various plugs

It all depends. Older games such as FF1 have good stories and no problem characters such as bimbo love lorn girls. Chrono Trigger has a good cast IMO. As for pc rpgs there are a few that might be good as anime. Might and Magic 3-5 I liked, chocked full of things to make a good story. Not an rpg, more of a strat game the Kings Quest games miiight make a ok anime. I guess it just depends on what the masses want in the end hm?

This reminds me of a conversation a roommate and I had a few years back about the ultimate anti-RPG. The concept is to deny the player any convenient anime/rpg cliches and make them depressed. It would be called "Life Sucks".

Okay, so you'd be this sulky amnesiac everyman hero type and you'd accidentally run into the first girl in town, knocking over the huge pile of books she's carrying. Normally, of course, you would get a chance to exchange names and personal details with a total stranger. Not in our game! She mumbles under her breath, fails to make eye contact, and collects her books -- including the one you accidentally pick up so that you can't return it to her later to continue the conversation.

Then you start to get party members. Let's say, three guys and three girls, all of which score better in the personality department than you do. Instead of all the girls hitting on you, they all "pair off" with your far more handsome and witty groupmates and you are left fighting for the dorky scientist girl with the dorky guy/magic user.

Boss battle! Don't you hate it when it's a scripted win for the bad guy? (i.e. - no matter what you do, you can't win and it's part of the story) When uber-bad guy starts dropping your teammates like flies, you don't panic. However, he runs off after randomly slaying half your team. That half stays dead for the remainder of the game. Uber-boss tends to slay the people you responded positively to and gained those "love-love" points with. Did you take Girl A's flowers? Bam! Did you agree to listen to Girl B play the pinao? Bam! All dead. And the one cool guy who sticks up for you? Bam! He was already dead halfway through the first CD.

Naturally, by the end of the game, you remember who you were... and the knowledge that you were a dock worker does absolutely nothing to prevent the 300-mile wide meteor from smashing your planet into dust. Your friends are safe though, because by this time the survivors have all sold you out to the Evil Empire in exchange for their lives.

There was more, but after that conversation we were convinced that no one would ever make our RPG. Pity, it would be hilarious. I'd play it.

I ran across a semi-old link that you posted somewhere and that I saved as a bookmark for some odd reason, but I cannot remember exactly what this game was all about. I went to the site, and got all excited, but then I thought, "How do I download the darn thing?!"

How do you play this game called "Half-life"? Is it meant for only programmer intelligent minds or can plain ol' duffus brains, with no honed game skills, play it alone at night on their PC? How do I download it? I looked all around amd I saw upgrades and patches for servers, etc. But how do I down load a stand-alone PC version and then add on all of the patches?

I got chosen to beta test Final Fantasy XI for the Playstation 2! Its Squre-Enix's first title to come out as a merged company and also their first online title as well. Its like Everquest, but a lot better in every way possible (in my opinion). I am very excited about it.

How did you get into that beta? I got Star Wars Galaxies, but... um... it's not quite where it should be yet to being released.

Oh, and one warning about FF 11 -- uberlag. I saw that one at E3 last year and the entire game was permalagged and the screen was WAY too crowded with junk. Also heard FF 11 is being exploited into the dirt.

My perfect online console game: PSO with non-hackable characters stored on the server, 8 players while fighting and as many players as you want in larger non-combat cities, and GMs who aren't afraid to ban people for their first duping/cheating/exploiting infraction. Someday. *sniff*

Even after 2-3 years, PSO is still the only game, PC or console, to do randomized 3D dungeons well.
</rant>

jn