Darklands

The Good
It was soooo fantastically imersive. I created these characters, I designed them & specialised them. And after playing the game, I regenerated my party, creating a group of ULTIMATE warriors! I called them by name & armed them with a vast array of high quality weapons, armour, alchemical potions & heavenly saints.

The real-time strategy thing was just starting at that stage & Darklands clearly lead the pack. In many games since then, I've wished for a darklands style combat interface. The ability to freeze the action & issue new orders is awesome. Newer RTS's can be soo frustrating where combat happens sooo fast that it's all over before you can issue intelligent orders. Are there any other RTS's where you can arm units with ranged weapons as well as melee weapons? Darklands again lead the pack with its realism - how many archers would realistically have gone into battle armed only with their bow & quiver? Surely they would have carried a sword of sorts. Darklands reflects this sentiment, allowing units(characters) to carry several types of weapons at once, changing weapons when melee combat was joined.

The Bad
The limits of the Darklands world. Oh how I dreamt of crossing the Alps into Italy, traveling west into France, and across the Channel to England. And travelling East to Russia, and south-east to the Holy Land. The world was my oyster. The hints of expansion packs... Of gaining world wide fame... Oh well.

As others have already mentioned, the repetitiveness of skirmishes was another feature I occasionally tired of. Every thief & thug is identical... Every dwarf, every bear, every wolf, every... always the same image. Ten years ago it didn't make much difference - gameplay (incredible gameplay!) distracted from any disappointments with the graphics. These days, it's almost expected that games use different sprites or bitmaps to provide a mediocum of variety to normally mundane interactions.

Since Warcraft2, AOE & Starcraft (to name a few) have been around, fights with less than 10 units have become mere skirmishes. In a way, I wish that Darklands would have allowed you to control vast numbers of units, or at least become involved in major battles - (possibly allied with a Lord or King?)

The Bottom Line
Overall, I spent the 2 most important years of my educational life wasting(!?) my time playing this awesome simulation. In a way Darklands not only lead the way for real-time-strategy games, but it also paved the way for the currently new-generation of Role-playing Strategy games. Just check out World of warcraft, Warcraft 3 or Planetside. Every one of these has great similarities to Microprose's greatest title of all time. DARKLANDS.

The Good
People seem somewhat excited about it.

Map of Germany is somewhat entertaining and cities are accurately named.

The Bad
Almost everything else.

The Bottom Line
I recently purchased this game for 99 cents on Good Old Games, figuring it would be a very nice distraction from my usual schedule. I downloaded the installer, ran it and was ready for the greatest open-world adventure of my entire life!!! Then I installed Mount&Blade again, because this game is the most overrated crap I have ever seen. I usually refrain from flat-out calling a game crap in my reviews, but here there is just no other way to describe it. Seldom have I felt this much hatred for a game, let alone one that is so humble in nature.

Let's start at the beginning...

Upon booting the game I was given three options: Quick Play, Start a New Adventure and Continue. I wanted my own adventure, so I selected the New Game option and started making my own party. This is where my first problem comes in: YOU CAN NEVER READ ANYTHING! Aside from been just downright pixelated, the letters are also written in a front that just blends together even more. It also does the same thing as Fallout 3, where the names of stats are abbreviated to fit in a smaller window. A lot of people praised the customization, but frankly I can't get very excited about pouring points in stats like "wffl" or "Strw". I decided to put points into whatever I could decipher and clicked next, whereupon the game politely reloaded the exact same menu and told me to add even more points to my character. I picked up somewhere along the line that this moves the character through the phases of his life, but I got so sick and tired of the mere idea that I just saved the character and added him to the pre-made party. Ready to start my adventure, I clicked the Go button and went off!

Sadly the button did nothing, as did half the other buttons located in the menu. I returned to the main menu after that and just selected Quick Game. This lead me to a text-screen that filled me in on what amounts to a story. I was to take control of a group of knights devoted to good, so my previous efforts in making a sneaky thief were utterly worthless right off the bat. Things got worse when the conversation ended and nobody had said a single word in regards to what we had to do, they offered some suggestions, but no direction. Some suspicions started to arise within me, so I left the inn and 'lo and behold, I was offered a dozen options to go to places.

