Only if it gets in the way of telling the full story. If the game is meant to be linear, then sure full voice acting is great since there are x amount of characters and x amount of locations that the player is going to visit. If a game is meant to be "epic" and sprawling then I think the main scenes should have voice which leaves more room on the disc for the developers to make their world bigger. Nothing more annoying in a rpg to start on a interesting side story and have it either never be finished or have it just aruptly end with a dumb conclusion. Always makes me wonder how much the game would have been better if the developers had focused on the story/gameplay instead of paying for the gimmick of everybody is voiced. On a side note when the game is fully voice acted the developerssomtimes do away with what is then termed "subtitles" which are useful for those of us who are hard of hearing and don't want to turn the volume up on the tv until the windows rattle. m.a.c

I think they would be better off without a endless source of enemies for the random encounters. Why doI keeprunning (for example)into rabid wolfman halfway into a gamewhen I've taken out 500 hundred of the things so far. Don't you think at some point A. there wouldn't be that many left to run into or B. who or whatever is creating them would have showed up to find out why I'm sending all its pets to a early retirement? I think it would be neat if some game in the future gave you the optionto find the lairs of all the creatures take them out one by oneand by the time you got to the end of the game there wouldn't be anymore evil critters (youwould be maxed out stat wise)for you to run into. Just you and the evil big guy that caused all the problems. Obviously it would be nice if the main story line reflected your efforts. I can just see about halfway througha game after clearing outseveral major monster dens the hero and his party coming up to a major boss and the boss saying "It was just you three who did all that?!" Looks at them for a minute."Here take the specter of doom." proceeds to give the partyeverything else he can think of too."I'm going totake upfishing. Where? Wherever your not" As for making the game too easy,if you chose that path through the game then the challenge would be in clearing out the dens, whichshould/would make them hard to get through since all the strong critters would be defending it.

The other two are the dungeon that respawns (as another poster mentioned)itself after you've cleared it, but your still in it. Usually without health or health regens since you just beat the boss. The final irrataion usually comes from strategy games that don't let you go back to a cleared level to build up your characters or if it does let you go back then it auto levels the eneimes to your level or puts them at a level or two higher so they are just a annoying as they were when they were encountered the first time. Either leave them as they are or if for whatever reason the game desgin demands that the enemies must level up with the player, then make it so the player's characters can level up in training exercises or somthing before they go back to the war. ma.c

The two I can think of are Beyond Good and Evil and Psychonauts. They got good reveiws buy nobody bought the things. -m.a.c

It would be great as long as when they remake them they don't break them. If they leave the gameplay and story alone and fix the controls (ex: control stick moves the character around andx button examines stuff, b picks it up and a uses it) then it would be a great trip down memory lane for some and new experience for others.

On the other hand I can see the suits in charge of this sort of thing saying it just needs to be made to work with the console ccontroller ( use theanalog stickto control the mouse pointer and hit a or somthing to do everthing) or trying to bolt some new mechanic into the game to make it more interesting and end up making it unplayable.It would be nice to play one of these again without having to apply more duck tape and bailing wire to my older computer when I want to play one of the old sierra /lucas arts games. mac

Imo you proably won't see anything like that until those games reach the level of"extremely old fashioned / old school". Most of the compilations that come out now are for the sega genesis/nes era of games which fall under that category.

Most other rereleases from the snes on, seem to be coming out for the various stores (wii vc, xbox live, PSN(though on a side note with sony charging developers for bandwith, will developers continue to rerelase games onPSN?). Those games are the popular ones usually that fall under the various companines mega hits and are sure to get at least a download or two to make it worth it to recode so that they work on the newer system.

Also another problem which I think another poster was getting at is that these games weren't exactly the best looking in the world, since developers were trying to take their game worlds to the next level, which was 3D,not top down or side scrolling as in the past.It may have looked good back then, but that is through the misty,fuzzy lens through which memory lane is seen.

The other problem is thata lot of thosegames, weren't pickup and play. They required the player to learn the control system and whatever the gimmick was for the game. Not a problem really if they all have the same theme, since controls for rpgs, action games, andshooters are generally similar. But doing that limits the audience which means there may not be a lot of sales.

