With the onset of fall, it’s time for me to have my annual nostalgia-fest and go back and revisit old games. This fall, it’s Betrayal at Krondor, one of the first computer games I ever played. My cousin Jeff turned me on to this game, and I’m glad he did. Even today, fifteen (15) years later, the game is still just as fun, engaging and challenging as it was the first time around. I originally played it on CD-ROM in DOS, and I have fond (probably falsely so) memories of configuring the “SoundBlaster Clone” soundcard we had in our Hewlett Packward 486 66MHZ with a whopping meg of ram (my dad refused to buy a Pentium because of it’s Floating point math problem). At any rate, I digress; it is currently free to download from a number of sites on the internet, I got mine here. For it to run on modern systems, a DOS emulator is needed and wouldn’t you know, a great one called DosBox is available for free here.

A background of the game: It’s a fantasy RPG set in Raymond E. Feist’s fictional world of Midkemia. It features several minor and major characters from the Riftwar Saga, and fans of the work will love the game. The story was not written by Feist, but was officially licensed by him at the time of release and is considered canon, as a novelization of the game was later written. The game is meant to be played like an interactive story; it is divided into nine (9) chapters, with each chapter featuring a written introduction , complete with a fancy book-like script and short scenes with digital bitmaps of actors and very slight animation . Descriptions of everything are written like a book and the player can find these descriptions absolutely everywhere. The game features a three-player party system for the majority of the game, with the classic fighter/rogue/caster combination. It also features several different views: The main one being in the first person, allowing the player to walk forward and backward and turn left and right using the arrow keys of a keyboard or using a mouse to click on movement keys displayed on the interface. Characters and trees are rendered as sprites, with buildings and terrain being rendered in 3D. During combat, the view switches to third person, again with 2D sprites representing characters. If all of this sounds unimpressive now, well, it is, what with our bump mapping, volumetric shadows, realistic water and real time lighting, but at the time, this was cutting edge.. Entering towns brings up a familiar adventure game interface, where moving the mouse or the arrow keys allows the player to examine different parts of the town. For example, when the cursor hovers over a shop, the pointer changes to the word shop, which allows the player to enter the shop interface. Likewise for a tavern or a secret location.

So what’s so great about this game? Well, everything. It has all the makings of a good RPG, and indeed a good game: An engaging story, believable and interesting characters, excellent combat, good progression, and phat lewtz. It even has a beautiful and moving soundtrack, that still sounds amazing, even in MIDI. The grid-based combat is turn based, and requires strategy as well as tactics. For example: spellcasters cannot cast spells if a character is within 1 square of them, and the computer isn’t stupid: it knows to close the gap quickly and engage a spellcaster in melee combat, where their weaker armor and lower defense makes them all but mincemeat pie to a sword wielder. But this is where the tactics and strategy come in: Each turn, each player only has a certain amount of movement points, and moving around two fighters blocking a caster takes precious points and allows the caster time to escape to set up his spells on the next combat round. Setting up for combat is just as important as combat itself: If you’re vigilant and have high enough skills, you can get the jump on would-be ambushers, allowing you one or two precious extra turns before they attack, and this can mean the difference between looting their bodies, and uttering a curse to Lims-Kragma, the goddess of death as the last breath escapes your body.

It’s not just the combat, or the story, but as with most masterpieces, the little things which make this game a classic. And Betrayal at Krondor is chock full of these little things. From the sound of birds chirping in the wilderness, to Moredhel puzzle chests which provide a nice break in the story by giving the player a chance to solve clever riddles, to the random characters you meet on the road, this game has it all, and will make you want to keep going. And make no mistake: just because the game is fifteen years old does not mean it is simple or easy. Be sure to use the game’s quicksave feature, cutely called a bookmark, often. As with most PC adventure games, the rule of thumb stands: save often; save well.

I had never read any of the Riftwar Saga before I played this game so many years ago, but that did not detract any from the enjoyment I got out of it. In fact, the game inspired me to read all four books in the Saga, and I’m glad I did, even if it was ten years after the fact. And while it won’t take away from the game if you haven’t read the books, being familiar with them will only increase your enjoyment of the game.

As a side note: I’m loath to give too much information away about the game, for fear of spoiling some of the secrets that await people who haven’t played it. And secrets will be there. It took me hours before I finally figured out a basic strategy of how to play the game and how I wanted to proceed.

So if you’re bored, or looking for a cheap source of entertainment, give it a shot. You won’t regret it, I guarantee it. If you do, be sure to direct all complaints to Daniel.

