1995-2000 cRPGs | 2000-2005 cRPGs | 2005-2010 cRPGs
Welcome to my cRPG Blog on the History of Computer Role-playing Games, from 2005 to 2010. The RPG Games aka IBM PC RPGs released between 2005-2010 are as follows:
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)
Best 2006 cRPGs
Neverwinter Nights 2
The Aurora Engine evolves into Electron. Or devolves: NWN1 vs NWN2. It depends on how you look at Neverwinter Nights 2, which is the best 2006 cRPG but was also a gigantic, bug-ridden and unoptimized release that eventually went through gigabytes of patching. However, it offered (over NWN):
- full party control
- marquee selection
- real-time overland map
- painted terrain
- XML-based/context-sensitive user interface
- strategy cam mode akin to the isometric perspective
Plus, its modding community eventually blossomed and is still active (though barely).
In fact, the Electron cam is the most powerful and versatile 3D cam outside of Silent Storm: Strategy Mode cam, Camera Mode: Can Be Moved Freely (Free Camera), Ceilings Always Off and Marquee Select On.
Some players complain about "the camera!" because they lack the basic human intelligence required to use it. Moreover, the cam problems they complain about were officially fixed 14 years ago, so they're just parroting what has long since become invalid criticism.
Gothic 3
Amazing OST aside, Gothic 3 fails to live up to its predecessors. In fact, its combat mechanics are so bad that -- a decade later -- community-made mods STILL haven't been able to fix it entirely, though they have managed to remove the notorious stutter and stun-lock that plagued the original and made it all but unplayable outside of Mage builds.
Gothic 3's opening battle is a COMEDY. Instead of easing the player into the world like Gothic and Gothic 2, we're just thrown into a chaotic free-for-all against an orc mob. Outside of Bethesda games it's the worst intro to a cRPG that I've ever seen.
Hacking away in Gothic 3 has NO impact; we can barely hear the weapon hits and both weapons and enemies have NO weight. It is LAUGHABLE watching these orc ragdolls being punched around the battlefield like party balloons while an epic orchestra of war-like trumpets and drums conducts itself in the background.
The world is beautiful, yes. And the meshes are far superior to those in Oblivion, but it's all ruined by the awful combat system. Featuring various seamlessly connected fragments and transitions, Gothic 3 has one of the best soundtracks in any game ever (yes it's that good), so it's a pity the game plays so poorly. Modded or not Gothic 3 was not worth playing in 2006, let alone in 2024.
In its time, latching onto and praising Gothic 3 was a knee-jerk reaction to the release of Oblivion.
Oblivion
To the disgust of cRPG veterans, Oblivion introduces the following to the Elder Scrolls:
- Level Scaling (item scaling, encounter scaling)
- Quest Compass fast travel
- UI gimped for console controllers
- Lock-picking & Persuasion mini-games
In addition, Oblivion's Radiant AI turned out to be an absolute laughing stock, its characters look like someone took a dump on my screen, and the entire game is unwittingly comical from beginning to end even though it takes itself seriously.
As the second-worst RPG Game of all-time it even manages to disappoint Elder Scrolls fans, who aren't hard to please. But the aggressive marketing campaign rolled out by Bethesda leading up to Oblivion's release drowns out criticism and ensures its financial and critical success.
The cRPG Decline
It should have dawned on attentive readers by now that cRPGs were never a passable genre; not in the 80s and not even in the 90s. cRPG History makes this abundantly clear when it all but writes off the genre from the outset.
And so it was that when The Dark Ages struck in 2008, the feeblest of all classic genre was the first to fall to its knees, break down and never recover (cRPGs). But truth be told, the Dark Ages were inevitable once Morrowind reared its ugly head in 2002.
The Dark Ages is so potent, so pernicious and contagious, that it has transformed many a neck-bearded grognard into a casual gamer. You can find them all rotting away on computer-game forums that pretend to be "hardcore and oldschool".
