People in retrogaming sites are just ridiculous.

[Panthera]

I love how you can't tell the difference between a bad game and one you just don't like. Most of the codex has that problem, actually.

 

[Jaesun]

Great write up Wyrmlord. I never played it. That was fucking hysterical.

 

[Imbecile]

So they should review them as if they were published today? this is absurd

Yes, thats exactly what they should do. Some old games are still incredible and stand up well even today, therefore they would be well reviewed comparatively. Others are only good for rose tinted spectacles. Why is it absurd? By your own admission...

... most of the games in that list are better than 99% of games that were published in the last 5-6 years.

They would do great, though I suspect it would depend upon the reviewer

 

[SuicideBunny]

Albion

your rant is funny because you didn't even finish the intro and never got to the actual game, in true add kiddo manner.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Albion

your rant is funny because you didn't even finish the intro and never got to the actual game, in true add kiddo manner.

I left off the game after wandering through the furry city that you can explore in first-person, and basically getting in and out of a dozen houses that are of no consequence.

All that I describe amounts to upto an hour into the game. What do you expect?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Albion is probably one of the worst games ever, because it has a story.

 

[Wyrmlord]

Albion is probably one of the worst games ever, because it has a story.

Albion doesn't even have much of a story.

Don't you get it? It has nothing. It's a whole game, built on having absolutely nothing. Whatsoever.

 

[SuicideBunny]

All that I describe amounts to upto an hour into the game.

very bloated hour technically equivalent to you running along every single wall in the oblivion starting dungeon. granted, they could have cut off all the areas you can explore on the toronto to streamline the intro and make them accessible when you return, just like oblivion doesn't let you explore the whole jail but a very small part of it, but they went with what made sense setting wise, including lots of junk items which (once again) actually make sense. to be honest, if you run around the ship expecting to find treasure in barrels, it's your own damn fault.

yes, the game has predetermined characters, is actually an rpg adventure hybrid, and has a not so well done intro, but it actually does deserve the praise it gets.

What do you expect?

more, obviously. we bitch at game critics that spend only three to five hours with a game before forming an uninformed opinion and a blatantly false summary that can be debunked with a simple google search, while you didn't even manage one third of that time.

Albion doesn't even have much of a story.

it doesn't? so tell me, why do you crash on the planet, and who committed the murder?

 

[Wyrmlord]

A fact about games: if you are not entertained in the first 15 minutes, you have no incentive to keep playing.

A game is supposed to provide you with enjoyment. Whether it gets fun later or not, you had to go through the terrible experience right up front, and you have lost value from the game for it.

Why not just play something else, instead of continuing on with a game that has not done anything for you?

And mark my words: anyone is totally justified in basing his opinion on the first five hours of the game. Five hours is a huge amount of time, and it represents a huge involvement into a game. Five hours is not the kind of time that comes out easily, especially if you have other work to do.

Games are meant for killing whatever little free time you have. Period. When I fire up Wizardry, I can just go in, explore a bit of the place, do a single combat encounter, and I can enjoy the 10 minutes I put into it. Enough for me to consider doing it again the next day.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Games are meant for killing whatever little free time you have. Period.

Like totally! PERIOD! Motherfucking PERIOD! Listen to Wyrmlord here, he knows where it's at!

 

[Darth Roxor]

Wyrmlord sure knows his periods.

 

[SuicideBunny]

A fact about games: if you are not entertained in the first 15 minutes, you have no incentive to keep playing.

unless someone tells you that it's different/better/worthwhile to do so, or you put a bit of effort and find out whether it stays the same later on as well or whether they simply botched up the intro by reading some review/fansite/forum/whatever.
there's hardly any game in existence which is not a casual puzzle game and entertains constantly and consistently throughout the whole game. the most common consistency break is between the introduction and the actual game, with shitty games putting everything into the first fifteen minutes, and good games doing it the other way round, or spreading their efforts more evenly.

the first fifteen minutes of fallout can be ass. the first fifteen minutes of fallout 2 are ass.

And mark my words: anyone is totally justified in basing his opinion on the first five hours of the game. Five hours is a huge amount of time, and it represents a huge involvement into a game. Five hours is not the kind of time that comes out easily, especially if you have other work to do.

depends on the opinion, and the structure and length of the game.
a review by a professional game reviewer after five hours of an 80 hours games is inexcusable.
saying "the game is not my kind of beer and i though it sucked donkey balls" after one hour during which you didn't manage to finish the introduction is perfectly fine, just like saying that it's not your thing because it is mainly story driven and somewhat linear is, while whatever the hell the last part of your rant was supposed to be, where you claim to know how the game continues without actually doing so, is not.

