The first episode of 2014 is now out, as Jonah Falcon, Jordan Lund and Dan Quick recap the major news of 2014.
The news includes:
Also, some Listener Feedback, and the Questions of the Week, “What was the biggest event of 2013? What was your favorite game?”
Unfortunately, Skype decided that since Jonah’s webcam was connected, he wanted to use the webcam’s mic instead of the actual mic Jonah uses, making it sound like he’s in the next room talking to the others. It’s unfortunate, since this was the 350th episode of the Videogame Roundtable and longtime co-host Paul Nowak took the time from his busy schedule to join in the landmark episode.
This week’s news includes:
Let us know what you think.
This week, TJ finally decides to play Middle Earth: Shadow of War, and there is a debate on whether he should play Shadow of Mordor or just watch a Let’s Play of the game first.
The news includes:
Let us know what you think.
I remember a day when old RPG games had either a level cap or a definite ending. From Pool of Radiance to Secrets of the Silver Blades to Final Fantasy the game had a final boss or stage and often had some type of level cap. Today, gamers don’t want it to end, they’d rather have the option to wonder around aimlessly or completing minor quests in order to soak up every ounce of money they spent on the title.
Now even Bethesda is saying “we’ve learned our lesson” from the whiplash of ending their game title and capping levels. Gamers want to go back and re-try content they missed, they want to run side quests and talk to everyone in the world they want to grind themselves to über powerful levels and become a god in their fantasy world. Can you blame them?
You can’t really blame them for wanting to maximize the content, although it’s slightly more evolved than RPG’s of old. Perhaps it was World of Warcraft and other MMORPG’s that brought us to the stage in life where we all want to squeeze every last RPG dime out of the title. As a kid I wondered the world of Hyrule and covered every tile of graphical color, burned every bush, bombed every stone looking for all the content. However, even Zelda had an end with scrolling credits – you didn’t just land on a platform with your master sword and a dream.
Other titles have used level caps to limit you and draw you into the next release of the game. This was popular in the D&D world because the game is designed to target specific levels of difficulty. They may only allow you to gain level 10 because the enemies are no tougher than level 13, allowing the challenge to be good but not overwhelming. If they allow you to get to level 50 they’d have to design the game so all the enemies grow powerful along with you — that’s not always a desired result.
Final Fantasy is a popular franchise that typically allows you to grow infinitely powerful depending on how much time you want to spend repeat killing the same enemies. Gamers aren’t always into the grind, they just want to grind “enough” to make the challenges a little more do-able.
Today, however, with larger storage capacity, larger development teams and the desire to build more value into your gameplay experience titles have dozens of side quests and sub-plots that are totally optional. The result of so many sub-quests results in a player who is much more powerful at the end of those quests compared to a player who sticks to the narrow path of the main plot. So, games much grow dynamically challenging to keep the fun per dollar high.
Do you like your RPG’s to have a definite end and a high but capped level?
Great Episode guys, sorry to hear you had laryngitis your a real trooper for going on with the show. Hope you got plenty of rest and hot tea after the show.
I bought quite a lot of games from both GoG and Steam Christmas sale and I really should get to playing them. Like Dan I have been mostly playing minecraft and Civ 5. However my wife got me the Zelda: A link between worlds special edition 3ds so I have been playing the hell out of that.
Have to admit the bosses are a bit easy and that’s probably due to the “haven’t we done this already?” I mean it’s the same exact place as A Link to the Past. The only only difference is a merging into the walls mechanic and the Roovio giving you all the major tools in the begining of the game (he rents them and sells them later, but still you get them all.) That does take away from the exploring and the thrill of finding these tools. Much like you wold in the past Zelda games and even Metroid as well. The feel of building your character up is always something I’ve loved.
My family has also been collectively playing the Animal Crossing New Leaf together. Since I bought it for my wife she’s the mayor. It is a fun game to play together building and affecting the town together. So I’m pretty happy with our choice to get 3DS systems.
I have to admit that I’m surprised EA would donate all proceeds to charity and give them credit for doing something good.
I never understand the definition that is being used to say PC Gaming is dead. To me dead is something NO ONE is using anymore, not just a niche or minority, of which I don’t even think is really the case. I am grateful to the success that has been happening thanks to Kickstarter Games. Clearly it shows that there is still a demand and PC gaming, and other Genre’s of games are not in fact dead. Stuff like zip drives are dead not PC gaming.
I think people need a better term like PC gaming being in a slump but not dead. I have voted with my wallet as Dan mentioned, I’ve backed games on their not just for the games themselves but for the principle message of that I am tired of these AAA FPS games. Clearly not buying them was not enough and going to Kickstarter I can get the games *I* want to play. Like Pillar’s of Eternity, Shadow Run returns, Shadowgate, Project Phoenix, Obduction, Space Venture, Hero-U, the new Ultima game, Tides of Numerra, and so on.
That’s what’s been dissapointing when I would look on PSN or Xbox Live and the majority of choices are just FPS, sports and a few “adventure” games. I waited YEARS for Sony to make GOOD RPG games. There hasn’t been a really good Final Fantasy game since FF9.
As for Microsoft’s token RPG, the Fable series is to me what Mystic quest is to the Final Fantasy series. I’m a hardcore RPG gamer and I feel like I’ve been scorned by all three of the Major console companies.
*gets off soapbox*
Speaking of stagnant Nintendo, they should have worked more on some of their underused IPs like more Icarus games.
@QOTW: I would have to say the SimCity fiasco was the biggest event. My favorite 2013 game would have to be GTA V. It was a great story and fun game play. 2014 though I know will be a different story as Pillar’s of Eternity should be coming out this year.