1995-2000 cRPGs | 2000-2005 cRPGs | 2005-2010 cRPGs
Welcome to my cRPG Blog on the History of Computer Role-playing Games, from 2000 to 2005. The early 2000 RPG games aka PC RPGs released between 2000-2005 are as follows:
Best 2000 cRPGs
Baldur's Gate 2
2000 was a monster year for cRPGs: Baldur's Gate 2 was critically acclaimed but is actually the second-most overrated cRPG of the Renaissance. It's good, but it's not as good as people think it is. As can clearly be understood by reading BG1 vs BG2, the sequel made too many changes to the original masterpiece's formula.
Icewind Dale 1
For Icewind Dale 1, Black Isle eschewed the deep role-playing and cRPG reactivity of their own Planescape: Torment, and the non-linear exploration and questing of BioWare's Baldur's Gate, in favor of a campaign focused on dungeon crawling & tactical combat encounter design.
Many fans embraced the focus on combat and noted that IWD was a polished, well-paced dungeon crawler that made no pretense of deep role-playing and storytelling. Lastly, its painted backdrops and portraits are top-tier, and its OST and VOs are second to none.
Many fans embraced the focus on combat and noted that IWD was a polished, well-paced dungeon crawler that made no pretense of deep role-playing and storytelling. Lastly, its painted backdrops and portraits are top-tier, and its OST and VOs are second to none.
Deus Ex 1
An immersive sim featuring emergent gameplay, Deus Ex 1 is easily the best 2000 cRPG. Deus Ex is widely considered the greatest action RPG of all-time by people with good taste. This cyberpunk game allowed players to approach areas based on their character build; for an example that is rarely given, those skilled in swimming and with aqua-lung augmentation could infiltrate paths in which others would become desperate, or simply drown. Also, its itemization and inventory management are impeccable.
cf.
Diablo 2
Diablo 2 isn't bad either: addictive as hell in multiple modes of play that include single-player, hardcore, PvP, LLD, player killing and coop. However, Brother Laz made something much better out of Blizzard's framework: Median XL.
2000 cRPG List
- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (BioWare)
- Deus Ex (Ion Storm)
- Icewind Dale (Black Isle Studios)
- Diablo II (Blizzard North)
- Nox (Westwood)
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption (Nihilistic Software)
- Might & Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer (New World Computing)
- Soulbringer (Infogrames)
- Wizards & Warriors (Heuristic Park)
- Avernum & Avernum 2 (Spiderweb Software)
- Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business (Sir-Tech)
- Sea Dogs: An Epic Adventure at Sea (Akella)
- Konung: Legends of the North (1C)
- Dragonfire: The Well of Souls (ComputerHouse GBG AB/Target Games Interactive AB)
- Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood (Westka Interactive)
- Droiyan 2 Absolute Monarch (KRGSoft)
- Arcatera: The Dark Brotherhood (Westka Interactive GmbH)
- Demise: Rise of the Ku'tan (Artifact Entertainment)
- Europa Universalis (Paradox Development Studio)
Best 2001 cRPGs
Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura
There can be no doubt that Arcanum is the best 2001 cRPG. Arcanum sought to simulate PnP / tabletop gaming just like its spiritual predecessor, Fallout 1.
Arcanum's magic-tech dichotomy, steampunk setting and schematic-based crafting are embraced by Troika fans, and the city of Tarant remains the most reactive urban hub in the genre.
Tarant has its own railway network, diplomatic negotiations, gang warfare, orc uprising, thieves' underground, telegraph office, university court, shipyards and sprawling sewer system.
Tarant hosts 60 addresses, 15 sidequests, multiple pathways for exploration and quests (dependent on character build), loads of quality stat-based dialogue, and its own newspaper that publishes headlines based on how the player solved quests. And that's just one town.
Pity about its combat system: Arcanum offered the option of real-time and turn-based, and neither worked well. In fact, let's be honest with ourselves: it's plain bad.
The tragedy is that farming garbage via Arcanum Waylays facilitates more power progression and wealth accumulation than engaging in deep questing and role-playing -- and in a cRPG that has the deepest questing and role-playing of all.
That said, Arcanum's existence proves the potentiality for greatness in the genre. The reader will note, however, that no post-Arcanum cPRG has even attempted to be as ambitious as Troika were with Arcanum.