Reinforcement in Computer Game Language of the cRPG Blog by Lilura1:
It is foolish to believe that an epic-level neck-bearded grognard cannot be nerfed to a piddling Level 1 casual by the pernicious mainstream that ushered in the Dark Ages of Computer-gaming.
2008 is when cRPGs steeply declined in general across the board, and the genre never clawed its way back to 1990s standards or even semblance of respectability. Big money coupled with bad taste and a new, uncritical fanbase lacking in standards gimped the genre for all-time.
cf. Reddit RPG Games.
Referred to as RPG Games by the unlettered mutt-like mainstream, cRPGs were not only made by newbies for newbies, but they were also reviewed by newbies: trifecta.
In this way the genre can celebrate its mediocrity in echo chambers without anyone's toes getting tread upon by "elitists" -- who are, in fact, cRPG connoisseurs with two or three decades of gaming experience under their belt.
1990s computer-gaming was supreme:
The aught-gamer's vision of computer games was limited in comparison to the 90s gamer: the aught gamer was obsessed with the polygon-pusher on Windows whereas the 90s gamer had knowledge of 2D, 3D and 2.5D computer games that ran on wildly different hardware and operating systems.
Characteristics of Dark Ages cRPGs
And while you think about that, think about this: new cRPGs play noticeably slower than their predecessors due to the employment of:
- 3D cams: Players spend more time cam-wrangling than they do playing the game; cams are usually hindrances. Indeed, the employment of 3D in cRPGs was, is and always will be a mistake. Many cRPGs gimped their place in history by pandering to the 3D fad. cf. section: Isometric the Defining Perspective of cRPGs in cRPG Definition -- cf. Isometric cRPGs -- cf. NWN1 vs NWN2.
- Cutscenes are usually unskippable because the developers think they are cinematographers. In some RPG Games the simple act of sitting down at a campfire to rest "necessitates" a cutscene. Even when cutscenes ARE indeed skippable, there are so many that we find ourselves constantly clicking through them. cf. The Cinematization of Computer Games.
- Voice acting: Reading is faster than listening to disinterested actors who often botch linguistic stress through their mechanical delivery; laughable, because it shows they don't even understand or care about what they are reading aloud in the recording studio. And who can blame them? Most cRPG writing is enough to put anyone to sleep, even if they are being paid to stay awake.
- Mini-games. When developers lack cRPG design prowess they can't rely on their core campaign to hold the player's attention for long intervals. Thus, do they add mini-games as frivolous diversionary time-wasters. This they call "content" but mini-games are naught but tacked-on feature-bloat that seeks to disguise campaign banality.
- Slower movement rates. Baldur's Gate 1 (1998) ran at 60 AI updates per sec. The subsequent NWN, KotOR, Witcher, Dragon Age and Mass Effect ran much slower, putting Baldur's Gate veterans to sleep. It takes only a few seconds to travel from one side of the map to the other in Baldur's Gate. In the newer games, it takes ten times longer due to their slo-mo plods. The downtime is insane. 3D avatar-achored cams also slow down navigation whereas unanchored 2D viewport scrolling is much faster and requires less player intervention: call up map mode, double click the destination, click on the viewport and the characters move there. During that downtime, we can engage in inventory management. You can't do that in the newer games listed above.
- Sluggish console UIs with generic smartphone "styling" that hides data from the player. Wouldn't want the player to see cRPG Stats: they might expect them to do something.
- Linking to the above, gimped control systems that aren't tailored specifically for kb/m.
- Linking to the above, scattering UI panels over wasted widescreen space, thereby slowing down mouse-pointer selections. Think about how fast something like Master of Magic (1994) can be played in 320x200 with kb/m. It is like LIGHTNING in comparison to current gen equivalents. But it's not so much about speed as it is how much gameplay we can get given a certain interval. And in MoM we can get a ton within a short frame of time due to its superior UI, controls and general apex-level game design. There is almost NO downtime. Instead of putting us to sleep through boredom, MoM can exhaust us through its engaging gameplay.
