The Shrine

I'm bored. Let's make a big thread.

As the PS4 and Xbone come into the picture, it is time to take a look back at the PS3/360/Wii era and pick your favorites. Include PC games if you like. WHO WILL REIGN SUPREME!?

Make a list, categorize, give your own personal awards, whatever. Then Zeus will tell you that MGS4 was better than them all.

•••••••••••

NEXT-GEN IS HERE AWARD

GEARS OF WAR
Dead Rising was enough to warrant my 360 purchase, and a played a hell of it. But until Gears of War, there was no title that made you say "holy fuck, this is next gen". Though it wasn't the first 3rd person cover based shooter, it did set the standard for the genre to this day. Who could forget the initial joy or shredding enemies in half with a lancer?
Honorable mention: Metal Gear Solid 4


PC GAMING INVADES CONSOLES WITH SEXY RESULTS

FALLOUT 3
I'd never played a Fallout game up to this point, but the quirky premise of the game and the open-world freedom was too good to pass up. I spent well over 100 hours in the wasteland, and tens more on New Vegas. And while many people praise New Vegas for superior writing and added perks, the game left a bad impression on me solely for how goddamn buggy it was (thanks Obsidian!)
Honorable mention: XCOM, Skyrim


BEST NEW FRANCHISE

Mass Effect
Shit on the janky combat and Make traversal all you want, but the first Mass Effect will always be a triumph for me in creating the best multi-character space-faring modern-RPG franchise of this gen. The second game refined the combat while dumping the ridiculously over-saturated item/weapon pool for a more streamlined, story-based experience with great new - and old - characters. And the third one was great too, even if the ending was fucked. I never did play the last DLC, and apparently that was excellent. Fuck.
Honorable mention: Uncharted


BLOTUS STILL CARES ABOUT JPRGs

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
I'm as tired of 'the pre-teen saves the world' premise as anybody, but JESUS CHRIST is this game: charming, addictive, beautiful, and rewarding. Granted, I haven't finished the game yet, but in ~40 hours, I've never felt a lull in gameplay as if there were nothing to do or I didn't know where to go. Ni No Kuni has penetrated my black heart with its Ghibli art, great localization, and super score.
Honorable mention: Valkyria Chronicles


I'm sure I could think of more categories, but that'll get the ball rolling.

And just a list of memorable games:

The Last of Us
Uncharted 2&3
Skyrim
Fallout 3
Bioshock
Ni No Kuni
Assassin's Creed 2
Mass Effect (all)
XCOM
Dead Rising
MGS4
Resident Evil 5 (you PUNCH A BOULDER)
Dead Space 1&2
The Darkness
GTA 4&5
COD4
Flower
Shadow Complex
Rock Band
SF4
Halo 3
Valkyria Chronicles

What am I missing?

For myself my fave game of the gen was easily Mario Galaxy. No contest. Second place to Xcom Enemy Unknown. I was going to keep going but this generation has been so long that its all bluring together to me at this point. I know I bought and enjoyed a lot of games this year between all three platforms but those two are the only ones that really stand out to me as GOTG material.

The Mass Effect series was really good. But, I'm going to have to give Best New Franchise to Bioshock.

The series re-invented the way storytelling works and all three games offered something to the table. Even Bioshock 2 was enjoyable. And Bioshock Infinite managed to surprise despite the high expectations. The whole story was just really goddamn epic.

FUNNIEST GAME EVER

Portal 2
Jesus, I didn't think they could make a Portal where GLaDOS wasn't the funniest character, but here we are. The whole story is hilarious with so many goddamn one liners that I couldn't remember them all and write them down. J. K. Simmons is awesome as Cave Johnson, which really filled in the role. Wheatley's accidental comedy as the dumbest AI core on Earth is also great. Even GLaDOS had some great parts. And all of it tied together with some new and fresh gameplay, proving that there is still plenty to explore with the Portal gun.
Honorable mention: Borderlands 2

BEST INDIE GAME

Braid
Braid basically started it, or at the very least, got people to wake up and realize that there's a whole new universe of gaming that goes beyond the $60 triple AAA games with million dollar budgets. Even to this day, it remains an outstanding example of how indie games can still reshape how video games tell stories, can still promote great soundtracks, can still entertain millions of people with rich gameplay.

