Roqua said:
Buck Rogers is often over looked but that series made AD&D kind of good. There was a great mix of weapons and armor and actual reasons to use different items in combat vs. different enemies or situations. The skills and skill uses were well implemented also.
I love the Buck Rogers games; there are two of the best CRPGs released so far in my opionion. The writing and quests are the best part IMO. I still remember the thrill of desperately trying to find that goddamn med lab on the gennie ship. Given how primitive the technology was at that time, it is amazing that they managed to make much more "cinematic" quests than those featured in your average modern CRPG.
I mean you board this strange ship wreck, some monsters appear out of nowhere and attack your boarding crew, you survive and everything seems fine, you continue to investigate the ship, suddenly one of your team member becomes unconscious, and then another one.., and suddenly the guy who fell first becomes conscious again and starts to attack the other team members - you have to beat down your own guy to save the others, the whole drama continues while you desperately try to find the med lab to cure this strange disease. And even if you find it before your entire team is dead / crazy (I did not on my first attempt) you will just encounter another problem..
And that's just the beginning of the whole gennie ship drama! Which is only the first quest of many.
I cannot really say why, but no other RPG ever managed to grab me like "Countdown to Doomsday". Another really great quest was that Desert Runner village on Mars. You try to convince them that the RAM gliders are coming for them, but they just won't believe you, despite all your efforts (this is only one possible outcome), and suddenly the show starts, explosions everwhere, the villiage goes up in flames, RAM terror squads storm the villiage while the gilders continue to bomb it from the sky and you are right in the middle, you can fight the RAM squads together with the runners, drag people out of burning buildings to save their lives (and this will actually be recognized later on if you do it!). Notice that most of this is not rendered graphically on screen, if there is an explosion / burst of fire you just get a message and a sound effect. Nowadays you cannot make such quests because you are expected to render it all and leave nothing to imagination.
The villiage is doomed BTW, your NEO guys cannot defeat the entire RAM invasion (oh shock: realism!) so the best you can hope is to get outthere alive and save a few runners maybe. At the end you can only look at the burning ruins from your hideout in the mountains..
Or the massacre on Venus, where you discover what looks like a villiage of primitive natives slaughtered by RAM, but then you find that hidden door (oh, and lets not forget the lowlander baby boy who is looking for his father .. most RPGs these days do not even dare to include children, in CTD you could have a baby in your party - I still remember making him run away / look for cover everytime my party was attacked - yes that baby could actually be killed just like any other character!) Or that quest with the children on the RAM base.. Damn, they just don't make games like this anymore!
And this is not nostalgia BTW. I have replayed (for the Xth time) Countdown to Doomsday only about a year ago..
Damn, this thread has really reminded me that all RPGs suck these days
