RPGs Now in Next Gen Vogue

A site called GamezTraffic is offering up an article that attempts to explain why role-playing games are currently “in next gen vogue”. These two paragraphs are going to be like nails on a chalkboard for some of you:

After so many years of being stuck in the same mold, it seems that a new form of RPG has come to fill the void. The RPG genre has become not so much its own category, but a form that can be instilled into almost any game. Bethesda has become the crown jewel for RPGs, crafting a constant action first-person view with all the complexities of a JRPG. You level your stats, chose the way your character flows and builds, and create your own story to go along with the character. Mass Effect found a way to perfect dialogue in a way that not only reflects mood instead of word for word choice and response, but develops the dialogue trees to cater to the way you want your character to act. These games have taken the ephemeral aspects of what RPG fans crave and made them into a cohesive experience that offer both the high pace of modern games and the sensibilities of the old school classics.

These new entries into the genre have helped to introduce the concepts of role-playing to a new generation of gamers. You can still play them like a shooter and engage in constant action, or you can play them for exploration, much like Batman: Arkham Asylum (see the review under PS3), which also falls into the new RPG style of game. Although Batman doesn’t allow the player to create the background and motivation like Fallout or Mass Effect, you do get to play Batman as you see fit. You can decide how he fights, where he goes and what type of hero he really is. That is, in essence, the perfect example of an RPG.