Later when I discovered you could buy, sell, and even craft items, my mind was blown! To some experienced RPG gamers, this must seem pretty strange, but this was my absolute first encounter with a game like this. The next thing I noticed was the inventory, you could walk around and pick up almost anything you wanted. Sure, there is some dialogue in Half-Life, and the units in Age of Empires yelled some lines I still remember to this day ("Til vardaga!"), but those games weren't centered around dialogue. Up until that moment I had only played two types of games: first-person shooters and real-time strategy games, Half-Life and Age of Empires, respectively. I sat next to him and watched when I immediately noticed something different: all the characters talked, all the time! And not only that, you could choose your responses and the other characters would react! What I do remember, however, is that my older brother came home one evening with a pirated version of the game, we installed it on our shared computer, and for me it was the defining game when it came to RPGs.Īfter booting up the game, my brother started playing first, naturally. I have deduced from looking at the North American release date - October 28th, 2003, English version - that it must have been sometime between then and spring 2004. The truth is I can't really remember how or when I got introduced to this game. So the above story is obviously not entirely true. (Okay, cards on the table, it was pirated, but stick with me, I'll hopefully redeem myself by the end of this article!) A world of adventure awaits. "That," he replied, measuring his words carefully, "is a totally not pirated version of Gothic 2." Speaking softly, not taking my eyes off it, I said, "I don't understand, what is it?" Inside, on a red, hand-sewn pillow, lay a Philips DVD+RW disk. I carefully opened the metal clasps in front, and slowly opened the lid. "Open it," my brother said, encouragingly. I ran my hand along the box, it was warm to the touch, even though it had been outside for several hours. From within his backpack he pulled out a huge wooden box, engraved with strange markings I had never seen before. He just smiled and walked decisively into the center of the living room, not even undressing. "What is it?" I asked as I carefully put away my sticks. The burst of air nearly put out the fire, my parents both ran towards the door, racing against time and temperature in order to close it! When the dust finally settled, my older brother was standing there with a look on his face I had never seen before: excitement. Suddenly, the outer door flies open, the freezing air rushing in! What little moisture was in the air immediately froze and fell to the floor as rime. I was sitting happily, or so I thought, playing with some sticks on the ground, the national pastime. That was all we ate back then in the before times. The fire was roaring in the living room, and we had just had our daily meal of lutefisk. It was a biting cold winter night in the year of our lord, 2004. This entry was contributed by Gisle Sølvberg, Programmer and Game Designer at Perfectly Paranormal, which is currently developing narrative adventure puzzle game Helheim Hassle. Why I Love is a series of guest editorials on intended to showcase the ways in which game developers appreciate each other's work.
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