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Annoyed About: Action-RPG Inventories

Written by Alec Meer on July 7, 2008.

It scares me how suggestible I can be. I worry that one day I’ll walk past a sign saying “heroin makes you big and strong!” and that’ll be it. Most recently, I saw all the Diablo III stuff and duly thought “durrrr I wud like 2 play dat”.

So I load up Diablo 1 (now almost unplayable in this day and age. While it was scarcely inventive as sequels go, the improvements Diablo II made to the formula can’t be overstated). I play some Mythos. Most of all, I play Titan Quest. Amusingly, my Steam friends list revealed that several people I know have also been playing Titan Quest lately. My, what a coinkydink.
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Which sort of RPG is the Witcher?

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 27, 2007.

John somehow - i.e. Couldn’t Think Of A Funny Joke (But - hey! - as if that’s ever stopped him before) - missed out the Witcher from his round-up of PC game releases this week, so it’s worth bringing to your attention, as it’s the biggest release unless you’re a foot-to-ball fan. It looks like this.

And that’s you, The Witcher. No matter what you want - like, say, looking like someone who isn’t a incy-wincy bit derived from top Albino Eternal Champion and general glorious self-obsessed fuck-wit Elric - that’s still you. This threw Dan Whitehead over at Eurogamer in his review, where he argues - pretty much - if you can’t create your own character, it’s not a role-playing game. Which was such a debatable claim, it (er) immediately provoked a debate. In fact, I initiated it, because upon reading the review’s intro, I mumbled “Christ, Dan, you’re going to get slaughtered for that, mate”, so I thought by getting it rolling in a relatively pleasant way, it’ll save the inevitable Final-Fantasy fan arriving throwing a stroppy trantrum in the manner of a final Fantasy character.

But still, it is a perennial question (i.e. It gets argued on forums only slightly less often than Whether Games Or Art) and I thought I’d try and do relatively brief take on it. Feel free to provide yours, as one of the main reasons to lob this stuff in public is so people can pick it to pieces, so I can rethink gaping flaws.
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