Pool of Radiance warning: Looks like Ubisoft caught that old H-L/Myth2 uninstall bug. I set it to install to the D drive and, sure enough, the folder is empty(!). Guess what this means folks? Sure enough, all program files are in my Windows folder. Guess what happens if I uninstall?

http://www.avault.com/news/displaynews.asp?story=9282001-15539

Oh, by the way, the game also isn't very good, that's sort of the icing on the cake there.

>Guess what this means folks? Sure enough, all program files are in my Windows folder. Guess what happens if I uninstall?

I did uninstall (because the game would no longer save games for me without crashing), and fortunately that didn't happen to me. It is true, however, that the game will only install to your program files directory -- even if you designate an alternate directory (as I did), all you'll get is an empty folder where you created it.

Stefan

Thanks Stefan, maybe you dodged a bullet or maybe this problem isn't so wide-spread. Still, I think I'll wait for a patch before I perform the uninstall I feel coming on, thankfully I can spare the real estate.

-Andrew

I grabbed this one on a whim yesterday and within a few minutes of starting it up pretty much wrote it off. It looks awful and I was not wild about the controls. It has fixed 800x600 graphics that are incredibly grainy. Ick. It's going back.

Oh dear - I smell another release disaster in the making.

Another "Descent to Undermountain" (or whatever that ridiculous title was) ?

Oh god, it's much better than "Descent to Undermountain" Sean. I've not really played enough to review it yet, that comes late next week, but for now I think Pool of Radiance is a game that works, but also a heavily flawed design.

There are no serious crash bugs or issues technically. Everything works as intended. The trouble is that the "intended" results in a very dull RPG. Bad AI, poor menu interface, mediocre graphics, and a real lack of ambition in terms of story and storytelling. Missed opportunities in terms of tactics they could have let you use, etc.,

At this point, as I force myself to play it some more, I'd much rather be playing the original Pool of Radiance.

-Andrew
PS: Also, lots of people are going to hate it because it isn't Baldur's Gate. I actually like that about it and just wish they'd made a better turn based combat RPG, in a better fleshed out gameworld (gamedungeon is a more accurate description) than they did.

That's a perfectly valid reason to hate an RPG...:-)

It IS cool that Bioware raised the bar so much, though.

Man, BGII is cool.

DAMNIT, DAMNIT, DAMNIT, DAMNIT

This new Pool of Radiance sucks. The only thing it shares with the original game is the name, and that should be stripped away from this puppy.

Think of the original POR as the prototype for Baldur's Gate. Epic sweep, tons of places to go, helluva plot. Then there were some epic battles (like the time you go into the Kobold village and have to wade through waves of those little suckas).

This game is a turn-based Diablo. There are no towns to explore, you're stuck in one general overland area (the ruins of Myth Drannor), and all you pretty much do is go down into hellishly large random dungeons and kill tons and tons of things. Of course, since it's turned based, trying to clear out one of these dungeons will take you forever. And it's insanely hard; leveling up takes forever, and in that time you can't afford a single mistake in combat or your guys are toast. Oh yeah, and I hope your characters are never late for their weddings or anything like that, because the bastards can only walk, and they walk sloooooooowly.

I so wanted this game to be a true "sequel", but it's got "me-tooism" all over it, and a bunch of horrendous design decisions. Damn them, damn them, damn them. And I plunked down $60 for this puppy in the form of the collector's edition. I let all those wonderful, nostalgic memories of playing the original POR on my commodore 64 for hours on end, listening to Def Leppard and drinking gallons of mountain dew at the time.

I'm gonna keep giving it a try for today, but if not, I hope Best Buy has a return policy.

>because the bastards can only walk, and they walk sloooooooowly.

You can run -- hit the right shift key. Man, if you've been walking everywhere, no wonder you're frustrated. The walking speed is ridiculously slow.

Stefan

There is a nice crash bug, though. Drink an invis potion, save your game, then try to reload it. This kills your save game files. I read about this little "glitch" about 30 mins after the fact. Damn game.

That's so sad. The original Pool of Radiance was one of the first RPGs I played on the PC. (It might have been right after Ultima 6 for me, but it's hard to remember...) That really was a wonderful game.

It's really too, too bad that they screwed the porch on this one.

One of my biggest beefs is your complete inability to retreat from combat.

Ever.

For one thing even the zombies can cross the entire field in a single move (why is it my Dwarf can only go 30% of the way each round, yet zombies can cross it with nary a shot from my Ranger?). They kept the D&D rule about monsters getting a free shot on you if you withdraw however, so, you try and retreat, get all your men as far away as possible, then get a message saying you can't go any farther.

5 minute BORING battles you have to reload and repeat if the enemy rolls better than you do. Wheee. Especially fun if you didn't save often enough and have to repeat 3 to 5 of those battles.

-Andrew

Sounds like a game I'll pass on. When's Neverwinter Nights coming out? I'm gonna get me that sumbitch.

>Drink an invis potion, save your game, then try to reload it. This kills your save game files.

Does it kill your previous saves, or just your ability to make new saves? I encountered the latter bug, but it left my saved games intact.

Maybe I'm just a D&D-head, but I eventually got into the game when higher level spells became available. Still, it's a disappointment.

Stefan

"Maybe I'm just a D&D-head, but I eventually got into the game when higher level spells became available. Still, it's a disappointment."

Well, heh, that's what "Reviewer's Tilt" is for, eh Stefan?

-Andrew

ooh im so glad i read this 1st ^_^ thx for saving me money hahah

Whew! I was at the EB Friday night, picked this box off the shelf twice, and put it back both times. I'm not sure what was responsible for this uncharacteristic display of willpower, but now I speculate it was the smell of turkey wafting from the Pool of Radiance package.

Thanks for the heads-up, guys--you have performed a valuable public service here.