 

[Chefe]

So they should review them as if they were published today? this is absurd. Anyway, most of the games in that list are better than 99% of games that were published in the last 5-6 years.

OK, for fun let's take an example.

Albion.

Albion has you start off with a single predetermined character on a spaceship. The first thing to do in this game is just "stroll" around the ship on a top down perspective. Now, the amount of interaction on this ship is limited opening and closing doors, putting mundane items like coffee mugs into your inventory, and talking to people. Now, talking here merely means perusing a list of topics that are listed down. As you keep talking, more topics start opening up. And it is used for no other purpose than mere exposition. Every person on the ship functions as a walking search engine/encyclopedia, who will you the exact same things that anyone else will tell you.

The only thing of relevance that you find out is that someone in the terminal died in an accident. Which is enough reason for you to take a look at the terminal area, but the door is guarded by security personnel, who will not let anyone in. Conveniently enough, in the next room, there is a ladder down to the shafts below. Here it shifts to first-person. This area is a series of sequences in which you open the door to one room while the closing the one behind with the press of a button. You keep doing it until you come into the terminal. There, you find a gun.

Hmm, so somebody may have murdered him. What do you do?! If you walk straight out, security will rebuke you for infilitrating, and then will let you go about your business. If you walk straight out with the gun, security will confiscate the gun, rebuke you for infilitrating, and again will let you go about your business. If you take the gun, go back out the shafts, and show the gun to all possible people in the ship, they all will fucking tell you, "You shouldn't be keeping a gun with you". For fuck's sake, a guy's head is blown off across a terminal, there is a gun underneath him, and nobody gives a shit. Whodunnit?! So guess how this quest is solved. You find a box in the shafts, put the gun inside.

500 XP, QUEST ACCOMPLISHED. What the fuck is this shit? A guy was murdered in the terminal room, and you solve the quest by hiding the evidence of the murder? Anyway, you'd think there is some resolution to this quest later on. Nope. You leave the ship and never come back to it again. Nor can you voluntarily stay on the ship. In fact, a loudspeaker will keep calling for you to come to the shuttle bay, and by the third calling, you are materialize on the shuttle bay.

What happens next is that you crash onto a planet with naked furry women with bouncy furry breasts, who live on treetops, take care of you, and teach you their language. And again, you find yourself in another setting with walking search engines, and nothing to do but to wander around talking to these walking search engines, and following instructions to meet the next NPC you need to talk to advance the game. And it goes on like this.

Even a game like Oblivion has far more to offer as gameplay. Atleast you create your character, and customise his abilities. Atleast, there is some active involvement in the game, like fighting whatever enemies you meet throughout the beginning and into the game's world. Atleast, there isn't a loudspeaker constantly telling you "GO TO THIS LOCATION OR WE WILL FORCEFULLY PUT YOU IN THERE". Atleast there is some ambition and incentive as you play, like having enough money to buy a good horse and getting good equipment and good spells. Atleast there is a game at all here.

No, there is no RPG worse than Albion, and it is a complete shocker that it is so highly rated.

Great review. I'll add one of my own.

Fallout

A quick rule of thumb: if a game cannot keep you interested within the first 15 minutes, it is a waste. Okay, anyways you start the game an are given a screen with a bunch of labels, and a little picture of some kid appears in the lower right hand corner depending on what label you mouse over (Is this supposed to be funny? I don't know.). You get a little description of what each "ability" does, or should do at least, and that's it. No direction for if you want to be a gunslinger or a diplomat or a noble elf or anything. You just have to take a guess with these vague descriptions and hope for the best.

After you pick your character and your gender/age you're shown a cut scene. This is great, there is nothing better than watching a stupid cut scene instead of jumping right in. This thing lasts like five minutes. In it some guy says something about a water chip and how you have to save it or the world will end or something. I don't know. I was too busy wishing I was dead. This video is all in first person, by the way, and at the end it shows you walking in first person out the exit into a cavern. Then... the game is isometric. You're just a little isometric guy walking around in a boring blue-gray cavern.