Gothic 1
Gothic predates Morrowind Overrated and is inarguably superior; for example, you could climb ladders! Can you climb ladders in Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim? But really, its engine is head and shoulders above cell-based nonsense in that it allows for seamless transition between indoors and outdoors, making exploration of Gothic's penal colony more fun, immersive and memorable than the entire island of Vvardenfell.
The problem with Gothic is that it's just too easy. There is not much of an up-hill battle in the early stages because we can just get NPCs to kill the crap for us. See how I'm just standing there while the NPCs kill the crap for me? I'm earning experience points by doing nothing at all.
So hardcore.
The Gothic economy is also broken because we can just beat up merchants and take all their stuff. Assuming we didn't stick a sword in his back while he was face down in the dirt, the merchant just gets back up and doesn't even care that we just mugged him.
So hardcore. Such reactivity.
Note: If your camera spins in Windows 10, go to the exe properties, Change high DPI settings, Override high DPI scaling behavior.
From what I've said, one may get the impression that I don't like Gothic. I DO like it. I like its visuals, its music, the feel of its world and even its controls (which most players criticize). I just don't pretend that it's a hardcore cRPG. Examples of hardcore cRPGs are Jagged Alliance 2, ToEE and X-COM Apocalypse.
Wizardry 8
What to say about Wizardry 8? Wow, look at that polygon count in the screencap below!
Look, its first-person perspective is WRONG. Aged so horribly that the game is unplayable. It should have been developed on Jagged Alliance 2's turn-based, isometric engine. Imagine that? It would have been a good cRPG.
But, no. The developers had to stick with this primitive design for the 8th time in a row. Also, furries. Can't take it seriously.
You can adventure with a party of eight in Wiz8 (18 in JA2). You will probably want to get the speedmod to make it more playable, though. There are many other mods available for Wiz8, including total conversions.
You can adventure with a party of eight in Wiz8 (18 in JA2). You will probably want to get the speedmod to make it more playable, though. There are many other mods available for Wiz8, including total conversions.
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor
Myth Drannor was the first D&D 3.x dungeon crawl cRPG but was critically and publicly panned for its notorious bugs (though its UI and control were ok). This game also requires a speedmod because its dungeons are massive and its combat plays out at a snail's pace. Impatient players will just solo a Cleric in order to bypass much of the tedium. Overall, Troika's ToEE ended up being so much better.
The first prepare to die game was Severance: Blade of Darkness, and it makes Dark Souls - which came out a decade later - seem like a stroll in the park.
2001 cRPG List
- Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura (Troika)
- Gothic (Piranha Bytes)
- Wizardry 8 (Sir-Tech Canada)
- Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (Blizzard North)
- Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal (BioWare)
- Severance: Blade of Darkness (Rebel Act Studios)
- Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (Stormfront Studios)
- Anachronox (Ion Storm)
- Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (Micro Forté)
- Pillars of Garendall (Beenox Studios)
- Ancient Evil: The Curse of the Snake Cult (Silver Lightning Software)
- Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter & Trials of the Luremaster (Black Isle)
- Zenfar: The Adventure (Dynamic Adventures)
- Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul (Nival Interactive)
- New Legend of Sword and Fairy (Softstar Entertainment)
- Geneforge (Spiderweb Software)
- Gorasul: The Legacy of the Dragon (Silver Style Entertainment)
- Dispel (Abalon Studio/E2 Soft)
- New Centurions (Fantasoft LLC)
- Heath: The Unchosen Path (Burut Creative Team / GMX Media)
Best 2002 cRPGs
2002 marks the beginning of the modding revolution in cRPGs. The best 2002 cRPG is a toss-up between Icewind Dale 2 and Neverwinter Nights.
Neverwinter Nights
Neverwinter Nights 1 comes bundled with the greatest toolset gaming has seen: the Aurora Toolset. Over ten years later, people are still building adventure modules and campaigns that are able to contend with commercial efforts in terms of depth, breadth and polish; f.e, Swordflight and Aielund Saga.
If NWN employed conventional dropdown menus instead of the radial menu, as well as drag n drop for feats and skills to the quickbar, its user interface would have been the greatest ever in the genre.
Morrowind
Also including a construction kit, Morrowind Overrated becomes the fan-fave Elder Scrolls game and is immediately followed up by a linear expansion Bethesda made with the kit. However, it is the most overrated RPG Game of the 2000s; pure poo.
Divine Divinity
Divine Divinity attempts to be a hybrid of Baldur's Gate 1 and Diablo 2 and doesn't manage to be as good as either. Some of its writing is charming and some of it is downright annoying. Overall, avoid.