I picked up the Collector's Edition (we have a huge game collection, and we buy just about every RPG known to man for that purpose). I have mixed feelings about the game. I played much of the weekend, and had some fun--I like the turn-based combat, I like the character models, and I like the spell effects. I like the general look of the game--it's not BGII good, but it's not bad IMO. Better looking than Arcanum, though not as ambitious or interesting.

And that's where I agree wholeheartedly with the criticisms being leveled here. The game is lackluster at its core. You can't decide much about your characters--feats and skills are chosen for you--yet they have no personality. In the BioWare games, though you only create one character fully, your party members all have great personalities and detailed personas. Here, who cares? They're disposable.

Ditto the story, such as it is. It doesn't help that the first "level," which is enormous, is like a freakin' maze, and the game's horrid "you can only see so far" viewpoint means navigating is a matter of click, move mouse an inch, click again, repeat. That, and the constant pixel hunting to find all the hotspots is annoying.

Still, for some strange reason I'm enjoying it. I like the 3rd Ed. rules. I like combat, though I agree not being able to retreat is annoying. The undead move quite fast, but I haven't had a chance to consult my 3rd Ed. rule books to see if that's accurate. The tactical flexibility and flow is superior in some ways to the Infinity Engine games, and much nicer than in Arcanum. The overall game, though, is less compelling.

Stefan,

It zapped my saved game entirely. I had to start over. And from what I'm reading I'm scared to death that if I uninstall it I'll lose Windows files. Think I'll wait for the patch. ;)

Getting a hell of a lot more enjoyment out of the Stronghold beta that's for sure.

bill

Hrmm... and I been waiting to play this one. Now I'm not so sure. I've been a fan of the pen&paper D&D for several years now, and a big fan of the 3rd edition rules. I also loved the original gold box series.

The most dissapointing thing to hear is the character generating. That's one of the most gratifying part of any D&D (or RPG/CRPG) campaign! Did anyone who had a hand in making this game even READ the handbooks?! No classic mages?!? Whoa.

Perhaps it'll end up in the $19.99 section or bargin bin by the time I'm finished with the BGII & expansion. :)

The original Pool was great...really too bad to hear about this one.

Well, if you can install it and run it (seems to be most folks can, with a significant but small number having problems), I think it's worth playing, and rather fun. The reliability of the game, though, until patched is questionable, and I suppose it'd be a real bummer to get your party up to sixth level or something and have the game eat all of your progress. Maybe waiting is good.

There is a (fan-worked) fix for the corrupted saved game bug. The details are here (it's the official forum, dunno what Shawn has to do with it).

I ran into this very dissapointing bug as well. It seems to happen when saving while a character is either blinking or invisible. Corrupts all of your saved games.

Scott

Robert, I envy you your enjoyment of the game. Seriously, that isn't an insult or even sarcastic. It's written with a weary hand forced to play this game for the past 6 days.

It isn't so much that PoolRad2 is a *bad* game. It's so much that, to me at least. It's just a terminally dull game. I was addicted for a short time, then, combat after combat with nothing much to show for it (aside from a stack of magic swords and armor about a mile high) or any point to it... ugh.

Now, Diablo is the same way, similarly pointless for the most part, though the leveling is better paced. But Diablo is an action game. It's easy to forgive a lack of a plot or a point in an action game if the action is fun to revel in.

Pool of Radiance is a slow paced turn-based game. Which is fine, but the tactics are so shallow - and they didn't have to be. Sure, the game takes into account facing, morale, surprise, etc., ad nauseum, but that stuff isn't easy to use with the timer, with the fact that your characters don't move where you tell them to, or if it's difficult to note whether or not the enemy will get that +4 retreat back attack.

If you make a mistake click with your wizard (click next to the monster rather than on it to use your sling) your wizard runs right up to the monster... you. can't. stop. them. from. doing. that = dead wizard.

No retreat.

No way to set up your own real ambush tactically because your group must be "gathered together before venturing forth."

The inconsistent movement rules between your party and the monsters.

Arbitrary rule usage. YOU spot the orcs on patrol. You click on them to initiate combat. THEY get first strike because YOU failed a surprise check? What?!?

Orcs firing through walls.

Also, try and figure this one out, look at the default party Robert. Note their stats. There is no way you can replicate those stats with your own party. You'd need a score more stat points per character. Why is that? Maybe the designers also disliked the character creation system....

etc.,

Stuff like that.

Yep folks, you heard it here first (again) "unprecedented boredom". ;>

-Andrew

>The inconsistent movement rules between your party and the monsters.

I agree with most of the points you made, Andrew, but the movement rules are consistently applied. Your characters have to be unencumbered to get the full benefit of their movement -- generally characters can move 20-30 feet a round, or they can increase that amount by running (in which case they lose any dexterity bonus to AC). Creatures like Zombies can move 30-40 feet a round, according to the D&D monster manual, and they can also get the benefit of doubling their movement instead of both moving and attacking.

My review is online at GameSpot and it's lengthy enough for me not to want to repeat my feelings on the game in detail here, but I generally agree with with Robert stated -- there's lots of flaws with the game, and there's not much to it other than the combat, but I had fun with the combat (although it's definitely very repetitive, and the tactics you can use are really pretty rudimentary). I don't think the combat is anywhere near as "tactical" as the battles in Jagged Alliance 2 or the mage duals in BG2, for instance.

If you're tempted to try it still, it probably is worth waiting for a patch. I did encounter the blink/invisibility bug -- I wonder if everyone encountered it in the same spot, since there's one location a couple of levels in where there's both a blink and invisibility fountain. Fortunately, the bug just killed my ability to make new saves, and didn't invalidate my old games, but I did have to reinstal the game (and, for some unknown reason, delete the "rosters" folder, which I found out by trial and error at around 5 in the morning last Thursday).

The game is definitely a disappointment, however.

