Author: Oldschool (---.home.com)
Date: 08-31-2001 09:34
I think Wasteland was about the closest a CRPG has ever gotten to an RPG IMHO. It seemed to get most of it right for a change. If you want to talk about a player becoming spoiled and having high expectations, this game did that for me. I've yet to find another CRPG that comes even close to matching getting role-playing on the computer as right as it did. Ultima IV was good, but I think Wasteland was far more revolutionary and better. I can see understand though feeling that U4 sent CRPG in the right direction by introducing some new features to get CRPGs become more than just the monotonous hack and slash to get tougher so you can fight more monsters etc. I'm sure the creators of WL learned alot from U4. They seemed to capture some of what made U4 good and expanded it from there.
Anyway that's not to downplay how revolutionary U4 was, because it was indeed that. I just feel that WL was even more so, and have yet to see another CRPG do such a good job yet. I would love to see one made as good as Wasteland, but I have yet to find one. Seems like most of the CRPGs nowadays feel like they're missing so much. They have much better graphics and sound etc, but just don't have the gripping gameplay and pull you into their world hours upon hours. I was into MMORPGs for a little while, but those got boring because they're basically hack and slash with more players. I think a good CRPG you never have to powerlevel (go hunting around for encounters to advance the plot. Instead the encounters along the way should send things forward). You just proceed through the game and it's plot with your characters getting more powerful with time, but it still maintaining a challenge all along the way. There are some that do this, but they tend to be very linear. WL was very non-linear and captured that. I have yet to find another CRPG that does this. They either tend to be non-linear, but too hack and slash oriented where the story feels very superficial to the gameplay (or just tacked on), or they're very linear but with a good story and plot that advances and unfolds.
|
|
