Usually. Enter The Matrix was one of the rare exceptions. That game genuinely slapped. The gameplay was crazy fun; it took all the slow-mo coolness of Max Payne and added wall-running, super jumps and martial arts. The combat was lots of fun, and the story was all written by the Wachowski’s to tie in with the second and third movie, including actual scenes that they filmed as part of the process. They took it really seriously, to them it was an essential part of the story.
Obviously the whole Matrix 2 & 3 saga has some problems, it’s not the Wachowski’s best work (how could it have been, they had a plot for one movie that they were told to expand into two), but the game is still a really fun entry in their ouvre.
This is an obscure one, and not high on most people’s lists, but my personal favourite PS2 game is Steel Lancer International, a game where you build mechs and take them into arena battles in a post-apocalyptic future.
Absolutely amazing game. Just Cause kind of captured some of the same energy, but never quite there. There’s nothing quite like being able to deploy cluster bomb strikes at will.
Dread is legitimately one of the best horror RPGs ever created.
For those who don’t know, it’s a game of “Final girl” / “Cabin in the woods” style horror where terrible things happen to a group of people. The only mechanic the game has is a Jenga tower. Every time you want to do a risky action, you pull a brick. If the tower falls, something really bad happens. No other game has ever quite created such a perfect feeling of steadily mounting tension and… well… dread.
But what constitutes “RPG elements?” Because most of the time that seems to mean “crunchy stats”, which has absolutely nothing to do with “Roleplaying.” I’ve seen Call of Duty described as having “RPG elements” because you unlock perks.
Your average visual novel is more of a roleplay experience than half the CRPGs I’ve played. If reviewers mean “There’s very little player choice or input and you don’t really get to feel like you’re embodying a character” then yeah, that’s a valid criticism. If their complaint is that they didn’t get to put enough dots next to things, I’m not really sure how that’s a problem.
I mean, vaporware would require it to fail to manifest. There is a game. You can play it right now. Has it delivered on everything they promised? Absolutely not. But that was never the definition of vaporware. And, paradoxically, what’s there, despite being far reduced from the theoretical scope, is also one the most technically impressive games ever made. Entire planets in a complete solar system that you can traverse without a single loading screen. Not even a disguised one. It’s also, y’know, a buggy janky mess that still lacks many core gameplay features.
Like, there’s so much that you could legitimately criticise about Star Citizen that resorting to the both meaningless and innacurate claim of vaporware just shows an extreme lack of imagination. If you want to be critical go for it, but surely you can come up with something more coherent than that?
The airship is what sold me. I’ve wanted ships in Minecraft for as long as I’ve been playing Minecraft, both because it’s cool, and because I think survival games would really benefit from the idea of a mobile base. Being able to take your home with you is such a huge deal and really bridges the gap between the “cosy” and “adventure” aspects of these games.