Strategic Simulations, Inc., 1995
MS-DOS 和 Windows
Strategic Simulations, Inc., 1995
MS-DOS and Windows
自从 90 年代早期游戏销量锐减之后,SSI 就失去了《高级龙与地下城(AD&D)》的版权。因此,公司便让《死亡之地(Deadlands)》和《狂野世界(Savage Worlds)》的作者 Shane Hensley 为接下来要推出的游戏创作一个新的奇幻世界背景——这款新游戏便是《亚丁世界》。
名为亚丁(Aden)的世界本是一片祥和,然而一天突发神秘日食,这场异变被称为“黑暗降临”(Darkfall),世间由此开始滋生恶魔。为了抵御邪恶的夜行生物,生活在亚丁的居民们要用魔法和科技武装自己。
After the decline in sales of their games during the early 90s, SSI had lost the AD&D license. So the company had Shane Hensley, author of Deadlands and Savage Worlds, create a new fantasy setting for their next games – the World of Aden.
A peaceful world until a mysterious eclipse called the Darkfall brought demons into the land, Aden had its inhabitants employing both magic and technology to defend their world from the evil Nocturnals.
《雷霆之柱(World of Aden: Thunderscape)》是亚丁世界观下的两部游戏之首。它是一款 3D 的地牢探索游戏,开篇会让你根据原创规则来创建四人小队。这一规则提供了九个种族、五种特质和十八种技能——其中包括非战斗系技能,比如偷盗(Pickpockets)、撬锁(Lockpick)、花言巧语(Fast Talk)和外星生物学(Xenology)。
组建好队伍后,你们便会从深谷的谷底出发,踏上抵御夜行生物大军的旅途。虽然游戏的画面并不出色——整体色彩是灰暗的棕色系,渲染距离也不尽人意,但你在走出山谷的途中可以见到商店和电梯、发现秘密和谜题、还能遇到两名可以招募的 NPC 队员,这便显得游戏开局还是挺有意思的。
游戏的战斗系统设计尤其出色。战斗虽然是回合制的,但是由于交互很有效率,动画也比较简短,所以会显得整体节奏很快。游戏还给你提供了许多选项。光是战斗行动就有 20 多项,比如狂暴攻击(Berserk Attack)、强力一击(Mighty Blow)、踢(Kick)、射击(Shoot)、盾击(Shield Bash)、佯攻(Feign)、弱点瞄准(Aim for Vitals)、格挡敌人进攻(Block Enemy Advance)、闪避背刺(Dodge Backstab)等等,甚至还可以使用花言巧语(Fast Talk)来贿赂或是迷惑敌人。你还可以手动调整法术施放,自己设置施放法术需要消耗的魔力值。
地牢探索类游戏中很少见到这样有深度的设计。然而,不幸的是,游戏的其余内容不足以支撑起战斗系统的亮点。大多数敌人都太简单、太蠢了,你不需要充分了解整个战斗系统就能轻松击败敌人。再加上游戏会让你一直走回头路,敌人还会不断重复刷新,不一会儿你就会觉得无聊了,还是开着自动攻击系统快速通关吧。
还有一点问题在于,虽然游戏的首个区域内容丰富,但其他地图基本都是没什么特色的庞大迷宫关卡,你只需要乱走乱逛,找到钥匙就能去往下一关了。
《雷霆之柱》虽有创新,但总体感觉更像是某款更加完善的游戏所投下的一片阴影。它也有出色的系统设计,但其余内容不仅没能支撑起这一特色,反而让游戏体验变得简单、无聊而重复。不过,至少游戏中以吉他为主的背景音乐十分优秀。
Thunderscape is the first of the two games set in the World of Aden. A 3D dungeon crawler, you start by creating a party of four characters using an original classless ruleset, with nine races, five attributes and 18 skills – including a few non-combat ones, such as Pickpockets, Lockpick, Fast Talk and Xenology.
You're then taken to the bottom of a valley, where begins your quest to stop the Nocturnal army. While the graphics aren't impressive, with brown muted colours and poor draw distance, it's a fun start, as you climb the valley coming across a shop, an elevator, secrets, riddles and two NPCs you can recruit.
The combat system is especially well-designed. Turn-based but fast, thanks to the efficient interface and quick animations, it also offers a great deal of options. There are over 20 combat moves, such as Berserk Attack, Mighty Blow, Kick, Shoot, Shield Bash, Feign, Aim for Vitals, Block Enemy Advance, Dodge Backstab and even the Fast Talk skill to bribe or confuse enemies. Spells can also be tuned, as you can set how much mana to spend when casting them.
It's a depth rarely seen in dungeon crawlers, but, unfortunately, it's wasted on the game's poor content. Most enemies are too easy and stupid to force you to fully use the combat system. Add a lot of backtracking plus rapidly respawning enemies and after a while you'll get bored and just auto-attack everything.
And while the first area is content-rich, most others are giant, featureless maze-like levels that just require you to randomly explore until you find the key, item or lever you need to open the next level.
While it was innovative, Thunderscape feels like a shade of a much better game. Great systems are in place, but the content fails to take advantage of them, offering instead an easy, dull and repetitive experience. At least the guitar-driven soundtrack is excellent.
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1 译者注:开拓者角色扮演游戏(Pathfinder Roleplaying Game)是一款 2009 年由美国 Paizo Publishing 所推出的桌上角色扮演游戏。