Jolt Country

http://www.devilwhiskey.com

I bought this the other day. It's like the Bard's Tale. Only in the 21st Century.

Anyway, for starters: I made up six guys (you can have up to eight in your party) and wandered into town. After playing for about a half-hour, I went back and saved. This was all before I got the patch.

When I went back to the game, I couldn't load my saved game. It just completely locked up my PC. So that was somewhat below average.

They really did make the patch difficult to locate. I don't know how I could have got it without using the login and password I was assigned when I purchased it. Most publisher and dev sites try tricking you by hiding the patch away on their site under "support" or "files" or "downloads" or something. I guess if you just put the word "patch" on your website people think your wares are buggy and that would certainly destroy your business, a buggy PC game and all.

The 1.1 patch didn't resurrect my original save game, but it restores my new ones nicely enough.

Initial impressions is that the game is hard. My guys are dying as fast as I can bring them back to life in this game. You also get into a "random" fight in the first town at a ridiculously quick clip: After all my guys were killed, I rolled a new character to drag their corpses to the healing temple. I had enough money to bring them all back to life, but not to heal them all (they had one hit point). When I left the temple, a bunch of camping dwarf and warrior maggots attacked me. The game didn't even show me the town for a split-second, it went right to the combat screen. Additionally, it doesn't look like there is a heal spell available to any first level caster, so you're dependant on the temples from the get-go.

So it's tough. Big deal, I don't mind. The original Bard's Tale was brutal from the beginning. The music is pretty solid so far. The art features a lot of stuff that looks hand-painted. It seems as if they got a few artists with different styles and just had them draw their fantasy characters and images without strictly disciplined art direction. But I don't really care. It all still looks nice.

As the person trying to read behind you as you play this game, the music is ok, but the samples are too short. As much as you fight, and as short as those snippets are, I hear the same 15-second-long, very recognizable clip about 214 times per night. And that's only the couple short-term sessions you had while you were trying it out and buying me ice cream from the store (thanks). I don't know if game designers ever realize this, but when you're NOT playing a game, you can hear it anyway, and most game sound effects are ANNOYING AS FUCK. AND REPETITIVE. AND ANNOYING. Music? Good. They could've done a bit better with it, tho.

The artworq is appealing.

You starting to play a new game as the clock is ticking down on you finishing another certain game?

NEGATIVE.

Listening to video games from afar is like listening to Batman from another room. I mean, how many times can Vicki Vale scream? Why can't she just kick ass? Oh, I forgot. BECAUSE SHE'S A FUCKING PUSSY!

Yeah, my 4th level transsexual elven barbarian wore stiletto heels, too, but at least he could pick locks with them. Well, if I rolled above a 16, he could.

Those repetitive sounds are annoying. I remember back when Jonsey and I shared an apartment and his brother would come over, I kept hearing the same soundbite coming from his computer:

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! C'MON!!! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! C'MON!!!"

I think it was some football game. Funnily enough, the voice sounded just like RobB's. Curious.

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Those repetitive sounds are annoying. I remember back when Jonsey and I shared an apartment and his brother would come over, I kept hearing the same soundbite coming from his computer:

"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! C'MON!!! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! C'MON!!!"

I think it was some football game. Funnily enough, the voice sounded just like RobB's. Curious.

I think "TACKLE YOU maggots" was also in there a lot. For a while I went with speedy linebackers that couldn't tackle well.

Anyway, the worst sound effects of all time:

2) The Star Trek: TNG game. The third mission. You're in a room where... shit, I don't know. It's a mystery of some sort and you've got to manipulate these machines to get a potion or a vial of some shit. Who knows. Anyway, there are two sound effects that are played over and over again. The first a short buzzing sound. The second? A skull-piercing, ear-bursting ZZZxxaazzAAZZZazzz sound at about 140 decibels. And you pretty much have to stay in the room until you solve the puzzle. And you can't turn the sound off, because the game used voices for the characters telling you when an "action" was successful or not. TNG may have been a good game, but fuck, I wasn't sticking around to find out.

1) Jeff knows which game this is: CASUALTY! CASUALTY! CASUALTY! CASUALTY! Christ I hated that fucking game.

right now B's playing some game where you're a yedi and you bat a penguin.

*honk*
*fling*
*wee* (echo, echo, echo)
*honk*
*fling*
*wee* (echo, echo, echo)
*honk*
*fling*
*wee* (echo, echo, echo)

makes leo laporte look much less doable. i can't concentrate on the pussy stroking.