- Intrusive social simulation (inane interjections, banters and romances)
Ultimately, for sophisticated veteran gamers who are used to zipping around from one piece of content to the next, who have always been kept busy with various considerations, and who have never been spoon-fed, led by the nose and hand-held every step of the way, the snail's pace of newer cRPGs results in utter and unendurable boredom, and dissatisfaction.
For those who are dissatisfied with the cRPGs in this time-frame, and who would like to experience something of the oldschool that is being actively developed and supported in 2024, I would recommend giving Swordflight a whirl.
2006 cRPG List
- Neverwinter Nights 2 (Obsidian)
- Gothic 3 (Piranha Bytes)
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Bethesda)
- Dark Messiah of Might & Magic (Arkane Studios)
- Oblivion: Knights of the Nine (Bethesda)
- Titan Quest (Iron Lore Entertainment)
- Dungeon Siege II: Broken World (Gas Powered Games)
- Geneforge 4 (Spiderweb Software)
- Omega Syndrome (David Moffatt)
- Heroes of Might & Magic V & Heroes of Might & Magic V: Hammers of Fate (Nival Interactive)
- Space Rangers 2: Dominators (Elemental Games)
- SpellForce 2: Shadow Wars (Pnemonic)
- NeverEnd (Mayhem Studios)
- Ys Origin (Japan, Nihon Falcom)
Best 2007 cRPGs
Mask of the Betrayer
The best 2007 cRPG is Mask of the Betrayer, which is the true spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment.
The Witcher 1
Heavily modified, the Aurora Engine again flaunts its flexibility as it powers The Witcher which is famous for its gritty aesthetic, non-binary morality, impactful alchemy system and far-reaching factional reactivity.
However, upon its release The Witcher was infamous for its sluggish framerates, long loadtimes and generally poor optimization and stability, and it was only with the advent of the Enhanced Edition -- which came out almost one year later -- that such issues were properly addressed by CD Projekt RED.
Let's also not forget how its fully voiced cutscene-based dialogues slowed game-progress to a crawl. And how it included no fewer than FOUR mini-games:
- fist-fighting
- drinking contests
- dice poker
- romance cards
Is the core design of the game so feeble that it needs to be propped up by diversionary frivolities? And how about the inability to enter a clearly open cave just because we haven't got the "quest" linked to it yet?
What of the clunky movement, positioning and twitchy chaining of attacks in pauseable realtime? What of the isometric-esque and OHS cams, both of which are unwieldy?
Thus the moniker of Twitcher.
The Witcher packs a lot in, including the kitchen sink, but its core systems are extremely rough around the edges as a result of building one engine atop another and getting carried away with non-core feature inclusions.
In the end The Witcher remained inferior to the likes of Deus Ex, Gothic and System Shock 2. And remember, this is just the lowly action RPG subgenre that we're talking about.
Incredibly, The Witcher seems like a hardcore cRPG compared to its sequels, which I found to be unplayably casual and poorly designed. Thus, I will never cover TW sequels.
***
To say something nice about Bethesda, their Shivering Isles add-in expansion for Oblivion is not quite as bad as everything else they have crapped out post-Morrowind.