Stefan

After reading your review on Gamespot, Stefan, I'm trying to figure out why on earth I'd even want to touch the game. LOS recalculating in the middle of a round? 3rd edition rules with effectively 2nd edition character class restrictions? Little or no tactics? It's not even grognard-accurate.

I'll stick to Anachronox with it's not-that-fun combat but perfect everything else, thank you. I can't believe I have a friggin' planet following me around.

Ah!
That makes a lot more sense. It's a 3e thing. I don't own the 3e rules and the manual for PoR doesn't explain that as well as you just did.

That said,
Is a round still a minute? And if so, why are D&D zombies able to cover the same ground as orcs (and naked dwarves) in that same minute? That sounds like a flaw in the new D&D rules to me.

"...but I had fun with the combat (although it's definitely very repetitive, and the tactics you can use are really pretty rudimentary)..."

Now I'm envious of you too.

-Andrew

Yeah, I've been playing this game since Friday, and it is a dissapointment, only because it doesn't offer that much... I'm generally an easy to please person when it comes to pc games... i even thought Daikatana wasnt that bad! But for some reason PoR2 feels sorta empty... its missing a lot of things, its not thats its a terrible game, but it feels like the content is half of what id expect, (the spell list in PoR2 looks anemic). Well, I'll see how it goes, ill play it til my characters are up to arnd level 10 or so and see if i like it anymore ... though i really wish they added more to this game, because at its core PoR2 handles 3e DnD pretty well.

also, I've been playing the Throne of Darkness demo, wow what a different story! instead of slow PoR2 turn based, you get frantic action rpg! ACtually im picking up ToD soon, theres something about it thats feels good, though thats based on the demo (at first i thought it was too cartoony and fast, but i got to likin it when i found out about the tactics). I had both of these in my hand at the Best Buy ... wish i had picked up ToD instead of PoR2 to save money.

etc

>Is a round still a minute?

A round in combat is still 6 seconds, yes. Heh.

>why are D&D zombies able to cover the same ground as orcs (and naked dwarves) in that same minute? That sounds like a flaw in the new D&D rules to me.

Yeah, apparently somewhere between 2nd and 3rd Edition, zombies changed from Night of the Living Dead zombies into Return of the Living Dead zombies. Those are fast critters. Naked dwarves can only travel 20 feet a round normally, or half as far as those brain hungry zombies. Orcs move the same speed as normal characters.

Stefan

Bub: "Is a round still a minute?
Stefan: A round in combat is still 6 seconds, yes. Heh."

Showing my age here but... No way dude!

Turn = 10 minutes
Round = 1 minute
Segment = 6 seconds

This is from the 1st edition Player's Handbook and DM's Guide. I no longer have my 2nd Edition stuff handy though, maybe it was changed then? After playing first edition for a while I did the geekiest thing possible... built my own rules system on top of the 1st edition and used that for some 10 years.

The 3e stuff did confuse me. I originally created a Sorceror with an 18 Intelligence and spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out why spells were impossible to cast. I read the manual and... oh, Charisma is now the spell stat for the Sorcerer.

-Andrew

"Naked dwarves"

Stop right there.

>This is from the 1st edition Player's Handbook and DM's Guide

I was being glib. Third Edition simplifies timekeeping considerably -- there's just "rounds", and actions/movement take either a half round or full round to complete. A round is considered to be 6 seconds (like the old segments), but that isn't really relevant for gameplay purposes.

>The 3e stuff did confuse me. ... oh, Charisma is now the spell stat for the Sorcerer

Third Edition did a great job of making all of the attributes useful -- no more just loading up on Strength, Dex and Const, or Int/Wisdom for magic-users/clerics.

Stefan

Well, I'll grant you that it might make charisma more useful, but...That just doesn't make sense!! Why on earth would charisma affect spellcasting??

>That just doesn't make sense!! Why on earth would charisma affect spellcasting??

It doesn't, for normal wizards -- Intelligence is still the important attribute. The premise for Sorcerers (and bards) is that they don't need to memorize their spells, but instead can cast spells through their own, innate power. Charisma is an attribute designed to reflect a character's force of personality. Intelligence is irrelevant for those characters, since they don't need to memorize or study spells. Charisma is also important for undead turning in 3rd Edition D&D

Anyway, that's the justification for the system, in any event, but clearly there was also just a desire to make Charisma more important. In the prior iterations of D&D, Charisma was essentially irrelevant, while in "real life", Charisma is arguable the most important attribute. Oh, the confusion -- where's my copy of Rona Jaffe's Mazes & Monsters to sort me out.

Stefan

Okay, that makes a little more sense, now...

Thanks for clearing that up.

I really like how Charisma in BG2 affects the prices of stuff. I'm sure that's straight from the D&D Rulebook (isn't BG2 2nd Ed. rules?), but it makes Charisma seem useful, at least early on, before you have more gold than you can spend...

A system like Arcanum's seems like it could actually make Charisma useful, due to different characters' reactions to your character.

Wow, what a difference a few hours makes... PoR is making up with the next few levels i made... after level 3 or 4 the game does pick up and ramps up with some cool battles after leaving the main halls...

I'm still iffy about the game... but i see alot of potential in this engine. and i dont even think im halfway done with this game. this might be one of the worst opening games made.... its slow in the beginning... the first half of the main halls was very tedious. now its getting better!

etc

Well, I was at the east side of the first megalevel, the Great Halls or whatever, and had just found some very cool armor and stuff. I had a globe of invulnerability up on my fighter from the armor and I clicked on the level transition (the one that goes up top to the cave that lets out onto the ruins). Boom. Crash to desktop. Reload. Try it again. Boom. Try it again, this time without the globe. Boom.

At that point I went to bed. I'll try the reinstall, delete the roster, etc. bit, but I'm pissed. I wonder if a whole bunch of spell effects, not just invis, kill things when you save? Keep in mind that crossing a level transition forces an autosave....

