Bard's Tale preview at GameSpot
Bard's Tale preview at GameSpot
Preview - posted by Spazmo on Fri 27 February 2004, 16:26:35
Tags: inXile Entertainment; The Bard's Tale (2004)Gamespot PC have talked with our pal Brian Fargo of InXile all about his upcoming actiony RPG type of thing The Bard's Tale.
The Bard's Tale won't just upend the clichéd storylines of the dungeon-crawling genre; it'll attempt to refine some of the unwieldy gameplay conventions, too. For instance, Fargo talked about the tedium of menial tasks, like sorting through 20 pairs of leggings or returning to town midway through a dungeon to sell off most of the items that are crowding your filled inventory. This game will keep that from becoming an issue by automatically equipping a new weapon or piece of armor when you pick it up (if it's superior to what you're already carrying). Inferior items will automatically be converted to gold right there in your inventory--no extra trips back to town required. You'll also be able to switch between your various weapon categories (such as sword, heavy weapon, and ranged weapon) and magical abilities with an onscreen pop-up menu that will keep you from having to trudge through multiple layers of submenus to access everything.
That's a pretty terrible idea. Half the fun in an action RPG is gathering loot and finding out what works best with what. If the game does it for you--and probably bungles it, too--one can only hope there rest of the game is really damn funny.
The Bard's Tale won't just upend the clichéd storylines of the dungeon-crawling genre; it'll attempt to refine some of the unwieldy gameplay conventions, too. For instance, Fargo talked about the tedium of menial tasks, like sorting through 20 pairs of leggings or returning to town midway through a dungeon to sell off most of the items that are crowding your filled inventory. This game will keep that from becoming an issue by automatically equipping a new weapon or piece of armor when you pick it up (if it's superior to what you're already carrying). Inferior items will automatically be converted to gold right there in your inventory--no extra trips back to town required. You'll also be able to switch between your various weapon categories (such as sword, heavy weapon, and ranged weapon) and magical abilities with an onscreen pop-up menu that will keep you from having to trudge through multiple layers of submenus to access everything.
That's a pretty terrible idea. Half the fun in an action RPG is gathering loot and finding out what works best with what. If the game does it for you--and probably bungles it, too--one can only hope there rest of the game is really damn funny.
