Recommend a game with depth please

Dagnir Glaurung

A lot of people seem to confuse length with depth. Length does not mean depth. Many long games indeed seem as if they have been arbitrarily stretched out either by pointless encounters, stupidly tough boss battles or too many cut-scenes. These games will take a long time to complete but the experience will be mostly empty and thin. A game with depth however, feels full the whole way through. These are often short brilliant games, or open-ended games.

Tar.Aldarion

Morrowind and the two expansions-blood moon and tribunal(best single player game ever-tekkit).
Baldurs gate games.
Final fantasy series.
Deus Ex(havn't played the second one but i assume it is good).
Vampire The Masquerade-Bloodlines.

Zapp Brannigan

the second Deus Ex is pure muck, avoid at all costs.

I really want Planescape now

Karl Hungus

BLITZ_Molloy wrote:

In most RPG's you don't have to think or interact. You just sit there and bash monsters. Hell, you can tape the button down and leave your computer on while the characters level up enough for you to cruse to the end. That's not depth. That's mindless slogging. If your going to do a story, do a story, but leave out all the tedious busy work. Most RPG storylines are two hours long, dragged out over 80 hours of limp gameplay.

I'm sorry, but are you judging every single RPG based on Diablo? Because that's exactly what it sounds like. Now I'm not bashing Diablo here, it was some mindless fun, but a hallmark of RPGs it is not!

Personally, since Diablo I can honestly only think of two so-called RPGs I've played where the idea of sitting there and bashing monsters rings true, Dungeon Seige and Sacred. Both, while fun for a short time, were dismally lacking any serious rewarding experience. Quite frankly, the Hack'n'Slash style RPG is not something I generally enjoy, and I prefer games that aren't as combat intesnive, but are more based around interaction. One of my favourite RPGs of recent years was Gothic (and Gothic 2) simply becuase it focused more on the interaction of your character, and there was hardly any of those tedious endless dungeons to trawl through, with a "Town" area just happening to be there so you can rekit and take a small repreive. No, most of the gameplay in the Gothic games took place in the various towns, castles, camps, farms, and other buildings and areas, with some wilderness joining them up.

I'd agree with you, if the kind of mindless hack'n'slash type RPG was being suggested here, but it isn't, and by no stretch of the imagination is that kind of game the majority in the RPG world. So far we've got suggestions for Planescape: Torment, Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, Gothic, Deus Ex, Knights Of The Old Republic, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, Fallout and so on... None of them could be considered games that you "Don't have to think or interact" or something with which you could "Tape the button down and leave your computer on while the characters level up enough for you to cruse to the end."

Retr0gamer

I find a well designed RPG will not require endless hours levelling up. in fact I am really against the idea of games forcing you to level up and usually can't stand games that force you to do it. A well designed RPG will make sure that you are at a suitable level during the game. KOTOR is a great example. It even auto levels up your characters when you select them which means you can keep track of characters that you haven't used in a while but making sure they aren't useless. I think someone just needs to play some real RPGs and not games that are Gauntlet repackaged.

I have to agree that short games can be games that have a lot of depth. I think Street Fighter 2 is a game of great depth but it depends on the level of challenge you can expect from human opponents. Beating the CPU will get boring and predictable after a while but fighting an opponent you has an infinite array of tactics at hand is very different. I'm playing Radiant Silvergun at the moment and there is an awful lot of depth for a game that is about 90 minutes long. It's disgracefully tough so takes ages to beat but once beaten there are tonnes of ways to beat your old score by chaining kills and 'buzzing' bullets.