Just read the GameSpot review. Seems spot-on (sorry!). As one who played the original PoR on the C64 and the PC, and for years kept the graph paper maps I made for it, I was hoping the new one would at least recapture some of the magic. Well, though I have had some fun with it (until the latest crash/bug thing stopped me cold, at least) it's been disappointing to say the least.

I'm really hoping BioWare can get the 3rd Ed. stuff right with Neverwinter Nights.

>Just read the GameSpot review. Seems spot-on

Thanks.

>As one who played the original PoR on the C64 and the PC, and for years kept the graph paper maps I made for it, I was hoping the new one would at least recapture some of the magic. Well, though I have had some fun with it (until the latest crash/bug thing stopped me cold, at least) it's been disappointing to say the least.

I also played POR on my beloved C64, and replayed it a couple of years ago of the PC. Loved that game. I remember it came out the same week as Ultima V, and I ended up playing it first, which was surprising since I was a complete Ultima addict (and did end up liking U5 better than POR).

I did find a lot of the battles fun, which I hope came across in the review. But the game has a ton of flaws, and the crash bugs you're encountering now (try just deleting the roster before you bother reinstalling) only get more frequent. The game has some hardware conflicts too, because it slows some systems down to a crawl -- it occasionally made mine completely unplayable, requiring me to reboot to get things working at a management speed again (turning the sound off helped as well).

Stefan

>and i dont even think im halfway done with this game

You're not.

Stefan

---

Quote:

The game has some hardware conflicts too, because it slows some systems down to a crawl -- it occasionally made mine completely unplayable, requiring me to reboot to get things working at a management speed again (turning the sound off helped as well).

---

>Was this on one of those ultra-compatible Pentium IV's

...using my non-standard Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card. And the resulting frustration reminded me, again, why I prefer to go with standard components.

PoR2 DEFINITELY picks up once you get two NPC's (around 4th 5th level) ... i got a sorceror and fighter that kick ass to couple with my pure Half Orc Fighter, Elf Cleric, Half Orc Brbarian/Rogue and Elf Sorceror. The game DEFINITELY picks up once you open the gates that ports you to different levels. Its sorta like a mega maze... but strangely enough ive finally got to liking this games slower pace. It feels like a Jagged Alliance fantasy style... and in imo, its almost as deep strategy wise. I've also played some solo multiplayer, not too bad!

There is a good game in the middle of this for sure! Kind of reminds me of the original Gold Box games (which i wasnt a fan of initially). I really only played the Gateway Silver Blades trilogy and the Krynn one, didnt play the PoR and PoD ones ...

anyway, despite its flaws this game has held up so far. It takes a while to get used to...

yeah im wishy washy. but im beginning to like this game alot now... etc

etc

I would if I could play the $&@#^@%$ thing for more than a few hours without it eating my saved games and dying.

Got it working, by doing the little copy & delete dance with the roster and save games. I don't think you actually need to create a new party with exactly the same names, because I mispelled my guys and it still worked. Anyhow, I made it out of the dungeon and back upstairs ok.

Of course, 1) there's nothing to buy with the money you have from selling the huge amount of junk you find in the dungeon, and 2) I still haven't come close to cleaning out the first level (not a bad thing, just a point of interest). So, though I briefly visited the Halls of Stone and the Deep Halls, I need to spend even more time on the Great Halls level. Which is starting to bore me, but no matter.

I'm relatively happy to be playing again, but man, this game has some frustrations. Like using a wand of magic missiles. Select Inventory. Select Magic Items. Select Wand. Repeat, in order to get the targeting cursor. Next turn, ditto, to do the same damn thing. Insane.

>So, though I briefly visited the Halls of Stone and the Deep Halls, I need to spend even more time on the Great Halls level. Which is starting to bore me, but no matter.

You're only about 15% through the game, by the way. Almost everything later on is interesting, however, but even more buggy, probably because the QA testers didn't have the opportunity to get through later sections (as much). But extrapolate how you'll feel about the aspects of the game that you already feel are repetitive, and frustrating, heh, and you'll have some empathy for how I felt at the end.

Stefan

I feel for you guys who are assigned to review games like this. Keep in mind that you are doing a service for the gaming public by finding out about the faults before we spend our hard earned money on a game. Thanks!

Luckily I'm not reviewing it. Our reviewer got the gold master a while ago and is already some 80-90 hours into it. I'm all in favor of games with legs, but sometimes short and sweet is good, too :-).

The bit about testers not being able to spend as much time on the later parts of a game is all too true. Unless the developers do a really good job of planning and have a well-thought out system, too often you get lots of testing for the first level or two, moderate testing for the next few bits, and a complete rush job on the stuff at the end. Even worse sometimes is the stuff between the middle and the absolute endgame (they usually test the final boss ok).

I still enjoy the game, honest, just not nearly as much as I had hoped I would. I'm now hearing other things about possible design decisions in the game that I'm waiting on a response from Ubi Soft to clarify. The more I learn about the way this game was put together the more I cringe.

I finally finished it.
The ending doesn't compare well to the original game either. Bah. It leaves itself open to a sequel....

And yes it improves as you gain power. Sadly the power curve is messed up. You must share experience in combat. But a thief gains all the points for actions. This causes thieves to rise exponentially faster than the rest.

The other reason I think the later levels are buggy is probably because it looks like the game lost features left and right. Sometimes removing things leaves potholes.

My review is written. So feel free to share your what you're learning about the game from Ubisoft Robert, that is if you're free too. I have theories on how it got this messed up and I'd be curious to know if I'm right.

Just read your review Stefan. Nice job. Kudos to Gamespot for giving you a nice fat word count. I had to omit several pertinent complaints just to push the far end of what was allowed for me. Feh.

-Andrew

I am still waiting to hear from Ubi. I did however go back and read some of our previews from 1999 and 2000. The game began as a 2nd Ed. AD&D romp with a level cap of 13. It's now a 3rd Ed. game with a level cap of 32 total, 16 in any one class--this is a huge difference, when you factor in the differences between the two rules systems.

