Tag: History Lessons Page 7 of 8

History Lessons: Divine Divinity (part 1)

On October 18, 2015

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Part 2 can be found here. Other History Lessons posts can be found here. And, as always, you can click on images to view larger versions.

If you’ve read my posts about the Witcher games, you may be wondering why I haven’t had anything to say about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt yet. Well, it’s because my computer can’t run it. Or rather, it can run it, but only at low settings, and it’s a game I want to experience with maximum prettiness enabled. I hope to upgrade my hardware soon, but in the meantime I needed another big role-playing game to play, so I decided to pluck one from my backlog.

When I wrote about Torchlight, I discussed how the action role-playing game (commonly abbreviated as ARPG) genre, begun with Diablo in 1996, takes inspiration from roguelikes. While some games broadened the scope somewhat beyond Diablo’s single town and huge dungeon, the focus remained on fighting lots of monsters and finding loot, with little else involved. I always wondered why no one thought to use the real-time combat systems of these games and fuse them with a more traditional Western-style role-playing game, where characters explore a large world and talk to people and do quests in addition to fighting lots of monsters.

Well, it turns out someone did do this, back in 2002, with the absurdly named Divine Divinity.

History Lessons: Shadowgrounds

By waltorious

On September 27, 2015

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Other History Lessons posts can be found here. And, as always, you can click on images to view larger versions.

Finnish developers Frozenbyte are best known for the Trine series, the first entry of which I wrote about back in 2012. But their first game was the top-down science fiction shooter Shadowgrounds, released in 2005. It’s interesting because it’s a quality yet clearly lower budget title that appeared just before indie games really started to take off. As such it’s somewhere between the games that the major studios make and the games that we now associate with indie developers. Such a game could not have been made in the United States at that time; customers expected big expensive games, and digital distribution — which would soon make it feasible for small development teams to reach a wide audience — was only just getting established.

History Lessons: Max Payne

By waltorious

On May 18, 2015

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Other History Lessons posts can be found here. And, as always, you can click on images to view larger versions.

Max Payne, released in 2001 by Remedy Entertainment (known these days for the Alan Wake games), was the first game to do a lot of things. Ever play a game where time slows down in the middle of the action, letting you carefully aim and fire your guns in slow motion? Max Payne was the first game to do that. In order for that to be possible, Max Payne needed to model individual bullets fired from guns, tracking their flight paths and having them realistically impact against walls, furniture, and people. Today every game that features guns does that, but Max Payne was the first; in earlier games, guns would magically damage enemies in their sights without any projectiles being used whatsoever. At the time it sounded impossible: individual bullets? No way. And you can dive sideways in slow motion, firing a pistol in each hand, while these bullets whiz past? Just like in the action movies? No. Way.

Today, games get a lot of criticism for trying to ape cinema so much, for being filled with non-playable cutscenes, countless set pieces, and other scripted events, but when Max Payne was released it wasn’t nearly so common, and it wasn’t a cause for criticism. In fact, it was cause for excitement. To be able to actually play a crazy action scene from a film was like a dream, something that the limited capabilities of older computers and software could never have enabled. Max Payne was not the first game to try to capture the feeling of playing a movie — the first game I played that tried this was Half-Life — but it is one of the most notable. I’d seen some people play sections of Max Payne, and it sure looked like it delivered. But I’d never played it myself until now.

History Lessons: Call Of Juarez

By waltorious

On May 11, 2014

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Previous History Lessons posts can be found here. Also remember that you can click on images to see larger versions.

How old must a game be before it qualifies for History Lesson treatment? I’m tempted to say that it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want, but I actually do think I’m justified in this case. While Call of Juarez is only seven years old, playing it felt like revisiting an earlier generation of design, one that corresponds to a gap in my own gaming experience.

I wish I could say that the positive response to Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, the latest entry in the series, motivated me to buy the original. But that’s not the case; I bought it because Kieron Gillen told me to. I further wish I could say that the positive response to Call of Juarez: Gunslinger was what motivated me to finally get around to playing the original game, but that’s not true either. I had just finished the melancholy and thought-provoking Anodyne, and decided I needed something a little lighter and more action-packed to play next. After realizing that my backlog contained a distressing number of huge role-playing games and puzzle-focused indie offerings, I spied Call of Juarez on my shelf and decided that a Western romp would fit the bill perfectly.

History Lessons: Betrayal At Krondor (part 4)

By waltorious

On January 26, 2014

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Also be sure to read part 1, part 2 and part 3 before continuing. Other History Lessons posts can be found here.

At long last, I have finished playing Betrayal at Krondor. I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience, and I’ll offer my thoughts about the game as a whole a little later. First, I should pick up where I left off. When I wrote my last post I was tackling some shorter, more story-focused chapters, but I predicted that the game would open up again afterwards. I was right; Chapter 6 is one of the biggest in the game, and full of interesting things to do and places to go. Unfortunately, it began with an abrupt and jarring plot reveal that seemed unrelated to anything that had happened up to that point. Stranger still, there was little in the way of further explanation until the huge, freely explorable chapter was over. Later, everything is tied together, and in hindsight the overall story is well thought out. But the pacing definitely faltered, and someone who hadn’t read Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar series could easily have been completely confused by the turn of events.

History Lessons: Betrayal At Krondor (part 3)

By waltorious

On November 30, 2013

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Also be sure to read part 1 and part 2 before continuing. When you’ve finished you may wish to read part 4. Other History Lessons posts can be found here.