AHEM.

Yedi?

She means "yeti", of course. I don't have the link for that thing, but I was playing that earlier... too damn addictive.

I think we all need to take a deep breath and focus back on the important thing: the Devil Whiskey.

I printed out the manual today. It's 100 pages! I'm going to read it while Vitriola has a little nubbin of choco. That's what we do around here -- choco and Whiskey.

The last time I checked out the site for that game, I thought it looked interesting but I still can't fathom how anyone has the time to play these games. I just remember the hours I put into Bard's Tale 2 with the Quest For Clues book at hand, cheating like a motherfucker and getting mass amounts of money and shit like that, and yet I still could never beat the first fucking dungeon.

Plus, I never could decide what kind of spellmaker I should be.

Long after I had forgotten this conversation, the ubiquitous url showed up in my Yahoo IM box.

Penguin game

WHEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Roody_Yogurt wrote:The last time I checked out the site for that game, I thought it looked interesting but I still can't fathom how anyone has the time to play these games.

You sort of have to "make" time. If that means playing it at work or giving your special someone some roofies and gobbling up Devil Whiskey time for the 36 hours until the roofies wear off, then so be it.

Hey, Jeff Foxworthy just dropped by.

Jeff Foxworthy wrote:If you roofie your gurl-friend and you spend the time playin vid-ee-oh games... EWE MAIGHT BE A REDNECK HURRRRRR

Maybe he meant "geek." I don't know.

I just remember the hours I put into Bard's Tale 2 with the Quest For Clues book at hand, cheating like a motherfucker and getting mass amounts of money and shit like that, and yet I still could never beat the first fucking dungeon.

Say! I want a copy of the Bard's Tale 1 hint book. Thanks for reminding me. I need a sidekick for events like this. "eBay Boy! To the crime computer! Bard's Tale 1 Hint Book awaits!"

Plus, I never could decide what kind of spellmaker I should be.

BONUS EDIT:

What? You had seven slots to choose from in BT2. You could have seven different kinds of spellcasters!

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:

Jeff Foxworthy wrote:If you roofie your gurl-friend and you spend the time playin vid-ee-oh games... EWE MAIGHT BE A REDNECK HURRRRRR

Maybe he meant "geek." I don't know.

What does it make you if you jump out of post-coitally blissful bed to go download songs from Kazaa?

What if you get mad at your man because he doesn't do ENOUGH programming?

Holy shit, Captain Kangaroo died...

:( I really liked him.

BONUS EDIT:

What? You had seven slots to choose from in BT2. You could have seven different kinds of spellcasters!

If I recall correctly, you couldn't start as some types of spellmakers and had to change class. Whatever the case, I never could decide if I wanted to stay with the type of spellmaker I had or take that gamble and try to be that other shiny magic thing.

Choices like that in a game usually mean I'll absolutely suck at it.

Vitriola wrote:What does it make you if you jump out of post-coitally blissful bed to go download songs from Kazaa?

The best girlfriend ever.

What if you get mad at your man because he doesn't do ENOUGH programming?

The best girlfriend ever.

Holy shit, Captain Kangaroo died...

Yeah, but let's not get side-tracked here.

Roody_Yogurt wrote:If I recall correctly, you couldn't start as some types of spellmakers and had to change class. Whatever the case, I never could decide if I wanted to stay with the type of spellmaker I had or take that gamble and try to be that other shiny magic thing.

Ah! Luckily for you, BARD'S TALE EXPERT was lurking around the other day.

What does HE have to say about these things?

Hullo! This is the Bard's Tale Expert!

Roody, as you know, there were a total of four magic using classes in the original BARD'S TALE. They were:

o Conjurer
o Magician
o Sorcerer
o Wizard

The first two classes were immediately available to all players. They were also signficiantly easier to advance! The number of experience points needed to gain a new level in those two classes were much lower.


... The Bard's Tale Expert realizes he needs to be at a meeting! FARE WELL until later!

Which port did you play back in the day? I was playing BT2 on the C64.

(I ask, wondering if the version you played had quicker loading times... I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of anyone playing through any of these games.)

Roody_Yogurt wrote:Which port did you play back in the day? I was playing BT2 on the C64.

<i>Everything</i> had quicker load times than the C64.

That's because other systems, like mine, the Apple ][, had a reasonable memory-mapped disk interface, instead of a <b>1200 baud serial interface to the disk drive</b>. Which is what the C-64 had.

Bruce