It's Gothic time! Yes, finally, after countless requests, Matt Chat covers the 2001 German CRPG Gothic. Of course, this game launched a trilogy, and apparently Risen is keeping the lineage alive. Lots of fun stuff in this game, and some pioneering stuff like the ability to skin animals (you can even get their teeth and claws!), cook food (grilled chicken!), and much more. Plagued by one of the slowest starts in any CRPG, though, it hasn't attracted the attention that it really deserves. If you can get through the first 3-4 hours of it, you'll be hooked. Just don't blow all your ore at the swamp weed stand!

Download the mp4 here.

I'm still not sure if I'm going to make this a formal slog or not, or even how long I'll keep this up, but for what it's worth, this counts as the first Darklands play entry. As mentioned, I've been trying to figure out how to find time to play more involved games, starting with Darklands. So, even though I didn't actually finish reading the extensive Darklands manual, I decided to start playing the game anyway to get a real feel for the game before going through the rest of the manual. Sometimes that's what you need to do. First thing of course was I created my characters. It's interesting that there's no traditional way to create character classes--you just sort of guide your characters down certain paths. I'm not sure if I did that correctly as I tried to make traditional fighter, priestess, wizardress, and thief classes for the four character slots. It seems at least for the priestess, it was a total failure...

Yeah, Darklands is definitely a classic CRPG. Just take a look at that box contents sprawl on my desktop...

Hi, guys, this week Jay and I chat about the sales of Frayed Knights and the apparent effect that massive piracy has had on their rapid decline. While Jay acknowledges that DRM has its problems--especially when it makes a pirated product superior to a legal one--it's hard to deny that some kind of protection is essential to maximize sales. Watch the video and let us know YOUR opinion on DRM.

Download the mp4 here.

Jay is back this week to talk more about his work on Frayed Knights and its many inspirations and precedents, including his favorite CRPG--Ultima VII.

NOTE: The above video has some missing footage around the 28 minute mark. The version below has been corrected.
mattchat125.mp4. You can also grab an audio-only feed here: Matt Chat 125.mp3.
Don't forget to shop at GOG using my affiliate link! Some great stuff this week for adventure game lovers.

This week debuts my new interview series with the Rampant Coyote, aka Jay Barnson. You probably know Jay from his blog and game site, as well his fantastic indie CRPG Frayed Knights: The Skull of S'makh-Daon, which yours truly helped to be beta test. In this segment we talk about Jay's extensive industry background, which includes some projects you've probably heard of if you owned a PS1--Twisted Metal and Warhawk! Enjoy.

As always, you can download the video. This week also marks the beginning of my Subscriber Goal of 7,000 subs by the end of the year. As of this writing, I'm at 6,256, so quite a bit of work left to go. If you have a forum, blog, Reddit, Twitter account, or WHATEVER, please post there about your favorite episodes and try to spread the word so we can grow our community into a force to be reckoned with! Thanks!

I've been working on this thing I'm calling a game pitch for a few weeks now and thought it was time to put it out there to see what people think of the general concept. In a nutshell, this is Deus Ex with Time Travel, Tactical Combat, and Disco Dancing. I've also made big changes to the way character creation, leveling, and dialog are handled.

It's not complete, but I think there's enough here for you to get the basic idea and see whether it sounds like something you'd be interested in playing. It's not totally original or super ambitious or anything, but for what it's worth I've tried to imagine the sort of game I'd most like to play and this is it.

Let me know what you like about it first, and then we can get down to what needs re-thinking.

Oh, I know for sure this is way, way beyond anything I'm personally capable of developing myself. The "dream scenario" is that we could get this to a real developer who can turn the dream into reality (without, let's hope, altering it beyond recognition).

If this is Syndicate, shoot me now.It's a smorgasbord of topics this week as I take on the question of "What the hell happened to modern CRPGs?" Why is everything becoming a first-person shooter game? The excrement begins to fly with the upcoming Syndicate and X-Com games. I explain why you should avoid any game "with a great story" and why I couldn't care less about Skyrim and Diablo III. I also talk about my experiences with Baldur's Gate and what I'd really like to see in future CRPGs. Hint: it ain't better narratives.

Download the mp3.

Oh thee of impure thoughts, watcheth my sanctimonious retrospective of Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Even thou might becometh enlightened by the divine powers of Buddha British emanating from every line of code.

Downloadeth the .mp4, burneth it upon a platinum disc, and storeth it in cedar. Hey, wait a minute--dost thou have an ankh? Oh, whew, there for a minute I thought you were a rapscallion.

No copper breastplate left behind.This week, I'm looking at what I consider the ten best innovations in CRPGs. That means, I'm looking at games that introduced new gameplay elements or at least adapted existing concepts, forging something that has become (or should have become) important, influential, or at least pretty damn awesome. Keep in mind that the game as a whole might be weak or even a flop; that isn't relevant here. What is relevant is which games introduced which concepts and when. So, let's get started with #10:

10. The mule in Dungeon Siege. Year: 2002. Concept: A pack animal to help carry your lootz. I don't remember much about the original Dungeon Siege game, but I will never forget that crusty pack animal. I'm pretty sure the thinking behind the mule was simply utilitarian; "Hey, that'd be handy to have around." But in one stroke the designers made a game ten times more memorable and self-parodying. And how many times did a battle hinge on the kicking of your mule? Mules literally kick ass. Wait, is that possible? Now I'm so spoiled that I always want a pack of them in assorted colors--what, I'm supposed to just leave that solid gold Elminster statue behind?