Icewind Dale 2
Black Isle somehow manages to infuse the Infinity Engine with the D&D 3rd Edition ruleset and caps off the glorious Infinity era with its most polished entry, Icewind Dale 2.
It wasn't until over a decade later that Beamdog would release the imbalancing, aesthetically inferior and bug-ridden "Enhanced" Editions, as well as their Siege of Dragonspear interquel expansion. Write off anyone who prefers the EE to the Baldur's Gate 1 Original (90% of the now-casual and tasteless fanbase).
2002 cRPG List
- Neverwinter Nights (BioWare)
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind & Tribunal (Bethesda)
- Icewind Dale 2 (Black Isle)
- Dungeon Siege (Gas Powered Games)
- Divine Divinity (Larian Studios)
- Arx Fatalis (Arkane Studios)
- Heroes of Might & Magic IV (New World Computing)
- Prince of Qin (Object Software)
- Might & Magic IX (New World Computing)
- Age of Wonders II: The Wizard's Throne (Triumph Studios)
- Escape Velocity Nova (Ambrosia Software, ATMOS)
- Avernum III (Spiderweb Software)
- Necromania: Trap of Darkness (Darksoft Game Development Studio)
- Freedom Force (Irrational Games)
- Paradise Cracked (MiST Land South)
- GROM: Terror in Tibet! (Rebelmind)
- Another War (Cenega)
- Pyrrhic Tales: Prelude to Darkness (Zero Sum Software)
Best 2003 cRPGs
KotOR 1
A heavily modified Aurora powers Knights of the Old Republic (Odyssey); many Star Wars fans go crazy over it. However, KotOR is a blatant console game in every conceivable way, so the discerning reader of good taste is advised to steer clear. Compared to Baldur's Gate 1 Original (BioWare's first cRPG, which runs at 60 AI updates per second), KotOR's gameplay is just so damn SLOW. It is slower even than Neverwinter Nights 1! I can't believe people actually play this stuff; don't they get bored and fall asleep while derping about in slo-mo?
Crazily, every creature in the game has massive hitboxes. They seem to take up an ureasonable amount of space even while standing still. In fact, creatures and NPCs might as well be cruise ships for all the hope we have of getting around them -- they are always in the way, always.
In KotOR, we use WASD for movement; it's a party-based cRPG that isn't even point and click! And we use the Tab-key to switch between characters?
There are so many cutscenes and boring voiced dialogues that go on and on; so much so, that one might think they were watching a lame sitcom starring the dullest characters imaginable. Not to mention Swoop Bike Racing and Pazaak mini-games.
I can't take KotOR seriously because it is 100% a console game in terms of cam, control, UI and target demographic. Indeed, there is nothing about KotOR that says "I'm a PC game!" aside from uninstall.exe, which I double-clicked with the greatest relief after forcing myself to endure the epic banality in its loathsome entirety.
Please allow me to spell this out a bit. To support our claim that KotOR catered to the console crowd, all we need to do is compare Odyssey (KotOR engine) with the engine upon which Odyssey was built: Aurora for NWN. Compare the cam, control and UI of these two engines, and it becomes clear that Odyssey is a dumbed down Aurora. Examples:
• KotOR's cam is untiltable. In NWN, the numpad keys can be used to tilt the cam and lock it at that angle. Anyone who has played KotOR after NWN will know what a big deal this is: the viewport is so confined that it feels cramped.
• The KotOR cam cannot be zoomed out and FoV is limited because the engine only draws what the characters can actually see. I repeat: there is no ability to zoom in and out in KotOR, which is laughable. Aurora -- remember: an older engine but a PC engine not a console engine -- can zoom in and out by means of keyboard and mouse-wheel. If modded with a wrapper (NW Shader), Aurora can zoom out in order to show the entire MAP (proof). That is how much more powerful Aurora is. But if we mod KotOR to zoom out, only what the characters can SEE is rendered and viewable due to z-buffering; as such, there is missing geometry all over the place. That is how weak Odyssey had to be because that is how utterly weak consoles are in comparison to PCs.
• WASD for movement instead of point and click to move results in less accurate movement and positioning. While we can hold both mouse buttons down to move to a position in KotOR (clunky in itself), the character rarely responds to the directive. And if it does, it doesn't move to the exact position we assigned it to. Just sad.
• Combat feedback log is hidden away in KotOR and is not part of the main viewport. In addition, dialogue is all cutscene-based and its log is hidden away and not part of the main viewport. KotOR wants to hide data and words whenever it can -- why?