BEST PUZZLER

Antichamber
No, it's not Portal 2. It's this game. Portal 2 might be a better game overall, but the puzzle aspects of this game are miles beyond any other game I've played. The gameplay is everything here and this is one of the few puzzler games where I actually enjoyed trying to solve them. The way it tried to brainfuck you into re-learning life lessons was great, too.

Top Game overall: Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 - Runner Up: Xenoblade

Top new franchise: Ace Attorney and Rune Factory

Top 20 RPGs:
1. Xenoblade
2. Dragon Quest 5 DS
3. Rune Factory Frontier
4. Dragon Quest 9
5. Radiant Historia
6. The World Ends with You
7. Chrono Trigger DS
8. The Last Story
9. Pokemon White/Black
10. Dragon Quest 6 DS
11. Final Fantasy IV DS
12. Dragon Quest IV DS
13. Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny
14. Ni No Kuni
15. Devil Survivor
16. Suikoden: Tierkries
17. FF13
18. Revenent Wings
19. Tales of Graces
20. Crystal Bearers
Note: I don't consider action dominated games like Monster Hunter, Mass Effect, or Zelda to be RPGs.

Most played game: Wii Fit/Wii Fit+

Most disappointing games: Madworld, Twilight Princess, Metroid Prime 3, No More Heroes, Red Dead Redemption.

Most surprisingly good games: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Just Dance, Endless Ocean, Elite Beat Agents, Radiant Historia.

Best party game: Just Dance series

Best old games I played for the first time during the 7th Generation: Suikoden 2, Suikoden 1.

Favourite old games replayed during the 7th generation: Xenogears, Final Fantasy 8, Skies of Arcadia, Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6. In that order.

Best original music: Xenoblade (Yasunori Mitsuda/Yoko Shimomuri)

Favourite short games: Ace Attorney 3, Ace Attorney, Apollo Justice, Ace Attorney 2, Professor Layton games, Hotel Dusk, Trace Memory.

Games I will most likely replay within the next year: Dragon Quest 5, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Xenoblade.

Games I have become a hopeless fanboy of as of this generation: Ace Attorney series.

Games I didn't play, but wanted to: Saga 2 DS (Japan Only FF Legend 2 remake), Rune Factory 3, Fable III, Soma Bringer (Japan only).

jRPGs probably deserve their own classification because while I would never fault a great deal of them for being poorly made games they're fucking shitty RPGs by standards like letting the players roleplay (i.e. dialog choices that matter, non-linear stories).

This is pretty general so I'm going to have a list in no particular order of games with memorable story because, in the end, the story of a game is typically what I look back fondly on. This list is going to be DOMINATED by PC games since, you know, I'm not a filthy peasant. I'm still going to begin the list with a few DS titles though :D

Hotel Dusk
Ace Attorney series, but let's face it Phoenix is the shit
Portal (2)
The Swapper
Fallout New Vegas
Defense Grid (For having a story that is 100% told through an amazing narrator who really manages to bring home an emotional story in a game that's essentially about building towers to kill aliens)
Alpha Protocol (for storytelling experimentation... not so much the gameplay)
Mass Effect series
Dragon Age: Origin
SWTOR (deserves to get listed almost singlehandedly for the Imperial Agent story)
Path of Exile (purely for being the only aRPG with a story that doesn't suck by a studio that can't drop millions of dollars on fancy cinematics)
Analogue: A Hate Story
Dishonored (most promising new franchise)
Borderlands series
Assassins Creed.. I'm tempted to say the original and 2 but I'll say the series :P

No game has really resonated with me as much as Planescape Torment. Good luck with that, next generation.

I guess in retrospect only three or four of those games are PC exclusives. Whoops.