Movable objects/furniture? Dropped. Extensive spoken DM commentary? Dropped. Random dungeons as part of the solo game? Dropped. Gnomes aren't there because they were a late addition to 3rd Ed, and happened after feature lock on the game (or so they say). No idea why wizards, druids, and bards didn't make it.

Spoken DM Commentary? Ugh. No game that includes the line (and a million just like it): "You sense a landmark up ahead" would benefit from more writing or more spoken dialogue.

Your landmark sense is tingling!

-Andrew

True enough . The fact they dropped it is only interesting in a historical sense I guess, and as an indication of how differently they once viewed the overall presentation of the game. Originally, it was supposed to be like a real PnP session with a single big module, complete with the feeling of having a DM.

And that isn't a bad idea at all. Provided the virtual DM is a good one. RPGs are excruciating, to me, without an excellent DM.

I'm assuming those poorly written leavings are the remains of that idea, and if so... I don't mourn it.

Anyway, this explains why a game that was working well a year ago (at Gen Con) was delayed so often. Sometimes feature removal can be as devastating as feature creep. This game is basically a salvage & recoup costs job it seems, which explains much.

-Andrew

I'm wondering how well the game was actually working at Gen Con in 2000, too. Our report on it was favorable too, but how much of the metagame was being shown? I mean, PoR now is pretty impressive if you focus on one combat or two fights or something.

>No idea why wizards, druids, and bards didn't make it.

Wizards didn't make it because the developers didn't want to implement D&D's spell memorization system, and without it, the class wouldn't have been meaningfully different from sorcerers (unless they gave them a fuller spellbook, in which case sorcerers would be worthless). That was pretty much always the plan.

At least Paladins and Monks were added in after the initial design plans were made.

POR switched over to 3rd Edition very early in its (public) development. I first saw it at the 1999 E3, and the developers were already, from the outset, that it would likely be a 3D edition game that was released in Fall, 2000 with the new D&D rules.

Stefan

We saw it at E3 that year too. I wasn't aware that they never intended to include Wizards--that's odd, considering how integral to D&D the whole spell system is, but I can see why they didn't want it. If they were, all along, planning a "rest early, rest often" approach to dungeon crawling like you have with PoR now, why bother with a spell memorization system? But sorcerors do have limits, namely they have fewer spells to pick from generally than wizards do, at any given time. Their advantage is in not having to memorize specific spells.

Looking back at the early previews, and seeing the changes in personnel particularly in management/producer slots, and seeing the parts of the game they wanted to implement kind of fall out one by one, it's no wonder the game as released is uneven.

I still think that a root problem was the mixing of a game design heavily influenced by 2nd Ed. rules ending up as a 3rd Ed. game. Even if they had strong suspicions that it would be a 3rd Ed. game all along, they had to do their initial development based on what they knew of 2nd Ed., because the 3rd Ed. stuff was being developed simultaneously with them. And I'm betting no one realize just how siginficant some of those differences would end up being.

>sorcerors do have limits, namely they have fewer spells to pick from generally than wizards do, at any given time. Their advantage is in not having to memorize specific spells

Sure, but if you're not going to have spell memorization in the game -- and therefore Wizards cast their spells in the same way as sorcerers -- why would you include both classes? If you give wizards a bigger spell-book, then sorcerers are useless.

I'm surprised no else one mentioned how useless Rangers are in the game.

>and seeing the parts of the game they wanted to implement kind of fall out one by one, it's no wonder the game as released is uneven.

That was one of the themes I was trying to get across in my review.

I'm not sure I understand why you connect that to starting as a second edition game though, or any of the problems the game has to that -- I'm sure it caused a ton of reworking, and would have made it really hard to work in selectable feats/skills, but the engine seemed to do a decent job at the 3rd edition rules that were incorporated.

Stefan

I dunno,
My Ranger was finding tracks everywhere. And then there's that whole racial enemy thing.

-Andrew

Can anyone confirm that PoR2 was orignally 2ed? Seems like that's grounds for a redesign, but that's just the software engineer in me whining about having to retrofit code. That and I can't figure why I would want to play PoR2 when I can just fire up BG2 again.

- Alan

>Can anyone confirm that PoR2 was orignally 2ed?

Confirmed, although it shifted to 3rd Edition for the past couple years of its development.

Stefan

I just read Desslock's review, and it confirms every fear I have of the game based on my limited play time (about 12 hours with a beta from a month ago, and about two hours with the final). I'll be skipping this one.

It seems that the text of the review is more negative than the actual number rating, which gives it a "fair." The review reads more to me like "not TOTALLY without merit, but completely screwed up." If Gamespot is supposed to use the whole scale (which if a 6.3 is "fair" I think they mean to), then it seems like a below average game, and should therefore get less than a 5.

And I'm not saying that Stefan can't match a number to his writing, I'm just wondering if Gamespot changed anything, or has some funky math going on. I've heard writers complain about the numbers their reviews end up with before.

>I'm not saying that Stefan can't match a number to his writing, I'm just wondering if Gamespot changed anything, or has some funky math going on.

I like the GameSpot rating system, although I know a bunch of folk here don't. They're my numbers, and I did want to give the game a "fair" rating, even though I think the game has a ton of flaws. I generally liked the combat, although it's repetitive, etc., and since that's what the bulk of the game is about, I think it deserves a decent/fair rating. It's not a terrible game.

I only give games below a 5 if I think the game is a failure that I wouldn't recommend to anyone, other than zealots of the subject matter. I recommend POR, but that recommendation is lukewarm, and comes with a lot of qualifications, as set out in the review. If I was assigning it a 5 star rating, I'd probably have given it a 2.5 (which obviously isn't the same score as you get by dividing the gamespot rating by 2, but I don't think the two systems directly translate that way -- or at least that's a theory that Jeff Green gradually beat into me).

