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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
Troika's The Temple of Elemental Evil has been <a href="http://www.videogameslife.com/pages/article/rvw/429.htm" target="_blank">reviewed</a> at VideoGamesLife. The individual category scores are considerably higher than the overall 57/100, so here's one of the closing paragraphs:<blockquote><em>The main problem with The Temple Of Elemental Evil is the feeling it's out of its time. TOEE has the feel of the RPGs created by SSI during the late 1980s, some of which were also licensed Dungeon & Dragons games. Had this been released before Neverwinter Nights, we may have been more tolerant concerning the bugs because gameplay is quite solid and entertaining in short bursts. The lack of a strong narrative is disappointing though, in a gaming world that contains Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, titles that involve repetitive hack & slash gameplay really don't cut the mustard. The cold interface does nothing to make a newcomer to the genre feel welcome or encourage them to explore the excellent character creation section.</em></blockquote>Whether you're a fan of ToEE or not, I'm sure there's lots of readers who would like to see more "old-school" RPGs. |
Fri Jan 02, 2004 12:13 pm |
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methusala
Tempered Warlord
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 281
Location: Odinwald |
Whay excactly does "old school" rpg mean to you?Please explain to me what that means. |
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Fri Jan 02, 2004 12:15 pm |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
I used it pretty loosely to be honest. When I use that term, I mean exploration-driven, stat-heavy RPGs that are usually party-based with tactical combat - such as the SSI titles the review was referring to.
_________________
Editor @ RPGDot |
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Fri Jan 02, 2004 1:33 pm |
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Shevek
Guest
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A few oldschool games I'd like to see more the likes of (given as examples to what oldschool rpgs are):
The Realms of Arkania Trilogy - 3d Town Exploration, 2D Isometric TB combat, awesome use of survival skills (to hunt, set up camp, etc to survive), nicely done world movement and very detailed character development It was a SirTech title I think, so hopes for a sequel seem rather small.
Sundog: Frozen Legacy - cool game for the Atari ST where you are, essentially, a space trucker. You have to keep an eye on some stuff like food/drink for your character while continually tending to your ship and exploring a fairly large sector of space. I think I hear the dev of this is running a freeware project on Sourceforge to update this baby.
Daggerfall - Unlike Morrowind, this game rocked. The world was not only much larger, it was, in some ways, a bit more immersive (yearly holidays, better banking systems, night/day npc cycles, better guild systems, etc etc etc). The combat was actually better and the character development was much much more meaningful. Hell, you even got to use horsies.
There are other examples. Frankly, I am happy some devs out there still remember what RPGs are suppose to be. Sure, ToEE could have used some more time in the oven. Ya, the world shoulda been a good bit bigger, the quests coulda been better and the writing wasnt A+ but I still found it much more satisfying than most of the stuff we have been getting recently. Im getting more than a little tired of this interactive fiction (which seems like little more than point/click adventure titles with some combat in em' - this is especially true of these new rpgs where the combat is just garbage like KoTOR) that devs nowadays are trying to push off on us. |
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Fri Jan 02, 2004 5:38 pm |
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Ammon777
Warrior for Heaven
Joined: 20 Apr 2002
Posts: 2011
Location: United States |
I remember old-school as being the classic SSI stuff like Curse of Azure Bonds and Pool of Radiance, along with Ultima and Might and Magic.
oh, and i think Morrowind rocks. |
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Fri Jan 02, 2004 7:38 pm |
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Shevek
Guest
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Curse of the Azure Bonds was '89 I think. Sundog was '85 (for the Atari ST version, the Apple II version was a bit earlier). The first Arkania title came out not too long after Azure bonds in '92. Daggerfall did hit the scene a bit later though (96). The dates arent the important thing however - it's the gameplay. Frankly, many new games, like Morrowind, are lacking compared to their predecessors. Ever since BaK (by my reckoning, though I suppose some would blame Bioware or maybe PST), RPGs have been far too preocupied with the telling of a narrative instead of allowing the gamer a greater hand in that process. Even beyond this fault, one could point out that the issue of accessibility has put issues such as ease of use and graphics atop things of arguably greater importance like depth of character development (Remember choosing specific advantanges and disadvantages in Daggerfall and how those affected advancement pace? How about the meaningful skill selection? Other issues abound as well but..heh..whatever). This dumbing down is evident in other genres (as shown by the release of DW:IW), but it really is most evident in the cRPG genre which has degerated to nearly the level of vapid suckiness as the 'rpgs' of our console counterparts in certain releases and is little more now than a marketting tag thrown on to every strategy and action/adventure title that hits the market. Im just happy some companies have the brass ones to put out a real cRPG in today's market. There are whisperings of a new cRPG by Troika (a sci fi one no less) and I am more interested in that title (though I know next to nothing about it) than anything else on the horizon thanks largely to them putting out Arcanum and ToEE (the only two real cRPGs I've played by a major developer in quite some time). |
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Fri Jan 02, 2004 11:12 pm |
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methusala
Tempered Warlord
Joined: 06 Jun 2003
Posts: 281
Location: Odinwald |
To be honest,I knew what you meant with "old school" rpg.I wanted a reaction and a little more insight on what everyone thought. Frankly I don't think that the developement houses today have the time or money(or don't want to risk it) to make a" Daggerfall 2004,2005"(just using it as a example).I admit that I like nice graphics and i want them in my rpg.I also liked Daggerfall,Fallout,Arcunum,Planescape Torment,etc.I imagine sometimes what it would be like to have those games,or something close,with todays graphics. |
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Sat Jan 03, 2004 9:31 am |
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Guest
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Someone should snag this license and make a sequal. The space CRPG is incredibly under represented. Anyone remember Starflight on the Amiga 500? I'd love to see someone do an updated sequal to this all time classic.
http://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?gameid=2086 |
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Sun Jan 04, 2004 3:49 am |
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