The Death of PCs
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 820
RPG games used to be my favorite games for the PC, yet the best RPG games I have played in the last year have been Summoner and Final Fantasy 10. What happened to the PC RPG? Ask any die hard RPG fan what the best modern RPG was, and they will tell you Planescape Torment. Why was that game so good? It had a story and characters. Developers for the PC went two directions for RPGs, one was to dummy down the system and make them more like action games to appeal to a wider audience. The second approach was to stick to classic formulas and release the same game again with another roman numeral after its name. Console RPGs are going in the right direction, releasing new RPG systems with stories about heroes and characters that can be remembered. Old RPGs, like the Ultima series did it for the PC, but they gave up what made them great. Now outside memories of Dupre, Shamino and Jaana, the only modern great RPG characters are evolving on the Playstation 2.
While I do admit that games are released much more stable for console systems and that Grand Theft Auto 3 on the PS2 is an absolute masterpiece, I disagree with quite a bit of what the author says. I have *never* seen a console RPG that even compares to the Infinity Engine games or some of the MMORPGs on the market... but that's just my opinion =).