You walk two steps then you're attacked by a rat that you should logically just be able to step on. But nooo... you have to pull out your fists/guns/penises and start fighting. I made a gunslinger with a bunch of strength so I could wield the biggest, most apocalyptic guns and I miss hitting the rat every single time. This is stupid. Plus, there are like a hundred rats in this cave. That's when I restarted and made a boxing character with pumped up strength, endurance, and agility. If you skimp on agility, you can't do ANYTHING. It makes me wonder why they even let you remove points from it - probably because they're confusing bastards. So, now with my fighting champion - who throws up a kick every once in a while for god knows what reason - the rats are pretty damn easy. I kill them all and look at some rocks and bones. REAL FUCKING EXCITING, INTERSHIT! You can't move with the keyboard so you have to keep clicking everywhere, which gets real annoying.

Finally, after what seems like forever I leave the cave and step outside. I click on some area and a line, which I guess represents my character walking or something, makes it there. The playing screen comes up and... I'm in a fucking desert. That's when I uninstalled. This isn't an RPG. There are no people to talk to, no quests except that waterchip thing - which is probably guarded by a bunch of rats. I actually clicked around a few more places and found giant scorpions and rats. That's it. There's also a small town you can visit where a bunch of people stand around like rats, and another vault which is infested by - you guessed it - rats. The map is huge and full of what I can only assume are rats and sand. You get some random XP from killing the rats - the same no matter if it takes you a hundred turns or one. There is no incentive to play or go exploring, because it's just all rats and boring people who say one liners and live in shit brick houses. You can't even negotiate with the boss about the waterchip, "Hey, how 'bout a party to find it?" Stupid. If you ask anyone in the ONE TOWN about the waterchip, they don't know what you're talking about. Fuck that. Fuck this game, man.

 

[made]

Made me smile. 8/10

 

[Talby]

They are like the codex, only without any clue on what the fuck they're talking about.

So, exactly like the Codex, then.

 

[Jaesun]

This just SCREAMS "Let's play Albion" thread.

 

[Panthera]

They are like the codex, only without any clue on what the fuck they're talking about.

So, exactly like the Codex, then.

Ladies and gentleman, WE HAVE A WINNER.

 

[Jasede]

You thought Eye of the Beholder 2 and Lands of Lore were bad games? Do explain, please; they are fantastic in my eyes.

 

[jaylittle]

Well I can't say I'm the biggest fan of either Lands of Lore or EOB2. Crappy RPGs wrapped in some glitz and glamour. I'd be lying if I claimed I hadn't finished both games at least twice however...

 

[PorkaMorka]

It's not just nostalgia.

I find myself enjoying and highly rating old games that I rejected when they first came out, because compared to the trash games of today, they're pretty decent, and having had nothing new in the RPG/squad tactics genre to play for the last 5 years or so, I've had to lower my standards somewhat.

Fallout Tactics and X-Com apocalypse are solid examples.

Inferior at the time, but today I find them great compared to the trash that is modern games. I would wholeheartedly recommend them, where at the time of release I bitched about their flaws.

If this decline of gaming continues, and it will I can envision a time when I'm talking about how great Pool of Radiance Ruins of Myth Drannor is (I already think it's not too bad with the speed up patch).

And those are all games I was bitter against when they first came out, due to their flaws/changes from the formula.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

So they should review them as if they were published today? this is absurd. Anyway, most of the games in that list are better than 99% of games that were published in the last 5-6 years.

OK, for fun let's take an example.

Albion.

Albion has you start off with a single predetermined character on a spaceship. The first thing to do in this game is just "stroll" around the ship on a top down perspective. Now, the amount of interaction on this ship is limited opening and closing doors, putting mundane items like coffee mugs into your inventory, and talking to people. Now, talking here merely means perusing a list of topics that are listed down. As you keep talking, more topics start opening up. And it is used for no other purpose than mere exposition. Every person on the ship functions as a walking search engine/encyclopedia, who will you the exact same things that anyone else will tell you.

The only thing of relevance that you find out is that someone in the terminal died in an accident. Which is enough reason for you to take a look at the terminal area, but the door is guarded by security personnel, who will not let anyone in. Conveniently enough, in the next room, there is a ladder down to the shafts below. Here it shifts to first-person. This area is a series of sequences in which you open the door to one room while the closing the one behind with the press of a button. You keep doing it until you come into the terminal. There, you find a gun.

Hmm, so somebody may have murdered him. What do you do?! If you walk straight out, security will rebuke you for infilitrating, and then will let you go about your business. If you walk straight out with the gun, security will confiscate the gun, rebuke you for infilitrating, and again will let you go about your business. If you take the gun, go back out the shafts, and show the gun to all possible people in the ship, they all will fucking tell you, "You shouldn't be keeping a gun with you". For fuck's sake, a guy's head is blown off across a terminal, there is a gun underneath him, and nobody gives a shit. Whodunnit?! So guess how this quest is solved. You find a box in the shafts, put the gun inside.