We finally take the time to explain why we have been doing episodes with just Bucky and Daniel. In case you haven’t heard already Blizzard announced at Blizzcon that Diablo III has been underdevelopment and will be amazing. E3 wrapped up this week and there was a lot of news, but not anything groundbreaking. Daniel gives more free advice to big corporations, and suggests that Sony cut their loses and focus on blue ray players. Bucky calls Daniel out for making a stupid comment about Albert Einstein.

Nintendo announces full motion 1 to 1 control…wait wasn’t that what the Wii did already? Don’t fret though Nintendo fans Nintendo did not intend to disappoint this year at E3. They have announced another revolutionary product, WiiSpeak, the ability to communicate while playing online.

Microsoft made some announcements, the most exciting are the Final Fantasy releases and the partnership with Netflix. Somehow the conversation digress to a debate about how awesome Voltron is, and somehow Bucky manages to insult the Japanese yet again.

Finally we close out the episode with a quick news rundown, including a rant by Bucky about the Fallout censorship in Australia.

links:

• Deckard Cain Rap : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMAbNFptzAA
• Meet the Sniper : http://storefront.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=app&AppId=5051
• Gamasutra E3 Wrapup : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19486
• Ctrl+Alt+Del SPORN Comic : http://cad-comic.com/comic.php?d=20080627
• Duke Nukem Trailer: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36746.html

 

 It's an Activation Blizzard [63:53m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We start off by introducing our new pundit, Brian. Then we explain why we don’t care about Metal Gear Solid 4, and Bucky admits he is clinically insane for not liking Ninja Gaiden. Daniel is disappointed with the Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit demo. We attempt to explain Yen to Dollar conversion for some reason. Daniel explains to Netflix how to expand their business, by adding video games to their catalog. Brian has purchased and played Wii fit and he thinks it is creepy. Bucky and Brian think Will Wright doesn’t know what he is talking about, oh and Bucky thinks Daniel is a Jack @$$. And amazingly we made it through the whole episode without burning Michael. Daniel is sick of the internet cloud, and everything on it.

score:
+1 Topical Humor
+1 New Pundit
+2 Friends of Bucky
+1 First!
+3 Poos

links:

• Corey Hart - Sun Glasses at Night : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9p0Ac5bLlI&feature=related
• Street Fight: The Legend of Chun Li : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0891592/
• Devil May Cry Movie : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0932986/
• Duke Nukem Forever Sneak Peak: http://crackle.com/c/Jace_Hall/Jace_Hall_Ep_1_DUKE_NUKEM_FOREVER_-_SNEAK_PEEK/2298717/#ml=o%3D12%26fpl%3D297045%26fx%3D
• Age of Conan Bust Nerf : http://www.gamingnewslink.com/2008/06/03/age-of-conan-bust-nerf/
• Cambrian explosion : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion
• Limbo of the Lost Screen Comparison : http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=310683
• Famicon Disk System : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famicom_Disk_System
• Great Image of SF Ryu : http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news2001/18784/Image1.jpg
• Valve Perspective on Game Development : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18843
• NY Times Article about Miyamoto : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/arts/television/25schi.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1212769006-fhd535269tyJsyb48rFLZQ

 

 Standard Podcast [59:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We discuss Wii Fit and how it tells fat kids they are fat. Bucky explains again why legislatures need to get over it and make parents do their job. Daniel believes the new breed of gamers want work not fun. GTA breaks entertainment records, Yeah! Is PC hardware classification a good thing?. A good Brit proves that video game violence does not cause real world violence…nanny nanny boo boo! Daniel asks the question on everyone’s mind… Shouldn’t Guitar hero be Band Hero?

link

• Body Mass Index : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index
• Liberty City and New York Side by side : http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewj/sets/72157604988911230/
• Interview with Ray Muzyka of Bioware : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3667/a_new_future_under_ea_ray_muzyka_.php
• Jack Thompson needs mommy’s permission to submit legal docs : http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080520-judges-report-in-jack-thompson-case-guilty-on-27-charges.html
• Half Life 2 Havoc Mod : http://www.hlhmod.com/about.html
• History of Physics in Video Games : http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/534/physics_in_mass_market_.php
• Mobile phone Snake : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_(video_game)
• Thomas Hobbes was a realist Chump! : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes
• The Mattel Power Glove : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Glove

 

 Off the Reservation [57:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Games are too damn repetitive these days. Seriously. I’m looking at my Xbox 360 games that I haven’t finished and out of 9 games (not including GTA IV, which I’m currently playing), I have finished 4. That means out of 9 ‘next gen’ games, I only had the endurance to finish 45% of them. Compare that to finishing about 96% of every other game I’ve ever played that didn’t suck. What the hell does this even mean?

