Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Editor of Australias biggest PC gaming rag talks AoD

FluffyKitten

Novice
Joined
Dec 16, 2006
Messages
36
Howdy.

I don't think I have ever posted here before (who knows, truthfully - glug glug goes the booze train).

Just a prelude, I'm really interested in this project, and have lurked the codex (sounds like a dance move) for a while. So imagine my surprise when, I, 6 beers down and sitting on the shitter at 1am, stumble upon a section of this magazine (PC PowerPlay) called Digital Curtain featuring - Age of Decadence.

Now, sorry to get your hopes up, but it pisses on you. I knew this straight away because the little page 19 box, Digital Curtain discusses odd and wacky foreign games.

Admittedly, PCPowerPlay is a piece of cuntfuck inherently, but I use it as my source of what piles of dogturd, masturbatory shitfests and surprising gems are on the horizon. If something looks interesting, I delve deeper. Usually by going to IGN or GameSpot. Ha - a joke.


Anyway, uh, this disgusts me! This boxout is situated next to a banal Sennheiser ad featuring 2 fucktard looking stock models with a glass of water (what gamer drinks water), wearing sweatbands (again...) and a NY cap (kill me...)

sorry I'm drunk and verbose but here ya are (ill scan it if i can)

I present the first (?) Old-Media Discussion of Age of Decadence!

Digital Curtain

With Anthony Fordfuck (Fordham is also editor...)
Roaming not-Romans ate my brain!

Developer: IRON TOWER
Origin: INDEPENDENT COLLECTIVES OF TEH INTRANESTS
URL: www.irontowerstudio.com

You know why Rome was so strong? Identity. They had one. And now this game, Age of Decadence, is trying to steal it. Because this is a fantasy isometric RPG with turn-based combat that takes place in a post-apocalyptic, almost-Roman world. Inspired by the Fall of the Roman Empire, is what the developer says. Gibbons and all that. Quite how scrabbling around in the remains of a technologically and culturally superior empire is "decadent", I'm not sure.

Intriguingly, AOD uses the Torque Engine, the heavil ymodified but still direct descendant of the code that powered the venerable Tribes 2 (released in 2001). Which explains the graphics. There's also about 9000 words of really bad backstory on the website, followed by a challenge in the footer that reads: "Got something to say? Email us at info@irontowerstudio.com". The choice is yours.

As for the game itself, the characters are blocky, the environments garish. Still, $20 worth of RPG action is not something to be sniffed at. We'll reserve judgement... just.


WHY AGE OF DECADENCE FREAKS ME OUT

- Uses a tweaked version of the Tribes 2 engine
- Kador "leafs" an "excellent source of quality poison"
- Turn-based combat with action points (to match graphics)
- Developer too lazy to research real Ancient Rome

--

What the fuck? What a heaping pile of shit. I WOULD SHIT ON THIS FUCKING BANAL FUCKKNUCKLES HEAD IF I WAS DRUNK ENOUGH. Also, I don't remember a price being on the website? Could this be purposefully misleading?

DIE GAMERS DIE
 

Morbus

Scholar
Joined
Nov 2, 2006
Messages
403
WTF's up with the guy? Is he stupid or something? Doesn't he have any clue at all about how Rome went down, and was going down over the years? Besides, he's another asshole who things turn based is old and who doesn't get what RPGs are about...
 

denizsi

Arcane
Joined
Nov 24, 2005
Messages
9,927
Location
bosphorus
WHY AGE OF DECADENCE FREAKS ME OUT

- Uses a tweaked version of the Tribes 2 engine

Why this guy freaks me out: uses a an unevolved version of Homo Erectus brain.
 

fastpunk

Arbiter
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
1,798
Location
under the sun
Well if it freaks him out then why did he cover it? Could have gone out to get some fresh air, his brain needs some oxygen.
 

psycojester

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 23, 2006
Messages
2,526
I'd probably think slightly more of the editor if his magazine wasn't fucking overflowing with typo (and he wasn't a fucking moron)

Also like the way he doesn't fucking know what the word inspired means.
 

elander_

Arbiter
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
2,015
The guy is a complete idiot. Fuck magazines that complain if a game is TB. People are free to chose whatever gamestyle they want to put in their games.
 

denizsi

Arcane
Joined
Nov 24, 2005
Messages
9,927
Location
bosphorus
Well, in a world where G.W.Bush is president of the USA, Anthony Fordham can certainly be editor of a third-class magazine.

