Your top 3D RPG's

With me being new to PC gaming and my copy of Gothic Universe arriving shortly I got to thinking: "What are all the great 3D RPG's I have missed being a console player?" I have been searching reviews on Eurogamer, Gamespot, and IGN but I to be honest I am extremely suspect of their scores. It seems if a quest-giver doesn't have a glowing question mark over his/her head then that is grounds to knock of a full point.

Anyways to get to the point: To maybe give me a better idea of what I may have missed out on I was curious what everybody's favorite 3D RPG's were.

Forgive me if this has been a thread on this forum in the past, but I searched back quite a few pages and found nothing that resembled it so sorry If I may have missed something.

Knights of the Old Republic I and II were good.
Gothic I and II
Morrowind was quite good albeit I never finished it.

I'm not sure if I played any other 3d rpgs …

Are there 2D RPGs anyway ?

Well 3-D isometic is technically 2-D and we see some of those still coming out.

Okay, my personal definition of 2D is different (different definitions per genre ?), because 2D is what I believe for example Aztaka is, or Money Island 1-2.

My personaly definition of 2D comes from adventure games, that's why.

KotoR and Oblivion

Yes I should have been more clear. I meant more "modern" games like Gothic and Morrowind.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Okay, my personal definition of 2D is different (different definitions per genre ?), because 2D is what I believe for example Aztaka is, or Money Island 1-2.

My personaly definition of 2D comes from adventure games, that's why.

Gotcha. Would you consider really old school RPGs (like the old Ultimas or Gold Box games) to be 2-D? (Outside the dungeons in Ultima).

Gothic
Risen
Fallout 3 (Modded!)
Dragon Age
KotOR
Vampire: Bloodlines
Neverwinter Nights 1+2 (Mods and Expansions!)

You can't trust review sites, period. Eurogamer is probably THE worst of the bunch, because I frankly don't think they understand anything.

Gamespot/IGN are infested with corruption, but they have a little knowledge about the history of gaming - so you can pick up some valuable info, as long as you ignore the inflated scores for US AAA titles, and the low scores for EU sub-AAA titles.

Gothic 1 and 2, Risen (!!! Yes!!!), Morrowind/w expansions… Deus Ex… can't think of others right now. But I'm sure there are .

Originally Posted by blatantninja
Gotcha. Would you consider really old school RPGs (like the old Ultimas or Gold Box games) to be 2-D? (Outside the dungeons in Ultima).

Okay, I can't say. I usually say "isometric perspective RPGs" to them.

2D means two dimensions (X and Y). If there is a Z axis, it's 3D. Games like Neverwinter Nights are not actually 3D - they're "2,5D" which means they fake the 3rd axis.

In my opinion, Gothic 1 and 2 are the best 3D RPGs, hands down.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Gothic
Risen
Fallout 3 (Modded!)
Dragon Age
KotOR
Vampire: Bloodlines
Neverwinter Nights 1+2 (Mods and Expansions!)

You can't trust review sites, period. Eurogamer is probably THE worst of the bunch, because I frankly don't think they understand anything.

Gamespot/IGN are infested with corruption, but they have a little knowledge about the history of gaming - so you can pick up some valuable info, as long as you ignore the inflated scores for US AAA titles, and the low scores for EU sub-AAA titles.

I was trying to find Vampire: Bloodlines yesterday but I had no luck. I thought that looked pretty good.

And yeah, The review sites I typically watch are terrible. If it isn't a terrorist shooter there is no hope of the score reaching above a 7.

Originally Posted by Maylander
2D means two dimensions (X and Y). If there is a Z axis, it's 3D. Games like Neverwinter Nights are not actually 3D - they're "2,5D" which means the engine fakes the 3rd axis.

In my opinion, Gothic 1 and 2 are the best 3D RPGs, hands down.

Ehm, no, the Neverwinter Nights engine doesn't "fake" the 3D - they simply don't have a camera placed at the specified angle. Actually, Hordes of the Underdark introduced that particular feature, IIRC - and Neverwinter Nights 2 certainly had it.

It's as much a 3D game as Gothic or Risen, technically.

Either we talk about 3D graphics, or we talk about a specific perspective.

Then we could go on about it being first person or not, or free roaming or not.

In fact, we could spend all day trying to define precisely what game is called what, or we could simply come up with great games and let the OP decide if it's close enough to what he has in mind.

Originally Posted by jakebaker13
I was trying to find Vampire: Bloodlines yesterday but I had no luck. I thought that looked pretty good.

It's a pretty fantastic game, but I have no idea where you can get it. Gog.com maybe?

Just make sure you use the latest patch, and possibly the ever popular WESP patch - which I personally used upon my first and only playthrough about a year ago.

I'm pretty sure V:TMB isn't too hard to find, as long as you're ok with the digital download version. A retail box version is nearly impossible to find now.

Total brain fart on my end. I didn't even think about a digital download.

in order of appearance (and with benevolent approach to genre boundaries):

System Shock 2
Deus Ex
Wizardry 8
Gothic
Morrowind (modded)
Gothic II: Night of the Raven
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer
The Witcher

All of these I already consider to be "3D" classics.

From the most recent ones, Risen, Dragon Age, Fallout: New Vegas.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Ehm, no, the Neverwinter Nights engine doesn't "fake" the 3D - they simply don't have a camera placed at the specified angle. Actually, Hordes of the Underdark introduced that particular feature, IIRC - and Neverwinter Nights 2 certainly had it.

It's as much a 3D game as Gothic or Risen, technically.

Either we talk about 3D graphics, or we talk about a specific perspective.

Then we could go on about it being first person or not, or free roaming or not.

In fact, we could spend all day trying to define precisely what game is called what, or we could simply come up with great games and let the OP decide if it's close enough to what he has in mind.

I was simply trying to explain the terms as there seemed to be some confusion regarding whether 2D or 3D had anything to do with genre.

In any case, I honestly thought everything in the Aurora Engine (NWN, The Witcher, etc) was "glued to the floor" because it's simply not possible to move it along the Z-axis as there is no physical Z-axis. For example jumping is not possible, as an object above another object can't relate to the object beneath it.

I might be mistaken, however. Though, it does seem like an odd limitation to enforce if there is support for full 3D.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I was simply trying to explain the terms as there seemed to be some confusion regarding whether 2D or 3D had anything to do with genre.

In any case, I honestly thought everything in the Aurora Engine (NWN, The Witcher, etc) was "glued to the floor" because it's simply not possible to move it along the Z-axis as there is no physical Z-axis. For example jumping is not possible, as an object above another object can't relate to the object beneath it.

I might be mistaken, however. Though, it does seem like an odd limitation to enforce if there is support for full 3D.

The jumping thing was hard to implement based on the rigid tile-based engine, and the rules aspect - but modders managed to do so. Much like in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and games like them from Bio - that are not free form. They're quite into linear and tightly designed levels - where players are not free to move as they wish.

So, while the engine is rigid and as such quite inflexible - it is 100% 3D in technical terms. But that's visually, and not in terms of movement. You can't fly and there are no calculations to support "vertical movement".

Allowing players to "leave the ground" is a major pain for a specific kind of game, because you then need to worry about physics (jumping from higher ground, for instance - and the animation work is quite immense if it's to look good) and scenarios where you can't control the player for cutscenes and a whole slew of other issues.

The same concerns apply in Gothic, where "climbing" is not really possible and jumping is somewhat rigid looking. It's not an easy thing to accomplish - but free form games SHOULD have it be possible. Even Fallout 3 and Oblivion can't pull it off with a decent look, despite their zillions of dollars