Game News ToEE eye treats at GameBanshee

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil

<A href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/">GameBanshee</a> offers up a <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/templeofelementalevil/screenshots.php#null">slew of screenshots</a> of <a href="Http://www.troikagames.com">Troika</a>'s <A href="http://www.greyhawkgame.com">Temple of Elemental Evil</a>. Some of which seem to be higher resolution shots from the movie, some appear to be new.
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<div align="center"><a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/templeofelementalevil/screenshots.php#null"><img src="http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/screenshots/toee/tiny005.jpg" height="150" width="200"> <img src="http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/screenshots/toee/tiny006.jpg" height="150" width="200"></a></div>
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You know, those player models are fairly impressive compared to older D&D games, both 2D and 3D. I really like the wizard one in the light blueish gray outfit.
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Spotted this at <A href="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</a>.
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[DrattedTin]

I'm really liking some of the those area renders, but I'm still none-too-fond of the portraits.


Ah, well, I guess you take the good with the bad.

 

[huh]

I wanna. man, it's gonna be a long wait till september. what a drought. I've been back to running around in circles in Morrowind. maybe I'll reinstall Fallout 1 and 2. again. any rpgs coming out soon as in this or next month? what the heck happend to Goldenland? I thought that supposed to be out soon. maybe sea dogs2 will be out finally. star fury?

 

[Briosafreak]

The interface looks well thought, the graphics are impressive...but the portraits are complete crap, they remind me of the portraits on crappy console games my kid has, or even Septerra Core, blargh...
Hope the gameplay works out fine, i`m really keeping an eye on this one.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Looks really good, except for the portraits

 

[huh]

I must agree on the portraits, not wild about the cartoony style. maybe it's just a small selection. or, maybe there is an option to turn them off somehow, or replace them with some buttons? not that it puts a dent into my anticipation levels either way

 

[Elwro]

I like the ettin very much. I'm generally very impressed with the quality and detail of the locations.
But I hate radial menus. They should definitely make keyboard shortcuts for everything; but I think that's just obvious. I just hope the game doesn't force me to use radial menus to e.g. turn undead.
I also hate the character portraits. Especially the first one from the right. I mean, they seem to be somewhat 'artistically consistent' - they have a similar aura around them. But that's definitely not the aura I'd like them to have.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

what the heck happend to Goldenland?

I'm not sure what the release date is on Golden Land, but we just concluded our series on the magic system in the game, in case you're interested in reading about it. We've got a few more articles for Golden Land planned as well.

I thought that supposed to be out soon. maybe sea dogs2

Sea Dogs 2 is now Pirates of the Caribbean.

star fury?

It's in public beta, so I think it'll be out soon.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Well shit. I won't be able to play ToEE until 6 months after it's released. I have to go for work training. ARGHH.

 

[huh]

thanks for the info Saint_Proverbius. I haven't followed rpg news much lately, will check out the articles

 

[Vault Dweller]

Am I the only freak of nature here who loves the portraits? Can somebody explain me the error of my ways and give me examples of games with better portraits? (BG fans need not apply though).

Edit: btw, cool chain lightning in #12

 

[GreenNight]

No matter how many portraits a game has, allways there'll be a kind of caracter you want to make that you won't relate to any of those portraits. So I wont complain about them, well in fact I do not find them bad. That's the problem with taste, like opinion an asses everybody has his own.
:D

 

[huh]

too much contrasting color, I think. simple, cartoon like face features (no wrinkles, or shadows, scars, etc...). the basically look like 'smilies'. somehow doesn't seem to fit the overall theme and the backgrounds.

I'll get used to them, I'm sure, but still not a good choice of style, IMO. actually I think grayscale or even black and white portraits would work better

 

[Whipporowill]

I like the potraits this far... especially that grinning halfling in the screenies. I'm hoping that there'll be a huge amount of diverse portraits to choose from as well - no fun having to settle for a bearded male with an eyepatch just because you want a warrior that doesn't look like a total evil nutcase.

My biggest gripe with the BG and IWD portraits was that weapons and armor was included in the pic from the start... and that sort of bugged my out. Like buh- bye Immersion factor.

Oh, b t w... 5 of those are new (being the ones showing different Hommlet(?) buildings and the render of Zuggtmoy, Demoness Lady of Fungi).
and the other 21 are from the official site.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

too much contrasting color, I think. simple, cartoon like face features (no wrinkles, or shadows, scars, etc...). the basically look like 'smilies'. somehow doesn't seem to fit the overall theme and the backgrounds.

I'll get used to them, I'm sure, but still not a good choice of style, IMO. actually I think grayscale or even black and white portraits would work better

I always thought that looked rather silly in the BioWare games. Most every fighter had gobs of scars *or* they looked like teenage boys.

I tend to agree about the whole thing where portraits tend to alienate players, though. I never cared much for the idea of portraits in CRPGs.

 

[Jed]

I don't understand why everyone's griping about the portraits. Why shouldn't they be "cartoony" (as if any CRPG besides IWD had ports that weren't "cartoony")? For me--and especially considering that it's ToEE--it lends more to the PnP atmosphere: more like the images on character sheets, not photo-realistic high art. Incidentally, the grinning halfling reminds me of the art of Phil Foglio. I think his work in Avernum is a sort of fantasy analog to the Pip Boy images from Fallout.

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

There where some good ones in Arcanum/IceWind, though, no?
I quite liked Virgil's, though Ravens looked like a cheap 19th century Dutch whore.
Who said anything about photorealisim? Frankly, I always liked the psudo-impressionisim of IWD.
And the last attempt to take a traditional Tolkieneqsque fantasy world and pumpt it full of Cabbage Patch kids?
The animated Lord of the Rings.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Why shouldn't they be "cartoony".... it lends more to the PnP atmosphere: more like the images on character sheets, not photo-realistic high art

My sentiments exactly. Fuck pseudo-realism, the simplistic style of cartoons and comics always "contained" more giving you the basics and allowing your imagination to fill the rest, making them more alive then any "realistic" shit ever did.

 

[Jed]

My sentiments exactly. Fuck pseudo-realism, the simplistic style of cartoons and comics always "contained" more giving you the basics and allowing your imagination to fill the rest, making them more alive then any "realistic" shit ever did.

*high-five* Yay! Imagination, go!

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

Imagination is not an excuse for *bad* cartoonish portraits. While I see your point, frankly the quality of these particlar portraits is another issue.

 

[Vault Dweller]

*high-five* Yay! Imagination, go!

*high-five* Yay! Imagination rulez! :D

frankly the quality of these particlar portraits is another issue.

Can you be more specific? What particular quality or lack thereof did you find so esthetically unpleasant?

 

[Constipated Craprunner]

The halfling to the left, in particular. Just to damn reminiscent of the animated Lord of the Rings.

 

[chrisbeddoes]

WOA !!!!

I can see that team Chuck

http://www.gamebanshee.com/screenshots/ ... shot10.jpg

can write the Fallout BOS story better with two heads instead of one .

Bravo !

 

[Jed]

The halfling to the left, in particular. Just to damn reminiscent of the animated Lord of the Rings.

I disagree, but if you don't like it, you don't like it. Personally, I would rather have "cartoonish" ports that express actual character than the serious, yet dry ports of many other games. Have you looked at the site lately? There are many examples of other ports on the site to choose from if you don't like the grinning halfling.

 

[HanoverF]

I like the genric-ness of them, in IWD or BG you clould look at the portraits and say, Cleric/Paladin guy, Warrior guy, Ranger guy, etc etc...

From these portraits the characters can be any class