• Every UI mode of KotOR blocks out the action whereas on Aurora panels are transparently layered OVER the action and don't STOP the action; that is, a proper PC UI of this era. Indeed, the Aurora UI is actually dual-layered. That is, it has a viewport, a base UI layered over the viewport and subpanels that can be called up over the base UI. THAT is how you make a UI in the early 2000s.
• Even in the lowest resolution (800*600px), KotOR does not take advantage of the screen space that is available whereas on Aurora almost all space is thoughtfully utilized in the resolution it was designed for (800*600px) [proof]
Wouldn't want to design a UI that uses up the entire screen space in order to make data more readable, would you? That would be dumb. Wide grey borders are more useful!
• KotOR inventory is list-based for console controller scrolling, and all the inventory icons are the same size whereas in NWN inventory is grid-based, drag and drop and the icons are different sizes and beautifully drawn. THAT is how you design an inventory mode.
The only advantage KotOR has over NWN is Full Party Control, but Tab-key switching is clunky and disorienting in comparison to click-to-select and marquee selection, which is what PC games feature if they feature FPC at all. If KotOR was simply built in the Aurora engine but with FPC added with click-to-select and marquee selection, it would have almost been a passable PC game.
Instead, it's just a dumb console game that happens to be barely playable on PC.
***
At this point, Aurora is still powering along with two expansions for Neverwinter Nights, the second of which -- Hordes of the Underdark -- pays homage to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment over the course of its sweeping campaign. It also allows you to wield whips. How many cRPGs allow you to wield whips?
Morrowind gets a second expansion in Bloodmoon; werewolves? Whoop-de-doo.
Gothic 2
Gothic 2 more or less matches Gothic though it's a bit too easy even with its Raven add-in, released in 2005.
To this day, the town of Khorinis stands as one of the most interesting hubs in the action RPG genre:
Old Camp Gothic 2:
Monastery, Gothic 2:
However, the Gothic games are overrated. They are hailed as hardcore and as masterpieces, but are as casual as it gets outside of Morrowind Overrated.
Temple of Elemental Evil
Temple of Elemental Evil is easily the best 2003 cRPG. The first D&D 3.5 cRPG, ToEE failed to usher in a new Infinity Engine era, and my disappointment is expressed all through this blog.
Still, ToEE and Silent Storm are, to this day, the only turn-based cRPGs that can stand alongside Jagged Alliance 2 and not be laughed, booed and egged off-stage.
ToEE allows you to wield spiked chains. How many cRPGs allow you to wield spiked chains such as the Thorned Chains of Love?
ToEE is one of the most beautiful isometric cRPGs ever. Take Hommlet for example: streams are animated to give the impression they're gently flowing, trees wave in the wind and leaves fall from them, chimneys plume smoke, the waterwheel rotates gently at the mill, the blacksmith strikes hammer to anvil, and lanterns flicker by night.
The problem is that so much is in opposition to the artistry: the coarse voice acting and blunt dialogue, the shallow questing, the awfully clunky pathing routine, and the lag.
Thankfully, we now have Temple+!
Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader
Lionheart could have been an intelligent mix of Icewind Dale 1 and Fallout 1, but there is a reason it is ignored and almost entirely forgotten: it's because it's sh-- not very good.
To be fair, there is some solid design execution, it employs a modified Fallout SPECIAL chargen, and the Barcelona hub is sweet, but it just falls apart after that and ends up being a meaningless grindfest. Trust me, playing this in 2023 is going to be a waste of your valuable time.
Silent Storm
2003 cRPG List
- Knights of the Old Republic (BioWare)
- Gothic 2 (Piranha Bytes)
- Temple of Elemental Evil (Troika Games)
- Silent Storm (Nival Interactive)
- Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide & Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark (BioWare)
- Morrowind: Bloodmoon (Bethesda)
- Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader (Reflexive Entertainment)
- Deus Ex: Invisible War (Ion Storm)
- Age of Wonders III: Shadow Magic (Triumph Studios)
- Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (Raven Software)
- Geneforge 2 (Spiderweb Software)
- Pirates of the Caribbean (Akella)
- The Spirit Engine (Natomic Studios)
- KnightShift aka Polanie II aka Once Upon a Knight (Reality Pump Studios)
- Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (Japan, Nihon Falcom)
- Mistmare (Arxel Tribe)
- Weird War: The Unknown Episode of World War II (Mirage Interactive)
- Breath of Fire IV (Capcom)
- The Legend of Sword and Fairy 2 (Softstar Entertainment)
- Chinese Paladin 3 (Softstar Entertainment)
- The Circle of Fate (Boolat)
- Anito: Defend a Land Enraged (Anino Entertainment)
- Devil Whiskey (Shifting Suns Studios, LLC)
- UFO: Aftermath (Altar Interactive)
Best 2004 cRPGs
KotOR 2
To the dismay of genre fans, things start to drop off in 2004. Bloodlines and Sith Lords have since gained the cult status they didn't deserve, and they were bug-ridden even after their final official patches. I remember Sith Lords CTD'ing no fewer than five times on my playthrough of version 1.0b.
