🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <D0AtC...@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>, kju...@sail.uwaterloo.ca (BEACON me201 account) writes:
> 
> I finished this games and it's by far the best RPG I've ever seen. The games world is HUGe, the story is very involved, and you can do just about anything including make your own spells.
> 
> Games such as Star Trail, Darksun, Ravenloft, Krondor - while good just don't compare.  If your looking for a game I recommend that you check this one out.
> 
> ARENA Background:
> 
> The first chapter an all-encompassing CRPG. Nine years in the making,
> Arena heralds a new level of CRPG interactivity and depth. From its
> first person, full screen, 360 degree rotational movement; to the over
> 150,000 word story; to the unique Spellmaker system where you create
> thousands of spells from over 80 combinable effects. Includes full
> character generation, 18 unique character classes, 2,500 magical
> items, and over 400 cities, towns and villages for you to explore and
> adventure on your quest to find the Staff of Chaos.
> 
> Happy Gaming over the Holidays,
> 
> ]<apley
> 
> 
> BTW: Where is ARENA II?!

Well, yes and no.
First off, its not 9 years in the making, its 9 man years in the making..
BIG difference.. if it was 9 years int he making, it would be 20 times
obsolete by now..

Not to nitpick but where did you get this, off the back of the box?!
I don't have mine handy, and I dont feel the need to look it up..
just saying.. how about offering YOUR opinion on it, instead of reading
what the nice folks at bethesda thought would be great on the back.

Now, for my rebuttal.
This game is great. The graphics are great, the story is great, and the
sound is great. This game is also terrible. The NPC interaction is terrible,
the plot interaction is terrible, and playing any class other than a mage is
terrible.

While there ARE 400 full size cities in the world, they all pretty much
look the same.. ive been to over 50, and other than the different kinds of
people that walk around in different kinds of area, and the different settings
and building types.. theyre kinda .. similar.. I mean theyre all either A.
randomly generated or B. generated with some spare schematics.. and the NPCs
dont have much of a personality.. you can talk to them, and odds are the same
that Joe Bob the Adventurer, and Mary Sue the Tailor will both know where
the lair of the great evil dragon is.. (unrealistic? I think so.).. btw,
those aren't the names they use, they use real ones.

Also, the plot is great, overall, but the simple things you need to do to
get it are not. As scorpia of CGW said of many CRPGs, you are reduced
to little more than a medieval "Fed-Ex" boy.. "You want money? Do this."
"You want that Ebony Dai-Katana? Do this." "You want the location of the
Ice Bandits? Do this." It gets tiring to have such a linear plot. Sure you
can go off and side quests and do whatever the hell you want, massacring
townspeople, looting, robbing pillaging, or rescuing damsels from dragons,
it really matters not.. you can come back to the main quest anytime..
but my bone to pick is that the main quest itself is so linear..

Like I said, the engine is great, but shows a weakness. The game is very easy
to win as a battlemage, is moderatley hard as any other kind of mage, and if
you are a thief/rogue warrior/knight/barbarian/ranger, good luck beating the
game.. any class that doesn't have SOME sort of magic in it is almost doomed.
This game requires so much use of it that its really unfair. Yeah, you can
get a shield of levitation with your warrior, and levitate, but as a mage,
you can just cast it and it costs you 10-20 mana.. when you have 20-30
mana up potions with oyu, this is no real problem..

In other words what Im trying to say is:
This game is very very good. But it does have its flaws. It gets repetative
(the dungeons and towns) but it is also great (graphics, sound, story),
and overall, I'd recommend this if you dont mind plowing thru some kinda
boring parts for a good payoff. To enjoy the game and not be POed at it..
play a battlemage.. :)
--Alex.