Game News SSI Forgotten Realms RPGs released on GOG

[Dorateen]

Since we have so many Pool of Radiance fans here, I still need someone to write a review of the series for the book... it's quite hard to find people who played from Pool of Radiance to Pool of Darkness...

Have you had any offer on this yet? I've begun a draft of something that would serve as a review and highlight the significance of these games as part of an overarching four volume saga. If you are still in need, I'll continue and send you when I'm done, to see if it can be of any use.

 

[felipepepe]

Have you had any offer on this yet? I've begun a draft of something that would serve as a review and highlight the significance of these games as part of an overarching four volume saga. If you are still in need, I'll continue and send you when I'm done, to see if it can be of any use.

No offers, so please do your best.

BTW, it should be about 5000 characters / 900 words long.

 

[Dorateen]

Great! Thanks for the guideline. I'll get back to work on this.

 

[Metro]

One cannot review the majesty of Pool of Radiance in a mere 900 words.

 

[felipepepe]

Got six pictures & their descriptions too, that helps a lot. :3

 

[DavidBVal]

I began remembering scenes from the game... the auction! the maze! assaulting the gate with the Ettins! I must play it again...

 

[felipepepe]

Yo bros, Dorateen and I are finishing the Pool of Radiance review, I think we could use some input.

Here's the work in progress page, images and descriptions still being worked on:

 

[Desktop Commander]

Looks good, just a few remarks:

• "... EA and SSI were the final bidders, with SSI winning with a broad plan..." - The two 'with' so close after each other seem awkward. I'd end the first after 'bidders', then begin a new one with "SSI won with a broad..."

• 'Gold Box titles' - Doesn't seem right to not emphasize that in any way; I would suggest double quotation marks (aka "so-called").

• The criticism re. Secret of the Silver Blades seems a bit weird. I realize you ran into the character limit here, but it mostly says "So this game is the worst because you reach high levels and beat up a lot of monsters." Does not seem very convincing to me, especially if I try to put myself in the shoes of an uninformed reader. Doubly so considering that you talk about PoD's "epic levels of power" in the second image caption (suggesting that this is not a negative).

 

[Dorateen]

Looks good, just a few remarks:

• The criticism re. Secret of the Silver Blades seems a bit weird. I realize you ran into the character limit here, but it mostly says "So this game is the worst because you reach high levels and beat up a lot of monsters." Does not seem very convincing to me, especially if I try to put myself in the shoes of an uninformed reader. Doubly so considering that you talk about PoD's "epic levels of power" in the second image caption (suggesting that this is not a negative).

I'd like to clarify since these remarks were mine. The criticism I have of SotSB is not so much the high level monster slaying, but rather the adventure did not feel as open and varied as the previous games. This is alluded to in the preceding paragraph about the lack of the overland map. Also, I consider Silver Blades weak within the context of the other Moonsea volumes, as well as the other Gold Box games. But even then, I would still consider it better than a lot of today's streamlined, modern or cinematic "cRPGs".

In one of the drafts, I did acknowledge its massive level design, and the dungeons and puzzles (riddles) that helped keep things interesting. Also, that D&D players would appreciate the final antagonist, a classic evil creature making its appearance in a Gold Box game for the first time.

 

[DavidBVal]

Looks good overall, I'd say. Please fix the typo in one of the game names.

Find it yourself if you like games... or check below:

Spoiler

In the screenshot caption on the upper-right, tt is Curse of the Azure Bonds, not Bounds

 

[Desktop Commander]

snip

I know what you were trying to say - your view seems pretty spot on re. the Codex consensus and I would have been surprised had it been different.

I wasn't talking about Secret's qualities (or the lack thereof) here but was instead trying to read the review from a neutral (i.e., non-codexian) perspective.

And what I'm trying to say is that from that standpoint, the point as to why Secrets is bad/the worst doesn't really come through. The paragraph about the lack of overland map reads rather neutral and all the reader is left with is the sentence about epic levels and killing monsters after the Blades=bad statement.

Since you have very little space, you might want to use a more negative tone/emphasis from the very beginning and try to form an argument of sorts, i.e., "Secrets lacks this 'n that, they also changed this, and together with this other issue right here Blades is often considered the weakest in the Gold Box series." or something like that.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

Good read, but I wanted to read more about Pool of Radiance. I know it may be late, but I think there should be a two-page review exclusively about Pool of Radiance, and another page long entry about its sequels.

 

[felipepepe]

Good read, but I wanted to read more about Pool of Radiance. I know it may be late, but I think there should be a two-page review exclusively about Pool of Radiance, and another page long entry about its sequels.

I can understand, but I must keep a manageable page count, or else can't print it later. Besides, wanna know more, play teh fucking game, which is kind of the purpose of the book. To entice, not to replace.

 

[MRY]

Every time I see a screenshot of Gold Box combat, even if I just saw one yesterday, I am struck anew by how fantastic the art was. The encounter art in the later games especially is pretty amazing too.

 

[felipepepe]

True. It was so amazing that the change to 256 colors in Pools doesn't even look all that impressive.

 

[mondblut]

Yo bros, Dorateen and I are finishing the Pool of Radiance review, I think we could use some input.

Here's the work in progress page, images and descriptions still being worked on:

No complaints about Alias' cleavage? M'lady won't be pleased.

 

[Volourn]

"Every time I see a screenshot of Gold Box combat, even if I just saw one yesterday, I am struck anew by how fantastic the art was. The encounter art in the later games especially is pretty amazing too."

Kididn' right. The GB art and graphics is uglyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

 

[DavidBVal]

Probably most of you already know, but there's an AD&D module based in PoR (or, depending on who you ask, was already written and inspired the game). Name is Ruins of Adventure.

http://www.amazon.com/Ruins-Adventure-Forgotten-Realms-Module/dp/088038588X

They also released Azure Bonds.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm almost sure you could import the NPCs from one game as PCs into the next game, IIRC EOB2 chose the first 4 character slots of your EOB1 save without even asking you and that was your starting party. EOB3 let you choose who you were bringing over in case some of your original PCs were in the back row.

True, except you got it the wrong way around. EOB2 lets you pick which party 4 party members (of 6) you transfer over, while EOB3 could only take the front 4 party members.

I've yet to take a good glance at the EOB games in this release, but already I can confirm that EOB3 uses the AESOP32 fix that was put together over at the Vogons forums, meaning smooth gameplay on par with the other two. (Whether they're running the rare 1.1 version I've yet to say.)

 

[Desktop Commander]

(Whether they're running the rare 1.1 version I've yet to say.)

Interesting, do you have any more details on that? I always thought the AESOP32 update was supposed to be the eventual patch (which never manifested) - you mean there was one before that?

Btw I wonder if GOG managed to fix the issue of EOB3 producing annoying audio pops on any DOSBox version after 0.73. I did the AESOP32 upgrade on my copy some time ago already and had to use a 0.72 SVN-build to get it running with MUNT and no audio popping.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Sadly I don't have much more info than that. I have the 1.1 running myself, and the only noticeable change I saw was a minor increase in performance - you could think of it as a "lite" version of the AESOP32 patch.

As for the audio pops - it's been a while, but I recall that I had to downgrade to 0.73 for those to go away.