...sorry, babbling, tired.

Stefan

Well i think your written review was spot on Desslock... it pretty much sums up my pov on the game.

This is kind of a hard game to review... at least for me I'd give it a solid 3 stars (out of 5) with reservations fora possible 4 or 5 if the bugs get worked out (i havent had ANY bug problems with this game btw...except install to default). Anyway, the game shows some promise, it does provide some great turn based fantasy strategy that is quite diffrent from ANY crpg out... even better than Arcanum imo (which i'd give a 4.5).

The main complaints i have with the game are minor nitpicks that really do add up, like the speed of travelling, interface quirks inbetween slow gameplay between battles... its stuff that could be adressed but i dont think will be fixed easily. All i do hope is they make a sequel or a game with a similar engine with a speeded up gameplay (turnbased, but increased options to speed up other aspects). at its core this is a strategy crpg thats missing stuff that should have been added.

On the numerical rating its kind of hard... since i read many reviews of certain games on IGN and Gamespot that go counter to the numerical rating. and thats when the reviews agree with my opinion. For some people, anything below an 8 is mediocre (maybe due to the less than 80 % grade being a C in american schools).

just to add my own dumb opinion on the 10 rating scale...

... a 10 is impossible,
a 9 is excellent,
an 8 is good but missing stuff,
a 7 is average
and a 6 or below is just a waste of time with maybe a few things worthy.

This probably is not the intention of the numerical ratings, but this is the perception i bet many people have for them. The thing is there is no way to gauge how good a game is between a 6 or a 6.5 on these ratings (without reading the review of course). It would be better to put a 5 star rating because you can give or a take a half star alone to show the tilt...and its less ambiguous than the 10 point system with its variations between 9.123 and 8.321! imo of course!

etc

I think the shift from 2nd Ed. to 3rd Ed. had negative effects largely because the two rules systems are conceptually very different. IMO, if you designed a game where you outlined the number, frequency, and type of encounters plus the overall advancement/challenge curve based on the one, you'd end up with a host of issues when you moved to the other. It seems to me that a lot of the uneveness in the game--not all of it, but some--comes from having to rebalance things to accomodate the shift between rule sets. Of course, it could just be that 3rd Ed. was a bear to code into any CRPG system. We'll see when NWN comes out if BioWare can do any better.

>a 10 is impossible,
a 9 is excellent,
an 8 is good but missing stuff,
a 7 is average
and a 6 or below

I view the overall ratings, and determine all my ratings as follows:

9+ Excellent. One of the best of the genre. Some years there's only a couple games in any genre that get this rating.
8-9 Very good. Almost all fans of the genre will like it, and it has good cross-genre appeal. I great example of a game of the genre.
7-8 Good. A good game, likely to be enjoyed by genre fans, but unlikely to have broad appeal outside the genre.
6-7 Fair. A flawed game, but there's more good about it than bad, which means it still has a decent chance of appealing to fans of the genre, but other gamers are unlikely to enjoy the game.
5-6 Seriously flawed game that's barely worth playing by niche fans of the genre.
Below 5: A failure. A bad game, even for fans of the genre. Players may still like the game, but only because they are willing to accept a game that is significantly worse than other games of its type, or tolerate significant gameplay and/or technical issues.

Stefan

"I like the GameSpot rating system, although I know a bunch of folk here don't."

I'm not one of them. Working for as many sites as I have, all ratings systems are generally fine with me. The text matters more and, I think, only the foolish base a buying decision on a score. I'm skeptical of "average scores" as Gamespot does it, but at least the scores are weighted correctly. The only system I had trouble with was Happy Puppy's older system. They used to have six scores, weighted evenly, to determine an "overall" score. The problem, for me, was Documentation was weighted equally with Gameplay, with Graphics, with Audio, etc., This meant, if you were honest about audio problems, or slim docs, a very good game could get a very average score. Or a bad game could get a better score simply because it had great graphics and a perfect manual.

Case in point, I did Vampire over there. A game I felt deserved a 5, maybe a 6, got a 7 from me due to the average. The text I wrote didn't reflect a 7, I felt.

I tease about the "reviewer's tilt" but I acknowledge that sometimes the subject matter itself merits a high score. Now, Stefan, you gave Pool of Radiance a 6 in that score... maybe I don't understand Reviewer's Tilt at all. Since you're predisposed toward D&D and 3rd edition, why the 6?

-Andrew

"Below 5: A failure. A bad game, even for fans of the genre."

This is my problem with a 10 point rating system. You just threw half the rating system away. From a buyers point of view, 1 thru 5 are identical ratings. I hate waste.

A 5 point rating system with halvess (really a 10 point) is, in my opinion, a better system. On that scale 2/5 stars is still perceived as a playable game; there is a distinct difference between 1/5 and 2/5 stars. On the 1-10 scale, everyone percieves 5 as a horrible score; and 1-4 are redundant.

Stealing your words, here's a 5 point scale:
5: Excellent. One of the best of the genre. Some years there's only a couple games in any genre that get this rating.
4: Good. Almost all fans of the genre will like it, and it has good cross-genre appeal. I great example of a game of the genre.
3: Fair. A flawed game, but there's more good about it than bad, which means it still has a decent chance of appealing to fans of the genre, but other gamers are unlikely to enjoy the game.
2: Seriously flawed game that's barely worth playing by niche fans of the genre.
1: A failure. A bad game, even for fans of the genre. Players may still like the game, but only because they are willing to accept a game that is significantly worse than other games of its type, or tolerate significant gameplay and/or technical issues.

Robert Mayer:
"As one who played the original PoR on the C64 and the PC, and for years kept the graph paper maps I made for it..."

Cool, I'm not the only one, then. I still have all my gold box games, packed in sleeves with the floppies and code wheels and manuals.

God I'm a geek.