It's not that I don't like text-based games, but this genre doesn't mix at all with sandbox features. In this scenario all that's going to happen is that the player will do something and the game will always follow a success up with "What do you want to do now". It carries no weight to the overall narrative, nor to the player's emotions, it's just a collection of meaningless screens. I was devoted to try and get into it though, so I pursued all my leads in search of a story. After ten minutes of play I had a vague hint that their might be a quest hidden somewhere in the city, but with nighttime approaching I decided to get one quick glance of what the local shops offered.

The answer turned out to be... incomprehensible menus! I could not figure any of it out, but knowing people were going to flame me for saying this, I decided to check out the manual... It has over 100 pages! I have always stood by the notion that if you can't explain something simply, then you yourself simply don't understand it. 108 pages is therefore a clear sign of NOT UNDERSTANDING it, not even the producers knew what they were doing. I know I can just look at the first few pages to look for a page I need, but this is just so overwhelming that I'd rather just fire up anything else. By the way, doesn't it seem logical to give a few quick hints in-game, seeing as how we are already spending the entire game looking at text anyway? Games like Zork also had built-in commands that you could call upon for some quick help, so why doesn't Darklands have any?

It was now night and I was still at a loss, so as a last hope I randomly wandered around town until bandits attacked me. This was literally what pushed me over the edge, the combat is HORRENDOUS. The idea is that the fights are real-time, but you can pause the action to issue commands. I tried this, but using the mouse is so jittery that I couldn't manage to do anything, most of the time the game just beeped loudly and my guys stood perfectly still. That was the point where I force-closed the game, this was the breaking point. After I submitted my review though, I was approached by Unicorn Lynx who suggested I might not have given the game a fair chance. After having given it some rest, I decided to try once more and I found that if you are willing to dig through that enormous manual than the game can be at least playable. It doesn't fix issues with readability, the plot that doesn't exist or the obtuse menus, but I at least managed to skip town and head somewhere. I was almost starting to get into it when I walked out of a random gate and the game suddenly told me I had died, followed by a cut-scene and the game freezing on me.

I have no idea how people can get so excited over this on Mobygames, I read claims like "Darklands is an RPG that would kick the living day-lights out of today's games!" and this forced me to ask: "Really?".

You would REALLY rather play Darklands than Dragon Age: Origins.

You would rather play Darklands than World of Warcraft?

You would rather play Darklands than Deus Ex: Human Revolution?

Even if we are too place ourselves in the mindset of a gamer from 1992 it falls very flat. Zelda II was already kicking around, Ultima was already dominating the genre since 1980 and... what is supposed to be revolutionary about this game? Text-based game were around before and after this game and the combat is a massive downgrade compared to the already mediocre Ultima IV combat.

Before people bring it up, no I am not trolling anyone. I like both RPG-games and text-adventures, I have played a lot of each and also some games that combined both these genres. Darklands is just bad. It's the worst game I have ever played, in fact. The end.

The Good
Darklands is an RPG set in 15th Century Greater Germany with an attention to historical accuracy, you have the whole of the map of Greater Germany to travel across to any of the towns, villages, monasteries and other locations, that you choose. MicroProse are well known for making simulation games and Darklands is in many ways a simulation of Medieval Germany. For example; time keeping uses the monastic 'hours' of the medieval era, Matins (Midnight), Latins (3 am), Prime (6 am), Terce (9 am) etc. Currency is in Florins, Groschen and Pfenniges, the seasons change on the world map and have an effect on gameplay, for example in winter you may encounter blizzards, crossing a boggy area of the map may result in one of your party members getting stuck and needing rescue (with the loss of a couple of items) and all of the armour and weapons your party members can be equipped with are based on real world items. There are day/night cycles which affect gameplay, especially in towns.

