Panzer Dragoon Orta

[Gollum]

I could never bring myself back to playing NWN either after once spending a couple of hours with it shortly after purchase - it didn't manage to inspire any further interest in me. Morrowind was similar, but it still had enough appeal that I at least played it for about 20h twice (2 months break in between).

As for recommendations, on PC Arx Fatalis comes to mind, kind of like a modern Ultima Underworld, good atmosphere but you might not find it "console-ey" enough.
One game that is rarely mentioned but IMO is a true gem is Dinvine Divinity! It came out with little to no advertising but certainly is one of the best PC RPGs of the past years. Its 2D graphics might turn off some people, but the gameplay is top notch.
The PC RPGs I enjoyed the most over the past years were Gothic 1 & 2 though, they're more action and story driven than most RPGs you'll usually find on PC (relatively few stats, real-time combat with combo moves instead of heaps of statistics and sterile combat). Its got a nice "this is a real breathing world" atmosphere and refreshing interactivity, almost perfect balance between linear story and free-roam exploration gameplay, also has good AI and interesting NPCs - heaps better than Morrowind's. The first had seriously fucked up controls, but once you got used to them they "work".
Maybe give one or more of those a shot instead of getting bored to death by NWN, which is not worth the effort IMO...

 

[Gubbi]

I like Bioware RPGs. They are not pick up and play though. But they have a lot of depth and replay value once you get into them.

Cheers
Gubbi

 

[archie4oz]

PDO and Rez, although they're in the same building, they are in different floors.

Actually they're not even in the same building (or Ward for that matter)...

 

[Peppermonkey]

They are in the same building, but they are in a completely different area of the building. Like if the building was the Pentagon, Rez would be on the side upper floor, and PDO would be in the part that is well underground.

 

[Lazy8s]

I've been loving Panzer Dragoon Orta. I'm playing through on Normal difficulty first, and it's making me use a nice amount of strategy with constant form changing and gliding (accelerating/decelerating). The gameplay is really top-notch, and I don't mind failing on a level since playing them again is so much fun. I'm constantly having to rethink my strategy at certain parts and try new things.

Someone mentioned Grandia II... been playing through that in VGA. WOW! This game's textures are so crisp, behind only Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 in that regard. Also, I was blown away that the game has almost no image quality issues at all (in fact, its overhead perspective almost makes it look FSAAed it's so good). When you first enter a town and the camera does a fly-by over the whole city, complete with imaginitively distinct designs, you can really see what an impressive engine GameArts put together (not unlike the amazing job they did with the first Grandia on Saturn).

I love PC RPGs a lot too, and am really looking forward to the new Star Wars for Xbox from Bioware, but I can't deny the Grandia series is a blast to play. The dungeons have all sorts of fun little interactivity points, and the battle engine fuses real-time and turn-based combat into the most fun I've ever had battling in an RPG. Why can't other RPGs adopt this system... it's very strategic and satisfying when you plan your characters to attack in a combo and cancel the enemy's move.

The actions of all the characters and enemies in a fight progress on a real-time scale. When their time to choose an attack comes up, the battle will freeze at that moment, no matter whether the other characters are in the middle of an attack/being-attacked. This allows you to choose an action at that point in the conflict, so you can send your character to help someone else and combine the force of both attacks. It's all about planning and timing, and it's just a brilliant way of handling it. Also, it's great that you can see your enemies on the map instead of being forced into random battles. The only fault here is that the game needs to be way harder to truly force you to need to use careful strategy for survival.

About Rez and Panzer Dragoon Orta... well, these are two of my favorite games.

Rez is all about creating the presentation around you, shooting down enemies and missiles which adds layers of graphics, rhythm, and music to your trip. Like UGA's other game, Space Channel 5, the play uses rhythm and music to capture you into the timing of your actions. Like with dance or with listening to a favorite song, just tuning yourself into that rhythm can be very addicting. Space Channel 5 did it by allowing you to save certain humans who would join an ever-growing dance troupe behind you, making for like a mesmerizing stage dance show. Some of these people you would rescue would even be playing instruments, and the sound from their instrument would then be layered into the background music while the other dancers mimiced their dance actions (air guitar, air saxaphone, etc.) The shooting in Rez ties into this concept as well, as different harmonies are played as enemies are destroyed, and simply firing the gun lets off a different percussion (like a snare drum in the first area, for instance) that can be fired simply to set the rhythm to the BGM.

