I don't like RPGs.
Which is unusual, I think, because it's all I really play. I played D&D back in the day, then AD&D and various other role-playing systems. I've traditionally considered myself an RPG geek (though I never did any of that live-action stuff; RPGing was always sort of a closet habit, something I felt vaguely embarassed about even while I was busily gathering friends, pretzels and beer together in the garage for a session) so it comes as a bit of a surprise to realize that I don't like RPG computer games.
Chalk it up to recent bad experiences, maybe. Divine Divinity was fun for awhile until I got irrevocably stuck despite all the available internet walkthroughs and cheats. Something that was supposed to be said simply wasn't being said when it should be and I could not progress. But regardless, all of the traipsing back and forth was getting a little dull.
Give me linear storylines. Some sub-branching is fine, but vast and unfathomable worlds like Morrowind instill within me a sort of frantic fear that I am somehow missing out on something, that I've screwed myself over with the choices I've made and I won't discover it until I am 70 hours into the game and I run into a Gigantic Level 99 Asswipe who will clean my clock regardless of what I try or do or say. I want large signposts in flashing neon red telling me "This is the WAY! This is where you're supposed to go next!" Some story interspersed in there is great, it's the cream cheese frosting on top of the moist and delicious spice cake, but it's by no means the reason I play.
Diablo 2 remains to this day one of my favorite games, and Diablo 1 is a very short way behind it. Why? Not because of it's quests or storyline (minimal, at best). Simply because of the endless hack and slash. In the same vein, I have played Nethack, Dungeon Crawl, and other roguelikes until my eyes have bled and my fingers have siezed up into so many snarls like knotted string. Not for any story or role-playing, but rather for the sheer hack and slash fun of it.
Random levels, random encounters, bare-bones plot, minimal boring conversation, and no jogging back and forth across land I've already explored seeking out an endless chain of miscellanous NPCs and irrelevant quest objects to progress some storyline that I really couldn't care less about; now, that's what I'm talking about.
That being said, there is a lamentable dearth of games that are to my taste. I fear I'm probably in too small a minority for my pleas to be heard. Alas.
