One year retrospective and rating system explained

One year has passed with my blog today and I thought it would be nice with a little retrospective.

First of all, thank you all readers out there. Your comments encourages me to continue with this. To date 217 comments have been made on my 86 articles and the number of page views and visitors are steadily increasing. The worst month was in october 2011 with 354 hits compared to june 2012 that was ten times as high. By far, most readers come from U.S. but then comes Germany, Sweden, Canada and Russia.

There where a few reasons I started this blog. My first computer roleplaying game was Bard´s Tale on the Commodore 64 in 1988. Up until Commodores demise in 1994 I played every RPG I could get hold of until I was forced to switch to the PC-platform that now had become the major gaming platform. Although several good modern RPGs exist, the golden period is long over.

One day in januari 2010 I found the site Freegameempire that offered preconfigured Dosbox games from the past. I begun by playing Ultima Underworld and was soon hooked and this was followed by Lands of Lore and Planescape torment. I was already back in the past.

When I discovered CRPGAddicts blog in 2010 it was with great joy I begun to read through his efforts to complete every CRPG game released. Many of them were classics I myself played as a teenager. It was then I came up with the idea of sharing my experiences and talk about the games that today for the most part are forgotten by the masses.

His inspiration led me to start my own blog about the golden oldies, although I don´t put nearly as much effort into such an overwhelming task he has set for himself. I have no intention of completing every game I try out, for the simple reason that not every CRPG are worth the effort.

When I stumble into a bad game, or one that begins to be a chore more than enjoyment, I will tell you that, review the game, and then move on. In that way, I will cover more games and be able to put the time and efforts into the really good games out there. I hate to quit games and would prefer to complete them but one has to be realistic. This hobby is just a part of a larger life and that in itself is too short to let the inability to stop playing a bad game rule.

By far the most visited and readed post is about Wizardry VII, double that of the second one about   Demon´s Winter, which was my first revisit. I am quite surprised about both of them. The latter game is really not very well known. On the other hand what is actually read and what is only links of the screenshots is hard to know. 

I´ve never actually tried to explain my rating categories for each game, so let´s go through that once and for all. What is important to understand is that the overall most important rating will always be for the gameplay section, regardless of low points in all other scores. That makes my gameranking list a little bit unreliable since it measures how well-balanced the game as a CRPG is, but undervalues how much enjoyment it gives. I could try to weigh some parts more than others though, but in the end, the ranking of the games compared to each other is not the aim in itself and so is of less importance.

The rating system goes from 1-5 with 0.5 increments. Just double the score if you wish to compare it to a 1-10 grading system.

Gameworld & Story

Here I try to rate first how much efforts has been put into the background story of the game, including how original it is and how well it conveys the story and background through the game. Many games have only the story in the manual and you see nothing of it in the games. A good example is Bard´s Tale.

It is also about how clear your objectives are in the game and wether you always know what you are doing and why and how the game supports and drive the story forward, be it by cut-scenes, narrators, npc voices or pure texts. Most SSI Goldbox games scores highly in this part, as well as for example Shadows over Riva.

Economy

Does the game include an economic system in the form of monetary management with which you could buy items or other character driven things for ? How is the balance ? Do you feel you always lack behind and need more gold ? (that is a good thing), or do you pretty quick disregard money because you have nothing to do with it anyway (this is naturally very bad). What can you do with your money and is that part of the game well structured ? 

Personally, one of the highlights is the feeling of when you are always a bit short of gold but could save up some and then have to prioritize whether you should afford that new better weapon or armour or should you instead spend the money on buying a lot of healing potions and food ? Too much gold, too early is bad for this rating, too less and too late is bad also.

NPC & Interactions

Are there NPC:s in the game that you could speak to and that promotes the story, gives missions or just add to the background or atmosphere of the game ? How can you interact with them. One sided, or can you speak to them in dialogue options ? How does it affect the game ?

Interactions means, interactions with your environment. Perhaps you find something during your explorations and are allowed different approaches to problems or obstacles, like Shadows of Riva is very good at, or perhaps you find things to manipulate and you are given several choices of how to tackle them like in Dark heart of Uukrul. A typical game with excellent score in this category could be Baldurs Gate.

Monsters, Tactics & Combat System

Here I try to rate how well your adversaries are in the game, what - and if - they use any tactics and wether the combat system is any good. With monsters it could mean the variety between them like images, size, movement rate, different attacks (poisonous, gas, slime, rust, acid/fire breathing etc) and if they employ tactics like if they try to surround you, surrender or could retreat from combat.

The Combat System rates how fun it is to go into fight mode. More detailed are often better - but not always - as long as the interface is good. Does different weapons and armour have noticeable effects ? Do you see damage dealt and is combat based on your statistics or more on your reactions ? A typical game with excellent value in this category would be SSI:s Goldbox games like Pool of Radiance while a game scoring low on this section would be Ishar 2 for example.

Magic System (earlier Magic & Spells)

Here I rate the magic system employed by the game. How many spells are there and are they varied and useful enough ? Is it easy to use and does it add something to the game ? How does it work ?

Character generation & development

This section tries to review how well the character generation in the game works. How do you generate your character(s)?, which options are you given?. What happens when you level up and how does the levelling system works? How well balanced is the character development and will you be able to start a new game and try a different route ? This is one of the most important aspects of an CRPG. Games with a high rating in this category are  Shadows over Riva or Wizardry VII.

Map design

How good are the maps of the game, both overland and underground. Are they large, small, varied, fixed squares or irregular. Built with thoughts or just random rooms, doors and corridors without any realism built in ? A game with bad map design is games that randomise the dungeons because there is no thought behind the rooms or corridors. Example of such games could be Daggerfall.

Manual

The manual of a game is all too often overlooked. Not only is the importance of the manual to describe how the game works, your goal, background information and how to use the controls (the interface), but a good manual also describes the underlying game mechanism, have tables and stats, monster encyclopedia, tips and hints, designers notes or is just very entertaining to read. For me personally a good manual is helping to build up the atmosphere and expectations of the game. An example of a good manual is for Demon´s Winter or Wizardry VII. A manual that I could find that preserves the layout as in a PDF file will automatically render a higher score instead of a pure textfile.

Graphics, Sound & Interface
Of these three categories the interface is often the most single important item in a CRPG. Without an easy to use system to control the game it doesn't matter if the graphics and sound are excellent. I try to rate graphics and sound based on what could be expected for a game of the same period and for the same format (ie Amiga vs other Amiga games etc). A game with poor graphics per se but which is clear, easy to grasp and maximise its use could get a higher score than first meets the eye. Sound is based on music and sound effects and the effective use of it. Interface is of course how easy it is to play and use without getting frustrated. It could be how the game handles your inventory, shopping, casting spells or combat commands.

Gameplay

This part is of course the single most important one. How much fun did I have playing the game ? Does it hook my interests 10 hours into it or does it become tedious and repetitive quickly ? Is the game too large but with to little content (read Bard´s Tale 3) or has efforts been put into making each level/dungeon etc so enriched as possible ? Do you feel part of the story, does the story advance and help keep the gaming experience top notch ?

Any suggestions of how to weight the different sections for a better rating ?

Section	Weight
Map design
Manual
Magic system
Gameworld & Story
Economy
NPC & Interactions
Monsters, tactics and combat system
Character generation & development
Graphics, Sound & Interface
Gameplay