A commonly held distinction is that the Asian-influenced RPG features a pre-determined protagonist, while the Western style leans towards a customized character. The former offers an ability to let the gamer play a greater role in the plot of the game, but the latter is where we can find actual personal involvement and emotional attachment. Sure, on the average customization boils down to a handful of numbers with no inherent meaning, but those are our numbers, and it does imbue the title with a sense of personal investment.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had both?

Edward Pollard @ eToychest has posted part two of his piece on the state of RPG Gaming - It’s an enjoyable read, and the questions he asks are important ones. I myself have always been a much bigger fan of Western RPGs, cutting my teeth with Pen and Paper RPGs, and then moving to computer gaming at a young age. But as i evaluate it more and more, i have to be honnest, i’ve had some of my best gaming experiences, with Eastern style RPGS, FF7 blew me away… Zelda, Dragonquest, Phantasy Star… All of these games featured a fixed main character - i suppose the key element in these is that while the main characters stayed the same you were able to customize his skills, magic, weapons, etc.

In Phantasy Star 3, one of my all time favorite rpgs, you got to choose who you married, for 3 generations! Then you look at games like oblivion, which offer amazing customizability of your character, but you start to notice that reguardless of how you look, or how long your hair is, or what race you choose, your interaction with the world doesn’t change all that much…

Perhaps us westerners just have more of a ego driven desire for autonomy, even if that autonomy is only an illusion? We exchange a potentially more worthwhile gaming experience for the chance to make our avatars more like ourselves - is there a balance we can strike?

eToychest

I’m sure i’ll have better luck once proper drivers for MacBook XP come out, but until then i can’t seem to find a game that works properly for my MacBook. If anyone out there has any suggestions i’m all ears. Today i gave the old X-Com series an install, and… well, i don’t even want to get into it. Next on the list is Mechwarrior 3, another classic. We’ll see how well it fares. I’m going to keep my ears to the ground and i’ll be sure to let you all know what i find, be it a game that works, or alternative/updated drivers.

In the meantime, who cares - i got my desktop, and it’s off to Tamriel for a few more hours.

Some of the guys responsible for X-com have been hard at work on Rebelstar tactical command, a title being released for the GBA. As you might expect, it will play out as x-com lite, focusing on the time unit based, 3/4 top down combat that made the x-com series so popular:

“Because of all the options available to you, these missions offer a multitude of tactics for you to use. Are you having trouble storming some Zorn camping in a hut with only one point of entry? Then use your heavy weapons to blow a hole in the wall and attack from their blind spot but just remember that everything you can do the enemy can do also. Because of all of these options little is left to luck, so failing a level isn’t as frustrating as in most games because its purely down to your ability, if you are stuck then you can try a variety of different strategies from changing you units’ equipment when deploying to attacking from a new direction. “

Cubed3 has the  the whole story (link)

Is the question being asked over at Gamespy, and while they draw their own conclusions, the answer on my end is a resounding “Hells yes!” While i havn’t had as much time lately with “The real world” keeping me tied up, i still drop an average of 5 hours a week traversing the fields and farms of Tamriel. The Article mostly focuses on Oblivion’s initial hang-ups; memory leaks, crashings, broken questions, and the god awefull idea of scaled creature leveling. (no, i’m sorry - this is never a good idea, relativism people!) And whether or not the team at Bethesda were able to correct these issues.

Well; in my opinion they have - for the most part their patches have tightened up the game’s inards; but it’s the Oblivion community at large that have really come through - modding out the game in all ways unimaginable. Bethesda have also come through with some truely excellent content by way of a controversial pay to play module format. Again, i think it’s worth the 2 bucks for my own wizard’s tower.

All said and done, i think Oblivion has only gotten better, will continue to grow and evolve, and will continue to offer fresh adventures to anyone who has enough time to put into it. Now i just have to figure out how to get fired from my day job.

gamespy article (link)
Elderscrolls download home (link)

Planet Elderscrolls (link)

So i tried to post the Youtube vid here, but for some reason embeded players aren’t supported @ Awkbomb, bummer. In the meantime you should follow this link to the Portal Demo video. It will blow your mind… (youtube)

You can also check out IGN’s coverage, and there hi-res vid here: (IGN)