One of the odd things I've noticed is the wierd monster placement. I'm not far into the game (I have a third level thief, the other 3 are still second level), but three times now I've run into monsters that are far to difficult for my party to kill. Once I tried to return to the surface and sell some junk, and a wraith was right at the entrance. Wraiths have as many hit dice as my entire party.

There's a second wraith, with 3 orc guards, in the Main Halls. One time I killed the wraith by using all the charges in my Wand of Magic Missiles, but couldn't do anything with the orcs. Finally, there's a level 6 mage (the scarred mage) just a couple rooms away from the entrance. Killed him with a lucky critical hit, but it took several tries.

It would take a pretty sadistic DM to slap a wraith onto a level 2 party, and one who wouldn't have a playgroup for long. Are level-inappropriate monsters commonly found throughout the game, or just in the Main Halls?

I do not play Pool of radiance or the other game, but my brother talks about it because of the demo scene. If the combats are all the same, maybe they should have made the action slower like in Max Payne because in Quake all the action is going the one way but in Max Payne you can slow it al down to go many directions! Some people are saying that they are using illegal programs if they do this but maybe they can pay Max Payne designers like a lisence? The good ideas should be in more of the games!

Greetz

Say what?

Uh, Johan, PoR2 isn't a shooter. Also, by your logic, the Max Payne guys should be paying royalties to John Woo for stealing his signature slo-mo dual-pistol dive. *grin*

- Alan

Johan isn't from another country... it's a different planet, man.

I did like the graphics (though they were grainy at times, overall they were pretty nice)... but man, it was a lot like a slow, turn-based Diablo.

I took it back after spending a few days on it...

I was especially annoyed at the sheer lack of customization the character generation gave.

I think if I can find this game for dirt cheap in a few months, after it's all patched up and won't kill me, I might be able to enjoy it, but I did try to like it and it didn't work.

Now Startopia, the game I got in exchange for PoR... it's great :)

Brock "Spigot" Wager

>This is my problem with a 10 point rating system. You just threw half the rating system away. From a buyers point of view, 1 thru 5 are identical ratings. I hate waste.

I didn't throw it away -- there's just very few games that are failures, and if for no other reason other than amusement, at least in a percentage system you can better distinguish between the losers, or "comparable winners".

Even if the bottom 50 ratings weren't used at all, which isn't the case, that still leaves 50 possible ratings -- I like being able to better differentiate games, and the larger scale allows for that. Some people could care less about the difference between an 83% or and 87%, but to me at least, those differences are meaningful between my reviews (hell, a lot of people would be happier if ratings were just "thumbs up/thumbs down".

CGW and CGO both do a good job at using their full rating scale, but there's other publications that don't/didn't. To pick on an easy target, Incite's 5 star system was a joke -- almost no games got anything other than 4 stars or 5 stars -- there was almost no meaningful differentiation between the games.

I don't think any rating system is inherently better than another -- all that matters is the system's standards are well explained and consistently applied.

Stefan

I agree wholeheartedly. It's all arbitrary anyway (the system, at any rate--hopefully not the ratings), so why worry about it?

Still, I kind of like the idea of a "recommend/not recommend" system. It leaves little room for misinterpretation.

"I tease about the "reviewer's tilt" but I acknowledge that sometimes the subject matter itself merits a high score."

"Reviewer's Tilt" isn't the subject matter per se: to quote part of the explanation at GameSpot, "the reviewer's tilt is suggestive of the reviewer's overall experience with the game." In other words, it takes into account how all the separate categories fit together. For example, a game with really awful graphics that were peripheral to some really good gameplay (such as in a Go game) would have a high tilt to reflect the fact that while graphics are nominally considered to be worth 15% of the final score, in that specific case, they are less important than usual.

Conversely, a game in which the awful graphics really hurt what would otherwise have been good gameplay (for example, where a suspension of disbelief is required but doesn't happen due to really bad graphics), the tilt would be low to show that while graphics are usually worth 15%, in this case they make a much bigger difference.

>Now, Stefan, you gave Pool of Radiance a 6 in that score... maybe I don't understand Reviewer's Tilt at all. Since you're predisposed toward D&D and 3rd edition, why the 6?

I think you misunderstand the purpose of the Tilt score. Geryk's explained this in a bunch'o detail, but the simple answer is just that the "tilt" score is a means for the reviewer to adjust the overall score so it's not unrepresentative of the reviewer's overall opinion of the game. The Tilt score is a tool, it's not a meaningful rating itself(and certainly not an individual score that's representative of the reviewer's overall opinion of the game).

Stefan

I've found out i dont even read reviews much anymore, i take a glance at the pros and cons and then take a peek at usenet opinions or a messageboard. When i do read reviews i hardly pay attention to scores. though if i really like a game i like to compare how id rate it with others... and then i'll read a review and whatnut...

I think most "hardcore" gamers know what they will like and dislike generally... and buy accordingly. Not to say that reviews are worthless, but like someone said here before, most people read reviews to back there own opinion.

etc

"Still, I kind of like the idea of a "recommend/not recommend" system. It leaves little room for misinterpretation."

Same here. Get off the damn 3 star fence. :) Readers usually balk at that idea, but I'd love to see it.

bill

With most 3 star/middle of the road games, though, it's hard to say either recommend or don't recommend, because the fact that it got such an average score usually means that the reviewer is undecided as well. Most 3 star games we review are those that you might recommend to some folks but not to others. Games we can wholeheartedly recommend don't get 3 stars. They get four or more; games we can't recommend get less than 3 stars.

To those who like the "recommend/not recommend" system, I have one question:

What did you think of Daily Radar's system?

For myself, I like 5 stars/5 points/whatever. 10's too many, and implies the US grading scale, so it's skewed from the get-go. Most, if not all, US publications that use a 10 or 100 point scale will have the fat part of the bell in the 70s because of that, I do believe.

5 gives you a 3 as "average", and that makes more sense to me. Actually, I just like the number 5 better than 10. And it's a lot easier, subjectively, to give a game the 1 it deserves than the 2 or 20% that a 10 or 100 point system would garner.

