Matt's Top Ten CRPGs @ Armchair Arcade

Matt Barton (of Dungeons and Desktops fame) has posted his favourite 10 RPGs on his blog at the Armchair Empire. At #10 is KotOR and at #1 is Pool of Radiance - I'll let you read the others:

1. Pool of Radiance. This is the game that really hooked me on CRPGs, even though I'd played Telengard, Bard's Tale, and others before it. It was really the package as a whole that captured me--I was already interested in AD&D and its subculture, but unfortunately knew no one who was into it. This game seemed like a great introduction, and it was. Unlike almost every CRPG after it, the world of Phlan is genuinely interesting and you feel like you're not just building up a set of characters, but a struggling town as well. I ended up playing almost all the Gold Box games, including the Dragonlance and Gateway series.

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...and The Rampant Coyote thinks about his list, although he doesn't have a final selection.
More information.

I always liked Matt's views on CRPGs and may be one of the 2 owners of his book in Germany. So I generally agree with his list.

I totally agree with his No1. PoR is still THE western RPG for me - after all those years. I am more critical of the later Gold Box games than he is, though.

His inclusion of Nethack is laughable in my eyes, but I especially would leave Dungeon Master out, because it started a process of watering down CRPGs that was only ended ten years later.

Rampant Coyote's comments are interesting, but I'd still wouldn't feature ANY indie game in my Top 10, especially not KoC.

Love these lists because 1) they bring back great memories of games and 2) every once in a while I come across a game I haven't heard of before or at least had forgotten about. Unfortunately, that just adds more games to my list.

Not a bad list, but no mention of VtM:B? I'll just assume he hasn't played it.

JDR13 said:

Not a bad list, but no mention of VtM:B? I'll just assume he hasn't played it.

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Yeah it really is HIS top ten CRPGs rather than some list of the absolute best 10. He says at one point that he left several off simply because he never played them or never got into them at the time when they hadn't aged too much and so had no nostalgic attachment for them as he does say... nethack. It's a very personal top 10 list - like the lists people post on Amazon but better written than the bulk of those.

Sure it probably serves more as a self-satisfying blog post than a professional article but it is a heck of a lot more honest sort of presentation than any of IGN's top ten of all time lists. That is to say that it does not pretend to be an exhaustive or thorough attempt to determine the best of all that there is when they tend to be culled from only slightly less limited perspectives (ie, 5 editors collaborate and combine experiences.)

A list I can fully relate to - and I think I actually agree with his number 1 game

With only 10 titles, it's no surprise to see so many greats left out. However, I'm surprised at how many of these games he only played a long time after release.

A fun little article. I like Matt's energy and enthusiasm when it comes to discussing games - you can really get a genuine sense of excitement coming from his Matt Chat interviews. I'm not going to bother to quibble with any of his selections, since ultimately that's a subjective process.

However, I have to respectfully disagree with him though when he says:

"The truth is, I missed a lot of those games when they were fresh, and it's been hard to get into most of them today. This is particularly true of the Ultima games, which really strike me as a "had to have been there" kinda thing.

For me, that's more of a mentality and investment issue.
I played and loved all of the early Ultima's from I-VI in 2000-2002, which wasn't the same period they were made by any means. Was my pleasure any less somehow than if I'd played them back in the day? I don't think so. In fact, U4 would still make my favourite list, if I had one.

DArtagnan said:

A list I can fully relate to - and I think I actually agree with his number 1 game

With only 10 titles, it's no surprise to see so many greats left out. However, I'm surprised at how many of these games he only played a long time after release.

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It is a very different experience coming upon a game when it is released compared to after a while ... and after a long while. As someone who missed everything after Wizardry & Ultima I and before Knights of the Old Republic ... I can attest that it is a wild way to experience stuff