That makes every game that you don't play as yourself an RPG. Obviously, this is not the case. RPG refers to a specific type of game of which GTA doesn't not belong.

Not trying to argue with you, but what would you call it?

Apart from the lack of Orcs and a fantasy setting what is different about this game to any other story driven game?

I loved Mafia and Vampire Masquerades and Morrowwind. To me its the same kind of game, yet no one disputes those are RPG.

Being story driven does not make it an RPG. In fact, many non-story driven games are RPGs. It also doesn't matter if you are, in your thinking, "role playing" a character or not. The term RPG refers to a specific genre, which GTA definitely is not. The keys characteristic of an rpg is a character, or characters, with evolving statistical abilities which improve the more you fight enemies or do quests in the game. Often this is in the form of levels, but not always. You usually have various skills that effect what you can do and how well you can do it, and there is usually some element of choice in how your character develops.

That's a fairly poor description, but hopefully enough to illustrate that GTA is NOT an RPG.

Can anyone recommend a Great Story Driven Game?

May Payne 2 - a brilliantly told story, and I've yet to see a game do better (storywise). It's also a good game aside from the story part, of course.

Sorry to dig up an old quote (I was away for a while), but I see what you're referring to here. Yes, there's an Armored Caster feat in that sense, but it applies only to Bards and Warlocks. You cannot take the feat with any other arcane caster, so it wouldn't apply to Wizards or Sorcerers.

As for the Eldritch Knight: 1 level of FTR gives you the proficiencies, 5 levels of WIZ gives you the casting requirement, and then if you take 10 EK levels, you'll have a good BAB, casting progression, and end up with your desired warrior/caster character. If you went with FTR 2/WIZ 8/EK 10 by level 20, you'd have +16 BAB and level 9 spells. Not too shabby at all.

My picks would be a bit different:


Dwarf Fortress
ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery)
IVAN (Iter Vehemens Ad Necem)
Fallout
Wasteland

Gameplay > Graphics

great RPG is Mount and Blade, its in its last beta stage (the game was open to beta from day 1 pretty much, and they updated it based on what the fans etc said, also the price scaled when you bought it so if you bought it near the start you payed less) but its hard to explain, but theres a free demo up to level 6 or 8 (i forget) and a great mod selection, its set in the medieval period-ish) just try it, trust me its damn addicitive!!

www.taleworlds.com

It fails on the "in the last year or so" criterion but if you haven't played it then it still stands up well - Deus Ex.

But the follow up lost a lot of the RPG elements - and seemed so much shallower.

Yeah. Don't bother with Deus Ex 2, at all. There's an okay story that ties up the original a bit, but it's not a very memorable experience.

Let's hope Deus Ex 3 does better. The original is gold, but it would look quite dated by today's first-person standards.

Yeh! - it does look a bit dated - I went back to it a few months ago and was a bit taken aback how much things have moved on. I remember being gob-smacked by its quality first time round. But if you can get over that, it still plays beautifully.

Quite, which is why I prefer semi recent games. Often we remember good games very fondly but if we ever go back and attempt to play them again suddenly they seem blocky and awkward. I tried this with GTA Vice City and it slightly spoilt the memory for me. Same reason I won't go back and play Mafia, I know that its better to remember the way it was a master stroke, of its time.

I've started on Neverwinter Nights from all the above suggestions. Although that is being delayed because I discovered The Wire on boxest (great TV).

I've rolled up a Choatic Evil Sorcerer with white skin and green markings and green hair called The Joker. Then he has a Bat familiar just to be ironic.

Don't dismiss Deus Ex outright because of this - I've been back to replay it a number of times (including recently) and yes, the graphics aren't amazing, but they're not so bad that they ever get in the way of the game, and you quickly adjust to them. The sound meanwhile is still good - every single conversation (and there are a lot since it's a story driven game) is voiced, for example. The gameplay is also as solid as ever, while comparing it to deus ex 2 shows you why good graphics shouldn't be the main focus (since the sequal had improved graphics but just about everything else was worse). There's also the point that it costs next to nothing to obtain compared to more recent games because it's been out so long.

You can get Neverwinter Nights with all the expansion packs for 20 bucks. That's a pretty sweet deal I'd say.

