The Bard's Tale - The RPG Curb Your Enthusiasm?

Thanks to GameSpy for its preview of forthcoming action-RPG The Bard's Tale for PS2/PC, as the latest in the classic series, whose announcement was previously covered on Slashdot Games, promises an "irreverent tone" in a game that's claimed to be "...part Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, part Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and part Curb Your Enthusiasm." Elsewhere in the article, it's noted that this inXile Entertainment developed title is due out in Q4 2004, and features a main character in the form of "a jaded adventurer that has seen and done it all, but is somewhat the worse for wear from all of it", in a story that "pokes fun at numerous RPG clichés".

Comments

Re:ugh

[Scrameustache]

Why can't anyone come up with something NEW?

New things are not garanteed revenue generators. Who's gonna produce that?

This had better be good

[vga_init]

I remember playing some of the old Bard's Tale games back in the day, and for the time those games were quite awesome. I have a feeling that a lot of fans are going to be put off if this game does not live up to the series.

Re:This had better be good

[robnauta]

I remember playing some of the old Bard's Tale games back in the day, and for the time those games were quite awesome. I have a feeling that a lot of fans are going to be put off if this game does not live up to the series. Those games were great at the time, however games have made a lot of progress since, and that's not just in the graphics department. Back then games were hard, really hard, if you didn't know that to progress you needed to order wine in the bar so you could go to the cellar and enter a dungeon from there you'd just walk around without making progress. To play the bard's tale games you needed a lot of time, make lots of notes and draw your own maps, or else you'd get hopelessly lost. It's definitely a game from before the era of in-game help, customizable keys, in-game maps, a tutorial mission before you start, etc. I've played some games recently that I was playing 10-15 years ago. And the advice is - don't do it. Like old movies or tv series you vaguely remember from your youth, the memory is the best, actually seeing them again ruins that feeling.

Re:This had better be good

[JabberWokky]

To play the bard's tale games you needed a lot of time, make lots of notes and draw your own maps, or else you'd get hopelessly lost.

Hint: several people who are saying "these games were quite awesome" actually LIKED the fact that you had to take notes and draw maps. At one point RPGs were difficult, not fairly linear "talk to people, followed by turn based 'Fight, Magic, Item, Run' choices and then a cutscene". The same people who were playing (and writing) them had several three ring binders full of maps from their latest D&D dungeoncrawl, Traveller game, or notes on a diety system for a temple in a small town that the party visited. We like detail and having to do the work.

--
Evan

By that token...

[OgdEnigmaX]

No RPGs, books, movies, TV shows, or songs ought ever be made again...I mean, the ideas aren't NEW, are they? I mean jeez, I'm so sick of stories about *people* or otherwise sentient creatures -- people have been making them for thousands of years! Bring on the epic moss movies, I say!

Just because something is novel doesn't necessarily make it good...

Re:By that token...

[bersl2]

New species/races? (Why not a moss epic?) Different combinations of personalities? Odd philosophies?

You'd be surprised what's still left. Just use your imagination.

Re:ugh

[Rallion]

Actually, if you consider mixing stuff unoriginal, then what is original? Any visual art is just existing colors and shapes put together, after all. I'm not saying that BG:DA, KotOR and CYE seem to combine to form the most original thing ever, specifically. But the concept isn't a bad one.

There's nothing new under the sun, etc., etc....

Something missing

[Andy Smith]

part Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, part Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and part Curb Your Enthusiasm

So no Bard's Tale then?

Re:There are lots of RPG Cliches

[TelcusFreshbreeze]

Although that list is very amusing, (and uncannily accurate) many of the console RPG Cliches don't carry through to the traditional PC RPGs like Bards Tale and the Goldbox D&D games.

So don't keep your hopes up about them poking at most of these cliches.

Fallout humor

[mwheeler01]

I wonder if the humor will be anything like the humor in Fallout or a little more in your face. I liked Fallout's humor becuase it was a little subdued and for the most part kind of dark. If they try to take the humor too far I fear the game may be difficult to stomach.

Check out the website - Hilarious

[Master_Flash]

Keep it over the wench for a while and see what happens

Re:Cliche

[prockcore]

There's only one such cliche: "We nuke it, and take its treasure!"

Then surely you've noticed some of the other cliches, like giant spiders somehow possess treasure.

Or that the special items bosses have always seem to match your specialty. "Bad Boy Marty is coming to kill me, better go to the store and buy that sweet bow that he wants."

Or that even though this guy his hacking on you with this monster sword, wearing sweet armor, when he dies, the sword and armor disappear, and all he's got left is 50 gp.