Blotus if you liked Mass Effect that much and never played the ME3 Citadel DLC you're really holding yourself back from what's basically hours of inside jokes and the most purposefully ridiculous storyline Bioware has ever produced

Well, here's just a quick list (I won't include the handhelds):

- Metal Gear Solid 4 - still the best game of this gen
- Mario Galaxy - haven't felt like that about a game since Super Mario 64
- Alan Wake - luvs that game, brought back the survival horror
- Gears of War franchise - 2 was the best overall. Horde helped redefine multiplayer gaming along with.....
- Left 4 Dead 2 - just amazing, still untouched as a co-op game
- Bioshock - amazing atmosphere and the best storyline twist of this generation along with....
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - probably the most landmark game of this generation...by a long shot
- Assassin's Creed Brotherhood - the pinnacle of the series which had an incredible turnaround after #1 only to watch it all go away with the end of Ezio
- L.A. Noire - yeah, the last few cases took a weird and unnecessary turn. But up to then, the game was just amazing
- Heavy Rain - best Simon Says gameplay ever (or QTEs, whatever you wanna call them)
- Burnout Paradise - most fun racing game of this generation. But the best goes to....
- Gran Turismo 5 - reminded you why they are the king of the simulation racing. Just incredible
- Super Smash Bros Brawl - holy fuck did I sink a lot of time into this game
- Pac Man Championship Edition DX - yeah, it's downloadable, but fucking incredible and worth more than almost every $60 game
- Portal 2 - what an amazing game. Took an incredible first game and made it much, much better
- Borderlands 2 - haven't felt that way about an antogonist (Handsome Jack) since Kefka....that's sayin' a lot
- Batman Arkham Asylum - City was probably a better game overall, but nothing beats the Joker berating you all game long
- Limbo - sorry, Sine, this may be the best of the indie games
- Rock Band 2 - best of the music games and fun as fuck even now
- Halo 4 / Halo Reach - can't decide which of these was the better one but they were both a huge step forward for the series

Can't think of anymore right now but I'm sure they'll come

Shrinweck wrote:jRPGs probably deserve their own classification because while I would never fault a great deal of them for being poorly made games they're fucking shitty RPGs by standards like letting the players roleplay (i.e. dialog choices that matter, non-linear stories)

When it comes to videogame genres, linearity has nothing to do with RPGs. The RPG genre began by importing battle mechanics from dungeons and dragons. These early RPGs were primarily dungeon crawlers with the only story being within the instruction booklet. Wizardry is a good example.

The console RPG genre began when a streamlined menu based battle system and integration of plot. Older RPGs, Wizardry games in particular, were remade for the NES with this style in mind.

The RPG genre is essentially based on gaining statistics by xp, and this is the primary focus in determining the success rate of a character.

Dialogue selections which aid in determining a path are actually from the Adventure genre. Winding through a game by selecting different dialogue choices were called Adventure games - similar to choose your own adventure books. Although adventure games were often far more advanced, due to the far greater flexibility allowed by computer programs; I.E, typing a certain word as a response, and this would modify your entire progress, rather than just selecting a certain path. Early action adventures, such as The Legend of Zelda, offered an almost purely action based representation of this model - instead of making this choice in text, it was travel down this path, or burn up this tree.

The adventure genre is defined by progression by making choices, such as select choice B out of choice A, B, C, or D - or go down path B.

You aren't playing a role though. There's more to a role playing game then experience and statistics. How the conventions were established doesn't really matter. If you aren't given any kind of decision making power besides how you're going to use the abilities you've gained through leveling then it isn't what has become an established role playing experience. Old RPGs were so limited technologically that they couldn't help being what they were.

A real RPG needs to offer some kind of choice for playing a role or it's just a game telling a story with levels and statistics that progress in order to imply progression through time and the adventure. To put it most simply - an RPG needs to have the player assume a role within a narrative and that role needs to be played by making meaningful structured decisions. jRPGs have none of these decisions. The concept was established in gaming by games like the original Deus Ex. Even a game like Wizardry, before the innovation of games like Deus Ex, let you specialize your classes if you had the correct alignment, which at the very least is assuming a role and making a decision based on stats. jRPGs typically don't let you do anything involving decision making besides your equipment. It just isn't the same genre. jRPGs have more of an emphasis on a blending of strategy and roleplaying, ignoring decision making in the story to emphasize what tends to be more tactical combat. It's the difference between playing a tabletop RPG where the emphasis is on tactical combat and one where the people are moving through a story that includes combat. Saying a game like Mass Effect is too dominated by action to be considered as an RPG, compared to games where 100% of the choices are combat-related just confuses me :P

There are tons of games that use roleplaying elements, but you wouldn't call Call of Duty multiplayer a roleplaying experience, and in some ways there are more roleplaying elements in COD multiplayer then a lot of jRPGs.

