Best PC RPGS of the last decade

Regime_sl said:

100% guaranteed they didn't play it on Very Hard either unless they had the Chinese Stealth Suit or used ~.

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i play every game i own or have ever played on the highest difficulty, every time. I figured this out when I was in middle school, just makes games that much more fun.

I primarily play RPGs and am fond of western RPGs in particular (cut my teeth on gems like The Bard's Tale, Ultima 2, and Wasteland on my C64). I dont love JRPGs but I've played a few and enjoyed some of those.
Some games from the last decade that I enjoyed are as follows:

Avernum: Escape from the Pit
Eschalon Book I (I have Book II but havent started it yet)
Oblivion
Fallout 3
Legend of Grimrock

I'm still looking for something to come along and dethrone the BGs or Planescape, but so far nothing has for me.

Man, i just tried to start Witcher 2. Love the cutscenes, story seems great. But the combat, jesus. It feels so sluggish with this sword and those spells, does the game get more speed mechanical wise later on? I'm in the sewers at the siege at the beginning.

Oh, don't slap me for it, but i immensly enjoyed FarCry 3, even though it's kind of stretching to call it an RPG:

+1 for New Vegas. I've been replaying it recently. Of course you have to mod the absolute piss out of it. I am quite confident in proclaiming New Vegas to be the BG2 for this decade. It really is that good.

Only 2 mentions of System Shock. If you've never played it, download it from GOG (it's like 5 bucks I think), grab a texture pack, and enjoy. That's really a top notch game. Precursor to Thief and real close to just as good. We should all mourn Looking Glass.

DA:O was good because of everything it mixed. They didn't just create a game then paper in a backstory, you can tell that they had the backstory and then fit the game into it. But it wasn't any 1 particular thing with DA:O it was a lot of little things coming together just right. And of course, you modded the fuck out of it too.

Two games I haven't seen mentioned are Arx Fatalis or Amnesia. They'reweird, short, little games... but they really pack a punch. You can't apply best ever to either of them, but they are both well worth the money. Shit, Fatalis is old as hell. You can probably get it for like 2 bucks.

ShaKadelic_sl said:

Man, i just tried to start Witcher 2. Love the cutscenes, story seems great. But the combat, jesus. It feels so sluggish with this sword and those spells, does the game get more speed mechanical wise later on? I'm in the sewers at the siege at the beginning.

Oh, don't slap me for it, but i immensly enjoyed FarCry 3, even though it's kind of stretching to call it an RPG:

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I enjoyed the first and couldn't finish the second. Personally think it's over rated because of the adult aspects. I also agree the combat was terrible.

Kedwyn_sl said:

I enjoyed the first and couldn't finish the second. Personally think it's over rated because of the adult aspects. I also agree the combat was terrible.

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I think it's awesome because you are never dealing with black or white choices, everything is in shades of gray, unlike Bioware. You might think you are doing the good thing when the character is just screwing you over. "Adult" is really overused word when it comes to stories, so people fuck and swear a lot, sheesh. They might overdo it a bit, but as far as history is concerned, that's what people have been doing since the beginning of time. The combat is fine for me, you just need to get used to it a bit and keep dodging, the game can be a bit unforgiving if you charge into groups of enemies. Corners and elixirs are your friends.

Neither of those are in the last decade.

Tuco_sl said:

I know what you mean. I think because it's mostly a turn-based game with a lot of options the skill cap become executing many paused orders throughout a fight rather than being prepared or necessarily executing with skill. Obviously your party makeup plays a huge role in the difficulty of the game.

The last playthrough I had with BG2 I went nuts getting all the encounter difficulty mods installed until the game pretty much required multiple attempts and perfect execution in around half of the encounters. Eventually I just couldn't take all the tedium and gave up.

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yeah. I don't bother with hard anymore. 99% of the time it just makes the game in question tedious. not more challenging.

Penance_sl said:

Why did people like DA:O so much. I've bought it twice now (once for Xbox, and once for PC) and I just don't get it. It's a 8 at best. The story is just so boring. The only thing that is interesting in that game is the veil.

/dons flame retarded suit.

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I'm with you on that. I liked DA:O just fine, but would rank it as an above average forgettable game.

I simply have no interest in replaying DA:O today. That's the key difference for me between a good RPG or a "best" one.

Axiel_sl said:

Dark Souls has enough rpg elements to make it an "action RPG," however it is through and through a console game.The pc port needs to be modded to support 1080p, to get out of 30fps cap (doing this makes the platforming elements buggy,) and I'd assume to make a keyboard somewhat bearable.

The rpg elements don't even have anything to do with what makes Dark Souls a great game- it's the balanced, deep, and challenging action combat. A game with just a handful of dialogue that needs a controller to be enjoyed just doesn't belong in a thread about pc rpgs.

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I guess I'm just fucking old because up until Steam made it easy, this was every single PC game on the market. I was constantly having to download patches and drivers to get games to run correctly along with editing config files by hand to make sure everything was to my liking. Also, input type has no bearing on whether a game on the PC is great or not. In fact, it is part of what makes PC gaming head and shoulders above console gaming. On a PC you can use the ideal input be it kb+mouse, controller, joystick, etc. PC gaming has far fewer limitations all around and that makes it awesome.