500 XP, QUEST ACCOMPLISHED. What the fuck is this shit? A guy was murdered in the terminal room, and you solve the quest by hiding the evidence of the murder? Anyway, you'd think there is some resolution to this quest later on. Nope. You leave the ship and never come back to it again. Nor can you voluntarily stay on the ship. In fact, a loudspeaker will keep calling for you to come to the shuttle bay, and by the third calling, you are materialize on the shuttle bay.

What happens next is that you crash onto a planet with naked furry women with bouncy furry breasts, who live on treetops, take care of you, and teach you their language. And again, you find yourself in another setting with walking search engines, and nothing to do but to wander around talking to these walking search engines, and following instructions to meet the next NPC you need to talk to advance the game. And it goes on like this.

Even a game like Oblivion has far more to offer as gameplay. Atleast you create your character, and customise his abilities. Atleast, there is some active involvement in the game, like fighting whatever enemies you meet throughout the beginning and into the game's world. Atleast, there isn't a loudspeaker constantly telling you "GO TO THIS LOCATION OR WE WILL FORCEFULLY PUT YOU IN THERE". Atleast there is some ambition and incentive as you play, like having enough money to buy a good horse and getting good equipment and good spells. Atleast there is a game at all here.

No, there is no RPG worse than Albion, and it is a complete shocker that it is so highly rated.

Now, the next step is to post that, and reviews like that, for bad old games that make their way onto GOG. Everything on that site has such sickeningly high scores because no one has the balls to stand up to the brown nosers and call them out on their bullshit.

I'd take it upon myself to do that, except all the old crap I've played was either obscure enough to fly under GOG's radar, or not a PC game. If Jeff Vogel inks a deal with these guys I'll show up and start venting bile.

 

[Talonfire]

They are like the codex, only without any clue on what the fuck they're talking about.

So, exactly like the Codex, then.

Like most of the Codex, yes.

 

[Wyrmlord]

You thought Eye of the Beholder 2 and Lands of Lore were bad games? Do explain, please; they are fantastic in my eyes.

I think Dungeon Master clones in general are bad.

In these games, you have a list of options of attack for each character, which you have to peruse and use while attacking the enemy.

The problem is that you do it in real-time. Fighting in these games is based on how quickly you get your mouse from a button on one part of the screen to another part of the screen.

It's just as strange that for casting spells, you are selecting a character, clicking his Cast Spell Icon bringing up a list of spells to cast, choosing one, and then finalizing your decision while the enemy is attacking you back.

To facilitate this, these games are based on a stilted system wherein you are clicking Attack, having the Attack button briefly disabled, waiting for it to be enabled again, and then pressing Attack again. I just wonder what these games do that either an honest FPS or a turn-based RPG can not do.

Besides, it feels like you play one Dungeon Master clone, you have played them all. And I played several.

And Jasede, don't you think there is something inherently wrong with using D&D for a twitch game?

 

[Jasede]

No. No time to explain right now, later.

 

[Wyrmlord]

So they should review them as if they were published today? this is absurd. Anyway, most of the games in that list are better than 99% of games that were published in the last 5-6 years.

OK, for fun let's take an example.

Albion.

Albion has you start off with a single predetermined character on a spaceship. The first thing to do in this game is just "stroll" around the ship on a top down perspective. Now, the amount of interaction on this ship is limited opening and closing doors, putting mundane items like coffee mugs into your inventory, and talking to people. Now, talking here merely means perusing a list of topics that are listed down. As you keep talking, more topics start opening up. And it is used for no other purpose than mere exposition. Every person on the ship functions as a walking search engine/encyclopedia, who will you the exact same things that anyone else will tell you.

The only thing of relevance that you find out is that someone in the terminal died in an accident. Which is enough reason for you to take a look at the terminal area, but the door is guarded by security personnel, who will not let anyone in. Conveniently enough, in the next room, there is a ladder down to the shafts below. Here it shifts to first-person. This area is a series of sequences in which you open the door to one room while the closing the one behind with the press of a button. You keep doing it until you come into the terminal. There, you find a gun.

