Some semi-relevant ramblings in regards to RPG's past - present
As I've professed before, my first true personal CRPG experience came with "Phantasie" from SSI for my Commodore 64 (C-64), an experience that has left an indelible mark on my passion for the genre and very particular about what I consider a "true" RPG to be about. I played plenty of pen and paper RPG's prior to that - most from TSR (D&D, Gamma Force, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, etc.) - and from the advertisement in the magazine I read at the time (Family Computing, I believe), it seemed to encapsulate that very spirit. In essence, I was looking for the pen and paper RPG experience that I got from playing with my friends by myself on the computer.
I remember watching my friend Brian's brother playing some of the original Ultima games (II and III I think) on their Apple IIe and being absolutely mesmerized by the possibilities (though it was single character, it still impressed me). Still, it would not be until getting a hold of "Phantasie" for my own computer that I would take the true dive into the genre (and not from a disk copy, an actual purchase, where it was important to be taken in by the amazing cover artwork and the thorough manual).
Luckily for me, it was a wise choice. It was a multi-character party RPG, featuring - get this for you modern folks - six adventurers that you crafted yourself. Yep, there was a full storyline and what-not, but no cut-scenes, no pre-determined names, nothing. By your lovingly-crafted character's actions alone you drove the story along to its eventual conclusion. It was open-ended to a large degree (you could uncover more of the map and explore various dungeons and other areas as you saw fit, though certain areas did feature creatures of power greater than your parties until the typical leveling up through fighting and questing). In short, everything I could ever hope for and setting a standard for future games that has been hard to live up to. I of course gobbled up Phantasie II and III and worked through to the conclusions of both of those games. (Several years later IV was made for an obscure Japanese-only computer, a 32-bit Sharp I believe, but it doesn't really count; I did have the pleasure of getting to kick the tires in an emulator once, though)
As Matt did, I also played the original "Pool of Radiance", also from SSI (they released some great RPG's didn't they?). My friends got this first - I believe my friend Glenn got this for his C-64. It also was very neat and very different from what I was used to, though I was a bit dissapointed that some of the in-game text was referenced out to the manual. Perhaps it was a combination of saving space and copy protection. In any case, great stuff, and I finally got to play through it myself with the enhanced Commodore Amiga version (sadly, later entries in the gold box series would not necessarily receive enhanced ports, instead being straight PC ports). Of course I played and acquired other Gold Box games on both the Amiga and PC, eventually completing the partially virtual set (and all related games in the series), but not playing them all yet.
I picked up one of the combined editions of "Neverwinter Nights" not too long ago for the PC (and played the Gold Box-inspired game of the same name that appeared on AOL many moons ago), though not Matt's most recent deluxe version. (One thing on the PC, they release the same games ad infinitum it seems in ever better special editions, so it seems you have to be willing to miss out a bit if you're not 100% sure you're getting the "last" or "best" one). I have yet to play it, sadly, but look forward to it, particularly all the readily available modules out there (and would of course have loved to have found time to construct my own!). Really, beyond acquiring more games that I'll eventually play through, I haven't played much since the pinnacle of the early Gold Box games (and games like the wildly original "AutoDuel" from Origin) and attempting the deeply flawed but ambitious "Temple of Elemental Evil"...
As for MMORPG's and playing games with friends, even online, it's a bit of a pity that all that free time goes to the young. I simply don't have the ability to commit any type of consistent time to such things these days with all of my other responsibilities. I love the basic ideas, but my only hope is to play by myself at odd hours, so it has to be a "single player" RPG or nothing (the last RPG I got was the collector's edition of Morrowind for the Xbox 360 - great, but still not exactly what I'm looking for in the classic sense). My "friend adventuring" has been strictly limited to when my wife is able to play action dungeon crawls with me like the console versions of Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Everquest and X-Men Legends, which are really RPG-lites and have more in common with Gauntlet than a true RPG.
Besides having future dates with all the classics I haven't gotten to yet (Wizard's Crown, Shard of Spring, Ultima everything, Bard's Tales, Wizardry's, etc.), I also want to write a piece on a run through of the different versions of "Phantasie". Essentially there were three distinct engines or methods of implementing the same basic game. You had the C-64/Atari 8-bit/IBM PC versions. You had the Apple II (original) version. And then you had the 16-bit versions for the Atari ST/Commodore Amiga. Same basic games, just different visual styles and ways to interact. I always thought it would make a neat article to start games on each of the three different types and chronicle the accounts. Who knows if I'll get to such an epic undertaking, but it would be pretty darn fun.
Again, it's a whole different debate about the failings of what passes for RPG's on consoles (mostly the stuff from Japan, frankly) and the paltry amount of multi-character user created parties in RPG's in general since their heyday, but it's always worth a note.
