The Bard's Tale. A quest for coin and cleavage, as it proclaims on the back of the box. In theory, a whimsical adventure where you play as the selfish Bard, who cares not about anything but money or women. In an open-ended atmosphere, a game like this would have been a real treat. Unfortunately, developers at inXile entertainment decided instead to create this game on the Baldurs Gate: Dark Alliance engine. It's the perfect engine for the tried-and-rehashed formula of choosing action over story for an RPG, offering limited character customization and linear quests with little to no real reward, aside from the ability to progress forward. Of course, this isn't your regular action RPG. As you open the case and glance at the disc, you're greeted with a message. "If you want to see something really scary, turn this disc over." You are then greeted by your own face. Ha ha, inXile. You got me. That quirky joke seems to set the mood for the entire game; cheap laughs, led by innuendo and puns worthy of a fourth-grade lunch table conversation. This isn't really a bad thing, since the Bard's Tale breaks the mold from the other bland and boring action-RPGs, set in cliché fantasy worlds with serious-but-laughable plots. The juvenile humor just adds to the feel of the game, a feel which is somewhat unique surrounded by a genre of cookie-cutter clones. The Bard's Tale dabbles in a bit of cliché itself, though only to poke fun at the genre, which it does a fairly good job at doing.