Polygon's open-letter to BioWare regarding their open-world-like games.

Since my point is that the developer is not the one officially classifying ME as an RPG; how does their not officially classifying DA:O as an RPG either on it's box weaken my point?  If anything, it strengthens/supports it.  From what I can see, many companies avoid stating the supposed genre of the game on the box.  Instead, they often use other more general descriptors of the content.  My copy of TW3 doesn't state that it's an RPG either.  I've done some digging through my old disk cases; and An exception I have is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, which states that it was "Winner, Best RPG of E3."  My copy of TW3, however, does declare that it is a "massive open-world adventure."

I don't think the developers want to limit their sales by "boxing their games" into individual genres.  Movies do the same thing... stretching the boundaries of a genre so that it winds up with hyphenated, hybrid classifications.  I really don't have a problem with it and don't really understand why fans here are so bent on "boxing Bioware in" to producing only a very particular style of RPG game.

Argh. Just starting toward the exit for Techiix again after finishing a side quest. On the way out, Jaal says, "Don't worry they probably won't shoot. They should be warned of our approach." (or something like that.) Then I get further toward the exit and Ryder says, "Daar up ahead." Then Cora chimes in with something about the isolation or weather or something.

So not only is it continuity breaking that Jaal says this again....while I'm leaving....but says it in backwards order......

This happens in sooooo many places. Every time you approach the poacher's camp with the datapad, anytime you drive by a kett camp, even if it's empty. Argh argh.

Definitions and such distinctions among them change over time though.  Saying that cinematic, voice-acted RPG video games need to incorporate 100% player control and the essence of table-top RPGs is like trying to say the definitions of what constitutes or separates a modern hospital from a clinic vs. a hospice vs. an elder care home are the same as it was back in the 1950s or earlier.  How they function and, therefore, how they are categorized changes with the technologies involved.

id agree with Inquisition.

But as it's an extension to the Dragon Age world, the Dragon Age series on the whole is fantastic world design. 

Tabletop games are multiplayer. I only play single-player games.

But I do still play silent games. I also continue to ask that the voiced games contain a silent option (simply being able to turn off the PC voice would have improved all of BioWare's voiced games tremendously).


If that's what you like, and there's no other way to categorize the thing you like, then you should.

Also, I remember back in the day when "video game" did refer exclusively to shallow actiony games like that. CRPGs and flight sims and whatnot were "computer games", a very different class of entertainment product.

I liked computer games. I never liked video games.

And that's a problem. Your definitions leave a new gap. Where would grand strategy games like Europa Universalis fall in your definition?

Frankly, I'd rather play an RPG that played like Crusader Kings than I would one that played like God of War.

No, it's not a problem... because I don't need to put any game into a single "genre box" in order to decide whether or not I want to play it.  It's also not "my definition," but one that was in common use in my area way back when a group of us would go to arcades.  We all knew if we suggested playing a "video game" we were heading to section of those games with screens and not the pinball machines... and, as I said, it's a definition that keeps changing as the technology and times have changed.

Any game ultimately is what it is and the genre label is a meaningless categorization or generalization made mostly so that the developers can get awards based on such categorizations and so that retailers can decide what shelf to put it on.  In judging whether or not to buy a game, I don't look for the genre catch phrases... I read the details of the game itself and if I think it's something that might interest me at the price it's being offered, I'll buy try and try it out.  If I don't think it will interest me, I just don't buy it.  If I try it and I'm not having fun playing it, I'll quit playing it (as I've just done with TW3).  If I really enjoyed playing the first time, I'll probably go back to play it time and again (I've played through the MET over 30 times and still enjoy it, I still play Minecraft with some friends and we're still enjoying that; I also still enjoy playing Tetris or Space Invaders; Super Mario, Pinball, Checkers, Chess, Pick-up Sticks, Bridge and about 150 different versions of Solitaire - mostly with a real card deck, etc. etc.).  I enjoy games of different kinds... not games just of a particular genre label that's mostly meaningless anyways.  If you want to use the genre label as an excuse to restrict yourself, that's up to you.

Okay so you're immediately disqualified

I didn't realize we were in competition.

Good to know apparently, but I reject such a notion.