Afraid to Dream

[Lightslei]

This is my personal opinion but I'm getting sick of everything feeling stagnant. With every game I feel like dwarves have to fall into this stereotype, they all have beards, are expert marksman, and are the biggest drunks. All elves have to be tall, "beautiful", and have those annoying pointed ears. I'll admit I'm a huge fan of fantasy games and all, but to me it feels like every game I play is telling the same story, just different graphics, and the storytelling feels like it was done through a synonymous story generator.

In short I'm bored, because it all seems predictable. I thought half the reason to play games was to break the rules of reality, to defy the impossible and allow you to break any limits you feel normally. Sure, that genuine charm lasted for a spell, but as it is, it just seems to me like everyone is afraid to take a risk, simply because it can be either a miss or a bullseye in financial gain on willing to use their own dreams, fantasies, etc to create a reality for a game.

And thus I'm in a slump, where no game seems to bring me any joy, happiness or charm, (don't worry, it's not only games, books and movies are feeling the same to me, that they all have to mirror other successes and aren't willing to break out if this disgusting mundane stale mold they have committed themselves to.

So does anyone have any ideas on games that can get me out of this slump, that are relatively cheap (I can't afford monthly subscriptions, or high end PC games, since my laptop can't even run Trine) but I'm kind of looking for something new that impresses me.

 

[thiosk]

Well i hate it that your laptop sucks,

but skyrim's elves are ugly as hell, the dwarves are extinct (did they drink themselves to death?)

But yes, its generic, tolkeinesque high fantasy. And if you make generic enemy Orc a different enemy-- darkspawn, lol-- they're just orc knockoffs. Or elf knockoffs, or dwarf knockoffs, etcetera.

So really, you're up shit creek and maybe you should aim for different sci fi style fantasy instead of the tolkien-gygax paradigm.

But really, the variations on this model are fine, for me. Sometimes, reinventing an entire world the scale of the tolkien concepts is really hard, and its quite challenging to consider something actually new or fresh. Im considering writing a novel, with themes of conflict between science and theocracy. Im considering setting it in the warhammer universe, simply because its got all the back story, factions, and history predefined and it would require very little exposition to introduce it. Perfect for an unskilled writer. Fantasy writers have the same problem. The READERS demand it-- why should the elves be short fat drinkers and the dwarves tall and skinny? No. Give us our normal elves and dwarves and build story around the archetypes.

 

[Irridium]

Planescape: Torment.

It's a fantasy game, yes, but it follows none of those conventions. And is damn amazing.

Also KOTOR 2. Yeah, it's a Star Wars game and has the force, jedi's, sith and all that. But they're used in a way that has never been done in the Star Wars universe. And it's amazing how great the story and characters are for it.

And if you have a console, Saints Row 2. Why? Because it's the only game where the character you play is straight up evil. There is no "struggling anti-hero" subtext, no attempt to justify his actions. He is just evil, and loves being evil. It's surprisingly refreshing. And surprisingly quite emotional in some moments.

 

[Irridium]

Well i hate it that your laptop sucks,

but skyrim's elves are ugly as hell, the dwarves are extinct (did they drink themselves to death?)

Actually, Dwarves in the Elder Scrolls universe aren't the Dwarves you're thinking of. They're actually much like normal men and elves. They're only known as dwarves because the first race they were in contact with were the Giants, who called them dwarves because they seemed pretty small to the huge giants.

Basically, they were underground elves who were great with technology. You could actually meet one in Morrowind. Well, two. One's a ghost. The other is alive but bloated and deformed by a disease.

/nerd

 

[Dansen]

Dark souls, my friend Dark souls, when Skyrim came out I played it for one week and went back to Dark souls. While the story isn't the main focus, their are a lot of subtle details that describe a back story. Every item in the game has flavor text. The enemies are diverse and interesting. The final boss fight is probably my favorite boss fight so far just because it takes you by surprise how it plays out exactly. Its made my the Japanese so it won't be your typical rpg, but it is still great.