My magazine will use a 5 point scale, right after I win the lotto.

Well Bob as you (and Ben) know I have given my fair share of 3 star reviews. ;) But I'm also for making the critic make a decision. Do you like the game or don't you? You can still say in the text if the game has its good points. Prime example for me is Madden 2002. I gave it a 3 star review, but if I had to choose 'yeah' or 'nay' I would have given it a thumbs down. Let the reader decide according to what's in the text whether or not it's worth his/her time based on the individual gripes.

Let's take a game like Desperados. It's the ultimate 'middle of the road' game. If I wrote a review that gave it a thumbs down, I could still explain to the reader that the reason is due to the frustrating difficulty and the puzzle nature of the missions, but that there were also a few highly entertaining moments.

But if guy happens to love really hard games and likes puzzle-strategy hybrids, he may opt to give the game a try anyway.

An easy way, for me anyway, to judge whether or not a game would get a 'thumbs up' would be to ask myself, upon completion, whether or not I would have spent my own loot to play it.

As for how DR used to do it, they still had a grade scale, it was just mirrored by phrases such as Direct Hit, Hit, and Miss. So a 'hit' was ok..not a bad game. The Direct Hit was anything published by EA Sports, and a Miss was a poor game.

In a 'recommend/not recommend' system, a game could be an ok game and still not get a recommendation. And I think that's a good thing.

bill

I have problems with saying a game is ok, but not recommending it, or saying the game is bad, but recommending it anyway. I prefer to let the text and rating help you make up your mind. If I ding a game for a lot of faults, say I had fun with it much of the time, and end up giving it 3 stars, you'll have to decide whether to get it based on what my specific criticisms were.

Daily Radar's system was probably closest to "thumbs up/down" (Direct Hit, Hit, Miss, Bomb) which generally meant that 90% of good games got a Hit, and 90% of bad games got a Miss. This sounds like it works but, man o' man, the hate mail they got over those distinctions. One person's Miss is another's Hit... it almost becomes meaningless because with that system, or Ebert and Roper's, people *really* fixate on the score. It makes it harder for a reviewer to match a score to the game too. "Gee, it's bad in so many ways, but I would 'recommend' it..."
I prefer the 5 star system.

Thanks for the Tilt explanation Bruce.

-Andrew

"What did you think of Daily Radar's system?"

I thought it was dumb. They took a perfectly workable, simple system and made it more complicated than it needed to be. If it were just "Hit" and "Miss," I would have liked it. As it was, they might as well have gone with a star system.

"I have problems with saying a game is ok, but not recommending it, or saying the game is bad, but recommending it anyway."

I have more problems with the latter than the former. A rating--any kind of rating--is a blanket recommendation. In a binary system, I would not recommend most three star games, even though they aren't terrible. In fact, just in relative terms, I wouldn't recommend most of them anyway, just on the basis that there's almost always something better available (see my comments on recommending Throne of Darkness).

"Gee, it's bad in so many ways, but I would 'recommend' it..."

Well I never implied, or tried not to, that if a game was flawed inside and out that it should get a recommendation. I think that this system would, and should, make recommending a game mean more than it does now and lessen the number of "well..it's ok..it's a 3 star game" that is so common nowadays. And like I said I do it, too. Some games deserve a 3 star score, even though every time I do that I feel like it's a cop out.

Truth be told, I actually prefer a 'no star' system over any type of arbitrary rating scale, even the thumbs up/down approach. But any system, be it 5 star, 10 point, 100 point, whatever is pretty pointless without text to back it up. But I'm also aware that readers want some kind of score and a quick end summary. Personally, I think Stefan's review of PoR was very solid, and the need to slap on a grade at the end is meaningless. I read the damn thing. I know what he said. ;)

But what we're really talking about are those games that range from 2.5 to 3.5 stars, right? Or the 7/10 games, whichever. If I looked back at all of the mid-range scores I gave out over the years, it would be interesting to see which ones I would have recommended and the ones which I would have dismissed.

I do see both sides to this, though. And of all of the systems I prefer the 5 star scale. Anything is better than the 100 point system. That's about as helpful as a bad rash.

As for hate mail, who cares? Sure, one man's hit is another man's miss, but the same can be said for any grading system. Ask Ben how well received his Rune review was by the folks at Human Head. (I think that's who developed it.) He gave it a well deserved 2.5 score, and you woulda thought the world was coming to an end. Would it have been any different if instead he would have given the game a 'thumbs down'? I doubt it.

"I have problems with saying a game is ok, but not recommending it, or saying the game is bad, but recommending it anyway."

Bob, in no way would I ever say a game is bad and then go ahead and recommend it anyway. But I also don't see a problem with saying that a game is 'so so' and then giving it a thumbs down. I don't want to play a so-so game. I don't want to spend $40 or $50 on a game that in the end I'm going to think, "Eh, it was alright."

In the end, all of our reviews are personal opinions (or should be) and most loyal readers are smart enough to read a review and decide for themslves if the problems a reviewer has with a game is reason for them not to buy it. Or am I just fooling myself? :)

bill

In any rating system, I have a real problem with the middle of the scale not equating to a middle-quality game. If you have a 50-point scale, a middle-of-the-road, "average" game should get a 25.

Yeah, it's tough to please everyone. My biggest challenges (other than the basics--you know, walking and chewing gum, that sort of thing) come from dealing with niche games, like wargames. A 3 star wargame might well be a must-buy for fans of 17th century Albanian mercenary battles, but pretty forgettable for anyone else.

But it's not forgettable because it's a bad game--it's just forgettable because of the subject matter. I don't need a "not recommended" label to tell me that *I* don't want to play a game about 17th century Albanian mercenary battles. I don't even need to read the review, for that matter, so writing the review with my tastes in mind is probably a mistake.