Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 Enhanced Edition: iPad

In recent news, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 Enhanced Edition by Overhaul Games is going to come out this summer for the iPad as well as for PC. This is great news for anyone who owns the overpriced, overheating little bugger (if you haven't heard recently some issue came up where the new iPad 3? was shown to overheat to several degrees over anything seen before, mainly when playing games like Infinity Blade, that put that extra strain on the processor). There's some screenshots already of what the game is going to look like, and you'll be glad to hear that no part of that virtual joystick shenanigans will be involved in the user interface.

Overhaul Games

As far as the technicalities, the games are going to be available for all versions of the iPad. So if you liked the experience of playing Final Fantasy 1 and 2, FF Tactics, or Tekken on your iDevice, look forward to the summer release, for an epic RPG experience.

On a side note I believe that iDevices are an amazing medium to bring back some classic titles. Few people would sit down in front of a TV to play Battle Tanks on the NES these days, but throw that onto the App Store and people will pick it up instantly.

Planescape Torment: A Classic RPG Tale

Planescape Torment is a classic RPG from 1999 by Black Isle. The game is based on the same Infinity Engine (by Bethesda) that is getting a big renewal right now for Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 (expected sometime this summer). Planescape Torment is a party-based RPG with a unique world set in the rules of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, although it has its own unique storyline and setting, which revolve around the various Planes that exist in constant motion around the city of Sigil.

Sigil itself is a place, loosely based on some Forgotten Realms lore, where people end up in a sort of limbo, between life and permanent death. You wake up on a stone slab in the mortuary, and soon find out that you have a very interesting past. Apparently you've been reborn various times, and you have some kind of problem with achieving that permanent death, and to top that you lose your memory each time you die, so the only clue to what happened to you in your previous lives is a set of tattoos on your back. Also people tend to refer to you as the Chosen One for some reason.

The game possesses all of the basic RPG elements of the era and some more, you have item slots for your gear, potions, and various objects in the game acts as keys to solving the quests. What makes the game special is the strangely unique world. Nothing works right in Sigil. The city is in constant motion and the decisions you make may even end up changing the architecture. As a result of completing some quests it's possible to end up with some NPCs never existing, with no-one having any recollection of them. Every arch-like structure in Sigil is also a portal to various places within the Planes, if you're carrying the correct object with you, or humming the right melody. Hence the people of Sigil are in constant terror of walking through an arc and ending up in a pit of fire, or in some other dimension full of demons.

The character has some very weird past, it seems every time you were reborn, you ended up as a different person. As you go through the game some people hate you and call you a monster, others remember you as a saviour. A constant theme in the quest to find who you really are/were is the question "What can change the nature of a man?"

Along the way you'll also meet several interesting companions - among them a floating skull, named Mort that's been following you for quite a while and is there with you from the very beginning.

What makes this RPG a cult classic, that's gathered a solid following throughout the years, is the incredible imagination of the developers. Every choice in the game is meaningful in some way, the characters are layered and fascinating each with their unique story. If you're into the Baldur's Gate series, or you enjoyed playing Fallout 1 and 2, this one is definitely for you.

Fallout: Apocalypse Made Fun

Fallout is one of those games that people hardly get into nowadays, but if they do they never forget the experience. Fallout 3 and it's subsequent expansions have both brought some new players into the series, and at the same time made it a little bit harder for them to appreciate the older games. As a hardcore Fallout 1 and 2 fan, I have to hear constantly that they're virtually unplayable because of the 2D isometric graphics, or the unwieldy (for today's standards) interface. Despite that I hope this review is going to give you some incentive to at least get interested in if not play Fallout 1 and 2, since for what it's worth they're the forefathers of the series. 


Beyond any sentimental value Fallout 1 and 2 are both exceptional games. There's a reason the story is what it is nowadays and it all started out with a Diablo-esque intro in blocky, pixelated CG, and the words "War, war never changes." It's sometime after the global nuclear war that could have happened but didn't in reality, several hundred years to be exact, and beyond the surface the world has changed very little. Gangs of mercenaries and pillagers wander the nuclear wastes in a predominantly deserted North America (no pun intended, but indeed most of North America as well as the rest of the world have been turned into desert flat lands). Only a few bastions of humanity still exist, strewn across, the tribe you yourself hail from, the New Californian Republic, New Reno, San Francisco. Among the desolate fields mountains and canyons those have gradually sprang up as people started coming out of the Vaults. The Vaults being government ran projects to preserve humanity in concrete and steel bunkers around the US, in case of an all out nuclear conflict. The Vaults are something more than that as later becomes apparent, experiments, and quite opposite to the obvious point they served, their purpose was never one to save humanity from extinction.

The first game starts out in one of those Vaults, where you are chosen to be the first human being to leave it, since the doors first closed more than a century ago in pursuit of a water chip. The vault Overseer informs you that if you don't find one everyone will die as clean water will eventually run out. He tells you that there must be other vaults in the desert and they're all equipped with replacements. So if you manage to find one, do everything in your power to obtain it.

Having left the Vault you'll encounter the various, though strange life that 'thrives' outside. Radioactive waste has created a special breed of mutants, both from the normal flora and fauna and from the former human inhabitants of the lands. You'll meet mutants, who are large and strong and generally can't be reasoned with, ghouls which are basically humans whose skin has been burned nearly off and mind hazed by the radiation, beyond any semblance of memory of their former human nature, plants, geckos, scorpions. Most of all you'll face off endless bands of scavengers and tribesmen, out to get you and all you may possess.

