Diablo (December 1996) is a clone of Baldur's Gate (December 1998)?

Maybe Diablo is a clone of DnD, but that's a stretch unless you are willing to say that every CRPG (and action RPG) is a clone of DnD...

Oh and if you liked SS2, you will LOVE the original Deus Ex.

>> ^moodonia:

Thats interesting, not long ago I finished System Shock 2 (impossible? no its not) and enjoyed it so much I was planning to play Deus Ex with a few mods to update the graphics a bit, maybe I shouldnt bother.
>> ^mentality:
Best PC game of all time? You gotta be joking.
I played it when the game came out, and while I agree that it is a good game, it did not provide you with any experience that was truly novel or exceptional.
The story was forgettable - whatever choices you made storywise were inconsequential, with the entire game boiling down to picking one of 3 different endings during the last mission.
The shooter elements were not as fun/polished/balanced as contemporary games like Half-Life. The stealth elements were not as well executed as games like Thief. The RPG elements lacked the depth of other cRPGs like Fallout. The atmosphere and immersion was limited by the technology - the setting of a cyberpunk metropolis just wasn't believable.
And finally, the idea of a shooter-RPG hybrid and different gameplay approaches to the same problem was already done before by System Shock 2, which with its excellent atmosphere and survival horror elements, is a much better game IMO.
And with Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Thief 2, and The Sims all coming out in 2000, I wouldn't even call Deus Ex game of the year material.

Thats interesting, not long ago I finished System Shock 2 (impossible? no its not) and enjoyed it so much I was planning to play Deus Ex with a few mods to update the graphics a bit, maybe I shouldnt bother.

>> ^mentality:

Best PC game of all time? You gotta be joking.
I played it when the game came out, and while I agree that it is a good game, it did not provide you with any experience that was truly novel or exceptional.
The story was forgettable - whatever choices you made storywise were inconsequential, with the entire game boiling down to picking one of 3 different endings during the last mission.
The shooter elements were not as fun/polished/balanced as contemporary games like Half-Life. The stealth elements were not as well executed as games like Thief. The RPG elements lacked the depth of other cRPGs like Fallout. The atmosphere and immersion was limited by the technology - the setting of a cyberpunk metropolis just wasn't believable.
And finally, the idea of a shooter-RPG hybrid and different gameplay approaches to the same problem was already done before by System Shock 2, which with its excellent atmosphere and survival horror elements, is a much better game IMO.
And with Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Thief 2, and The Sims all coming out in 2000, I wouldn't even call Deus Ex game of the year material.

Best PC game of all time? You gotta be joking.

I played it when the game came out, and while I agree that it is a good game, it did not provide you with any experience that was truly novel or exceptional.

The story was forgettable - whatever choices you made storywise were inconsequential, with the entire game boiling down to picking one of 3 different endings during the last mission.

The shooter elements were not as fun/polished/balanced as contemporary games like Half-Life. The stealth elements were not as well executed as games like Thief. The RPG elements lacked the depth of other cRPGs like Fallout. The atmosphere and immersion was limited by the technology - the setting of a cyberpunk metropolis just wasn't believable.

And finally, the idea of a shooter-RPG hybrid and different gameplay approaches to the same problem was already done before by System Shock 2, which with its excellent atmosphere and survival horror elements, is a much better game IMO.

And with Diablo 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Thief 2, and The Sims all coming out in 2000, I wouldn't even call Deus Ex game of the year material.

Besides the 1997/1998 the being the golden era for CRPGs, I'm really nostalgic for the Quake I days. The community seemed to be way into, not everyone and their grandparents were on the net yet and the mods that came out for a while were truly awesome for their time. Sometimes I play TF2 and I like it... but it is absolutely nothing compared to the original. I also don't think I've ever played any other CTF game as good as the Threewave CTF besides maybe Tribes CTF. That grappling hook [in 3wave] made it awesome - why the hell has it been forgotten about?

>> ^Xaielao:

He is right on every point. The combat is far worse if you ask me compared to the original. Yes it has a lot of flash and style and gibs raining everywhere but unless your a huge Soul Caliber fan you'll find battles are over so quickly and things are so chaotic that there is absolutely no tactics to them what so ever. Even the big battles with the dragons require no more thought than the random gangs that look like each other that assault you at every other point in the game. And I played it on Hard even as I had heard that it adds a bit more challenge and lets you strategize much more, but I found it just wasn't the case in all but perhaps three or four fights through the entire game.
In the end the game is a down and out failure and EA knows it. The game had zero actual plot, crack addict (or 2 year old attention span) combat, no exploration, completely linear zones, the same two dungeons for 15 different events and largely boring characters with a tenth the draw and character of the originals companions.
My biggest complaint about DA2 is the lack of content. Sure it's a fairly long game but I spent 45 hours in the game and I did every single thing there was to do. I did every quest, found every resource node, every single bit of lore to be found, all of it. Likewise I did the same with my first run through of DA:O only it took me around 200 hours for that one because it was so deep of content and rich of story that I enjoyed every second of the game. Some I'm sure (if not most of the console players) ran through the game and ignored all the little interesting bits of story you could find, lore you could discover and all the side events and cool tidbits you could gain by exploring the world and it's deep history. But I personally love that stuff so when I discovered that it was sorely lacking in the sequel I was most disappointed.
I'm not saying Origins was without fault, but as a PC game that harkened back to the golden days of cRPGs it was amazing. I understand on the console the combat wasn't very good because it lacked the camera angles and the strategy of the PC version (It was developed as a PC game, EA just forced the game to be pushed back half a year so a console version could be made). But it was easily the best cRPG from Bioware since Baulder's Gate 2. Now I just hope EA learned a lesson. You cant push a game out in 1.3 years and expect it to even remotely compete with the original and perhaps the greedy fucks will give Bioware 2-3 years to make the third game.


It's fucking EA man. I haven't trusted them since battlefield 2 recieved shocking support. Releasing new expansion packs before they'd fixed a single bug in order to cash in. Releasing packs too soon so the game didn't even find a foothold.

I said i'd never buy an EA game ever again until it had been out an entire year and everyone uniformly said it was awesome. Someone told me 5 months or so ago that EA were changing their development cycle in order to shake off the ... atrocities to gaming that they'd contributed.

Guess they didn't get round to that after all? Colour me surprised. They are the major player in the gradual degradation of games over the years. These guys are spoonfeeding people warm shit, and people are going back for more. When did expectations get so low!?

He is right on every point. The combat is far worse if you ask me compared to the original. Yes it has a lot of flash and style and gibs raining everywhere but unless your a huge Soul Caliber fan you'll find battles are over so quickly and things are so chaotic that there is absolutely no tactics to them what so ever. Even the big battles with the dragons require no more thought than the random gangs that look like each other that assault you at every other point in the game. And I played it on Hard even as I had heard that it adds a bit more challenge and lets you strategize much more, but I found it just wasn't the case in all but perhaps three or four fights through the entire game.

In the end the game is a down and out failure and EA knows it. The game had zero actual plot, crack addict (or 2 year old attention span) combat, no exploration, completely linear zones, the same two dungeons for 15 different events and largely boring characters with a tenth the draw and character of the originals companions.

My biggest complaint about DA2 is the lack of content. Sure it's a fairly long game but I spent 45 hours in the game and I did every single thing there was to do. I did every quest, found every resource node, every single bit of lore to be found, all of it. Likewise I did the same with my first run through of DA:O only it took me around 200 hours for that one because it was so deep of content and rich of story that I enjoyed every second of the game. Some I'm sure (if not most of the console players) ran through the game and ignored all the little interesting bits of story you could find, lore you could discover and all the side events and cool tidbits you could gain by exploring the world and it's deep history. But I personally love that stuff so when I discovered that it was sorely lacking in the sequel I was most disappointed.

I'm not saying Origins was without fault, but as a PC game that harkened back to the golden days of cRPGs it was amazing. I understand on the console the combat wasn't very good because it lacked the camera angles and the strategy of the PC version (It was developed as a PC game, EA just forced the game to be pushed back half a year so a console version could be made). But it was easily the best cRPG from Bioware since Baulder's Gate 2. Now I just hope EA learned a lesson. You cant push a game out in 1.3 years and expect it to even remotely compete with the original and perhaps the greedy fucks will give Bioware 2-3 years to make the third game.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by vaporlock.

One of the best CRPG's ever made, IMHO. Planescape, Icewind Dale... fantastic. They don't make CRPG's these days like they used to, unfortunately.

My one complaint about BG2... Yoshimo! Yoshimo was just plain awesome and had the best random comments next to Minsc.

"Hiiiii-ya! Tourists love that stuff."

And then he gets perma-killed half-way through the game which seriously gimps your party since he was the only decent thief NPC available. I remember how pissed I was the first time through the game since basically I was tripping every trap and having to leave locked chests behind since Imoen and Nalia were such piss-poor substitutes. The second time through I purposely rolled a thief just to make sure I got all the loot in the game.

Seriously, the game allows you to return your vampire-cursed girlfriend (who you wind up having to destroy) back from the dead but not some poor thief who got insta-gibbed? What's up with that?

Not much else to say. The player completes the entire Fallout CRPG in less than 10 minutes. Its called a Speed Run. Sorry, don't know what else to say about it.