Argonaut

I played and enjoyed Divinity: Original Sin. But I couldn't finish it. I got partway into Act 2 and lost the plot. The music, art, and combat was good.. but there was no real story and the characters (both yours and the shallow NPCs) had no personality at all. Contrast that with Infinity Engine games, where I'm driven forward because of the story and the cool characters. That's really what an RPG is about. Minsc is a legend. And despite Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny's shortcomings I could finish them easily. Maybe someday I'll get back to Divinity: Original Sin, or its sequel when it receives a deep discount or is bundled. From what I've seen, perhaps there's some more personality in the Original Sin 2 characters.. the Red Prince and the Undead dude look pretty cool.

Say a prayer for me, I played Pillars of Eternity 1 at release without Party AI, and had to micromanage my way through the game. Probably why it took me 100 hours. Learned my lesson and am not going to pick up PoE2 until it's cheap. Some good ideas in this podcast towards the end. Particularly like TJ's idea of having some of your party members be "off-map" for battle. You could have a Thief and Cleric that don't directly participate in the battle, but could debuff your enemies or heal your party on certain conditions. Then you could just focus on your 3-4 dudes.. Mr. STR, DEX, and INT. I feel like Strategy and RPG games are natural allies and am glad to see this topic on the show. 90% of my game time is devoted to these genres. What I love about these Infinity style games are the characters. I'm playing through Wasteland 2 now, and a bit disappointed that you have 4 voiceless PC's.. would rather them have condensed that into 1 voiceless PC and rounded out the skill system and available NPC's to compensate. Probably why I'll likely never play Icewind Dale, despite the shoutout from Rowan. One thing I'd like to see changed in these modern cRPG's is the crappy loot system. They should learn from Dark Souls 1, where you can find a simple Estoc or Zweihander in the first 10 minutes that you can use throughout the game. Just need to upgrade it. As is in these cRPG's you get hundreds of drops, but eventually your Sabres become "Fine/Exceptional Sabres". Dumb.

Anybody play Gangsters: Organized Crime? This was my game of 1998, and I still play it every few years or so. There's never been anything like it. Gangster-themed strategy game that had hybrid turn-based and real-time components. Use the map to expand your territory, recruit hoods, make lots of illegal money, and eliminate rival gangs. It was a flawed masterpiece. As a kid I had an extremely limited gaming budget. Don't think my computer could handle Half-Life, and I wasn't as interested in StarCraft as Warcraft II and Diablo. So all I played in '98 on PC was Gangsters and a game called Knights and Merchants. Two somewhat obscure games that scratched a nice strategy itch. Too bad no mention on the podcast.