Stahlin
Insider
Hello guys,
I would like to review some of my favourite games, and sum up my favourite features there. Maybe this will be some inspiration to Sui Generis.
1. Gothic
Gothic is a german RPG from 2001 and is my all time favourite PC game.
1.1 Environment
The key feature was a truly believable environment. NPCs would wake up in the morning, wash their faces, cook some breakfast go to work, play music in the evening and so on. Hunters realy went hunting, there are caravans (uh well, something similar) walking through the world.
What is important for me, Gothic had a believable economic system. If you play a game from the elder scroll series you will see almost no farms, no food production that could provide the world and so on which leads to the impression that you are walking through a fake world.
1.2 Hard start
When you enter the world of Gothic you are jsut a nobody. No one cares about you, everyone treats you like shit, every stupid goblin will kick your ass. You have to do stupid errand quests. But slowly, slowly you will progress going all the way up until you can make a difference in the world.
And Gothic managed to have an "open world" kind of flair, because you could go almost anywhere from start, but you always had to carefully check out your survivability in each area (and run a lot).
I can still recall all my favourite Characters from Gothic. And this game is 11 years old. Ask me about any NPC in a game like Skyrim: i forgot them all.
What made those NPCs so special? Well, they all appeared multiple times in the story. They weren't just standing in one place giving you Quests like "go to place A, kill moster B and get me Item C", but they were following their own motives, moving around the world, sometimes teaming up with you and (very important) had a good sense of humor (like the whole game).
2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (with AMK and Soljanka Mods)
2.1 Fighting
Well, as you know Stalker is a FPS, so you might ask why its fighting system has any relevance for Sui Generis.
Here is why: with the above mentioned mods, every encounter with any enemy could kill you. As soon as any bullet hit you,
- you were either just plain dead
- you would loose your weapon, and while searching for it on the ground, you would most probably get killed
- you would loose orientation, look into the sky, or the ground, and while trying to regain your orientation you would probably get killed
This lead to the effect, that before every encounter, especially with multiple enemys, you would have to make up a tactic, observe your foes, kill them one at a time and so on.
That was one of the most intense fighting I ever experienced in a game.
3.1 Story telling
Jade Empire was one of the few games, if not the only one, that ever really surprised me. You had your good, but basically ordinary story. The evil Emperor as your foe, and your old Mentor as a friend. You play a normal game, and after some time the final boss fight with the evil Emperor comes up. You defeat him.
As you are waiting for the credits to come and while thinking about which game you are going to play next, a major twist in the story appears.
Everything gets turned around, your old mentor becomes the new villain and you have to start all over again.
Well this might be hard to copy in an open world RPG without a linear story, but nevertheless, I like unexpected twists in the story. Friends become enemies, everything you thought was pure evil suddenly has understandable motives (a bit like Song of fire and ice) and so on.
4. Morrowind
4.1 Items
Morrowind had the best item/equipment system I ever saw in a RPG. I loved the fact, that there were left and right gauntlets and shoulders. I loved the fact, that you could wear an armor and also a robe on top.
I loved having weapons like spears, which is quite unusual.
BTW Spears (I can see one on the Screenshot below): Imagine fights in Sui Generis, swordman vs spearman. The swordman has to get past the spear, or maybe even could just cut off the spear (if the shaft was made of wood). Than the spearman has to let go the spear and change to a close combat weapon... Awesome!
* That really killed the Elder Scrolls Series for me. Especially Oblivion, but also Skyrim had a lot of autoscaling features. Basically that changes the genre to me from RPG to action...
I would like to review some of my favourite games, and sum up my favourite features there. Maybe this will be some inspiration to Sui Generis.
1. Gothic
Gothic is a german RPG from 2001 and is my all time favourite PC game.
1.1 Environment
The key feature was a truly believable environment. NPCs would wake up in the morning, wash their faces, cook some breakfast go to work, play music in the evening and so on. Hunters realy went hunting, there are caravans (uh well, something similar) walking through the world.
What is important for me, Gothic had a believable economic system. If you play a game from the elder scroll series you will see almost no farms, no food production that could provide the world and so on which leads to the impression that you are walking through a fake world.
Bare Mettle said:
Bare Mettle said:
1.2 Hard start
When you enter the world of Gothic you are jsut a nobody. No one cares about you, everyone treats you like shit, every stupid goblin will kick your ass. You have to do stupid errand quests. But slowly, slowly you will progress going all the way up until you can make a difference in the world.
And Gothic managed to have an "open world" kind of flair, because you could go almost anywhere from start, but you always had to carefully check out your survivability in each area (and run a lot).
1.3 CharactersBare Mettle said:
I can still recall all my favourite Characters from Gothic. And this game is 11 years old. Ask me about any NPC in a game like Skyrim: i forgot them all.
What made those NPCs so special? Well, they all appeared multiple times in the story. They weren't just standing in one place giving you Quests like "go to place A, kill moster B and get me Item C", but they were following their own motives, moving around the world, sometimes teaming up with you and (very important) had a good sense of humor (like the whole game).
Bare Mettle said:
2. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl (with AMK and Soljanka Mods)
2.1 Fighting
Well, as you know Stalker is a FPS, so you might ask why its fighting system has any relevance for Sui Generis.
Here is why: with the above mentioned mods, every encounter with any enemy could kill you. As soon as any bullet hit you,
- you were either just plain dead
- you would loose your weapon, and while searching for it on the ground, you would most probably get killed
- you would loose orientation, look into the sky, or the ground, and while trying to regain your orientation you would probably get killed
This lead to the effect, that before every encounter, especially with multiple enemys, you would have to make up a tactic, observe your foes, kill them one at a time and so on.
That was one of the most intense fighting I ever experienced in a game.
3. Jade EmpireBare Mettle said:
3.1 Story telling
Jade Empire was one of the few games, if not the only one, that ever really surprised me. You had your good, but basically ordinary story. The evil Emperor as your foe, and your old Mentor as a friend. You play a normal game, and after some time the final boss fight with the evil Emperor comes up. You defeat him.
As you are waiting for the credits to come and while thinking about which game you are going to play next, a major twist in the story appears.
Everything gets turned around, your old mentor becomes the new villain and you have to start all over again.
Well this might be hard to copy in an open world RPG without a linear story, but nevertheless, I like unexpected twists in the story. Friends become enemies, everything you thought was pure evil suddenly has understandable motives (a bit like Song of fire and ice) and so on.
4. Morrowind
4.1 Items
Morrowind had the best item/equipment system I ever saw in a RPG. I loved the fact, that there were left and right gauntlets and shoulders. I loved the fact, that you could wear an armor and also a robe on top.
I loved having weapons like spears, which is quite unusual.
BTW Spears (I can see one on the Screenshot below): Imagine fights in Sui Generis, swordman vs spearman. The swordman has to get past the spear, or maybe even could just cut off the spear (if the shaft was made of wood). Than the spearman has to let go the spear and change to a close combat weapon... Awesome!
* That really killed the Elder Scrolls Series for me. Especially Oblivion, but also Skyrim had a lot of autoscaling features. Basically that changes the genre to me from RPG to action...