2007 cRPG List
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (Obsidian)
- The Witcher (CD Projekt RED)
- Mass Effect (BioWare)
- BioShock (2K Boston)
- Hellgate London (Flagship Studios)
- Oblivion: Shivering Isles (Bethesda)
- Nethergate: Resurrection & Avernum V (Spiderweb Software)
- Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East (Nival Interactive)
- Brigade E5: New Jagged Union & 7.62 High Calibre (Apeiron)
- Eschalon Book 1 (Basilisk Games)
- Aveyond 2: Ean's Quest (Amaranth Games)
- Titan Quest: Immortal Throne (Iron Lore Entertainment)
- The Spirit Engine 2 (Natomic Studios)
- SpellForce 2: Dragon Storm (Pnemonic)
- Silverfall (Monte Cristo)
- Two Worlds (Reality Pump)
- Stranger (Fireglow Studios)
- Chinese Paladin 4 (Softstar Entertainment)
- Escape from Paradise City (Sirius Games)
- Parhedros: Tunnels of Sethir (Laurion Studio)
- Last Scenario (SCFWorks)
- UFO: Afterlight (Altar Interactive)
Best 2008 cRPGs
Storm of Zehir
However, the employment of each feature is disappointing: while the OLM is no doubt an impressive technical feat, there is not much of interest to explore on it. In addition, crafting is imbalanced, the trading system is broken, history feats are weak and the party dialogue system is a missed opportunity as it pertains to cRPG reactivity.
SoZ is strong conceptually but its execution is weak.
cRPG veterans are more likely to appreciate aspects of SoZ that were NOT advertised by Obsidian as features, namely:
- For most of the campaign, the party remains at low level (even though the party starts at fourth).
- There are examples of solid low- and mid-level cRPG Encounter Design. The enemies are strong in SoZ. Not just that, but there are many of them. And in most cases they are scripted to zero-in on the party from other chambers of a dungeon, meaning there is a steady stream of aggro coming our way once we announce our presence.
- Being able to only create four characters (but with the ability to recruit up to two more in-game), makes for some tough party composition choices. In addition, it is quite interesting to build low level characters in D&D 3.5.
- Resting restrictions are enforced in ALL areas except in inns and on the OLM (with a chance of waylay). However, most dungeons are not large enough to make the restrictions felt.
- Store accessibility and inventory is reactive to player choices, quest-progression and trade-expansion progression, with factional stores being mutually exclusive.
But the main attraction for veterans is the core experience: building four characters, recruiting two more from a pool of in-game companions, equipping everyone, and storming dungeons filled with aggro and treasure.
SoZ was the last commercial D&D-based cRPG that I could stand the sight of.
Oblivion With Guns
Oblivion With Guns, the most toxic and pernicious RPG Game in history along with Oblivion, is released to both commercial and critical acclaim. Pure poison to the genre, it drives veteran Fallout fans into a perpetual state of unbridled buttmadness. It wasn't enough for Bethesda to take a dump on their own franchise with Oblivion, you see: for chump change, they had to acquire the Fallout franchise from a bankrupt Interplay and soil that as well.
"I want my Van Buren! Fallout would be better DEAD than resurrected by Bethesda!" fans wailed from the hilltops.
But it was all in vain because their protests fell on deaf ears. And, just like Oblivion, Bethesda guarantee Fallout 3's success with an aggressive marketing campaign that drowned out the criticism.
In fact, Fallout 3 becomes so successful that newbies start referring to Fallout 3 simply as "Fallout"; in doing so, they ignore the original game by Interplay like it never existed.
"I want my Van Buren! Fallout would be better DEAD than resurrected by Bethesda!" fans wailed from the hilltops.
But it was all in vain because their protests fell on deaf ears. And, just like Oblivion, Bethesda guarantee Fallout 3's success with an aggressive marketing campaign that drowned out the criticism.
In fact, Fallout 3 becomes so successful that newbies start referring to Fallout 3 simply as "Fallout"; in doing so, they ignore the original game by Interplay like it never existed.
2008 cRPG List
- Fallout 3 (Bethesda)
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (Obsidian)
- Fable 2 (Lionhead Studios)
- Geneforge 5: Overthrow (Spiderweb Software)
- King's Bounty: The Legend (Katauri Interactive)
- Mount & Blade (TaleWorlds Entertainment)
- Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods (Trine Games)
- Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (Ascaron)
- Fate: Undiscovered Realms (Golden Goose Productions)
Best 2009 cRPGs
Dragon Age: Origins
The best 2009 cRPG is Dragon Age: Origins. In DA:O BioWare largely succeed in giving Baldur's Gate veterans a glimpse of their former greatness; if we're generous, "a spiritual successor".
