Arcanum: On Steamworks and - "oh God my spleen!"

Arcanum is a great RPG that utilizes the balance and conflict between magic(k) and technology as a game mechanic, in a world entering a new age.

Meet Ironlady Classic.  She's a half-elf wanderer obsessed with studying the nature of energy.  Basically, if it goes 'zap' or 'boom' she wants to play with it, and doesn't care if its magick or technology.

She's also very very dead.  It turns out that critical fails are ridiculously common already on hard mode, so giving them a frequency boost in exchange for more XP is a silly plan.  Ironlady managed to kill herself fighting a boar, before even leaving the introductory area.  This, of course, was after she broke her starting armor and crippled her own arm.

I started a new character with the same build concept, just with a somewhat less suicidal backstory.  However, it's game over for Ironlady, and we need to move on to the next entry.  I'd hoped to blog more about this particular game, but I hadn't counted on just how punishing hard mode would be.

Poison from the Past - Anachronox

I found Anachronox a while ago on a list of forgotten, obscure, and underrated RPGs.  I did a little research before playing it, and its history is actually rather interesting.

In summary, it was the game that was meant to save Ion Storm from the Daikatana fiasco.  It didn't.

The game was critically acclaimed, but simply didn't sell.  Of course, spending $50,000 on marketing after dropping millions into development may have had something to do with that.  I was eyeballs deep into the genre at the time (early 2001), and never heard of it until recently.

Regrettably, it hasn't aged well.  It's obscure enough that it doesn't seem to have a sufficient fan community to create more than cursory patches.  It really doesn't like modern hardware.  Screenshots were a complete bust.  Print screens came out black, and my demo version of fraps kept the game from even loading.   On to the game itself:

Back from the Holidays. Also, Amnesia

After an extended holiday break filled with books, Steam Sales, and RL drama, we're back!  Sorry it took so damn long.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time giving a play-by-play of my Amnesia run-through.  Yes, the game killed me, and there shouldn't be any surprises there.  It's meant to kill you.  The myriad methods it uses to do so have been rigorously examined by others, so I'm going to let it be.

I do want to talk about the game itself a little, though.

I cannot stress strongly enough how well designed Dark Descent is.   The art assets are gorgeous, and the lighting is a treat.  There world interaction is a stroke of genius, although I could wish it a tad more trackball-friendly.  The sound in particular is a masterwork.  Every single tone is intended to draw forth awe and terror, and it succeeds brilliantly.  I've played my share of the horror genre, and rarely have I been more impressed by the atmosphere created in such a game, nor the mechanics utilized.

Amensia: Dark Descent is truly a great game to look at, and in many respects, a great game to play.

I cannot stress strongly enough how poorly written Dark Descent is.  At the onset of play, the protagonist, Daniel, is running in terror from an unseen threat, trying to remember his own name.  We quickly learn that he did this to himself, in an effort to destroy the evil villain.  Beyond that, we know nothing, and have no tools at our disposal, not even a blade or a lantern.

What?  We're going to go kill someone bare-handed?

Wait, it gets worse.  We soon learn that Daniel was most recently in the employ of the villain. He knows what is waiting in the depths of that castle.  He is also extremely nyctophobic.  Yet, he leaves his amnesiac self neither weapon nor reliable light source to combat the horrors that await him, and there doesn't appear to be any good reason why not.

Except for mechanics.  The entire mechanic of the game is dependent on an unarmed, terrified protagonist.  There is a trifecta in game design, of mechanic and aesthetic and narrative.  The three are interdependent, and to sacrifice one for the sake of the others can bring down the entire enterprise.  In this particular case, the lazy storytelling becomes even more galling in the face of the amnesia trope.

In the end, I died angry rather than scared.  In the flooded cellar, a water-walking invisible creature tried to eat me.  I beat it with a box.  After I splattered yellow-green blood everywhere, I tried to go through the door.  I became dinner for my troubles.

If I'd given myself a gun, it might have gone differently.