Jazzy

secret of mana ftw tbh!!

most balanced RPG out there. Tales of Symphonia also rox... IF U LIKE RPG's AND OWN A GAMECUBE BUY THIS ASAP!!!
wonderful game and a good reason to buy a cheapo cube....

imo tho the most recent standard set for how an RPG should be made and wat lines to follow (single player ofc) is Skies of Arcadia

Digitiser always rated this as their number 1 RPG and its not hard to c y.
Just cos u can be a "thief orc" or "Jedi Pirate" or watever it is in those recent games (NWN and KOTOR namely ) doesnt make it any more "in depth".
Skies and FF7 and the likes drew me in and where deep games cos of the devolpment and adaption of the characters... u actually felt sad if a certain thing happend to a certain character... unlike now where its a case of "crap, i forgot to save"

Chrono trigger aswell is an awsome experiance although im probably preaching to the choir
still my personnal most fun experiance from gaming came from me and 2 mates finishing secret of mana in one sitting (no sleep, no leaving, except for food). so so so good. that was only 2 years ago and all.... playing an old classic can still be a "deep" experiance if ya get me

mndflayr

Depth?
www.achaea.com
A MUD with depth like no other game in the world today.
If you like to read and get hooked, you may never leave.

jaggeh

the original diablo had great depth, backed up with decent hack and slash gameplay

or do you all forget the books telling the story as you went deeper, i loved that.

anyway has anyone tried the new bards tale?

as a quirky budget game id reccomend anochronox, combat system is a bit weird bbut the humor and story is great. one of your characters is a planet for christs sake

Vulture

Nobody has mentioned is "X2 the threat" not exactly a morrowind type but damm good.
http://www.x2thethreat.com/games/x2/info_en.php
Huge universe and play it what ever way you want. For thoose who have never hear of it. You are one person you start in a little scout fighter craft. It's all based in space so you traveling around in space craft (you dock at stations and ships to interact) all the time. Their is a global economy, you can trade between existing stations to make money. With enough money you can buy your own stations and produce your own goods. Everything from raw material to high grade weapons. The more complex the finished product the more factories you would need, the more profit.
Alternative : become a pirate and simply rob the stuff though the local goverment (think their is 5 goverments) will try to kill you on sight. My personal favourite is to become a hitman and kill people for money, keeps you busy while building up your empire. Their is a few other methods but usuall it's just for seed capital to start your empire. You can buy big, bigger and huge ships, Like a carrier that holds 100 fighters, the only problem is cost. It takes ages to get enough money just to buy a fighter. Their is lots of other missions ect you can do bar the main storyline. Building up a massive fleet and then wiping out everyone in the whole galaxy would probally be the most fun.
Ps if you dont like all that leveling up business this is the game for you, the only thing you level up is how good you are at something. Fleet command, assination, trading ect, theese only affect what missions you can accept.
I only put in a couple of weeks and then got hooked on dawn of war(more of a real time strategy person) but i'm sure it's got enough dept to keep you going. On the plus side it's cheap because their about to put out X3 Reunion.
http://www.x2thethreat.com/games/x3/info_en.php
Ps the graphics are Great.

twenty8

If you are looking for a long lasting game you cannot go far wrong with Football Manager.

I have a tonne of games and every time I keep going back to this (or any of its predecessors - but keep away from Championship Manager 5).

It is the tops for playability, longetivity and addictiveness.

Who know - you might even manage to steer Ireland to a World Cup!!!

Dermo

nethack

jaggeh

x2 the threat has starforce..... steer well clear of it.

CiDeRmAn

I guess what one has to ask is what you mean by depth, to some people a game has depth because of all the character enriching diversion aside from the main story thread in the game, allowing you to immerse yourself fully in the game enviroment and invest in your character, striking up empathy within you for the avatar and the world around it, others see it as pointless padding out of a bloody game that was too short to begin with, mindless dawdling about til your character has leveled up enough to finally defeat another repetitive boss that has already occupied too much of your time anyway.

KOTOR is the best balance between the two, never veering into pointless wandering, providing you with the needed information for you to find your own path through the game, Fable is too short and suffers from the wandering crap I mentioned before.

SuperMarioWorld is pretty deep in its own way, as is Chronotrigger though at this point a chipped Xbox may be your best bet to play the latter.

Rez is both shallow and deep at the same time, drawing you in and holding you in its grasp long after you think you have completed it.

Ico is deep because you genuinely care for the characters and are in awe of the world, its graphics and soundtrack provide just the antidote for these car modding, licenced soundtrack, bombastic gaming days we are in now, more a novel than a comic.

Still, maybe Mario64 is the best, it has never been bettered and available to non retro heads now on the DS, although like shakespear and klingon, its best sampled on the N64, its all about control.