Panzer Dragoon Orta will also test your shooting skills like Rez, but it's a lot more about strategy. The game gives you a whole other expanded set of play mechanics for executing this strategy, so it's definitely more of an action-based experienced.

Both are fantastic games, focusing on a different type of player involvement despite the similarities of being a shooter.

 

[KOF]

Ozy, you are STILL playing NWN???

Yes, sort of. I bought the game back when it came out, played for like a day, resumed it in October, took a break in November when Phantom Crash came out, and I'm about to start again when (if?) I upgrade my PC this month.

I have made a promise to myself that I WILL beat it. It will be the first PC RPG I have ever finished, although I own Fallout 1 and 2, Morrowind, Baldur's Gate, and Septerra Core. I have a hard time with PC RPGs.. too boring for me

Edit: actually, I own and beat Vampire: the Masquerade a while back... but that game is very "console-ey" IMO.

I thought Anachronox was an RPG...

 

[marconelly!]

PDO is definitely an excellent, fun, game and one of the most beautiful looking. I have never played Panzer games before, except for the PC version of PD1 (which was nothing special, frankly), but this game stands on it's own without question. One thing I thought was a let down was the music. I've listened to the whole soundtrack and all the songs except for the end theme sound like some early synthesizer works of Jean Michael Jarre (at best) or Casio synth demo songs (at worst) End Theme is just so much more epic it makes you wonder why didn't they went with that composer for the whole game.

 

[Lazy8s]

marconelly!, I agree about the music being a let down from the high standards of the first three chapters in the series. Have you heard the main title song from the first Panzer, or the first level BGM from the first game? Those are two of the most wonderous compositions from that game, and I was hoping for some tracks like that. Zwei has a different, more rhythmic style of music with heavy percussions and exotic melodies (less orchestral, more varied instrumentation) which I also really liked.

I actually thought some of the music pieces from Orta were good (Episode 7 or 8, whichever one was the Rez-level, had a haunting BGM during the level and epsecially the boss fight). However, they were all very low key, and not the sweeping scores the Panzer series usually has to accompany the mood of flight over exotic worlds. It's strange too, since GUNVALKYRIE, Smilebit's previous project, had a pretty brilliant score for setting its mood on those alien planets.

 

[marconelly!]

marconelly!, I agree about the music being a let down from the high standards of the first three chapters in the series. Have you heard the main title song from the first Panzer, or the first level BGM from the first game?

I have, actually, and I agree that most songs from the first Panzer (I have MP3s from it's soundtrack) sound much more epic and fitting. Heck, those songs used for PDO commercial and some of it's trailers are so much better than the actual songs used in the game.

Eri Itoh is the composer of the PDO end theme, and I think they should have let him do the rest of the music. Other two composers who made all the other songs were clearly less talented, IMO.

 

[Ozymandis]

Hey, I like Saori Kobayashi's music! *shrug* That's just me though.

I was also a bit disappointed in the score for Orta. Although the songs for the natural environments are pretty good, I didn't really care for the more dramatic stuff. Zwei and especially the first Panzer have better scores.

Actually they're not even in the same building (or Ward for that matter)...

Episode 7 in Orta definitely has a Rez-influence to it (IMO).

I thought Anachronox was an RPG...

It is an RPG... a console RPG. It just happens to be on PC, if that makes any sense

 

[archie4oz]

They are in the same building, but they are in a completely different area of the building. Like if the building was the Pentagon, Rez would be on the side upper floor, and PDO would be in the part that is well underground.

Episode 7 in Orta definitely has a Rez-influence to it (IMO).

Argh! Lack of sleep caused to miss the point that you guys were using metaphor... (I was under the impression you were implying that UGA and SmileBit were physically in the same building)...

 

[Guest]

I just got the game and MY GOD! The visuals are stunning! If MGS2 = PS2, PDO = Xbox. Everything is drop dead gorgeous with very very good cinematic presentation. Easily pisses over anything and everything presently. Surely a game that can only be done on the Xbox.

Shooting is fun, more involving than Rez, more chaotic than Rez. I can see me playing this game over and over again, and some time more some where in the future. FUN FUN FUN!

I just wished the music would have more ummph! and Sega should include all the Saturn Panzer games. :?

 

[megateto]

Argh! Lack of sleep caused to miss the point that you guys were using metaphor... (I was under the impression you were implying that UGA and SmileBit were physically in the same building)...

In Spanish it made sense, I wasn't so sure about English, but seems you (finally) got it.

 

[Ug Lee]

I've been playing PDO pretty solidly for the last week, and I am amazed at how good this game is.

