Why I Love RPGs...by Rich

Role Playing Games, of all the many videogame genres has the most prominent geek stigma attached to it. No other genre carries such heavy connotations of Dungeons & Dragons inspired geekery, informed by a history of sad, anorak stereotypes that refuse to fade away. Personally, I encountered a number of D&D, Warhammer loving elf-fanciers during my school days, but I'd hope that playing an RPG and becoming consumed by the same type of universe doesn't necessarily place us in the same camp. While this may sound like I'm in denial, desperately trying to justify my relatively new-found obsession for orcs and goblins by distancing myself from the nerds that I had the good fortune to go to school with (sorry, no names, but you'll know who you are if you're reading this), I'm merely pointing out that RPGs make up only a portion of my gaming Recommended Daily Allowance. One of my five a day, if you will. A quick bite of hearty shoot-'em-up, a sports game snack, a driving elevenses, a slap-up dinner of RPG action and then a wind-down with, oh, I don't know...a puzzle game supper? It's all part of a healthy balanced, gaming diet. Yet, increasingly, my love for the RPG has steadily grown over the past ten years and continues to bloom unabated.

Once upon a time…
It's a story that I'm sure is a common one among gamers weaned on the first PlayStation. I got into RPGs after being swept up by Final Fantasy VII's (1997) epic plot. Even today it still lingers in memory as one of the finest moments (well 70 odd hours), in my life as a gamer. I never got into RPGs on my first console, the Sega Master System (were there even any?), as I was simply far too busy playing Sonic The Hedgehog and Alex Kidd In Miracle World. When I upgraded to the Sega Mega Drive my time was monopolized by the likes of Revenge Of Shinobi, Golden Axe, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Road Rash, Desert Strike, Sonic (again), Probotector, the Streets Of Rage series and much, much more. Once again, there may have been some great RPG games on the MD, but to this day, I remain blissfully unaware of them. When I finally got my sticky mitts on a PSX and got to play games in proper 3D (not the fake kind that Probotector had, which incidentally made my eyes go weird) it opened my eyes to a whole new world of gaming. To me the Final Fantasy games (VII and VIII, I missed out on XI) were instrumental in demonstrating where the future of games lay. That is in immersive, vast, intricate worlds and at the time FF VII seemed like the absolute pinnacle of what I could ever expect from a game of this kind. By the time the PS2 came around, I was foaming at the mouth at the prospect of FF X, and while it didn't disappoint it turned out to be essentially more of the same. For my opinion on the latest in the series, FF XII, scroll down a bit.

Here’s the rub…
Central to the problem that RPGs have always been synonymous with D&D geeks is the preoccupation with conventions and characters that have been with us since Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings. Orcs, goblins, elves and wizards have seldom been cool and when placed into a slow-paced environment, accompanied by apparently sterile action involving hit-points and long, drawn-out battles of attrition, it’s really not all that difficult to see why RPGs have earned their reputation as stuffy, dated games best left to their intended, acne-ridden demographic. Sadly, I would have agreed until I was seduced by the Akira style ‘cyber-punk’ aesthetics of Final Fantasy VII. Peter Jackson’s hugely successful movie adaptations of Tolkien’s masterworks didn’t hurt the RPG much either. Take a look at Elder Scrolls and the influence of PJ’s movies are abundantly clear. ES positively reeks of cinematic Tolkien. Not that that’s a bad thing, far from it. To claim to possess a love for RPGs whilst only having played certain instalments of the Final Fantasy series may seem a tad illogical, but it's a love nevertheless. Maybe this article should be entitled: 'Why I Love Final Fantasy.' And that's what I would have labelled it until I recently discovered Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Not since traipsing through the slums of Midgar for the first time have I been so absorbed by a digital landscape. And therein lies the beauty of the RPG. No other genre has the innate power to completely engulf a player in its unique universe, indiscriminately stealing away hours of your life back in the real world and refusing to ever give them back. It’s testament to Elder Scrolls IV’s rich, detailed and stunningly realised world that spending time there is never a chore and simply trekking through its lush greenery and treacherous mountains is one of modern gaming’s greatest experiences. Furthermore, Elder Scrolls' 'be anyone and do anything' premise makes it unique in that no two people will experience the same game, which encapsulates the depth of what Bethesda’s masterpiece has to offer.
Some may argue that I should get a life and say that I need to get out more, and while this may be true, I can think of nothing else I’d rather do than sit in front of the TV and see what adventures I’ll embark upon next with my daedric armour clad, level 25 dark elf. Hey, maybe I have become just like the geeks that I tried my utmost to avoid in school, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love RPGs, and if that makes me a dork, then so be it.

There’ll be a review of the PS3 version of Elder Scrolls IV on The Shed in the next few weeks. Also, coming soon...Why I Hate RPGs...by Landon.