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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Medal of Honor: Rising Sun
or
The Godfather
Mass effect 2
I’m just going to answer the QOTW seeing that I’m going to write a lot.
QOTW: Why did you have to choose this question? I have such a big problem with picking favorites, everything has its good and bad, and sometimes they are so different that I just can’t compare them.
At least I don’t have such a huge list, seeing that I only really got into gaming in 2009, but I still went back to play plenty of old games.
Looking through lists and lists of best games of that decade, I have narrowed it down to Super Smash Bros Brawl, LoZ: Twlight Princess, Super Mario Galaxy and Batman: Arkham Asylum. 4 completely different games, don’t even know where to start.
*Back after watching a couple of videos, refreshing my memory on each of the games*
While watching Super Mario Galaxy, I couldn’t help but think how much better the sequel was, which also removed a lot of the already little cons it had Seeing that, I’m going to have to rule it out.
Comparing the most similar games, Twilight Princess and Batman, I’m going to have to go with Batman by a few marks, I’ll list the reasons if it wins out in the end.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl is great and all, but I’m going to have to go with Batman simply because fighting is not one of my favorite genres and Action/Adventure is actually at the top to me.
Batman: Arkham Asylum. It is an all-out great game. It never outstays its welcome, the pacing is almost perfect. Awesome and intuitive combat, stealth missions that make you plan a whole attack, very original boss battles, good storyline, tons of interesting secrets to collect, lots of cool gadgets at your disposal, upgrades that actually matter, and overall making you feel like a badass. I have a hard time remembering if I ever played a game twice, but I’m glad to say I did with this one.
I’m sorry that I wrote so much on this topic, but it needed to be done. You may skip reading out all the rambling parts during the podcast.
@QOTW
Morrowind. I don’t even know where to begin expressing my love for this game. I will attempt to keep it short.
When I was 15, I had no job. My mother was convinced that wasting £40 on a game was bad. So I bought games that would provide me with enough content to keep me busy for a while. Morrowind was a gold mine.
I bought it for Xbox. It had everything I ever wanted. A large explorable world full of NPCs. Hundreds of quests. Dozens of guilds. And freedom. Freedom to do anything you ever wanted. Be whatever you wanted. That’s what I loved the most.
Too keep things short I will bullet point the most notable features that I remember:
-Every item had a shape and form. I remember stacking my looted gems on a shelf because they looked fantastic.
-The rich Elder Scrolls lore. The races. The continents. Everything was well thought through, well described and well implemented. The world of Morrowind was truly alive. And interesting.
-You assumed the role of Nerevarine, the incarnation of an ancient war chief. Your coming was predicted by a prophecy. However, unlike in other games where you just fit the prophecy from the start, in Morrowind you had to twist and bend the whole political world to be accepted as an incarnate. Made you feel important.
-The world of Morrowind was dark. Depressing. Alien. Nothing that it’s sequels can ever match. Everything was going to hell fast and you were at the front of it all. And the dungeons with the Sixth House Cult could be as scary as a survival horror.
-A few years later I purchased the game for the PC. Bethesda bundled it’s Game of the Year with the TES construction set. The number of fan made mods available was amazing. It was like playing a whole new game.
-Real world issues. Racism. Bullying. Homosexuality. Stuff you don’t find in your average Zelda game.
I still have lots to say, but that would take to long. As an after word, Morrowind was my favourite game not just of this decade, but ever. Although I enjoyed Oblivion and Skyrim, they can never match the delight I experience from playing Morrowind.
@QOTW Kingdom Hearts. it just has a charm that was never matched by its sequels along with solid gameplay and story and a certain wow factor compared to other action rpgs at the time. ive clocked over a hundred hours with mulitiple playthroughs and its enjoyable every time.
Battlefield 2 is still my all time favourite game of this decade
There’s been a lot of great releases over the 2000’s decade. Thinking back, there were soooo many possibilities over several different consoles so it’s difficult to really chose. So, here’s a breakdown
PC: Counter Strike (Original Addon Version)
Xbox 360: Modern Warefare (the first)
Playstation 2: Katamari Damachi (Soo addicting)
Sega: Streets Of Rage or Kid Chameleon
SNES: Street Fighter
NES: Blaster Master / Metroid (I was in love with those 2)