another treasure island hardcore gaming 101

PCs have Wasteland and its spiritual successor Fallout, but aside from that, they don't have much to brag about either. I can't remember any post-nuclear RPGs for consoles. If you can't walk three steps without being attacked, how the hell do you maintain farms and trade routes? Why doesn't everyone starve? In post-apocalyptic games, there is no society, that's the whole point! Cover the world in ravenous mutants and make everyone afraid to venture outside for a bite to eat. It's always baffled me how in fantasy games, you have these medieval societies that somehow continue to function despite being completely overrun with monsters. Oddly enough, they kept the global thermonuclear war and added puffy cereal box wizards.Īn incredibly nifty excuse for horrible mutants to run amok and everyone passes it up. (Especially since most will never get legitimate sequels).ĬRYSTALIS: This post-apocalyptic classic was butchered when ported to Game Boy Color. I want you to play the following games, then clone the hell out of them. The following settings are almost completely ignored despite past success. RPGs draw most gamers in with storyline more than gameplay, so why risk boring your audience with me-too writing? Even Warcraft and Starcraft had distinct themes, despite being real-time strategy games from the same company. I can't think of a genre as stuck on one setting as RPGs (other than Survival Horror clones inexplicably sticking with horror, heh). Sure, early RPGs ripped their play mechanics from D&D, which borrowed heavily from Tolkien, who was inspired by mythology - but that's no reason EVERY FREAKING RPG must contain magic and goblins.

I dig skimpy chainmail babes as much as the next guy, but I'll never understand the video game industry's obsession with fantasy role-playing games. Now, fantasy MMORPGs dominate the industry! And I'm happy to report that fantasy RPGs no longer dominate the industry. Microsoft released a new Shadowrun game - or rather, a Shadowrun mod for Counter-Strike. Update (): Since this was written back in 2000, a lot of things have changed.

Another treasure island hardcore gaming 101