FPS + RPG Games(Deus Ex, etc)

[lordraleigh]

     RPGs lack the interesting action from FPSes, FPSes lack the immersive settings and well developed characters and plots of RPGs, by merging the best elements of such genres many great games were done, and a promissing one will be done as well.

The Excellent Underdogs(And now Classics):

- System Shock

- System Shock 2

Hall of Fame

- Deus Ex

Future Releases

- Bioshock (The "Spiritual Successor" of System Shock 2)

What is your opinion on such type of games? This unique hybrid genre is my favourite for example.

[emeraldfool]

Deus Ex 2 was too open-ended for me. Too much work was put into the "choice" thing, and too little into the actual story. It just struck me as a little dry and uninvolving - none of the characters were particularly interesting, and just seemed to exist to further the plot. At least for me, the 'moral dilemmas' where you have to choose who to follow and who to kill didn't affect me much, because I just wanted to kill everyone for being so bland

I should look up SS. I played a demo of it once, but never got around to getting the full game...



Does Oblivion count as a FPSRPG?

[Nurahk]

Bloodlines and Oblivion would be FPSRPG, yeah.

And Bioshock looks amazing, to say the least.
It's an interesting idea and looks well done.

[Rayken]

I really liked both Deus Ex's actually.  I found the characters and plots of the second good, and the choices were nice.  Those were actually the only FPS's i've ever played, unless you count the Wolfenstein 3d demo i played on my macintosh performa in the 7th grade.

[Kiern]

Deus Ex 1 and Bloodlines are pretty much the only video games I've actually completed, they're both amazing games.

Oh, and I finished Deus Ex 2, but it was nowhere near as good.  I can't really go into depth why because it was a while ago that I played it.

But yeah, looking forward to Bioshock.  Couldn't play system shock 2, the controls were too weird for me or something.

[lordraleigh]

About System Shock 2:

The home of the Underdogs has a torrent of the full game(Including DivX versions of the cutscenes) for download:

http://www.the-underdogs.info/game.php?gameid=3924

And if you want to have an idea, well suffice to say games like Final Fantasy XII still receive bad ratings on a considerable amount of the reviews from GameFAQs, here is the list of reviews for System Shock 2 on the same site:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/review/185706.html

[emeraldfool]

Meh, I generally go by people who actually know what they're talking about. GamesFaq is filled with too many zealous or disgruntled fanboys, and hapless wannabe-critics with no real experience.
There might be a decent reviewer in there, but it's too hard to tell which one's right and which one's wrong when any old thing is posted.

Most of those reviews there just sound too gushing to be objective... and it's an obscure enough game where the only people who'd bother to write a review are the fans, unless they're paid critics.


Still, it sounds like a cool game. I think I'll try it...

[lordraleigh]

Here some "professional" reviews for it then emeraldfool:

Gamestats Average ( 9.4 ) http://www.gamestats.com/objects/011/011087/

(some of the links are broken on Gamestats, sadly)

Gamespot( 8.5 ): http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/systemshock2/review.html

IGN( 9 - Editors Choice Award ) http://pc.ign.com/articles/161/161087p1.html

[emeraldfool]

It's at 2%


And I already read the GameSpot and IGN reviews... they're in my favourites tab (the sites, not the specific reviews)

[lordraleigh]

Also if you wish a boost on System Shock 2 graphical quality(Note they will raise a little the system requirements, but any nowadays computer will handle it easily), some unnoficial mods were done to improve it:

Rebirth: Replaces most of the clumsy models to high-poly ones http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.php/topic,8.0.html


SHTUP: Upgrades textures of the objects in the game(Direct Download Link) http://shtup.home.att.net/files/shtup_beta5.zip

[emeraldfool]

Should I have played SS1 in order to understand what's going down?

[lordraleigh]

Should I have played SS1 in order to understand what's going down?

I didn't play SS1 and managed to understand the plot pretty well.
Only thing is the references to "Citadel Station", but they are explained in a part of the game plot.

[Shimmabuku]

I think The Two best FPSs storyline-wise are the Halo series and the Half-Life Series. So much awsomeness. Sure they both have some "iffy" places, but what game dosn't?

[Rayken]

I've only ever played the first Halo, but the first couple hours of story and gameplay bored me to the extent that I couldn't fight the urge to stop playing.  Nowhere near Deus Ex IMO, despite the newer technology.

[emeraldfool]

Rayken's right. The Halo story kinda sucked, especially the way all the interesting stuff was barely audible over the wailing death-cries of those little panicky fellas...

It's just typical sci-fi stuff, nothing really new or exciting.

(Although part of that might be stemming from the fact that I always sucked at FPSes, and my brother always pwned.)



(Seriously, somehow I managed to accidentally stick my own grenade onto myself... )