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4 months ago
Feature: Story ain't a dirty word
I have to admit, I’m not the best at every video game, but I’m just awful at Western RPGs. I never wrapped my head around Neverwinter Nights’ D&D style of play. I built my character incorrectly in Knights of the Old Republic and it made my playthrough excruciatingly difficult. I’ve passed on playing other popular WRPGs like Planescape: Torment just for the fear of having…
1 year ago
Feature: Listen to Mr Pesto
You look a little tired, friend. Let me just adjust this slider for you. There, wide awake. Now you’ve got some energy, how about listening to the RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show? This week we’re talking about character creation. Which games spoil us with choice? And why do we always end up creating the same sneaky elf?
2 years ago
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Feature: Big Boss
Since its foundation in 2003, Obsidian Entertainment has worked with seven different publishers. Commencing with LucasArts on Knights of the Old Republic II, Obsidian has since signed contracts with Atari, SEGA, Bethesda, Square Enix, Ubisoft and most recently, Paradox Interactive. In fact, up until Pillars of Eternity [official site], every single game Obsidian had made was funded and distributed by a different publisher. This is…
Feature: A matter of perspective.
Beyond Infinity: Obsidian on modernising the art of the isometric RPG
When Obsidian Entertainment started work on Pillars of Eternity [Official Site], the studio had two goals in mind. First, it wanted to recreate the style and tone of the classic Black Isle RPGs – particularly Baldur's Gate. Second, it wanted to modernise that style, taking advantage of today's technology, and avoiding mistakes made the first time around.
Feature: "The next Crusader Kings could be an RPG"
Paradox on the future of historical strategy, RPGs and their internal development studio
At the Paradox Convention last month, I was hoping to see something new from Paradox Development Studio, the internal team responsible for the company's core strategy titles. There were new expansions for Europa Universalis IV [official site] and Hearts of Iron IV [official site], and the hiring of Jon Shafer is an interesting move, but no actual games were announced. I sat down with creative…
Feature: Sympathy for the damned
Kickstarter's been pretty good for RPGs. We may not have seen the next big leap yet - Divinity: Original Sin 2 is looking pretty damn special, mind - but it's certainly breathed new life into the classics. Wasteland and Pillars of Eternity are both returning. Numenera went down well, despite a little over-promising. Divinity was superb. Have I left anyone out? (Oh yeah, don't forget…
Obsidian Entertainment today formally announced the sequel to Pillars of Eternity, their 2015 throwback fantasy RPG which John enjoyed so. Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire [official site], for that is its name, is set across the Deadfire archipelago, obvs. A god has unexpectedly returned to life and gone a-wandering there, which may cause a few problems. Better go ask him politely to knock it off.…
3 years ago
Feature:
I've played a million beginnings and around a thousand endings, or at least that's how it feels. Imagine having seen the first act of Romeo and Juliet a hundred times but never having seen how it ends. That's my experience with all manner of games, from big story-driven RPGs to some of my favourite strategy epics. I've founded so many starter cities that have never…
Feature: Hands-on with Tyranny's early hours
Evil in Tyranny [official site] is so ordinary. That’s why it's successful, I think. In a medium prone to cartoonish overexaggeration, where villains are barely more than mustache-twirling caricatures, Tyranny tells a bleaker story. It’s the evil of numbers, the evil of tax collectors and bureaucracies and negligence and “I was just following orders.” A real-world sort of evil. The type that’s much harder to…
Feature: Adventuring with alacrity!
I must confess, since finishing Siege of Dragonspear the other week, I've not actually fired up any RPGs. It's not for want of them to play. I'm particularly looking forward to finally trying Final Fantasy IX, which I missed back in the day, and Beamdog's recently announced interquel, Planescape Torment: The Nameless One And A Half. (It's very similar to the original, only now whenever…
Feature: Return Trip
As the year draws toward its final frosty furlong, I'm slightly surprised that one of the games I'm most looking forward to playing is also one of my favourite games from 2014. It's Divinity: Original Sin, a game that I adored when I played it last year and that I expect to lose myself in again when the Enhanced Edition comes out next week. It's…
4 years ago
Feature: 2015's best RPG.
What is the best RPG of 2015? The RPS Advent Calendar highlights our favourite games from throughout the year, and behind today's door is... Pillars of Eternity!
Feature: Live from the Halls of Celebration
As the dragons finally return to their nests to hibernate and the ghosts don their chains to help remind misers of the meaning of the season, we approach the end of another year. As is tradition, that is time for we at the guild-house to award both quests and questers the ceremonial Scrolls of Honour™. (Chorus of affordable angels) Scribed upon only the finest vellum…
Feature: Level Cap
An entirely objective ranking of the 50 best PC RPGs ever released. Covering the entire history of computer role-playing games is a daunting task and attempting to place the best games in such a broad genre in any kind of order is even more daunting. Thankfully, we are equal to all tasks and below, you will find the best fifty PC RPGs of all time.
Feature: Gather party, venture forth
One of the most gratifying things about the recent-ish RPG revival is that they've almost all done well enough to warrant developer interest after release. (Oh, if only the adventure one had been as... no, no. Wrong column.) Call them Enhanced Editions, Director's Cuts or whatever else, they give their creators a second chance to fix mistakes or expand their worlds - and that's pretty…
Feature: Imagine what you could do with a whole week of deals!
What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we'll be offering our picks - based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 7 of the sale.
Feature: The Book Of Gripes
As wonderful as RPGs are, some tropes and cliches and just general bloody annoyances really do spoil the fun. Some of them might only crop up occasionally, others just won't go away. Some, you might think, are just petty irritations. But no! All these incontrovertible sins must be destroyed at once! Here's a few of my least favourite offenders. What others would you add to…
Feature: Rock And Paper
Swinging A Stick: How Landscape And Childhood Are Key To The Continued Popularity Of Fantasy Fiction
Once at primary school I tried to convince my teacher that we needed a new word - or at least that we needed one that might exist already, but that we’d somehow forgotten. This is going to be a piece partly about words, and “fantasy” was one that I was never totally happy with. It lacked, as I saw it, the generic precision of “science-fiction,”…
Feature: Who do you want to be?
I take roleplaying seriously. That's not to say I have a cupboard full of lucky dice or a handcrafted elven tunic - what I mean to say is that when I play an RPG, I try to make all of my decisions based on my character rather than the systems. I'll pass up a huge pile of loot if I don't think that taking it…
Feature: Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Pillars of Eternity is out. You might have noticed. I'm not terribly far into it myself yet, but in between a spot of bear-bashing and wolf-wounding, I was struck by how very RPG Inn the first inn I visited was. Truly, the Black Hound Inn in the town of Gilded Vale is the archetypal RPG inn. I knew, the second I stepped foot in it,…
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