On Kickstarter and Old-School RPGS

Well, here we are folks, I braved the <checks> 106 degree Vegas weather to get myself to a Starbucks to update this blog. THAT'S DEDICATION, so share the love, cause I'm not above measuring my self-worth against a digital readout of total strangers who read these ramblings. ONWARD

The first video-game I really fell in love with was KotOR. Before then I had garnered hours of enjoyment from Warcraft 2 & 3 and all of the Roller Coaster Tycoon titles, but Knights really cemented itself in my heart. I had discovered RPGs, and nothing would ever be the same.

But while my friends (I HAD FRIENDS) were doing backflips and headstands for games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and Elder Scrolls ... I had no interest. The stories never impressed me, they were full of halfhearted characters and lackluster overall stories. I appreciated the art design, and oftentimes the direction the games were trying to take their stories, but beyond that? I just wasn't their target demagraphic (which is the diplomatic way of saying they suck the major doodoo).

... and I have to interrupt, an absolutely beautiful girl just smiled at me at Starbucks like six times, my computer crashed in the middle of this, she sat right next to me, and while I tried to extricate the "Hi" stuck in my throat, she got her order, smiled at me again, got to the door, smiled again, and left. I am an impressive specimen of male charisma. 

Anyways, back to video-games while I try and scrub the bitterness out of my brain.

I had one friend back in the day who turned me onto three magical titles: Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Fallout, and Planescape: Torment. My world was blown away. These games were magical. 

So when Wasteland 2, Shadowrun: Returns, Pillars of Eternity, and Tormet: Tides of Numenara were announced, my ears perked up so hard I nearly achieved flight I was so f***ing excited. This was it, the return to the golden age of classic isomentric topdown RPGs, and I was there to see it. No longer was I playing games from the previous generation of gamers.

It was a nice reminder to the market that there is still an audience for these games, that were not all interested, or only interested in the Triple A games' graphics and porridge-brain inducing storylines. I'm sorry, but those games can sit and rotate as far as I'm concerned. They've dominated long enough.

Not that I think this will change the playing field, but I'd like to see it ... encourage the playing field to introduce games like BioShock: Infinite or The Last of Us. I want to see balance brought back to the force.

~ Godzello