Equally Strong and Weak RPG
I was a little taken aback after reading the review by Gamespot. I agree with a few elements of the article but the author clearly does not understand British humour (which the game is based on). I have to disagree that the game developers of The Bard's Tale were out to "lampoon" RPG's and Fantasy. Why would they spend all that time, effort and money in making the game in the first place? No logic there! Just to make fun of it? I highly doubt that. British sense of humor is very dry and sarcastic, and unless you are familiar with it, one may take offense where none was intended...well at least not intended for hostility between those that they poke fun at!
Anyhow, The Bard's Tale is not a great RPG, but still worth a play when bought from the discount bin. The game takes a different perspective on the "hero" by featuring a scoundrel instead of Mr Law and Order that plagues every other RPG. I kinda liked being the nasty hero. It was refreshing.
The story line is ok and the graphics are pretty good, but it is the voice acting that truely steals the show in this one. Absolutely brilliant. The problem though with having the entire game verbalized is that unless you have 10 discs, the game is going to be short due to the high amount of memory that is gobbled up. That is definitely a con of this game. Way too short for an RPG.
The fighting and movement is similar to all the other games that use the same software engine (eg Baldur's Gate, Champions of Norrath). I tend to like turn based RPG's versus button mashers like this one, but this should satisfy people who don't like turn-based RPG's because of the lack of arcade-style action.
A couple of things that I really did not like about the game are the very lame world map and the terrible ending(s).