Seconded - I didn't mean the graphics were bad - just that current games graphics have moved on.
A definite bargain - NWN2 graphics aren't a whole heap better, camera control is worse. Load times are horrible and most areas are tiny so you sometimes end up waiting longer for an area to load than you do to play it.

You realize that all of this is false Well, camera control does a little bit of getting used to.

But unless you're running NWN2 on a sub-par PC where you can't crank the graphics up and that suffers from long load times, yeah, none of that is true.

SATA 2 Hard drives all cleaned up and defragged and still fairly long load times, I'd assumed that was normal - maybe it don't like my machine for some reason - so that could be dependent.

Quite a few of the external areas and buildings that I have come across so far are small - and going into a building or cave leads to another load in most cases. Some of the cave complexes or larger buildings are a bit bigger. So I still stand by that - unless it gets better late game.

2 x X1950XTX in crossfire cranked up fairly high - and the graphics are pretty but not that stunning - hmm, I do tend to play zoomed out a bit (helps with the camera problems) which may reduce some of the impact.

I maybe overstated a little for effect - but not completely false.

It's a very good game but I don't seem to be getting into it as much as I did with NWN - and that could influence my appraisal too.

Your mileage may vary

I notice no one has mentioned Avencast: Rise of a mage.

Its a title on Impluse so I could have it up and running in no time at all, but interesting it has been completely overlooked here. I know its from a small developers but surely that would not put off sinners.

Never played it so I couldn't comment. Is it a true RPG?

I just checked out the web site, it looks interesting.

Has anyone played it?

If you don't have it already, you should go out and get a copy of the original Dungeon Siege. Next, you should never actually play it, because by itself it's a pretty lame game. But you can download the remake of the classic RPG Ultima 5, which turns Dungeon Siege into one of the most engaging RPGs I've played in recent years. Best of all, DS can be bought for next to nothing, and the U5 remake is free. Check it out at www.u5lazarus.com.

Even better, there will soon be a complete remake of Ultima 6 for the DS engine as well.

That is a freakin outstanding piece of information if true!! I love Dungeonsiege 2 because i can play it with my wife at home with just 1 game disk.... just 1 game disk (insane laugh) ahhhaahheehaarr just 1 game disk, 1 game disk, 1 game disk arreehhhe
(bloody god damb mirracle to find a game that allows LAN play with just 1 game disk these days) Ahem, now pass me that console!! lol

Try this one :

http://www.lostlabyrinth.com/
even multiplayer on same pc (cooperative)

gameplay can be much longer than what they write on the site

or for the hardcore powergamers :
http://www.progressquest.com/

since one can count mafia and gta as rpg then consider "Brigade E5" as RPG

if you still have a CRT-screen from the ol'days - get system shock 2 and
3D stereo glasses then play it in a dark and silent room its amazing !

nwn is great but 2 looks a bit more cartoony to me than the origanal did id saw get the organal but thats probs i prefer it and new it when it was new so the graphis don't bother me.

Hmm, well I love NWN and I personally think the story is pretty good. Its not amazing but it is good. With all the mods NWN could keep you busy for years... I've heard NWN2 is rather nice too.. I personally like The Witcher, and I just finished Mass Effect which I liked...

I've never been able to understand why/how people recommend Baldurs Gate and Diablo so much. I just don't like them. I don't like the interface, I don't like the combat and altough the story may be good I could never get into it... But who know maybe you'll like it... Fallout is pretty good too and both of the Knights of the Old Republic games are a must, especially if you liked Mass Effect because you will notice quite a few similarities... Dang, now i want to break out KOTOR and play it... I just can't seem to find it though, maybe I'll have to buy another copy...

Hmm, lets see, Oblivion was pretty good, lots of mods for it and the storyline is decent... Fable is good, I thought Freedom Force was, quaint... If you like GTA Vice City, you need to try GTA San Andreas as I personally think it is a better game... Have you tried Warcraft 3? Some of the strategy RPGs are fun...

Mass Effect, definitely Mass Effect.  No other game comes as close to pen and paper gaming as it, although it's still a long ways off.

One of the very few games worth a second play-through, just because of all the different possibilities.