As I've professed before, my first true personal CRPG experience came with "Phantasie" from SSI for my Commodore 64 (C-64), an experience that has left an indelible mark on my passion for the genre and very particular about what I consider a "true" RPG to be about. I played plenty of pen and paper RPG's prior to that - most from TSR (D&D, Gamma Force, Top Secret, Star Frontiers, etc.) - and from the advertisement in the magazine I read at the time (Family Computing, I believe), it seemed to encapsulate that very spirit. In essence, I was looking for the pen and paper RPG experience that I got from playing with my friends by myself on the computer.
I remember watching my friend Brian's brother playing some of the original Ultima games (II and III I think) on their Apple IIe and being absolutely mesmerized by the possibilities (though it was single character, it still impressed me). Still, it would not be until getting a hold of "Phantasie" for my own computer that I would take the true dive into the genre (and not from a disk copy, an actual purchase, where it was important to be taken in by the amazing cover artwork and the thorough manual).
Luckily for me, it was a wise choice. It was a multi-character party RPG, featuring - get this for you modern folks - six adventurers that you crafted yourself. Yep, there was a full storyline and what-not, but no cut-scenes, no pre-determined names, nothing. By your lovingly-crafted character's actions alone you drove the story along to its eventual conclusion. It was open-ended to a large degree (you could uncover more of the map and explore various dungeons and other areas as you saw fit, though certain areas did feature creatures of power greater than your parties until the typical leveling up through fighting and questing). In short, everything I could ever hope for and setting a standard for future games that has been hard to live up to. I of course gobbled up Phantasie II and III and worked through to the conclusions of both of those games. (Several years later IV was made for an obscure Japanese-only computer, a 32-bit Sharp I believe, but it doesn't really count; I did have the pleasure of getting to kick the tires in an emulator once, though)
As Matt did, I also played the original "Pool of Radiance", also from SSI (they released some great RPG's didn't they?). My friends got this first - I believe my friend Glenn got this for his C-64. It also was very neat and very different from what I was used to, though I was a bit dissapointed that some of the in-game text was referenced out to the manual. Perhaps it was a combination of saving space and copy protection. In any case, great stuff, and I finally got to play through it myself with the enhanced Commodore Amiga version (sadly, later entries in the gold box series would not necessarily receive enhanced ports, instead being straight PC ports). Of course I played and acquired other Gold Box games on both the Amiga and PC, eventually completing the partially virtual set (and all related games in the series), but not playing them all yet.
I picked up one of the combined editions of "Neverwinter Nights" not too long ago for the PC (and played the Gold Box-inspired game of the same name that appeared on AOL many moons ago), though not Matt's most recent deluxe version. (One thing on the PC, they release the same games ad infinitum it seems in ever better special editions, so it seems you have to be willing to miss out a bit if you're not 100% sure you're getting the "last" or "best" one). I have yet to play it, sadly, but look forward to it, particularly all the readily available modules out there (and would of course have loved to have found time to construct my own!). Really, beyond acquiring more games that I'll eventually play through, I haven't played much since the pinnacle of the early Gold Box games (and games like the wildly original "AutoDuel" from Origin) and attempting the deeply flawed but ambitious "Temple of Elemental Evil"...
As for MMORPG's and playing games with friends, even online, it's a bit of a pity that all that free time goes to the young. I simply don't have the ability to commit any type of consistent time to such things these days with all of my other responsibilities. I love the basic ideas, but my only hope is to play by myself at odd hours, so it has to be a "single player" RPG or nothing (the last RPG I got was the collector's edition of Morrowind for the Xbox 360 - great, but still not exactly what I'm looking for in the classic sense). My "friend adventuring" has been strictly limited to when my wife is able to play action dungeon crawls with me like the console versions of Baldur's Gate, Fallout, Everquest and X-Men Legends, which are really RPG-lites and have more in common with Gauntlet than a true RPG.
Besides having future dates with all the classics I haven't gotten to yet (Wizard's Crown, Shard of Spring, Ultima everything, Bard's Tales, Wizardry's, etc.), I also want to write a piece on a run through of the different versions of "Phantasie". Essentially there were three distinct engines or methods of implementing the same basic game. You had the C-64/Atari 8-bit/IBM PC versions. You had the Apple II (original) version. And then you had the 16-bit versions for the Atari ST/Commodore Amiga. Same basic games, just different visual styles and ways to interact. I always thought it would make a neat article to start games on each of the three different types and chronicle the accounts. Who knows if I'll get to such an epic undertaking, but it would be pretty darn fun.
Again, it's a whole different debate about the failings of what passes for RPG's on consoles (mostly the stuff from Japan, frankly) and the paltry amount of multi-character user created parties in RPG's in general since their heyday, but it's always worth a note.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
[ My collection ]
[ http://www.MythCore.com ]
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.