Role-Playing Games

[hermes]

Your arrogant attitude came across particularly sour today. -_-

Yes, I agree.

Genres and Subgenres is just a way for PR teams to try to differenciate their game from the rest, and sell it as something different. The words "survival horror" didn't exist until Capcom tried to define its franchise as something new (even when games that matched the definition could be found before Resident Evil).

And just to clarify (not that it matters), JRPG take from pen and paper RPG only the combat side. Even when you can't customize how to set your stats when you level up, you still have stats, they are (for the most part) visible, and they matter to decide how much damage you make with each attack.

 

[DarkSaber]

If his tone in this articles anything to go by, I'm guessing the bar-opening isn't going as smoothly as previously suggested.

Also funny to be called a "kid" for liking Borderlands when I'm older than him, but ah well I only follow his work for the humour (which is missing in this article), he's not exactly a Pullitzer contender.

 

[EliteFreq]

I have to agree about the genres. It pisses me off when I look through games for one that might interest me and see that something that's only just related to the genre is listed.

 

[Nomanslander]

Nice to see I'm not the only one that thought Borderlands was boring.

It's like FO3 without its charm and atmosphere, the comic book feel was cool for a minute until it just felt 2Dish, the story and characters were flaky, and the gumeplay was fun if not wasted on MMO style quest fetching (go kill 15 of these and 30 of those, collect 80 of these and 2,495 of those...>>).

It's not a bad game, just needs more story and development....and no fetch quests.

 

[PxDn Ninja]

I'm all for you giving up on playing Borderlands. That game is one of the most boring games I have seen in a long time. It suffers from the same flaw that Diablo and Torchlight suffer, it has no gameplay aside from shoot, loot, shoot, loot. The story is only there because they forgot that their game didn't need one (and also forgot that they don't know how to write one).

If people need a review of that game, here it is.

Kill shit. Loot shit. Like that, play it, if not, contrats. You aren't a mindless zombie.

Nonetheless, goodluck with the bar Yahtzee and look forward to your future reviews.

 

[Daveman]

Borderlands is lame to start with but after a while I was really getting into it, I suppose it's dependent on what character you choose too.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

All of you moronic asshats who insist that "All games are RPG's because you play a role in all of them hur hur hur" should really go die in a pit, or be shot for your stupidity.

It has nothing to do with "playing a role" but rather with defining one. Even in the most rudimentary Western RPG you can usually define your "role" in the world in some way, whether it be as simple as choosing Fighter, Rogue or Mage or as complicated as playing a ruthless space cop with a serious chip on her shoulder. You could also make compelling arguments for Role Playing being the way you build your character, that's the role being played, and yes I'm well aware that more modern games have "class selection" than what you'd consider an RPG but that used to be the primary defining trait of an RPG.

Still these same idiotic semantics discussions fly even in Pen and Paper RPG communities so I suppose there's no arguing with you people.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I do agree that it is becoming harder and harder to classify games nowadays. It seems the best way to do it now is to compare and contrast it with another game, ("Like Grand Theft Auto, BUT... Like Fallout 3 BUT..")

I've actually been hesitant to invest in Borderlands because of the same reasons Yahtzee gave. My cousin got it for Xmas and I played it a little with him, and it definitely struck me as a "MP Enhanced" experience. I'm usually not big on games where I need other people to have a good time. But then again I love games like L4D, TF2, and GoW Horde mode, so maybe I'm just not big on the FPS RPGS...

 

[The Philistine]

A more accurate description of JRPGs would be "spreadsheets with graphics, effeminate men, and large busomed females." "Stupid gay rubbish" works too.

Western rpgs might as well be called "dialogue windows with giant rats, swords, and tits."

Adventure games should be differentiated from rpgs in that they throw you into a big sandbox instead of a big tunnel before pointing you which direction they want you to go. What it really means is that you'll probably have a platform you'll have to jump onto at some point.

Shooter games fall into either killing Nazis, aliens, or aliens resembling Nazis.

Fighting games are just button mashers with boobs.

RTS games are spreadsheets with ants, and tits so small you can barely make them out.

 

[Tarkand]

I guess Yahtzee does read the forum

 

[geldonyetich]

Man, like I haven't been on 1001 threads about just how appropriate it is to call computer RPGs role playing games.

If I had to be really stringent about my definition, I'd have to disqualify the whole genre on the grounds that nobody role-plays anymore. They're generally too embarrassed/shy or full of themselves to find the idea of acting out a part to be something they'd ever do, and so they're not there to role-play so much as to entertain a power fantasy (read: grind phat loots and xp) or just watch stuff explode. After all, they don't want to be confused for these guys:


But the question isn't really is role-playing wrong so much as is role-playing a good label to describe what we see in the average game.

Well, I would say no. This is role-playing (in Spanish for lack of an English version being readily available):

Compare and contrast to this:

Obvious discrepancies occur.

But... well, I suppose some computer RPGs do a better job of sucking people in than others. Yahtzee mentioned Mass Effect and Vampire the Masquerade, two fairly good examples, and because they're completely solo nobody can make fun of you if you role-play them. Even more open-ended may be an Elder Scrolls game... but as you get more open-ended, the quality of the role-play experience is harder to convey.

