metadigital

Mein Hund hat keine Nase. Wie riecht er?

No, it was a memory implant, like from the Johnny Mnemonic film ..

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

and what about its spiritual predecessor, System Shock 2? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> And the game that started it all: Neuromancer. *wistfull look* I remember selling my liver to buy an hardware mod for my character ...

Denton's databank Half-hearted humour, half-arsed RPG. What a load of arse. No, that's not a particularly clever summary. It's certainly not insightful. It is in every way, the perfect way to sum up The Bard's Tale -- a would-be ribald commedy RPG that fails miserably at both telling jokes and hacking up monsters. It brings to mind that kid who sat on the back row in biology, flicking bits of frog down girls' blouses and sneering at the world. Experienced RPG designers, a genre ripe for ribbing and a lead character played by Cary Elwes of Princess Bride fame. There's no excuse for being this disapointing. The original Bard's Tale came out in 1985, when PCs were dull and the height of humour was creating project management flowcharts about farting. We've seen millions of RPGs since then, and at lest a few games that tried to spike a hole through all the stuffiness -- both intelligently, such as Planescape Torment's rewriting of clich

You should have gone for the Low Tech Weapons skill, and used the Dragonsword! Add in the Combat strength augmentation, level four, and you're a lethal ninja!

Have you even played the game? Personally I don't give a crap about PC Format,I have friends who enjoyed the damn thing and I'd rather trust them then a magasine any time. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The whole point of reading a review of a game is to see whether it is worth buying it to play. I'm hardly going to buy a game rated 45%, just on the off-chance the reviewer was on an off-day, or had a grudge against Ubisoft. (Then again, there is a free demo on the DVD that came with the magazine, so I would assume that would be a pretty stupid thing to do.) Anyway, as it's a short review, I've included it here, below. First things first: this Bard's Tale has nothing to do with the classic game of 1987. If that game means anything to you, as it does to so many, this horrible bastardisation of the name will only upset you. But then, even if you couldn't care less about the original Bard's Tale, this catastrophe of a so-called role-playing game will only upset you. Which is quite a problem for a game that purports to be a comedy. Walking a line between puerile and utterly pathetic, its attempt to satirise the RPG genre falls so flat you could use it as a rug. You're playing the role of a rather unpleasant bard who's driven by greed and lust. The guy takes stuf from chests in people's houses and loots corpses, just like they do in RPGs. The trouble is, there's only so far you can go with mocking the stalwarts of a genre when your game relies more heavily on these tired conceits than do those it aims to parody. Stripped Down The game strips RPG down to the bare minimum (there's no inventory, collected items are immediately converted to coins, character design is a strip of basic stats), so there wouldn't be any game at all without the subjects of its spoof. Factor in the plot's "knowing" use of chosen ones and princesses in towers and it's clear The Bard's Tale has confused irony with actually being rubbish. Combat seems relatively straightforward -- having to choose which minion, or combination of minions, to summon does at least offer an element of tactics. However, just a couple more chapters in, this last chance falls apart. There isn't a difficulty curve, it's a difficulty brick wall. Being attacked by four of the larger wolves usually means death. So why does the game attack you with 14 of them? And why the painful, tedious stretches of repeated misery, such as taking out 18 spearthrowers to opena a load of gates. The whole game just simply isn't any fun, at any point. It's an insult to the name. It's an insult to RPG (a genre that deserves a decent lampoon). But most of all, it's an insult to comedy.

"I suggest you try it again ... Stretch out with your feelings!" Obi-Wan Kenobi expresses his approval of Ion Storm's Deus Ex.

I just had to add my own review of this familiar game ...

"Call us fussy, but we prefer our RPGs to involve some role-playing and our comedies to contain, well, comeddy." PC Format Issue 176, July 2005, p90.

You've played Deus Ex, haven't you?

And there is no bsasis in fact to the other rumour that it is a caricature of the French in general, and their new president, Baley, in particular.

Have you not read this thread?

Dialogue only adjusts story components, which are -- unfortuantely -- not linked to the game mechanics in any other way. (Apart from the influence system, which will favour Atton over Mical and Brianna over Visas, or vice versa, depending on conversation options.)

Obsidian are just wee new folks; they don't have a big bank balance just yet.

Very, very similar. In fact, there are rumours afoot to call this frog invasion "World War Two Two".

Psychonauts Misfits, madmen and monsters. Buy this if you like: Sanitarium, Beyond Good & Evil, Grim Fandango. "Utterly mental, but quite, quite brilliant. One of the best experiences of the year." 91%

Rumours of the Fourth Vizier of the Dome being taken hostage by French nationalists were played down by the Grand Vizier. "Nothing to see here. Move along."

I think it started as a prank by a couple of German students.

I hope that wasn't a "Yes, we're back on topic" "Yes Sir", but instead a "Yes, we'll keep to the Way Off-Topic" edict.

:*:*:*:*:*:*:*

Don't get the new Bard's Tale just released on PC. PC Format Review: "A victim of its own sneers, this is the world's first self-paodying game." 45% (Get this if you like: Pyst, Bored of the Rings, National Lampoon's Chess Maniac 5 Billion and 1.) Psychonauts has great reviews. Boiling Point is aparently: "Simultaneously fascinating and flawed, it's the definition of high maintenance." 81% (Get this if you like: GTA: Vice City, Vampire: Bloodlines, Far Cry.)