It’s been a while since my last post about Betrayal at Krondor, but if it makes you feel better, I’ve gotten farther in the game this time. I was nearing the end of Chapter 2 then, now I’m just starting Chapter 5. And I’m glad I waited until now to talk about the game’s overarching narrative, because it got a lot more interesting right after Chapter 2 ended.

In part 2 I discussed how the game’s open world is designed to funnel players through certain narrative experiences, offering a series of clues and encounters along the roads the player must take when traveling. The result is an experience that feels organic and emergent while still providing a set story. Chapter 3 offers even more freedom than the first two, and is the best example of Betrayal at Krondor’s unique narrative design so far.

History Lessons: Betrayal At Krondor (part 2)

By waltorious

On October 27, 2013

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Also be sure to read part 1 before continuing. Later entries are here: part 3, part 4. Other History Lessons posts can be found here.

At the end of part 1, I was marveling at Betrayal at Krondor’s open world, which left me free to wander the length of the Kingdom instead of attending to my rather pressing business. This is certainly not an unfamiliar concept; most recently, Skyrim embraced the same philosophy, and I’ve written about it at length. But in 1993, when Betrayal at Krondor was released, it was a more novel notion. Or at least, providing a world that feels like a real place populated by real people was. Other role-playing games, like Might and Magic: Book One, gave the player a world to wander freely, but these were abstractions — Might and Magic’s tile-based world was a symbolic representation rather than a realistic one, full of random battles with strange beasts and a lot of other things that didn’t really make sense. Today’s games, like Skyrim, instead try to offer a believable place to explore, with a recognizable landscape and culture. I was quite impressed with Skyrim’s achievement in this regard. So playing Betrayal at Krondor, which was one of the first games to try it, has been fascinating.

History Lessons: Betrayal At Krondor (part 1)

By waltorious

On September 28, 2013

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read the History Lessons Introduction first. The rest of the posts about Betrayal at Krondor are here: part 2, part 3, part 4. Previous History Lesson posts can be found here.

It’s been too long since my last History Lesson post. Nearly a year! Time to get back in the swing of it. This time I decided to tackle a game I’ve been meaning to play for some time: Betrayal at Krondor, originally released back in 1993. It is fondly remembered by fans as one of the earliest attempts at an open-world role-playing game, and for its strong ties to Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar novels (Feist later novelized the game, officially accepting its events as canon in his fantasy world of Midkemia). Given the huge popularity of Skyrim and the other games in the Elder Scrolls series, known for their open-world role-playing design, I thought it would be interesting to look back at one of the first attempts at this type of game.

I actually tried to play Betrayal at Krondor a couple of times in the early ’90s. My first attempt was foiled by an insufficiently powerful computer, which could barely even load the game before crashing. Later, I borrowed a copy of the game from a friend to try on a newer machine, and managed to get a little ways into the game before hitting a game-stopping bug, probably due to some hardware incompatibility. In 1994, the game was re-released on CD-ROM (instead of 3 1/2″ floppy disks), but I never had a chance to try that version. Now, it’s conveniently for sale on GOG.com, bundled with its less popular semi-sequel, and pre-configured to run on modern machines using the DOSBox emulator. A good opportunity, then, to take another look.

History Lessons: Master Of Magic

By waltorious

On September 29, 2012

In Uncategorized

New readers may wish to read my History Lessons Introduction first. Previous History Lesson posts can be found here.

I couldn’t stay away. At first I thought I’d just take a break from games while my wrist healed, but soon I gave in and started looking for games I could play with one hand. Fast-paced action games were out of the question, unless I could play them entirely with the mouse, so I started looking at turn-based options. Roguelikes would work, of course, but I wanted something with a longer playtime. Eventually I settled on Master of Magic, the 1994 fantasy-themed strategy game by Simtex. While Simtex are perhaps more famous for creating the first two Master of Orion games, Master of Magic garnered a loyal community of fans, many of whom are still playing it today.

Most players describe Master of Magic as a fantasy version of Sid Meier’s classic Civilization series, and while Master of Magic certainly has its differences, the description is fairly accurate. Much like Civilization, players in Master of Magic start off with a single city and must expand their empire by managing production of buildings and armies, exploring the world map, founding or conquering new cities, and eventually encountering other empires controlled by computer players. But this all takes place in a fantasy world, where the players are powerful wizards and there are all manner of monstrous creatures to encounter or recruit as they vie for supremacy. And best of all, it can be played entirely with the mouse, and it’s all turn-based so I have as much time as I need to make decisions. Perfect!

History Lessons: No One Lives Forever (part 2)

By waltorious

On August 11, 2012

In Uncategorized

If you haven’t read it yet, you’ll probably want to read through part one before continuing.

At long last, I have finished No One Lives Forever. This took a while partly because I was busy but partly because the game is even longer than I suspected. I’m happy to report that despite the length, the quality of writing that I praised in part one never really faltered. There was one character I was unimpressed with, and a few dud jokes, but overall No One Lives Forever remained a tightly-written and thoroughly entertaining game. Most importantly, it handled the theme of sexism elegantly, without becoming overly preachy or melodramatic. Given the problems that most games have with female characters, this was a relief. Actually, it was more than a relief, because I now have a game I can point to as evidence for how to do it right. It’s not perfect — Cate’s wardrobe is a little worrying for most of the game — but in terms of the writing at least, it’s miles ahead of the norm for games at the moment.

I’m not worried though. The demand for better female characters (and indeed better characters in general) will continue to grow, and games as a whole will improve in response. But, despite holding up No One Lives Forever as an example to aspire to, new games will have to go about things differently. You see, I wasn’t entirely accurate earlier — the writing in No One Lives Forever isn’t great despite the game’s length, it’s great because of it.