What would be nice (though I doubt it will ever happen, unless another video game company or twogoes the way of sega) is if the various companies would make a console version of gog.com, where you could download whatever game you wanted(for a standard fee)and it was redone to work on whatever platform you downloaded it on.

well thats my two cents.

m.a.c (

I did like the original better mostly for the story (quests,collect things, extras, etc), but I do agree it did seem like you had more options whith your character as far as weapons and armor. It may be because they actually mattered more in that game. Unfortunatley it seems like the developers kind of lost track of what they were doing after they got done making the world bigger. They fixed the combat but took the emphasis off fighting for money to buy things, you get experience but if you want that shiny new sword you got to a. do a mini game to earn moneyor b. go buy lots of houses so you have a daily income (what? why?). My second complaint is the story. The original had a few twist and turns that suprised me (especially with what happened to the players sister) but the second game is really just a rehash of the first with a shorter begining, longer (annoying, just like the original) middle and a where is the rest of my game end. Hopefully they will get it right if there is a third one.

txr302

It depends on what exactly you like in your dungeion crawlers. I've never played the game you mentioned so i can't compare it directly. there are a few things I can say about the game however.

In my opinion the story and the atmosphere are great. The characters and story really drew me into the cursed kingdom where it was forever winter and the reaper roamed the dungeon under the abandoned castle. The game is a old fashioned dungeon crawler (most of the wizardry games if not all were on the pc) and it does not make many concessions for the console. If you want to have any idea of where you are going or may need to return to you will most likley find it easier to make your own with pen and paper. the map that the game provides is brought up via a spell and more or less shows a blinking cursor saying you are here. It does not mark shortcuts or special rooms.

The next issue is also part of where the series came from. The difficulty in this game goes from challenging to downright mean around the 6th or 7th level of the dungeon. Part of this is due to the combat system the game uses. Most of the combat is focused around the team tactics your party learns as it gains experience. If you don't learn how to use them and use them correctly in response to whatever enemy you are facing you will lose a lot or as i found out the hard way on the lower levels the monsters will level drain you and kill your party members in such a way that the temple cleric cannot restore them. In my case this meant my poor level 20 party was lowered to level 15 (one poor fella got taken down to 7) before i realized what was happening. Just to top it off i saved when i got out over my only save, then i got the bad news. Suffice to say that was the end of the game for me. forewarned is forearmed though. There are also a few gamefaqs that can tell you how to make a party that is pretty unstoppable.

The graphis are first gen ps2. There arent really any cut scenes in the game, when a event comes up or you are talking to someone two portraits come up with text beaneath them. The monsters are well done, though they do fall victim to the same model, different color as you progress through the game.

all and all it's not a bad game, if you like dungeon crawlers that are a throw back to a simpler time. give it a shot, just rember to have one save before you go in the dungeon and one for when you come out.

edit: forgot to add movement in this game is controlled by the dpad so when you tap left, you face left, you tap right, you face right tap forward to take one step forward , you tap left twice you turn around. There is a run button in the game but it is a bit clunky. it works it just takes awhile to get used to.

m.a.c

1.Button mashing sequences. Should only be used in places where it represents an action such as hacking or salvaging for example mass effect. Not for everything from fighting (in every battle) to whatever mini game the developer decided to put in that breaks game flow.

2. Graphics over gameplay. Yes everyone likes great, shiny graphics. Or in some cases gritty and dismal, but it still looks darn good. While its nice to see the splinters flying from the bullet that just missed my head, it would be nice now again if I could have other options than shooting everything moves that werent obvious. It might be less high octane but sometimes finding a way around a high body count can be more entertaining. Which leads me to ....

3. Stories that are so over the top there hilarious or so violent/ out there they make me want to suggest to the developer that they get their writers some professional help. If there is a reason for all the crazziness and high body counts then good. For example BioShock, COD4, Condemend (until it deciced to go into scifi/fantasy land near the end of 2), Mass Effect, the GTA series and couple of other have reasons for what is going on and the atmosphere goes with the game. The others out there, mainly GTA clones and shootem ups, have buckets of blood, bad stereotypes, and skimpy clothing to get them through their lack story telling/game design. To put it simply I wish companies would stop trying to shoe horn a story where it doesn't belong or at least stop recycling the same story that has been used at least 50 times with just the names changed.