But is USA a third world country? ha! Though I tend to think it really is as far as democracy and freedom goes. edit: or rather "social intellect".
 

Julio

Scholar
Joined
Feb 22, 2007
Messages
229
Perhaps VD banned him from the Codex during the dark times and now he's lashing out.
 

cardtrick

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 26, 2007
Messages
1,456
Location
Maine
denizsi said:
Though I tend to think it really is as far as democracy and freedom goes. edit: or rather "social intellect".

. . . what?

Please don't answer.
 

Top Hat

Scholar
Joined
May 24, 2006
Messages
476
thesheeep said:
What the... o.O

Exactly. Particularly after they spent a fair amount of time heaping praise on Dwarf Fortress.

I'm sure they gave vaguely reasonable reviews to The Witcher and MOTB - but it definitely wasn't the editor who wrote those. The magazine seems to have this multiple-personality thing going on.

But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised: isn't this also the same guy who essentially said, "People have been complaining about Bioshock. But they are wrong, since it's still my favorite game, so those people are clearly just whiny losers. Now shut up losers while I go back to using the Biocock Autofellatio Assistance Device I received from 2K Games."?
 

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
After giving Half-Life 2, BioShock, and Crysis (do I detect a pattern here or what?) 10/10, Anthony decided to show that he's an unbiased journalist who isn't afraid to ask hard questions and, like, criticize things.

Not many sites were brave enough to give Crysis 10/10 though, so that's gotta count for something.
 

chiefnewo

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 18, 2003
Messages
118
PC Powerplay is a piece of shit and has been for years. Anyone with half a clue ditched it when the scores games got stopped having anything to do with what was said in the review text. Personally I dropped it the day they reviewed Black and White. After ripping it up one side and down the other for its basic failure to deliver a fun game along with all Peter Molyneux's false promises, it was given a 92 out of 100. This is in a magazine that at the front of their review section proudly proclaimed that they used the whole 0 to 100 spectrum and that even a game scoring 60 might be worth a buy. In the little summary box justifying the score the reviewer said that he (paraphrased due to lack of memory) "Couldn't really give it any less despite what I just said in the review."

tl;dr: PC Powerplay is shit and its opinions worth less than the trees they cut down to print it.
 

SmokedWolf

Scholar
Joined
Jul 19, 2007
Messages
158
Do you guys not get it?

If people are making games with old graphics engines that anyone can run then the make-shit-shiny uber rig that he just bought to make his dick look bigger is gonna be worth shit.

That is why this game is evil.
 

Sovy Kurosei

Erudite
Joined
Dec 29, 2004
Messages
1,535
- Kador "leafs" an "excellent source of quality poison"

toronto_maple_leafs_1992a.gif
 

Rhett Butler

Scholar
Joined
Sep 22, 2007
Messages
939
I think V.D should pull his advertising deal. SHow those fucking pissants who is boss. Oh yeah... fuck.
 

Azarkon

Arcane
Joined
Oct 7, 2005
Messages
2,989
Decadence:

"Decadent societies are often prosperous but usually have severe social and economic inequality, to such a degree that the upper class becomes either complacent or greedy, while the lower classes become hopeless and apathetic. The middle class may exhibit either or both patterns, or it may vanish entirely. Poor leadership is generally held to be both a cause and a symptom of decadence, as the lifestyle of a decadent individual is usually considered to be incompatible with responsibility. Applied to the arts, decadence implies an elevation of self-indulgence and pretension over effort and talent; when applied to science and the professions, it describes an erosion of professional ethics. Individual or collective greed is generally disliked in societies with strong moral beliefs, and for this reason, societies that nurture it are sometimes accused of decadence."

Sounds like the game industry:

Economic success - check
Severe economic disparity between indies and mass market companies - check
Mass market companies become complacent and greedy as a result - check
Indies become hopeless and apathetic - not yet?
"Middle-class" companies vanishing and/or being absorbed - check
Poor leadership - check
Self-indulgence and "next-gen" pretension over effort and talent - check
Erosion of professional ethics - check
Individual and collective greed - check

Alas, it seems that we have entered an Age of Decadence. Well played, VD, well played.
 

Erzherzog

Magister
Joined
Jul 16, 2007
Messages
2,887
Location
Mid-Atlantic
Jackass said:
Quite how scrabbling around in the remains of a technologically and culturally superior empire is "decadent", I'm not sure.

Glad to see he uses all of what brains he has.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom