OT - your fav games

[Vicious Love]

'scuse the delayed response, but what giveth?

Originally posted by Arryn:
I also forgot to give honorable mentions to:

* Vampire:Redemption (FRPG; biggest flaw was linear plot, same problem Return to Krondor had; first decently-done conVersion of a pen&paper FRPG into a CRPG, and with GM capabilities)

The game was an atrocity. Firstly, "linear plot" is an understatement. The game was Diablo with more cutscenes. Dialogue options, when present, were either completely meaningless, or affected your Humanity stat, and nothing else(Save in one occasion near the endgame, where you also got the chance to learn the Serpentis discipline. Woohoo.)
The one time I actually got the chance to try and think things through, instead of killing everything on the map and then letting the "plot" run itself for me, was when I checked Pink's aura, right after he joined my party. I guess the aura-reading Discipline was thrown in as kind of an afterthought, because although Pink's one-word description was "diabolist", which is pretty much interchangeable with "traitorous bastard", there was absolutely nothing I could do to act upon this knowledge. Three or four dungeons full of identical vampires and ghouls later, Pink betrayed me, and I had to act all shocked and awed.
Your party members couldn't even die, and stunned party members were miraculously resurrected every time they had a part to play in a prescripted conversation, only to pass out again.
Furthermore, for a game in which combat(And the infrequent and nigh-inconsequential dialogue option) is the ONLY interactive element, you'd think they coulda made battle remotely interesting.
As for the whole "decently done conVersion" thingie, I'm at a loss for words. Pretty much the only element of P&P V:tM which made the transition intact was also it's worst feature: Unadulterated, hackneyed, melodramatic, and thoroughly ludicrous angst. The fact that this cesspool of Goth isn't even tempered with a shred of realism makes the whole thing ridiculous.
"Alas", sez Christof, "I am cursed to feast on the blood of the living". Christof then proceeds to attack one of the FOUR, count 'em, FOUR humans(Other than guards, vendors, and the three plot-related NPCs) in Prague. A guard halfway across the map becomes instantaneously aware of this, rushes over, shouting "Halt! Halt! Halt!" all the while, and starts swinging at the feeding Christof. His fourth blow connects, so Christof uses Presence level two on him, and starts feeding off him, which calls in another "Halten sie!" shouting guard.
Deciding that being "Cursed to feast on the blood of the living"(Oh, the pain of it all) isn't worth the effort, Christof leaves the zone, automatically shaking off pursuit, and attacks a convenient stack of casks and barrels, the ammo crates of the Dark Ages. After handily dispatching the barrels(Shouting "To the abyss with thee!" with every fourth swing), he examines the contents, and finds a low-level magic scroll, some gold, and a vial of blood. How convenient. Of course, people don't REALLY leave wee little bottles of blood lying around in barrels. In the earlier portion of the game, when Christof was still human, those barrels all contained healing potions(Yes, HEALING POTIONS. Hello, dark, broody realism). I assume it's the sheer force of vamp-Christof's angst that transmutes those healing potions into blood.
The effort the developers put into trying to justify taking the player from one massacre to another was simply pitiful. Honestly, you FedEX the Nosferatu some of ze bludde, he agrees to let you into the tunnels to the next zone, but warns that the remainder of his clan might not be so hospitable. FOR NO REASON, you are attacked by at least FOURTY vampires, some of them guarding levers or treasure chests(A few of them in what appears to be the legendary FOUR BY FOUR ROOM WITH A CHEST IN THE MIDDLE. I kid you not). There are only three kinds of Nosferatu in both levels of that dungeon. Three models. Three sets of textures. Three sets of stats. And one of them is a unique sub-boss. He's just like the other Nosferatu, in that he has no lines and just attacks you for no conceivable reason, but he has a magic sword and better stats.
This sort of scene repeats itself about a dozen times, and then the game ends in one of three ways, depending on your Humanity stat. Please do note that in several of the semi-random massacres, you slaughter humans, not vampires. "Alas, I am cursed not to give a damn about generic goon humans, though generic prey humans are off limits. Not that I need to feed off them, or anything, since there are roughly 5,000 blood points per zone lying around in wineskins and vials for no apparent reason, and the gypsy has an unlimited supply for sale, though I should probably save up for better magic armor and a few 'identify' scrolls, instead".
Early on in the game, there's a glimmer of false hope. You've just completed your first utterly pointless dungeon crawl, as a human. You've been vamped, you've had a bunch of prescripted conversations which positively OOZED junior high school level poetry and "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle English, abridged Version", and you're told you must secretly, DISCREETLY retrieve a fragment of the Book of Nod(TM) from a nearby vampire monastery. So, what's V:tM:R's take on stealth-based gameplay. Walking right in and mowing down another fourty or so vampires. One scene after the massacre, the head of the monastery has forgiven and forgotten everything, and even lets one of his favorite vampires, the one with the phone-sex feeding sound effects, join your party. I mean, sure, you did eliminate a traitor from his clan's midst, but you'd think he'd have a problem with your methods. Fourty. Vampires. On a cover operation.
As for multiplayer, the GM capabilities were a nice concept, definitely one long overdue, at any rate, but they were also completely and utterly unworkable. The interface was a hate crime against the geek ethnicity, and even if you managed to get everything working properly, it couldn't even begin to compare to a MUSH or pen & paper game.

I hope that came out coherent, I'm definitely not at my best at the moment. So. Very. Tired.

Update: Just to drive the point home, for anyone familiar with P&P V:tM, here are some of the generic goons you get to fight. There are somewhere between thirty and fifty or so per dungeon, by my estimate, and some appear in multiple dungeons. Most come in only one variety(One model, one set of textures, one set of stats), though a few come in two, not counting bosses and sub-bosses.
1) Teutonic knights, in what appears to be a really bad historian's conception of full Gothic plate. Just walking around their perfectly secure stronghold and patrolling the city streets in FULL GOTHIC PLATE. Which, like pretty much everything else carried by goons, cannot be looted. Keep in mind there are about fourty of these bastards on one map. Some of them say "Halt!".
2) Nosferatu
3) Shadowy Lasombra goon-things
4) Szlachta
5) Tremere
6) Gargoyles
7) Ventrue.
8) VENTRUE, for shag's sake! DOZENS OF IDENTICAL VENTRUE GOONS! VENTRUE! GOONS! VENTRUE GOONS!
9) MY BRAIN IS SWELLING!

Updated update: In the game's defense, the opening cutscene was awesome. Everything else sucked. I know some people didn't like how Gordon Freeman had no lines, but I know most people wouldn't have wanted his every other line to be "Forsooth! I am forsook, prithee, by God, sure'n, yea, verily, and alas, anon. Oh, deceitful mendacity, how your falsehoods deceive me! But such is my fate, for I am damned, yea, damned, I verily say unto thee, thou Lion of Zion. I hereby now go at present, to return only with this bladed sword plus four of which you speak, else damned be I, though damned I be, for such is the lot of the damned."

[ July 19, 2004, 21:55: Message edited by: Vicious Love ]