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- Bill Loguidice
Old RPG that still looks pretty good nowdays
Wasnt sure how to phrase that. After looking at the DARKLANDS video I was thinking of older RPG's that still look "OK" today. I was plesently suprised at how good DARKLANDS still looked. I know my breif foray's Into the EYE OF THE BEHOLDER games has left me underwhelmed, not so much by the look, but by the horrible interface and movment. I know time has spoiled me with better control and interfaces, but some seem downright clunky nowdays. I recently played some Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Servant and it still hold up fairly well. I do rember thinking it was ahead of its time (graphics wise) when it came out and couldnt believe it came on 2 discs.
And now GoG has just released Temple of Elemental Evil for $5.99.. A great RPG despite it's sea of bugs.
-Gandalf42
This is one of the FEW RPG's I never did try, I noticed this on GOG the other day too. Arcanum (made by same guys, also quite buggy) was a great RPG (I thought), yes a bit overbearing, but true to the old school RPG's (pen and paper). I had planned on grabbing it (probebly still will for $6) but my anticipation has dimmed a bit after readin here. I am so wanting an old school RPG experiance, and have been kinda dispointed with todays RPG's. Dragons Age was ok, I liked the realtime-spacebar puase game style. But when in realtime it was like Lighting.. i had to almost tap the spacebar every second, may as well been turn based. And it had one thing I have alwasy hated about any "roll the dice" game.. that horrible random problem, a battle can be so incredibly hard with poor rolls, and so easy with the right ones (unfortnalty there really is no solution to that, its the nature of the game, but it still frustrates me). I much prefer more tactics (UFO!) whre my placement and attacks make more a difference (and yes DA does have that with stuff like oilslicks and lighting um on fire). The game has a good story and I like the ability to make choices I can regret later. I recently started playing the WITCHER over again, I do like this game, not sure what to think of the "adult" part of game. Its done like 15 year olds did it, more to be in to raise eyebrows then to be a real part of the game. Haveing some male/female interation is fine, but to make the main guy a MAN WHORE seems silly. Still the game is quite good I thought, and has enouhg choices that you can very to make a 2nd playthrough worth checking out ( I hope).
All this may be mute as FALLOUT Vagas is out in less then a week, and I LOVED the last FALLOUT (as I did Fallout 1 and 2 and its father WASTLAND) so My time will be spent beating it. But I cant see that being more then a week or two at most.
I have to admit, I never cared for TOEE. I tried my best to like it, but the magic just wasn't there.
Was it the campaign setting, 3.5 rules, or execution of the game that you didn't like? I always liked the Greyhawk campaign setting but I really never cared for the 3.5 rule-set.. But I've gathered that I'm in the minority on that one. I still play a 2nd edition campaign every week.
I have to admit, I never cared for TOEE. I tried my best to like it, but the magic just wasn't there.
The interface was a bit of a bear.. still, you could get used to it after playing a while. My main problems were areas you simply couldn't complete due to bugs. I also had a problem with my characters just refusing to level despite having the XP. These problems were mostly fixed by the unofficial patches released after the demise of Troika.
I never completed it but I did have a good time with it. Which may be, in part, due to having played through the paper and pencil module.
And now GoG has just released Temple of Elemental Evil for $5.99.. A great RPG despite it's sea of bugs.
I had high hopes for that game and have the boxed version from when I bought it after it first came out. Even without the bugs, I found it a bit dull and the interface overbearing. I saw the potential, but simply couldn't get into it, even though I put in a decent attempt at it. I may give it another spin one day, but I don't consider it likely.
And now GoG has just released Temple of Elemental Evil for $5.99.. A great RPG despite it's sea of bugs.
WESTWOOD made LANDS OF LORE (some say it was actually EOB3 untill the falling out) after. So ther is the reason EOB3 was on differnt engine.
This is correct. EOB1, EOB2 and Lands of Lore all used the same engine. EOB3 and Dungeon Hack used the AESOP/16 engine. It was also fairly buggy, if I remember. I got plenty of "Granular Page Fault" errors under QEMM.
I agree with you, Clok. I can handle vintage audio/visuals without much difficulty, but the interfaces have come a long way. I get annoyed even playing old FPS that use different layouts than WASD and won't let you customize them (several older ones use the arrow keys or even ijkm instead). I really hate games that force you to use the mouse to click on-screen directional buttons instead of just being able to use the keyboard. It's funny, but some (like Pool of Radiance) let you use the joystick for movement, even though that makes no sense in combat (where diagonal movement is a major issue).
The best interfaces minimize the amount of work you have to do. The worst require you to make lots of unnecessary clicks, go through long menus over and over again, lag, and so on. I also hate interfaces with unlabeled buttons, so that you are forced to memorize them. Unfortunately, the resolution on some older games was so low they had no choice.
Honestly, from my point of view, it's only when an interface is poor do I really have issues with a game of any vintage from an audio-visual standpoint. For instance, some of the two word parser text adventures can be VERY frustrating because of their limited vocabularies.
I agree 100%, I can deal with most anything but if the interface is bad I cant, I lose interest very fast. I find it amazing how far we have come in game design, but am a bit sad too, I have been spoiled and re-living some of the old classics will never happen becuase of it. The interface on EOB (as we have gravitated to those games in this thread) when i first played them worked fine, no complaints, but modern games have simpley spoiled me, hotkeys, etc... I guess the past is the past.
Another Note on EOB, I may be wrong, but I believe that 1 and 2 where both done by WESTWOOD and 3 was not, there was some falling out between SSI and WESTWOOD (WESTWOOD also did the SSI AD&D game DRAGONSTRIKE , a dragon flight sim which I also played far to much of). WESTWOOD made LANDS OF LORE (some say it was actually EOB3 untill the falling out) after. So ther is the reason EOB3 was on differnt engine.
it is amazing the Stuff WESTWOOD did back in the old days. DUNE II, EOB games, the Legend of Kyrandria games.. back in the old days they where one of the big players. Unfortnalty they are one of the first victims of EA :(, they where bought out and most of the people working there left (many formed Petroglyph, who have not had much success :( ) After the EA deal WESTWOOD was really not WESTWOOD anymore, and EA had them keep rehashing he same old games (and I see Petroglyph does that too, RTS seem to be there bread and butter, EARTH ASSULT (flop) but they did so MYTHEON a sorta Diablo/card type game).