice are unpredictable and yet almost every war game uses them.
PaladinHeart said:
I more recently tried Darklands but I couldn't figure out how the combat system is suppose to work, so a giant snake killed my 2 characters.
Is there a guide for this game?
Yes but no, not what I think you're looking for. The game is designed to kick your ass and you have to play for a long time before you can do a lot of the hard stuff. There isn't a good guide for weapons and I still haven't figured out where weapon type and weapon quality reach a balance point (I haven't found any formulas or raw numbers for them). Then there's jobs which are influenced by gender, background, stats, past jobs, and skills (no guide for this that I've found). Humans are really the weakest opponent in that game, every thing else is harder (fucking wolves are deadly for a while).
fedaykin said:
Yes, there's a manual. You need to study it pretty thoroughly, though, to understand how everything works. Darklands isn't very user-friendly either. Too much to expect from a 1992 game, I guess.
That's an understatement. I'd say Darklands is the shining example of how not to do documentation for a game and why good documentation is so important for games. The damn manual for that game is written like a novel rather than a reference for a game, weapons being the worst bloody thing in it (it kind of generally tells you how good weapons are but no numerical comparison or anything).
Pope Viper said:
The end of Wasteland is cool, I highly suggest finishing it up.
Wasteland has been a hard game to get into, I tried it a couple times a year or two ago but having the bloody dialog in the book really bothers me.
doomestic said:
JRPGs in my own opinion is a misnomer. They are a genre of their own which I call RAGs (Role Assuming Games). You don't ever actually play your role, you just go into an already assumed role for you and go along a very scripted story.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying RAGs though. I loved Final Fantasy 6 and 7. But take them for what they are, an interactive movie with some gameplay elements.
Excellent name for them. I love JRPGs (JRAGs) but for entirely different reasons from why I love Fallout. Personally, I'm not a big fan of Western RAGs for the most part because I generally find the stories worse, the dialog worse, and the poorly written and retarded dialog options (white knight, uninvolved, chaotic stupid) infuriating.
Ausir said:
It would be cool if those older games could have their graphics updated to better suit today's machines.
It's not only about the graphics, also controls.
Yeah, controls tend to be a bigger problem that graphics for most older games. Still, I wouldn't mind at least upgrading games with 16 colours to more.
FeelTheRads said:
Now, how about playing some real RPGs? Or some real games for that matter.
Come now, I've heard good things about Dragon Quest VIII and like what I've seen, Final Fantasy Tatics is a great game, and at least the first Tales game was good. That said, none of the games listed were traditional RPGs.
Futch said:
Okay, this is too much... I played Fallout when I was 14, and we don't even speak english here.
It was my first rpg ever and I had to play it in a language that wasn't my mother tongue, nevertheless I got it without help.
I'm just feeling people are getting dumber, lazier or something.
The thing you fail to take into consideration is a change in audience. Ten years ago not as many people had PCs and less played games on them. Those that did were fairly literate and usually had decent problem solving skills and more patience. With PCs becoming commonplace and gaming popularized, it has drawn in people with a different (and lower) skill set. Why is the fact that PCs have become a standard item mean that there are more idiots who own and use them? Simple, when computers were a luxury they were only affordable by people with a higher income (who are on average more intelligent) had them.
Public said:
It would be cool if those older games could have their graphics updated to better suit today's machines.
It can be done. There are open-source 3D engines (like Ogre), but no people to do it I'm affraid.
Chances are that you'd get
shut down.
Speaking of games that need an overhaul, I'd put Darklands first on my list. At a minimum the controls need to be reworked and improved, the documentation needs to be almost completely redone and would likely end up being at least half again as big as the current documentation, if not larger, so that it would appropriately and accurately explain the game. Graphics and sound are pretty much at the bottom of my list though adding to and improving the UI would be handy.
This whole issue regarding 'games you got into when you were younger' really is the catalyst for most of the arguments (call them discussions if you wish) that take place on this forum. Some I feel though, protect and defend the past in an unhealthy manner....in such a way, that they lose sight of the reason they are here in the first place. The enjoyment of games regardless of its origin.
