The Bard's Tale strikes a sour note...

User Rating: 4.9 | The Bard's Tale XBOX
I paid: $0 (borrowed it)
I would pay up to: $0 (borrow it!)
--------------------------------------------
Thank goodness I borrowed The Bard's Tale from my friend. Had I bought it, I would've been more upset with myself than when I bought Enter the Matrix. The Bard's Tale is a hack 'n slash that attempts to be a satire of genre, yet fails to be anything different than the games it rips on. Even more damning, it manages to be a lot worse than any of them.

You play as the Bard, a ragamuffin rogue that uses his limited magic abilities to get some free room and board, as well as a little female companionship to keep the cot warm. You can choose to handle each NPC converstaion in either a nice way, or a "snarky" way. This has very little impact on the game's progression, and while some of the humor of being a jerk works at the beginning of the game, it quickly grows tiresome. That's the biggest problem with The Bard's Tale. At first, the game does have some funny bits. In particular, the narrator does a good job of ripping on the Bard. However, it eventually devolves into a set of ill-mannered humor and stupid ballads. It's clear that the developers loved their own jokes, even though they aren't that funny, but ran out of them about half way through. It's aggrivating that this game has some great voice talent, but horrible writing.

Graphically, this game is serviceable, but not very noteworthy. It uses the same game engine as Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath, but doesn't do much with it. The characters are rather boring looking, and the enemies aren't anything to write home about. NPCs, in particular, just look ugly. The locales are about the same as the rest of the genre, but manage to not look as good as the games TBT is based on

Combat is changed in a few notable ways from BG:DA, and I do applaud InXile for trying something new. You cannot just sit and block all day, wait for an opening, and button mash. Blocking is a timed event now, and you'll need to use it effectively to parry and counter enemy attacks. At the beginning of the game, you don't have the skills to parry. This will cause you to get wiped out until you get used to attacking and retreating. Also chaged is the magic system. You only have one ability in this game, summoning creatures. Some summons are more useful than others, but all have a particular function whether it be to block magic, disarm traps, or fight alongside you. Over time, you can summon multiple creatures. Before this point, the combat is really awful and slow. Once you get a small army, the combat does pick up a bit. However, it doesn't keep combat from getting very repetitive and boring.

The most notable aspect of the Bard's Tale is that it isn't very good. The overall tone of the game is off, and the humor is generally not funny. Given that there are so many more hack 'n slashes out there that actually are good, I can't recommend this game to anyone. Stay away. Stay far away.