Simply: ‘Next Gen’ games are too freaking long and too freaking repetitive. Before we go on, I just want to say that I loathe the term Next Gen. What a freaking lame-ass marketing-asshole-type buzzword that means nothing. Damn it. Anyway, I digress. Xbox 360 and PS3 games are ridiculous. I appreciate the thought: It seems right that game developers are trying to give us our money’s worth. It would be great, it really would, if the developers who had wanted to give us our money’s worth on length didn’t skimp out on content or gameplay mechanics, but alas, it seems that with ‘Next Gen’ we get our choice: good gameplay or good graphics and a long game. It seems that most shops are going with the latter, rather than the former.

Well, what’s the big deal? I’ll tell you: Imagine picking up your favorite book, let’s for the sake of this example, say it’s How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Imagine picking up your favorite book, and seeing that instead of it being a hearty 900 pages, the author, who is probably Oprah, has actually increased the length of the book to over 25,000,000 pages! Hooray!! More of whatever the hell it is that’s in How Stella Got Her Groove Back!! But upon turning the page to 901, you realize that the next 24,999,099 pages contain nothing but the first 900 pages repeating themselves 27,777 times. That is what it’s like playing Assassin’s Creed. It’s reading How Stella Got Her Groove Back over. And over. And over. And over again.

Compare that to games that came out for the Super Nintendo. Legend Of Zelda: A Link to the Past is like going out to your mailbox and getting the best-of edition of Penthouse Forum. It’s chock full of things you love reading, and right as you’re about to get sick of reading and go blow up some anthills with m80s, the game ends and you’re left wanting more.

I think we took a wrong turn back in Albuquerque. I mean in the weeks leading up to Forza 2’s release, I could barely sit still. I almost called in sick to work the day it came out. I played it for three weeks straight. I loved it. And then I slowly realized that I was driving on the same tracks that I had been driving on for the past three weeks. Except before, I was only driving two laps around the track instead of six. And those two laps only took four minutes, instead of the fifteen it took to finish six laps. Sorry, Forza 2, I don’t feel like devoting fifteen minutes to driving around the same piece of asphalt that I’ve been seeing for the past three weeks, even if I am driving a wicked awesome M3. Yes, it’s more realistic with longer laps, but some times (most of the time) realistic racing simulation does not make for fun video games.

Somewhere along the way, games went from being fun and providing a great experience to pumping out the sickest graphics and longest gameplay. How is it, that I could devote over 90 hours to Oblivion (which I consider a ‘Last Gen’ game with good graphics) and its two expansions, but I can’t find it in me to finish twelve minutes of driving on a track? I don’t know, maybe it’s that Oblivion provides diverse, rich, unique environments. Maybe it’s because I loathe repetition, which is ironic, because NES and SNES era games are chock full of doing the same thing over and over again, and that’s what I’m sitting here pining for, but I’m seriously becoming disenchanted with the ‘Next Gen’ experience.

We start off going over the big releases. Followed by all the GTA news we could gather. Daniel compares Choose Your Own Adventure books to GTA. Some guy thinks he knows more about good games than Daniel and Bucky. XBox’s are the new Patch Adams. There are a slew of great games coming to the Nintendo DS! Daniel is over Spore, and all their lies and propaganda. Gamestop is the reason why Daniel will never be a millionaire. Diablo 3 Is Offical, not really but…maybe. We created a new bit for the podcast…listener email, thanks to TimTom for the first question.

links:

• Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend : http://www.steamgames.com/goldrush
• Meet the Scout : http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=5032&cc=US
• Fewer Mechanics, Better Game : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3621/fewer_mechanics_better_game.php?page=1
• Mummy’s Tomb (Choose Your Own Adventure, No. 24) : http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FMummys-Tomb-Choose-Your-Adventure%2Fdp%2F0553152947%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1209695741%26sr%ZD8-1&tag=danroo-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325
• Game Theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
• Tim Tom : http://suckit/

 

 Fatslob or Need More Monkey Island [53:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We explain why we are a duo not a trio, then jump right into the only news for the last month, EA trying to buy Take-Two. Somehow Bucky and Daniel are lead into a conversation about the nuances between SimCity and SimIsle, and even thogh Michael isn’t with us, we still manage to rip on him. Bucky will not shut up about GTA IV, and we talk about the Gears of War meat Cube.

It wouldn’t be an episode of 2nd Player if Bucky didn’t flame some nationality, so take that Aussies! Oh and Daniel declares he is a white supremacist, and is offended by the mockery of the obesity problem facing lumas.