Moreover, the campaign barely felt complete. By its fans, Sith Lords may be notable for its quality of writing, companion-based reactivity and deep characterizations (Kreia), but at bottom it plays like a console game and should be avoided by PC gamers.
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Not just famous for its clan-based cRPG reactivity (e.g, Malkavian), well-written and well-voiced dialogue and expressive facial/bodily animations, Troika's Bloodlines (which is the best 2004 cRPG) is also infamous for its bugs and annoying graphical glitches.
There are two options available to the player that address such complaints and both of them demand equal footing: the Unofficial Patch by Wesp5 and the True Patch Gold Edition by Tessera. The former is controversial in that its Basic patch goes beyond bug fixing and into the realm of unnecessary changes. Thus, they favor the latter. Unfortunately, UP has been officially bundled with the GoG version and thus will need to be uninstalled before applying TPGE.
Or you can do what I do and play the non-GoG version that you bought when the game first came out. Then, YOU get to choose whether or not to install mods, and YOU get to choose which mods to install. YOU also get to choose whether or not to install patches.
Wow, such a novel idea: the player actually has control over game installation, patching and modding.
2004 cRPG List
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Troika Games)
- Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (Obsidian)
- Fable (Big Blue Box Studios)
- Sacred (Ascaron)
- Beyond Divinity (Larian Studios)
- The Bard's Tale (InXile)
- Silent Storm: Sentinels (Nival Interactive)
- Blades of Avernum (Spiderweb Software)
- The Fall: Last Days of Gaia (Silver Style Entertainment)
- Ahriman's Prophecy (Amaranth Software)
- Sid Meier's Pirates! (Firaxis Games)
- SpellForce: The Order of Dawn (Pnemonic)
- Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone (Stormfront Studios)
- I of the Dragon (Primal Software)
- Paladin 3 Gaiden: Wen Qing Pian (Softstar Entertainment)
- Shadow Vault (Mayhem Studio)
- Konung 2: Blood of Titans (1C)
- Gangland (MediaMobsters)
- Seal of Evil (Strategy First)
- Crusader Kings (Paradox Development Studio)
Best 2005 cRPGs
Gothic 2: Night of the Raven
In addition to its unnecessary re-balancing of the original Gothic 2, I didn't like how the NotR expansion forces the player into a marathon-length diversion from the base campaign. With its frivolous inclusion of pirates, dinosaurs and "Aztec culture", the theme of NotR is about as laughably unGothic as it gets. While NotR is far superior to Morrowind's Tribunal and Bloodmoon, that isn't saying much, is it.
Troika cRPGs
Note that Troika folded in September of 2005. When that happened the cRPG genre lost one of its greatest developers and never recovered.
Note that Troika were in talks to make a sequel to Arcanum: Arcanum 2: Journey to the Center of Arcanum.
In addition, there was the possibility of a Troika Lord of the Rings RPG built in the Arcanum engine.
2005 cRPG List
- Jade Empire (BioWare)
- Gothic 2: Night of the Raven (Piranha Bytes)
- Dungeon Siege II (Gas Powered Games)
- Hammer & Sickle (Novik & Co., Nival Interactive)
- Dungeon Lords (Heuristic Park)
- Avernum IV & Geneforge 3 (Spiderweb Software)
- Fate (Wild Tangent)
- SpellForce: The Breath of Winter & SpellForce: Shadow of the Phoenix (Pnemonic)
- Ys: The Oath in Felghana (Japan, Nihon Falcom)
- Metalheart: Replicants Rampage (Akella)
- Restricted Area (Whiptail)
- Freedom Force vs. the 3rd Reich (Irrational Games)
- Morning's Wrath (Ethereal Darkness Interactive)
- The Omega Syndrome (ausgamedev)
- UFO: Aftershock (Altar Interactive)
Let's move on:
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