One important aspect of the game is that the beliefs and superstitions of the time are actually real in Darklands. Praying to saints can have a direct effect on attributes and skills and is often an option to solve many other problems throughout the game. Alchemy can be used to create potions from raw materials, again these can be used in battle or as options in the text style interface while in towns or during encounters, or sold for profit. Nothing is certain however as a call to a saint may fail and an attempt at alchemy could result in a large explosion! While magical spells as such do not exist in the game witches and cultists corrupt communities and gather to summon demons in unholy rituals.

You can use the Quickstart option to begin the game with a default set of characters or create your own. When creating characters there are six possible family backgrounds, ranging from rural commoner to merchant or noble etc, they affect the initial occupations (thirty something in total) which are available and each have there own advantages/disadvantages. Naturally your characters will advance in occupation and gain attributes and skills over 20 to 65 years.

Skills are an important part of the game and they improve the more often you use them. They relate to the success of pretty much anything in the game, for example Virtue and Religion help while praying to saints, Alchemy helps with alchemy, Artifice with picking locks and disabling traps, Speak Common and Speak Latin aid when dealing with the different people you will encounter and the various weapon skills come in handy in the type of situations you might expect. Skills can also be improved by finding a tutor you can hire for training.

While the game has a very much free-form or 'sandbox' style of play, you can go anywhere anytime, there is also a main plot to follow involving the Knights Templar. Once this is completed, which is well worth doing, you can continue your adventures on the map of the game world.

There are three main sections to the game;

On the map of Greater Germany you will meet numerous encounters while traveling from location to location (it's also possible, by the way, to travel by boat between towns with docks). These can be anything from a knight travelling to a tournament to bandits disguised as merchants (and genuine merchants).

The game enters an isometric style view for combat, which is in real-time and can be paused with the space bar for issuing orders, it's a good idea to have your characters skilled in both ranged and melee weapons.

While in towns or villages or after an encounter on the map you will be presented with a watercolour style background pic, a text description and several options. The background pictures are very atmospheric and add to the unique look of the game, although they are repeated, especially in the towns, there are a lot of them and due to the number of locations it would not be practical to create a different picture for each inn, village or docks etc.

The game music is all based on original music from or around the era, and adds a lot to the atmosphere.

The ultimate goal in Darklands is fame. Your party has an overall fame score as well as a local reputation, the latter can vary greatly from location to location, keep performing good deeds and completing missions in a town and your reputation will increase in that town and the nearby area and you may even become a local hero, however fall foul with the law and your party could achieve wanted status. Taking on the bigger problems the game throws at you, such as the main plot, clearing mines and defeating raubritters (robber knights stationed in castles) provide decent increases to fame and local reputation.

The Bad
The biggest problem with Darklands is bugs, you will probably encounter the occasional glitch during your adventures so it would be wise to keep a few saves and cycle through them. I have read that the game was very buggy on release, but MicroProse did release a number of patches. I encountered some bugs even when patched to the latest version (483.07), including the famous neon bright green hair-do and multi-coloured characters, I restored a previous save and when playing through the same events it did not happen again (and only happened once in all the hours of playing).

I also encountered a strange test screen (entitled 'Initial Card for Testing Only’) which was displayed near the end of the plot instead of the correct background pic and text. Against a slightly different night docks background it gave options to enter a location while it was preparing for war, while at peace or while it was at war, it also had options to set your local reputation to -99 (the worst), 0 (unknown) or +99 (local superhero), none of these options are in the finished game, and clicking on them didn't result in much happening, whether some of these options were once proposed to be included as features in the game or not I don't know, towns having additional states of peace/war could have been interesting. A reload solved the problem.

The Bottom Line
One thing that really should be mentioned is the manual, it's about a hundred pages and covers the game interfaces/mechanics in detail followed by a history of Medieval Germany and even a bibliography of over eighty history books (grouped under sub-headings with notes) that the development team referred to while creating the game.

Darklands is one of the best RPGs I have played, it may take a while to get into, and have the occasional bug, but I certainly found it a rewarding experience! The setting is very well done and is refreshingly different to pure fantasy RPGs.