There is a STRONG BAD VIDEO GAME, and Bucky schools Daniel on Adventure games, and YES MYST SUCKS!

links

• SimIsle : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimIsle
• GTA IV Magazine Scans : http://www.gtagaming.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1772627#post1772627
• Unreal 3 Engine Tech Demo from GDC (2 words: meat cube): http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q0gNJfAkPSw&feature=related
• Jack Thompson Strikes Again : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17738
• Gamers In Real Life Competition (G.I.R.L) : http://www.station.sony.com/girl/
• Silicon Knights On Development : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17789
• Corey Bridges on Online Distribution : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17782
• Virtual Property Rights Panel @ SXSW : http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=17783
• Angel Devoid : http://www.gamespot.com/pc/adventure/angeldevoid/
• Last Dynasty : http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/last-dynasty

 

 Standard Podcast [70:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The site has been quiet for a few weeks again, but we are still slowing pumping out content. I have added my review of Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3. I just finished Mario Galaxy, and Halo 3 so look for reviews of them sometime in the coming weeks.

There is also a new layout. I was continually frustrated with how poorly the old layout rendered numerous pages on the site. I still have some kinks to work out with the new color scheme, but over all I am happy with the new look.

Congratulations Gamers, Mobile Gaming has arrived! In the interest of full disclosure I am an Apple Fan boy and the Steve distortion field probably hasn’t worn off just yet. I am a big propoent of the single device to rule them all, and I think Apple is working towards that as well.

Incase you didn’t know Apple announced the details of the iPhone/iPod Touch SDK last thursday. You might ask yourself, why is this chump talking about Apple on a Video Game blog? Because Sega, EA, and ID have either already produced games, or have announced producing games for the iPhone. As well as various smaller mobile gaming studios. So you might ask yourself, is this another N-Gage? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Will this kill the DS or PSP? Probably not, but it will create a whole new type of portable games much like the Nintendo DS did when it was released.

What does the platform offer that we can’t get out of our existing protables?

Always Available

I am not sure about you, but I don’t carry my Nintendo DS with me everywhere, but I do carry my cell phone everywhere. So when I need to kill a few minutes, waiting in a long line, or sitting in a waiting room, I can pop out my phone and play some monkey ball.

Multi Touch Pad

The DS introduced what a single touch pad can give to a gaming platform. Clones of the popular DS touch heavy games are sure to be ported so look for iPet and iBrain. There is a difference though, there is not a traditional d-pad or buttons, but you do get multi touch capability and an accelerometer. This will cause game developers to think outside the box, and hopefully come up with interesting control schemes. Some will be good, some will be bad, and this is where the potential disaster will come in.

Accelerometer

Much like the Wii Controller, the iPhone has an accelerometer. So games like Super Monkey Ball make a lot of sense, maybe that is why Sega already made it! But the accelerometer makes for an interesting control in other ways, like a steering wheel for a racing game, or reset for a drawing game. I am not a game designer, so I will not pretend to know all the ways this control can be used.

Microphone

I am not sure if the SDK allows access to the phones microphone, especially since I don’t think the iPod Touch has one, but this can make for an interesting control.

Online Distribution

This an interesting point all around. The games will be distributed through the iTunes Music store, or purchased in the App Store right on the iPhone/iPod Touch. This allows beginning developers to push out their work to millions of potential gamers without a traditional publisher. So like we discussed in our last episode, this is another avenue for the independent developer to create and publish his/her game idea and distribute it to the masses. And the exciting part about this environment is you get 70% of the profit from whatever price you set. So if you decide to sell the game for $10 you get $7 for every sale. If you decide you want to give away your game for free, then it costs you and your user nothing.

So where can this go wrong? This can go wrong in a lot of ways. I believe the touch screen has fixed the game control schema that apple tried to push on us in the iPod classic. Someone was kidding themselves when they thought they could make a good game with a scroll wheel. Even Mrs. Pac-man was horrible! The controls however, are where the device can fail as a gaming platform as well, unless creative and inventive people develop for the platform. We need a developer or group of developers to take the controls and use them to their best abilities, instead of trying to apply old game styles like FPS, or Platformers to this new control device. Those kind of games still work on the DS because there are standard controls. The iPhone/iPod touch don’t have that luxury, so instead new game types need to be developer, or old ones need to be re-imagined. For instance an RTS could work really well with a touch screen with some inventive controls. Turn based RPGs could work really well, if a clever exploring control was created to navigate the world in-between battles. Even action games could work if they emplored a game mechanic like Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword.

All in all I think this is good news for the mobile gaming market. Hopefully with some creative minds we will see some neat games come out of it.

UPDATE:Namco, PopCap and THQ have joined in to the iPhone fun announcing plans to release games for the platform.