I’ve been bored lately, and there’s a specific game genre that I haven’t seen enough of. If you’ve played any of the Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale, this should be easy: I’m looking for PC games of that sort, with relative open-stories and, most importantly, considerable character interaction among party members. Which implies the existence of a party, meaning no solo games where you just go around by yourself, I want a guy who actually interacts with other beyond being their errand boy/sword-for-hire.
Such list of games should NOT include:
Baldur’s Gate I & II
Icewind Dale (Which does not actually fit)
Planescape: Torment
KotOR I & II (Don’t really like Star Wars that much)
I’ve heard of both Neverwinter Nights and the Elder Scrolls games, but I was given the impression that they were solo games. And I’ve played Fable, stood the unbelievably cliché storytelling for a while and then gave up. Seriously, I have trouble believing the writers weren’t being purposely stereotypical, if only for the fact that it wasn’t funny enough to be satire.
From what I know, Neverwinter Nights is a framework upon which campaigns can be built. The game comes with a few built-in adventures, and you can download more. Since it focus on players building adventures somehow, many of those you’d be able to download would be made by players, though I’m not sure. So think of it as an Baldur’s Gate with many “mods” or “mini-expansions” available.
NWN1 is practically a solo game, you get one party member. NWN2 actually adds a decent party. Haven’t finished either and got bored right after the NWN2 tutorial, so yeah. Elder Scrolls are open-ended solo monsters, you can pretty much skip everything and just rape people until you’re level 5 million and then go finish the final boss. Some people like how open-ended it is, I could stand with some more linearity. Both NWN and TES have huge mod/campaign communities though, so if you’re into that, there’s some good stuff there.
The Fallout games are an excellent bet for some post-apoc CRPGing, and apparently Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is pretty good. Haven’t had a chance to try the latter.
Oh, and even if you don’t like Star Wars, give the KOTOR games a try anyway. They’re surprisingly excellent, not counting the rush job done on KOTOR2 (for which mods are currently in development to patch back in all that was cut).
I heartily recommend Arcanum. There is a variety of interesting characters you can have join you, and the Magic/Technology thing is great fun. The interface is a little clunky though.
Don’t try Pool of Radiance or Temple of elemental evil (the remakes). Arcanum is a great game but it goes slowly. If you don’t mind that check it out for sure.
I second the Fallouts (especially 2). Ultima VI IIRC may be up your alley but mind it’s quite older.