Hmm, so somebody may have murdered him. What do you do?! If you walk straight out, security will rebuke you for infilitrating, and then will let you go about your business. If you walk straight out with the gun, security will confiscate the gun, rebuke you for infilitrating, and again will let you go about your business. If you take the gun, go back out the shafts, and show the gun to all possible people in the ship, they all will fucking tell you, "You shouldn't be keeping a gun with you". For fuck's sake, a guy's head is blown off across a terminal, there is a gun underneath him, and nobody gives a shit. Whodunnit?! So guess how this quest is solved. You find a box in the shafts, put the gun inside.

500 XP, QUEST ACCOMPLISHED. What the fuck is this shit? A guy was murdered in the terminal room, and you solve the quest by hiding the evidence of the murder? Anyway, you'd think there is some resolution to this quest later on. Nope. You leave the ship and never come back to it again. Nor can you voluntarily stay on the ship. In fact, a loudspeaker will keep calling for you to come to the shuttle bay, and by the third calling, you are materialize on the shuttle bay.

What happens next is that you crash onto a planet with naked furry women with bouncy furry breasts, who live on treetops, take care of you, and teach you their language. And again, you find yourself in another setting with walking search engines, and nothing to do but to wander around talking to these walking search engines, and following instructions to meet the next NPC you need to talk to advance the game. And it goes on like this.

Even a game like Oblivion has far more to offer as gameplay. Atleast you create your character, and customise his abilities. Atleast, there is some active involvement in the game, like fighting whatever enemies you meet throughout the beginning and into the game's world. Atleast, there isn't a loudspeaker constantly telling you "GO TO THIS LOCATION OR WE WILL FORCEFULLY PUT YOU IN THERE". Atleast there is some ambition and incentive as you play, like having enough money to buy a good horse and getting good equipment and good spells. Atleast there is a game at all here.

No, there is no RPG worse than Albion, and it is a complete shocker that it is so highly rated.

Great review. I'll add one of my own.

Fallout

A quick rule of thumb: if a game cannot keep you interested within the first 15 minutes, it is a waste. Okay, anyways you start the game an are given a screen with a bunch of labels, and a little picture of some kid appears in the lower right hand corner depending on what label you mouse over (Is this supposed to be funny? I don't know.). You get a little description of what each "ability" does, or should do at least, and that's it. No direction for if you want to be a gunslinger or a diplomat or a noble elf or anything. You just have to take a guess with these vague descriptions and hope for the best.

After you pick your character and your gender/age you're shown a cut scene. This is great, there is nothing better than watching a stupid cut scene instead of jumping right in. This thing lasts like five minutes. In it some guy says something about a water chip and how you have to save it or the world will end or something. I don't know. I was too busy wishing I was dead. This video is all in first person, by the way, and at the end it shows you walking in first person out the exit into a cavern. Then... the game is isometric. You're just a little isometric guy walking around in a boring blue-gray cavern.

You walk two steps then you're attacked by a rat that you should logically just be able to step on. But nooo... you have to pull out your fists/guns/penises and start fighting. I made a gunslinger with a bunch of strength so I could wield the biggest, most apocalyptic guns and I miss hitting the rat every single time. This is stupid. Plus, there are like a hundred rats in this cave. That's when I restarted and made a boxing character with pumped up strength, endurance, and agility. If you skimp on agility, you can't do ANYTHING. It makes me wonder why they even let you remove points from it - probably because they're confusing bastards. So, now with my fighting champion - who throws up a kick every once in a while for god knows what reason - the rats are pretty damn easy. I kill them all and look at some rocks and bones. REAL FUCKING EXCITING, INTERSHIT! You can't move with the keyboard so you have to keep clicking everywhere, which gets real annoying.

Finally, after what seems like forever I leave the cave and step outside. I click on some area and a line, which I guess represents my character walking or something, makes it there. The playing screen comes up and... I'm in a fucking desert. That's when I uninstalled. This isn't an RPG. There are no people to talk to, no quests except that waterchip thing - which is probably guarded by a bunch of rats. I actually clicked around a few more places and found giant scorpions and rats. That's it. There's also a small town you can visit where a bunch of people stand around like rats, and another vault which is infested by - you guessed it - rats. The map is huge and full of what I can only assume are rats and sand. You get some random XP from killing the rats - the same no matter if it takes you a hundred turns or one. There is no incentive to play or go exploring, because it's just all rats and boring people who say one liners and live in shit brick houses. You can't even negotiate with the boss about the waterchip, "Hey, how 'bout a party to find it?" Stupid. If you ask anyone in the ONE TOWN about the waterchip, they don't know what you're talking about. Fuck that. Fuck this game, man.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=25741

Chefe: Ironic or POST-IRONIC?