Best RPG Game

This year has been a belter for games. Especially on the RPG front. Here’s a quick look at this year’s runners up first.

2008 saw JRPG giant Square Enix release their first titles for the Xbox. The most eagerly awaited of this years crop was The Last Remnant, an exquisite looking game that blended Western influences into the turn-based combat system. Controlling armies instead of just a party of players and some suitable bloody animations ramp up the excitement. Sadly this was dampened down by some pretty horrific loading times ensuring that The Last Remnant remains a runner-up rather than a true winner.

Next up is another JRPG offering. Tales of Vesperia has made a lot of headlines in 2008 but it won’t be released in Europe until 2009. The latest installment of Namco’s venerable Tales series offers up an action RPG spin on JRPG conventions and blends it together with a bucketload of style. It single-handedly push Xbox sales in Japan through the roof allowing Microsoft to outsell Sony for the first time. No mean feat.

Heading back west we can meet up with a European offering, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel. In the absence of Diablo III, Sacred 2 gave us the gift of fiendishly addictive hack ‘n’ slash co-op play over a game area larger than that seen in Oblivion. It can get a little frustrating in places but the co-op is just too much fun to give up. Watch out for the console versions in early 2009.

Peter Molyneux was again running his outrageous hype machine in preparation for the release of Fable II. Again Fable II did not disappoint, for the most part. It refined and expanded a lot of the features that made the first game so endearing. Now you can get married, have children, get a job in a bar and buy almost all of the homes and businesses in the game. All these only serve as distractions to the main point of the game – to become a hero and save Albion. Sadly they could not distract form the game’s only real flaw – that, like its predecessor it was a bit light on the length of the main quest.

Really, there could only be one winner this year….

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 has been a great source of excitement since Bethesda announced that they were working on it after the release of Oblivion. It was to every bit as ambitious as their latest Elder Scrolls title and then some. Yes, the gaming area was smaller but in it they have created one of the most beautiful and compelling wastelands on any platform.

The DC Wastes are very much a careful refinement of the sprawling grandeur of Tamriel. The boys at Bethesda have crammed so much story and so much life into a supposedly dead landscape that gamers will find themselves lost in ways not even the might Baldur’s Gate series could deliver. From your very start as a baby in Vault 101 to one of a potential 200 endings Fallout 3 will deliver a unique and exciting experience for anyone who loads it up. It is a true masterpiece and worthy winner of our RPG of the Year 2008.

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Best Shooter – Best Sports – Best Platformer – Best RPG – Best Action Adventure – Best Rhythm – Best Driving – Best Puzzle – Best Downloadable – Best Platform Exclusives – Best Soundtrack – Best Graphics – Best Artistic Vision – The Line Up – Game of the Year

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