Yes, Dragon Age: Origins features embarrassing garbage such as:
- leveled loot and encounter scaling
- gift-giving
- cooldowns
- voiced cutscene dialogue
- list-based inventory
But the following aspects were welcome:
- reactivity
- full party control
- marquee selection
- isometric-like cam
- conditional tactics framework
Dragon Age: Origins the Spiritual Successor to Baldur's Gate
The term "spiritual successor" is almost plausible:
- Made by the same developer
- Written by BG2's writer
- Pauseable realtime party-based gameplay
- Companions with banter and reactivity
- AD&D esque combat roles (with BG2-like kits)
- Nods to Baldur's Gate throughout (e.g, "gather your party before venturing forth", and the lich Kangaxx/Gaxkang)
- OLM with ambushes
- Mage duels and similar mob design to BG2
If, that is, by "spiritual successor" we mean "pale imitation".
2009 cRPG List
- Dragon Age: Origins (BioWare)
- Knights of the Chalice (Heroic Fantasy Games)
- Drakensang: The Dark Eye (Radon Labs)
- Risen (Piranha Bytes)
- The Last Remnant (Square Enix)
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mysteries of Westgate (Ossian Studios)
- Avernum VI (Spiderweb Software)
- Torchlight (Runic Games)
- King's Bounty: Armored Princess (Katauri Interactive)
- Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage & The Pitt & Broken Steel & Point Lookout & Mothership Zeta (Bethesda)
- Inquisitor (Czech Republic, Cinemax)
- Divinity II: Ego Draconis (Larian Studios)
- Exit Fate (SCFWorks)
Best 2010 cRPGs
Warband
The best 2010 cRPG is undoubtedly Warband. It spawned a modding community to rival Neverwinter Nights - think Brytenwalda - and its ranged and melee combat systems are unrivaled in the action genre even up to the present day.
Fallout: New Vegas
FONV was built on the Oblivion With Guns engine, so it had no chance of being acceptable to veterans of the originals.
Alpha Protocol
Alpha Protocol is ruined completely by its timed dialogue and ridiculous mini-games that suck out any flow it could have had. What utter garbage.
Mass Effect 2
In the minds of most BioWare fans, Mass Effect 2 trumps Mass Effect though I didn't find ME2 playable until I modded out the mining mini-game and granted myself non-combat storm speed through ME2Coalesced. Otherwise, it's just another big-budget console game that plays at a snail's pace.
The rest of this year are footnotes.
2010 cRPG List
- Mount & Blade: Warband (TaleWorlds Entertainment)
- Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian)
- Mass Effect 2 (BioWare)
- Alpha Protocol (Obsidian)
- Dragon Age: Origins: Awakening (BioWare)
- King's Bounty: Crossworlds (Katauri Interactive)
- Eschalon Book 2 (Basilisk Games)
- Din's Curse (Soldak Entertainment)
- A Farewell to Dragons (Arise)
- Konung III: Ties of the Dynasty (1C)
- Faery: Legends of Avalon (Spiders)
- Drakensang: The River of Time (Germany, Radon Labs)
- Two Worlds II (Reality Pump)
- Swords & Sorcery: Underworld (OlderBytes)
So concludes the treatment range.
Conclusion
Overall I think it's pretty clear that 1996-2000 are the strongest years in, what is quite frankly, an incredibly weak genre in PC gaming history. I would suggest that for most cRPG players the absolute strongest years would be a toss-up between 1999 and 2000.
With a few exceptions such as Dungeon Rats (2016) and Swordflight (2008-2024), my commentary basically ends in 2010, with Warband.
As can be seen from this overview, I have many more cRPGs from 1995-2010 to map out. This is because I tend to go for high resolution coverage. If you want to see how I map out games in detail, check out my Baldur's Gate Review, which branches into 300 articles on the Baldur's Gate Series.
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