I miss old SSI games and all the beauty and wonder they brought me as a child. Perhaps it’s more of the feeling of playing old MS-DOS games and that no worries feeling of playing games all summer long when your parents are out working; no cares in the world but that of the evil dragons and goblins of an RPG world. Secret of the Silver Blades arrived in May of 1990, developed and published by Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI), a company we covered in our gaming history back in TD Gaming Podcast Episode 9.
Secret of the Silver Blades is actually the third in a four-part game series which was eventually packaged in the Gold Box editing of the SSI games. It was a continuation of the game Curse of the Azure Bonds and the first in the series: Pool of Radiance. The cool part of the series was the leveling system where each would let you level to a certain limit just like most modules in D&D games, this game let you get to level seven which means a Mage could use the cool Delayed Blast Fireball spell which was one of my favorite magic spells in D&D (yeah, I’m a dork.)
The graphics were a whopping 16-colors, with slight graphical improvements over the other two prior games. This game didn’t have an overworld map like the others, going full first person for the length of the game. Another great enhancement was the ability to use the arrow keys to navigate menu’s without the need for “hot keys” like older SSI titles, given the game is very much menu-based for combat, equipment and inventory management it was very handy to have the use of those nice little arrow keys.
You create your party and start adventuring in a game engine very similar to all the games before it, so introduction to game mechanics was minimal, you could advance your characters further in level and, most importantly, import characters from previous games. The D&D world is really a character-driven game environment and you grow fond of your characters and understand the best ways to battle with them, importing is key and still, today, is a big part in well done RPG expansions (Guild Wars is a great example). Unfortunately, many games fall short of character import and it kind of blows away some of the magic of an RPG.
One of the frustrating issues with Secret of the Silver blade is the limitation on levels for the Cleric, because they can’t level up past 7 they can’t get the good ressurection spell, only allowed to use Raise Dead which lowers your characters constitution by 1 (much like the traditional D&D rules). However, given its a video game and not a paper-dice based game, the raise dead penalty is annoying, so it was easier to save often and re-load when you died to try again and avoid the penalty. I do recall their being some scrolls or something to get back your constitution penalty… but it’s been awhile I might be making that up.
Anyway, a well done series, classic RPG and helped build a foundation for games like Morrow Wind and Oblivion in my opinion.
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@Dead Island – wrong version on Steam:
Since its a digital distribution channel, it is easy to fix …
@Lord British wants to make another Ultima:
I said it in another post: as a developer, either you sell the IP to the publisher and enjoy the money, or keep the IP and retain control. You can’t do both, have the cookie and eat it.
@Crytek rebukes “unlawful layoff” claims
Europe labor laws (Germany included) are a bit more weird. They would send labor inspectors to check how many extra hours you’re pushing etc. etc.
That’s one extreme.
The other extreme is bad planning that leads to all-development-crunch-time.
There has to be a middle ground.
@ Steam on Xbox Live Marketplace:
Newell wants EA to start selling their titles on Steam again. The way he goes about it is by trying to squeeze market space away from Origin; if EA would like to make more money, they would have to go through Valve’s Steam.
@console “limitations” in Battlefield 3:
PC rulez 😀 !!
Now, while 30 fps in a shooter is fluid, at 60 fps you do get better reaction time from the game. And for online shooters, this matters.
There is a reason why competitive shooter games run at a simulation tick rate at 60 ticks per second, 90 ticks per second and even 120 ticks per second.
Question is, for the fps count to matter, will Battlefield 3 be a competitive online multiplayer? Something tells me that it aims to be one.
@Black Ops map packs hit 18 million sold
What pisses me off is that modders can’t sell the maps they make, but developers can. And nowadays (case for Battlefield 3) there won’t be any modding tools. Way to go to maintain a community …
@PSP:
This will come as a shocker: I like Jonah’s idea about a simple handheld console, that does only gaming.
In terms of gadgets, I don’t like multipurpose ones. My phone only does calls and text messages (and live for 5 days from one recharge), so from a portable handheld I only expect it to play games.
@QOTW:
In the second STALKER game, Clear Sky, they changed the damage mechanics and the weapon accuracy (nerfed it).
Now, while I loved the fact that you could customize your gun in Clear Sky, changing the base accuracy AND making enemies die only from headshots caused a lot of frustrations.
This was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that the first game had decent guns and enemies would die also from body shots.
Thankfully they reverted a good deal of it in the third game.
@Steam on XBL – That would be great but, as Jonah said, Microsoft would be putting out Arcade Games for 15 dollars while Steam is having a sale, selling the same game for 5 bucks. I wish it were so, but I understand why is isn’t.
@Black Ops Map Packs – I have purchased all four map packs (the last one was free due to the fact that I had the Hardened edition of the game), and I, like many, only purchased them for the Zombies maps. The problem with that is I have to pay for the four crappy multiplayer maps instead of them offering the Zombies maps as separate content.
@QOTW – Bioshock is easily one of my favorite games of all time, but the hacking in that game annoyed me horribly. Thankfully, they changed the hacking mechanic in the sequel, so at least they learned from their mistakes.
I enjoyed hacking in Bioshock. Deus Ex: Human Revolution does it better, though.
I found the hacking to be more tedious than enjoyable. But, to each their own.
guys,jonah ,just to let ya all know that im still listening and i observed that the podcast is getting better,i didnt have time to comment coz i was playing minecraft and studying, and guys if you have a minecraft account but you dont play anymore plzzzz message me and try to give it to me because im stuck with a cracked account and im really broke so plzz i beg you all @qotw i never encounterd those things because i enjoy all of my games ,ps dont stop the podcast keep it going
edit you could message me on Facebook ,name; oliver lance de leon