Deadwing

I just have to say...VTM:Bloodlines is absolute crap. Even at 5.99 its not worth it. Dont bother, buy something else.

koneko

I'm going to paraphase what was going to be a longer post into simply saying: you're wrong.

Deadwing

koneko wrote:

I'm going to paraphase what was going to be a longer post into simply saying: you're wrong.

And im simply going to say, it was sh!t, thats my opinion, so its not wrong. I didnt say youre wrong for liking it, did i?

koneko

Dead Deadwing,
Please learn not to take the internet too seriously. Contrary to popular opinion, the internet is NOT serious business.

Greetings,
K.

p.s. :rolleyes:

Deadwing

sure

Karl Hungus

koneko wrote:

Contrary to popular opinion, the internet is NOT serious business.

Tell that to all those who make a living from the internet.

Seriously though, Bloodlines was quite a good game indeed. Nothing totally amazing, but definetly good.

Branoic

I just got it there at the weekend, and Im really enjoying it so far. I knew a little about the original pen and paper game, but not much. Im playing a Malkavian, and her dialogue is brilliant. There are some annoying glitches, and a lot of things don't seem polished - but its definitely good. In my opinion.

koneko

Great choice, the Malkavians are such a blast to play. Definitely get the patch if you haven't already, there's a showstopping bug later on (where you have to manually load the next level otherwise).

Anyway in case my point wasn't clear, if Deadwing can make an absolute statement ("it's crap, it's not worth 5euro, don't buy it") then I can too ("you're wrong").

Retr0gamer

Vampires suck

Karl Hungus

koneko wrote:

Great choice, the Malkavians are such a blast to play. Definitely get the patch if you haven't already, there's a showstopping bug later on (where you have to manually load the next level otherwise).

Anyway in case my point wasn't clear, if Deadwing can make an absolute statement ("it's crap, it's not worth 5euro, don't buy it") then I can too ("you're wrong").

Aye, get it patched and you're dandy. I always loved the Tremere though, there's just something about making someone detonate I loved.

But his is wrong!

koneko

Hmmmmm, Tremere you say. I need something to keep me entertained until next friday. Toreador is a nice one to go for aswell, lots of seducing.

Karl Hungus wrote:

But his is wrong!

That'll just be between you and me, but we know we're right

Deadwing

more fun scraping your balls on a belt sander. crappy 'action', terribly designed game world...theres a reason it was knocked down in price from full price to 15 quid after about a month..that reason being..it sucked.

koneko

There we go again. Try rephrasing things into an opinion instead of absolutes.

"Popular" does not equal "Good", by the way. I'm pretty sure Driv3r sold pretty well.

Karl Hungus

Deadwing wrote:

more fun scraping your balls on a belt sander.

Lovely. :rolleyes:
Can't say I've ever tried that, but I doubt it would be much fun. Tell you what, I'll leave you to your belt sander molestation, and I'll just write off your 'opinion' as a rather bizarre spasm, then we shall forget about it.

Jazzy

VTM to me was just like Neverwinter Nights or the like but with "attitude" and vampires. Not as much depth for me. just cos it was vampires didnt make it as fun imo.... still a good, but not a great game

Tar.Aldarion

koneko wrote:

Hmmmmm, Tremere you say. I need something to keep me entertained until next friday. Toreador is a nice one to go for aswell, lots of seducing.



That'll just be between you and me, but we know we're right

Hmm IMO Toreador are the 'ghey' vampires and tremere are just imposters .I'm so biased from the roleplaying game though.It's the ventrue in me getting out(dominate,fealty etc...mm....).Fear the warlords and whatnot.I quite like Nosferatu too.
Man I miss roleplaying that game....

CiDeRmAn

Actually, I have it, an old game on PC and 3DO called Star Control 2, fanatastic stuff, lousy graphics but great story and great use of music and voice acting, and this in a game from 1994!
Seriously its a cracking RPG with some old school space wars style combat thrown in.
Anyone else try this one out at any time?
I remember making my own hyperspace maps and everything because unlike the US version the Eu 3do one didn't come with a map.

But seeing as you guys seem to be determined to play ten-a-penny identikit online rpgs, I will leave you to it.