Ihmishylje

" only one i've enjoyed recently was alpha protocol and although there was slight jank like you said i had no problems when it came to gunplay i couldn't understand why jeff hated it so much "

Oh, right! Dragon Age, loved it to bits! It was a day one purchase for me, as are all Bioware products. If they started making tampons, I'd probably buy them.
 
EDIT: Will have to look into Silver and Tales of Vesperia, then. Thanks guys! And keep the recommendations coming.. :P

Taking the risk of not sounding like a "true gamer" or whatever, I prefer games that have a good enough story and real character interaction. This is why I usually turn to RPGs for my gaming fix: KOTOR is my all time favourite game, and I also love games like Mass Effect, VTM: Bloodlines, Alpha Protocol, etc. I'm willing to look past a bit of "jank", as Jeff would put it, even though I really didn't think Alpha Protocol was janky, just misunderstood. Anyway, I also really enjoyed Red Dead Redemption, for its atmosphere and story (liked the gameplay mechanics too, at least in singleplayer).
 
Bethesda games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 have been pretty disappointing for me, the open world exploration is nice, but I just end up feeling like I'm playing an mmo by myself. I need the story to really pull me in.
 
JRPGs hold no real interest for me. 

I do enjoy games that rely mostly on their mechanics (am already looking forward to Gears 3 and the like) but that's not really what I'm looking for right now. So, any recommendations would be appreciated! I don't mind older games, my PC can't really run any newer games, though it ran HL2 quite fine when it came out, that was quite a while ago... I can look past dated graphics, but the thing with older games tends to be that they're not fully voiced and as someone who grew up on movies and TV, rather than games, it really hurts the immersion for me... if I wanted to read, I'd go read a book.
 
Also, while this is a gaming forum, I wouldn't mind movie recommendations -- provided they hit the same notes as some of the games I've mentioned here, if you know what I mean.

 This sucks.
 
@darkjester74 said:

    " I feel sorry for Obsidian, they cant seem to catch a break.  They have some genuinely great ideas but always seem to get a bad rap.  I for one am enjoying my time with AP. "

Yeah. The thing is, Alpha Protocol is the best game Obsidian has made. It's not perfect, it's a diamond in the rough, but I really like it.
 
When I first read this news, I felt like "well, figures"; sort of a "serves them right" because I'd been reading all those less-than-enthusiastic reviews and knew Obsidian by reputation: They have great writing and great ideas in their games but are always held back by technical issues and less than stellar gameplay.
 
But the thing is, now that I've played the game, I can say that here those issues, while present to a degree, don't ruin the game for me. I think people expected the wrong thing from the gameplay -- it wasn't meant to be Mass Effect, it was meant to be Dragon Age, in real time.
 
Or maybe I'm just willing to overlook some issues because I enjoyed the rest of the game so much. I do enjoy games that are mostly about  "gameplay mechanics" but games like Alpha Protocol are the reason I love games. I just wish they'd've gotten the chance to make a more polished sequel-- especially with how AP ended! Now all we have is a destined-to-be cult classic that suffers from the "Bloodlines" syndrome. At least Obsidian hasn't gone the way of Troika... yet.

My xbox achievements have stopped updating to the site a few days ago. What's wrong?
 
EDIT: I don't know if it fixed the problem with the auto update, but I removed my gamertag from my profile and added it again and I have my recent achievements there now. I hope I don't have to do this manually every time, though...

First of all: great post!
 
Secondly, yeah, probably the only thing that jarred with me in RDR was a scene where there was some horrible shit going on in the main storyline in Mexico and I (or Marson, whatever) could do nothing about it, even though in side quests, I would do the honorable thing. Now, I wouldn't mind Marston as a character being apathetic towards others than his loved ones, but  since he did alway save the damsel in distress in other situations, it made him seem quite flippant and his character progress inconsistent. While people in real life are sometimes inconsistent or irrational, in drama this always feels like poor writing. 
 
You've mentioned the reasons why, production-wise, it is impossible to do in a console RPG what a tabletop RPG can, which is a shame, because on the other hand video games can do all kinds of stuff the old pen & paper approach can't.
 
I guess where I stand is that, in a video game, I prefer the Mass Effect approach to cut scenes. Yes, it's limited (for the time being), but it still gives you, at least in theory, the chance to act a few different ways in order to build a certain kind of character archetype you prefer, even if the result is not you per se. I love RDR to bits, but I can't shake the feeling that this kind of writing belongs to a movie, rather than a game. 
 
ME2 is hopefully not be the best way to do narrative and character development in a game, but it's the best I've seen so far. I don't think a character needs to be a blank slate for you to RP the hell out of it and have a ME style choice system that develops the character and shapes the world around it.

As the title suggests, I've got my mind set on s-ranking this game. And it's a bitch! Some of the multiplayer challenges I could really do some help with. Naturally, I would return the favour!
 
So, anyone wanna posse up with me? My gamertag is ChrisKelvin03 (I really need to change it to something better...). Feel free to add me, I'm online as we speak.

Alright, cheers!

Found the eurogamer site while googling (as I did before posting here) but wasn't sure if it was the one they were talking about in the podcast and can't be bothered listening through them again...  But thanks guys, I'll check out that lensoftruth thing.