The gameplay is classic isometric RPG, with the combat being turn-based and relying on action points for anything and everything. The weapons are a mix of pre-war technology and sci-fi energy and plasma guns, but that's not the high-point of the game. Even though the combat is involving and interesting in itself and you'll spend a large amount of time and gain enormous satisfaction in outfitting your character with the best gear for your level, where the game really shines is the atmosphere and the storyline. Fallout lets you do a lot more than you would have expected of an RPG with a largely trivial plot-line. We've seen dystopian worlds in games before, we've seen post-apocalyptic, but if you've never seen the way Fallout does it you've missed out on a significant part of why Fallout is one of the best game series ever. The characters are deeply thought-out and convincing. The areas are beautifully designed to fit the style of the wasteland. The humor is typically dark and edgy, without being pretentious, or overly-attempting to shock. The closest Fallout gets to any other title of any medium, would be the Mad Max series and the 1997 film The Postman. There's even some references to the former, as the first armour your character is able to wear is a leather jacket, and the first companion you get is a dog named... Dogmeat.

The second game continues where the first one left off only a few generations forward in a tribal village that your character from Fallout 1 set up as he was unfortunately cast out of the Vault in the first game. This time around you're ordered by the tribe leader to find the mythical G.E.C.K. The Garden of Eden Creation Kit is something you may be familiar with from Fallout 3, just pour water and stir, and you have yourself a completely self-sustainable agricultural environment. The little grey briefcase is what started up Vault City, from Fallout 2. Again you have a time-limit to find the item, although this time around you can continue roaming around the game after you've completed your mission(Fallout 1 ends with you bringing the water chip back to your Vault). If you do, make sure to go by the church in New Reno and speak to the priest there, it'll help you to no end (although you'd wished you could have gotten that help earlier). Also make sure to use the mutated toe on Horrigan's corpse, and tell me what happens, because those hookers commenting on it constantly is starting to bother me after seven or eight years since I originally played the game.

But whatever you do in Fallout make sure to explore and have fun with the bizarre and often astonishingly real stories of the people that inhabit it. Then when you're finally bored you might as well stock up on some ammo and try to see if you can kill everyone. Make at least one good and one evil character if you want to completely experience the game. And don't forget to just lay back and enjoy the game. Fallout 1 and 2 are one of the few games that really bring the concept of immersion and pure fun to its fullest.   

Blizzard's Diablo: On Cutting to the Chase

Diablo is a Blizzard franchise since 1996, around the same time that Star Craft came out and a few years after Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness. What makes it a memorable game is not so much the novelty, but the execution(no pun intended). Like any other Blizzard game, it's a re-discovery of the game-play mechanics of an already popular genre, in typical Blizzard  style less of the role-playing, more of the fun of slashing up enemies. 

The first thing you'll notice when starting up Diablo is the minimalistic interface, no convoluted D&D rules involved in the character creation, no customizable character backgrounds. In fact it's as simple as choosing a character class and a name. Later on you'll be able to assign some points to your character's statistics and skills, but for now don't worry about that. If you've ever played anything like Baldur's Gate or Fallout of the same era, you might be a little disappointed at first, but everything that it lacks in the area, Diablo makes up for in atmosphere and style. The art is heavy and dark, the music is classic medieval lute, whenever you're in the small town that makes up the starting area, and a suspenseful ambiance, when you finally venture into the  catacombs beneath the nearby church.

The story of Diablo revolves around the town of Tristram, which has recently been visited by what appears to be a demonic power, infesting the cathedral and the endless layers of catacombs beneath it with scores of demons. Pieces of  both the overall lore of the world and some personal stories will be revealed to you as you interact with the dozen or so non player characters around the town. There's a blacksmith, an elder who is also a healer, an annoying kid who'll sell you some interesting gear, gathered from who knows where for a reasonable price and a witch, settled in a hut on the outskirts of town. The game itself is based on completing quests for the locals, and most of all hacking and slashing your way through hordes of the various demons and minions of Hell. There are treasure chests to hunt down, ancient scrolls that give you new abilities, and scores of items and artifacts varying from honest to God junk to items that only drop from a specific boss, or as a reward from a quest.

Finally you'll face Diablo himself, after you've trudged through more than a hundred different levels of Catacombs. As you progress deeper and deeper, at first you'll be adventuring in the catacombs of the church itself, then in a mixture of ancient tombs with dirt walls and finally into Hell itself, with alkes of lava and fire demons. Every level, except for Tristram is randomly generated and enemies don't respawn, but in case you feel that you've not quite gathered enough experience for the final battle you can always restart the game from the character screen which will randomise the levels you've already covered and reset the enemies. Additionally to the main chapel entrance every now and again as you go deeper you'll find a shortcut that conveniently leads you back to the surface, only at a different location, one may be hidden in the graveyard next to the chapel, another may be in a bunch of rocks nearby, and they serve as a sort of check-points that make it a little bit easier to go back to town whenever you need to re-stock on potions, identify a magic item, repair your gear, etc. There's also portal scrolls that will bring you back to the town from any point in the game, and then back to where you left off in the dungeon, before they close up behind you.

All in all the game feels epic from end to end. Weather you choose the warrior, rogue or sorcerer class, you won't have to worry about micro-managing your character, and that only leaves the satisfaction of plowing through hordes of skeletons, zombies and demons. Still, both the first and second Diablo games have a fascinating and rich lore, further expanded by the book series, written by various authors throughout the years. Weather you actually enjoy that sort of writing is another thing entirely. Personally I've never been a fan of video game novels, but I've met plenty of people who've read the series start to finish and can tell you exactly what happens to each King, Prince and Demon in the tale.

Diablo has been appraised universally as one of the most popular RPG's of all times. The third edition of the game is currently in invitation-only Beta and is expected to be released sometime in early 2012. The original game is available for download on the Blizzard Store for a token price.