I started the game on normal, where I was trashed in level 4 so I decided to get my bearings by going through it on easy, which I did, and just tonight I've completed it on normal, and it's so brilliantly compelling that I must complete it on hard otherwise my gaming life isn't complete.

Graphically there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said ( ) but the artistic direction IMO is superb. Level design, enemy design, boss design etc is supremely good.

I love the Encyclopedia feature too - very informative and interesting.

Also I noticed a nice little bit of what looks like fur shading on one of the boss models. Didn't notice in the game as it was so far from the camera, but zooming in on the models in the Encyclopedia you can really appreciate the effort that's gone into them.

 

[Ozymandis]

Orta does look amazing. Uses nearly every trick in the book along with superb artwork to create what is IMO the best-looking game on the market now.

BTW, that is fur shading on the boss of Episode 5

 

[Lazy8s]

I was wondering about the texturing and skinning on the creature designs myself, which can best be seen when flying passed enemies (and they get close to the camera) or in the Encyclopedia's Creature section (Pandora's Box). I've never seen surfacing look quite so organic outside of pre-rendered CG before. The reptilian-type skin on many of the designs has that natural, rubber-like pliancy when animating along with eye-popping multitexture detail. I'm assuming the detail is achieved through multiple layers like bump and gloss, but some of the designs even show subtle effects like a fine covering of thousands of tiny hairs (almost like fur).

 

[BoddoZerg]

Question : Are the models in the Encyclopedia actually the same as what you see in game?

I can't imagine them wasting videocard power rendering tiny details on eveery enemy when you'll never really notice them in game, especially considering the sheer number of enemies and rock-solid framerates of PDO. Does PDO use a LOD system like Halo?

 

[Lazy8s]

"(almost like fur)"

As an addition to the fur reference, it has a uniqueness in that it's not quite so dense or overlapping - giving it a genuine look as opposed to looking like the result of some effect.

Another impressive technical note has to be the swirling dust storms in the third level, The Fallen Grounds. Several layers of fine particle clouds sweep through from different directions and rage against one another as you fly through.

The art direction is just astounding. Each level is like stepping into a different painting. Eternal Glacies, especially, has some picturesque settings as your journey over the rolling, snow-covered hills is shown at separate times of day. The lighting from the setting sun gives each sub-scenario of that level its own mood. I have to say, too, that I was definitely blown away by the character designs of Mobo's people and most notably, Abadd. His look is just so stylish and visually haunting. I often felt like framing my TV and hanging it on the wall while playing this game.

While the music was good and yet still slightly lacking, the end credits music was very moving. What I can't get over is how the voice actors managed to express so much feeling and emotion through an imaginary language. You could completely understand the story and character conflicts even without the translation through subtitles. Very talented performances, and great screenplay.

 

[Lazy8s]

BoddoZerg:

Question : Are the models in the Encyclopedia actually the same as what you see in game?

I can't imagine them wasting videocard power rendering tiny details on eveery enemy when you'll never really notice them in game, especially considering the sheer number of enemies and rock-solid framerates of PDO. Does PDO use a LOD system like Halo?

Incredibly, I think the in-game creature models and the encyclopedia models are one in the same. In Altered Genos, I once paused the game right as I flew through a cloud of about sixty of those rainbow butterfly-like creatures, and I got a good look at a few of them zoomed right up close to the camera. That was actually the first time I realized how detailed every little thing was, and I later recognized the same model in the Creatures section of the Encyclopedia. The boss models are definitely the same too, as you get a good long look at them during the battles.

I think most games use LOD systems to some extent, though I'm not sure if or how it was implemented on the creature designs in Panzer Dragoon Orta. It almost definitely had to be implemented with the ships and aircraft in the massive aerial battles and the cut-scenes outside the Cradle, though - I can't imagine that would've possible without LOD unless the game was pushing 50 million polys or something.

The aerial battles use LOD for fade-in. However, if you watch at the very end of Altered Genos when the "Episode Clear" words come on the screen and all the HUD icons disappear, you get an unobstructed view of the canyon walls going far off into the distance. Amazingly, you can see that they manage to keep all of their complexity and detail as far as you can look.

 

[Ozymandis]

You know, the thing that I was disappointed in as far as the visuals in Orta was that there weren't more outdoor sections. The indoor areas were ok, but man, Eternal Glacies and Altered Genos were so much more incredible

Question : Are the models in the Encyclopedia actually the same as what you see in game?

Yes, I believe so.