Edit: To be more specific and target Japan less, your list is primarily a list of great Simulation RPGs, a subgenre of RPGs that is a strategy game with roleplaying elements. XCOM Enemy Unknown is a great example of a Western game that arguably plays like a jRPG but no one would ever refer to it as a role playing game.

Mass Effect is so fucking awful, I can't even write a response to this thread because I keep getting distracted and talking about how Mass Effect is so fucking awful!

It's so bad, I don't even feel like ripping into the abortion that is the rebooted Xcom or Shadowrun (or hell, the X series with Rebirth). At least I get why some nubcakes might like those games -- they have no history with "what came before". But Mass Effect sucked from the get-go and just got worse.

Arrrrrrrrgh!

Shrinweck wrote:You aren't playing a role though. There's more to a role playing game then experience and statistics. How the conventions were established doesn't really matter. If you aren't given any kind of decision making power besides how you're going to use the abilities you've gained through leveling then it isn't what has become an established role playing experience. Old RPGs were so limited technologically that they couldn't help being what they were.

A real RPG needs to offer some kind of choice for playing a role or it's just a game telling a story with levels and statistics that progress in order to imply progression through time and the adventure. To put it most simply - an RPG needs to have the player assume a role within a narrative and that role needs to be played by making meaningful structured decisions. jRPGs have none of these decisions. The concept was established in gaming by games like the original Deus Ex. Even a game like Wizardry, before the innovation of games like Deus Ex, let you specialize your classes if you had the correct alignment, which at the very least is assuming a role and making a decision based on stats. jRPGs typically don't let you do anything involving decision making besides your equipment. It just isn't the same genre. jRPGs have more of an emphasis on a blending of strategy and roleplaying, ignoring decision making in the story to emphasize what tends to be more tactical combat. It's the difference between playing a tabletop RPG where the emphasis is on tactical combat and one where the people are moving through a story that includes combat. Saying a game like Mass Effect is too dominated by action to be considered as an RPG, compared to games where 100% of the choices are combat-related just confuses me

There are tons of games that use roleplaying elements, but you wouldn't call Call of Duty multiplayer a roleplaying experience, and in some ways there are more roleplaying elements in COD multiplayer then a lot of jRPGs.

Edit: To be more specific and target Japan less, your list is primarily a list of great Simulation RPGs, a subgenre of RPGs that is a strategy game with roleplaying elements. XCOM Enemy Unknown is a great example of a Western game that arguably plays like a jRPG but no one would ever refer to it as a role playing game.

Selecting from a list of options is not role playing, it is just selecting from a list of options; as above explained, this is the primary mechanic of the adventure genre, rather than the RPG genre. Nowadays, a lot of games blend RPG elements in, it doesn't make them RPGs. The reason why Call of Duty is not considered an RPG is because its primary mechanics are those of an FPS.

You wouldn't want to define RPGs as game where you are "Playing a role" due to the ambiguity of the term; for example, you could argue you are playing a role of a racer in Mario Kart and therefore it is an RPG.

There's more to the primary mechanics of an RPG then gaining experience and leveling up.

And I didn't only define it as playing a role. That's a very small part of it, let alone my post. I didn't pull these ideas out of my ass. The popular held belief of what an RPG is isn't that simple. That's similar to defining alcohol as beer. It's only part of it.

The primary mechanics of many of them games you listed are that of a strategy game with role playing elements of leveling thrown into the game. They're strategy/simulation/tactical RPGs.

Shrinweck, if I could change your title from Prime Regular to Thread derail king I would. :p

Haha it happens all the time with you guys and I've tried not to do it. I've just decided to completely embrace it recently.

Eric wrote:Shrinweck, if I could change your title from Prime Regular to Thread derail king I would. :p

Eric wrote:Shrinweck, if I could change your title from Prime Regular to Thread derail king I would. :p

Big list up there, respond if you wanna continue your thread. If you leave it open for others to derail, you can't whine Brady-like when others take over :-)

Aaand I just noticed the change. Yay, I guess I'll take it :D