7th April 2006, 9:28 PM
The fact that you aren't saying much ... yeah. :) I will, then.
Fallout was one of the most important RPGs ever... Baldur's Gate may have truly brought back the RPG, due to greater success, and it may have been a better game (I think it was, though Fallout is a truly great game), but Fallout was extremely important... it helped bring the RPG back from several off years... for several years before Baldur's Gate there had been a clear downward trend in the quality and quantity of PC RPG releaseds, and there were articles in PC gaming magazines questioning about if the RPG had a future; some thought that it didn't have one as a major genre (like how the graphic adventure, futuristic sim (MechWarrior, TIE Fighter, Freespace, etc), wargame, and serious vehicular sim genres have all faded greatly from the places they held in PC gaming years back). Fallout helped change that... not to mention, of course, how it was a fairly nonlinear, complex, mature RPG, something rare then and still rare now... it was a modern update to the acclaimed Interplay classic Wasteland (which I have not played), and it was great...
Descent to Undermountain, in contrast, was a failure. It was much more in keeping with the general trend of mediocricy and failure of the RPGs of the mid '90s than the rennaisance brought on by Fallout and Baldur's Gate (and Interplay's 1997-2002 record of being the best RPG publisher on the planet). It was Interplay's last attempt at a first-person RPG, kind of in the Stonekeep style (in itsself probably a bad idea, as that style of game just never worked as well for an RPG (first-person with hack and slash combat -- Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld, Elder Scrolls, etc) when compared to better combat systems for first-person RPGs like the turn-based systems of Wizardry or Might & Magic... but they wanted to try again, and some of those first person action RPGs had been pretty good. Unfortunately, this one wasn't. Not even close. In fact, it was pretty much awful. Sad... The Descent engine just didn't work for the game, and the rest of the game didn't work well either...
I've never played Descent to Undermountain, actually, but with its reputation (seemingly well justified), I never exactly wanted to...
Fallout was one of the most important RPGs ever... Baldur's Gate may have truly brought back the RPG, due to greater success, and it may have been a better game (I think it was, though Fallout is a truly great game), but Fallout was extremely important... it helped bring the RPG back from several off years... for several years before Baldur's Gate there had been a clear downward trend in the quality and quantity of PC RPG releaseds, and there were articles in PC gaming magazines questioning about if the RPG had a future; some thought that it didn't have one as a major genre (like how the graphic adventure, futuristic sim (MechWarrior, TIE Fighter, Freespace, etc), wargame, and serious vehicular sim genres have all faded greatly from the places they held in PC gaming years back). Fallout helped change that... not to mention, of course, how it was a fairly nonlinear, complex, mature RPG, something rare then and still rare now... it was a modern update to the acclaimed Interplay classic Wasteland (which I have not played), and it was great...
Descent to Undermountain, in contrast, was a failure. It was much more in keeping with the general trend of mediocricy and failure of the RPGs of the mid '90s than the rennaisance brought on by Fallout and Baldur's Gate (and Interplay's 1997-2002 record of being the best RPG publisher on the planet). It was Interplay's last attempt at a first-person RPG, kind of in the Stonekeep style (in itsself probably a bad idea, as that style of game just never worked as well for an RPG (first-person with hack and slash combat -- Stonekeep, Ultima Underworld, Elder Scrolls, etc) when compared to better combat systems for first-person RPGs like the turn-based systems of Wizardry or Might & Magic... but they wanted to try again, and some of those first person action RPGs had been pretty good. Unfortunately, this one wasn't. Not even close. In fact, it was pretty much awful. Sad... The Descent engine just didn't work for the game, and the rest of the game didn't work well either...
I've never played Descent to Undermountain, actually, but with its reputation (seemingly well justified), I never exactly wanted to...
![[Image: logo_bos_79x76.jpg]](https://www.tendocity.net/logo_bos_79x76.jpg){kind=logo}