FABIO wrote:


Do you expect Shakespere in your videogames? It wasn't anything great, but it still beat out every "save is from the orcs and the sinister mystery power behind them" D&D game that wasn't Planescape, and don't even get me started on Final Fantasy 7-9 (10, for any other faults it might have, was at least something vaguely original). For all the thee's and thou's, the voice acting was great for a videogame.

With all due respect, between this and that other post, I'm beginning to think that you've just started playing videogames within the past year or two. With this post, it sounds like you made the jump directly from Hugo award winning fiction and Beowolf directly into the plots of said games.

Compared to what? The brilliant NPC AI of Fallout 2? At least your party members were helpful on occaisions rather than liabilities. The only problem with party member AI in Masquerade was that despite setting your party members to "quit casting fucking spells during throw away fights", they'd continue to cast.

Well here's my thing; I couldn't give two shits about Whitewolf and their fruity RPG's. As it stands, Masquerade was a linear Diablo with prettier 3D graphics and a plot beyond seeing a pretty movie every 2 hours. Good enough for me to give it a 6.5-7 out of 10.

Except for the "bloodsuck" command? Or draining blood from your foes from a distance? Did you even play this game?

Except for a screen that let you spend experience points in dozens of areas? It was sure beyond that shit "one point per level" crap of Diablo 2 (or even worse, Arcanum, but no one liked that anyways so it's a moot point), and at least in Maquerade you weren't fucked halfway through the game if you went with certain skills over others. Did you spend a lot of points on the necromancer's raise skeletons ability like everyone else because you thought having a legion of skeletons following you was cool? Tough luck, you lose.

Are you seriously comparing the plots for the two? I'll take a cliched, but still reasonably solid story over the mish mash of every X-files episode ever made with unforgivably horrendous "love blooming on the battlefield" and "I fucked my stepmom" shit thrown in any day. And compared to every console RPG ever made, the plot in masquerade was pure fucking gold. At least the last few hours didn't dissolve into directionless, convoluted crap like every single thing to come out of Japan ends up doing.

Well I'm sorry LARPing goth fags were let down by it, but that still doesn't change my opinion. Actually, the idea that this game pisses off pancake makeup covered Marilyn Manson(sp?) fans is a big plus in my book. 11 out of 10!

We're agreed on one thing at least, the Blood Omen sequels blow.