 

[Mairsil the Pretender]

Awww man, I was hoping for a borderlands review. Yeah, i can kind of agree that game starts out boring, especially in single player, but you just have to break the initial learning barrier that all RPGs have (yes, borderlands is sort of an RPG. Sort of.) Think of any RPG you've ever played. the opening of the first playthrough is always a frustrating chore. Once you pick up a cool gun, get some ranks in your action skill, and start to enjoy the tons of references and crazy setting, it becomes...well, I thought it was exactly the sort of thing that Yahtzee would like.

Guy liked painkiller, didnt he? (which I thought was crap, by the way).

And Borderlands really requires FRIENDS to play. just playing online with random douchebags is a recipie for faggotry of the highest order. You need to specifically invite friends in order to play online. On the upside, if you dont have a microphone, you can just call them on Cell or homephone and coordinate tactics that way.

 

[bakonslayer]

I've said it a million times, and I'll probably say it a million more times. RPG is a term used to classify story AND gameplay, which is what makes it so confusing. However, I don't think terms used to classify games are any more confusing than terms used to classify music.

Where we have RPGs, music has the all encompassing 'Blues'.
Blues is not only a VERY WIDE genre of music, but also a rhythm and a form much in the same way that Role Playing can be the rhythm or the form of a game. Also similar to games, you can't listen to music today without finding a song, artist, or band without a background in blues or a throwback to Clapton or etc. And you can't find games today without RPG elements or styles or etc.

Either way, we can sit back an argue about it, or we can just further breakdown RPGs. You can't change the name because RPGs will (at this point) ALWAYS be Role Playing Games due to the fact that the term hasn't 'changed' from its Role Playing roots, but rather "evolved", but we can back them up with other descriptive terms like Adventure RPG (Fallout 3), Sci-fi RPG (KOTOR), or Fantasy RPG (Dragon Age).

Don't worry guys, Bakon will always be here to try and connect Video Games to other forms of media. It's what I do.

 

[Arehexes]

I agree with the whole genre thing is a mess, and I also agree that most jrpgs are not true rpgs. But the few that are close like the first Final Fantasy(which has traits from the old D&D games in them), and reading the whole jrpg hate(which to some degree is true about the set story and the stats are static) "true" rpgs like Mass Effect still has the same story in the grand scheme. Sure the personality of the hero can be changed but it won't change that a evil thing is here to destroy the world and you and a band of heroes have to stop them, just like in a jrpg. The same could be said about the Elder Scrolls 4 and Final Fantasy 5, you can be a Warrior in TES4 and have Bartz(the main hero) be a knight in FF5 or have them both be a form of mage. The thing is you still have to stop the big evil and save the world, a problem I hear comparing the two is "point A to point B" with jrpgs which is stupid. All games are "point A to point B" from FPS, platformers, adventures, action, J and W RPGs to. The only real difference between a WRPG and a JRPG is that in a WRPG is more open in exploring with sidequesting (As red mage put it from 8-bit side questing separates the heroes from the murders). But a WRPG is just as point A to point B, TES4 does it making me go to a dungeon explore it get the item or trigger the event and go return/report to the quest giver. That makes me start at A go to B and loop back to A, same with the main plot. Now Mass Effect is different because you can choose where to go in the plot but you still have to go to all the planets at some point. Sadly JRPGs and WRPG are the same, but JRPGs are more stream line for players for just to jump in and play...and with men looking like women.

 

[veloper]

Call every game a RPG any time it comes up. When RPG loses all meaning, new categories will appear.

 

[CopperBoom]

Your critique to Borderlands, though brief, I wholly share. What a boring exercise that quite a few people I know really enjoy.

Any way, love getting EPs to go along with the ZPs.
The RPG has never fit well in videogames.
It is true all the others are quickly becoming just as wrong.

 

[Alufear]

I know it's futile to suggest a JRPG to Yahtzee, but the Persona games were good, and this is coming from a die-hard hack'n'slash junkie that until playing Persona 4 DESPISED turn-based games. The combat's fast, there are no random battles, and the story doesn't take place in psuedo-medieval Europe where they've mastered hovering vehicles yet ride giant chickens to work.

 

[magnuslion]

I think game genres can fuck off of the most part. seriously, when you all saw the commercials for MW2, was there any question in your head whether it was a shooter or not?

borderlands was amazing (like i stated in my self written review this weekend). but its opinion. yahtzee is an awsum reviewer, he is entitled to his views. anyone else who criticises the game however...

I liked borderlands, but you can take your arrogant attitude and fuck off with it.

 

[Nomanslander]

I don't know these are the terms I use:

-FPS
-TPS
-Sandbox
-Hack n Slash
-Beat em up
-RPGs: WRPG/JRPG
-Point and Click
-Platformers
-Survival Horror
-Fighters
-RTS
-MMO
-Sports games

And of course racers, simulators, skaters...so on so forth.

Subgenres are pretty much crosses between two types of games like Sandbox/FPS games.

If a survival horror game plays out more like a FPS or TPS then it's a FPS/TPS survival horror.

Pretty simple, don't see a reason it needs to be overhauled.

And if it does it should be in German...everything just sounds more cooler in German...0o