Lord of the Rings, Volume 1 (1994)

Interplay's 1990 adaptation of Lord of the Rings for various computer platforms was a pretty decent one for its time, taking the skill-based roleplaying element of games like Wasteland, having an engine and game world somewhat similar to Ultima VI, and being a relatively faithful adaptation of the books besides.  The 1994 SNES game of the same name is a much different beast. largely exhuming the RPG elements of the original in favor of a more action-driven experience.  In fact, it seems to draw some inspiration from 1993's Secret of Mana, allowing up to five players to join in the action via the SNES's Multitap peripheral and battle their way across Middle Earth.  But while I'm admittedly no big fan of Secret of Mana,  I can say that is a much superior experience to this one - the rather drab world design of the computer game carries over here, meaning you'll be wandering through an awful lot of dull, indistinct corridors (and enormous dungeons comprised of the same) on the way to your goals.  The story is also padded out to the point of inanity with dull fetch quests, and even the gameplay itself is bland - there's no new equipment to earn and only a few utilitarian items to find, and no means by which to revive fallen allies - once a character is dead, they're gone for good.  The whole thing is pretty tedious and not very fun - even moreso if you're playing alone, where you have to put up with lousy party AI that runs headlong into danger and dies almost immediately (also a common problem in Secret of Mana, I found; but at least in that game you could resurrect your dead comrades).  Even some detailed graphics and wonderfully-realized music and ambient sounds for the hardware can't salvage it, making it a game that was pretty quickly forgotten in its time and is downright dire compared to modern action-RPG outings.  Which may also explain why Volume 2 never got a console adaptation.

Developer: Interplay Productions
Publisher: Interplay Productions

Released: 1994

Platform: SNES

Lord of the Rings, Volume 1 (1990)

Lord of the Rings is of course a highly popular and influential franchise; beginning with the source novels from the 1950s, it's gotten all manner of adaptations to radio, film, television, stage and even video games, and it shows no signs of slowing down.  Interplay, a name pretty well established in the RPG field with games like The Bard's Tale and Wasteland, created two different adaptations of Fellowship of the Ring - a 1990 computer RPG similar in design to the Ultima games, and a 1994 action-RPG for the Super Nintendo.  The 1990 game is pretty solid for what it is, having you venture around Middle-Earth as Frodo and friends and following the overall plot of the book pretty closely, though with quite a bit of side-content added for variety and even quite a few new characters can join the party to aid you.  It is rather light on actual role-playing elements, that said - there is little, if any, opportunity to customize your characters' abilities and equipment (all you get is one weapon and one piece of armor), most puzzles just boil down to "use the right skill at the right place, and if you don't have a character with that skill, recruit one", and combat is pretty shallow overall, mostly just coming down to trading blows with monsters and hoping your dice roll better than theirs.  This version did get a sequel as well as a CD rerelease, with the CD version providing a much-improved UI (including a minimap and no longer having to look up story paragraphs in the manual) and utilizing some clips from the 1978 animated film at key story moments.  While it's still not an incredible game by any stretch, it's a solid enough adaptation of the books and will probably provide some entertainment for die-hard fans.

Developer: Interplay Productions, Silicon and Synapse (Amiga)
Publisher: Interplay Productions
Released: 1990
Platform: MS-DOS, Amiga, PC-98, FM Towns

Tales of the Unknown Volume 1: The Bard's Tale

 One of many dungeon crawler style games released in the '80s, Bard's Tale is considered one of the finest from the era.  It had some quite good graphics for its time, with animated corridors as you moved through towns and dungeons and some pretty detailed (and often grotesque) portraits when you encountered enemies and NPCs.  Mechanically it had some pretty interesting additions too - there were a wide variety of races to play as and four different magic-user classes, and one could swap between them to diversify their repertoire of spells as the game progressed.  The titular Bard class plays a major role too, able to sing various songs to aid the party both in and out of combat as an ongoing effect - boosting chance to hit, restoring HP, decreasing Armor Class, and so forth, and you actually get to hear the music in-game as it plays - pretty nifty.  They were necessary in other ways too - many dungeon puzzles were impassable without one, and in a clever twist, they actually had to drink wine or ale to restore their singing abilities between battles.  As the adventure progressed, one could even recruit certain monsters into their party to give themselves a pretty significant edge; only one could be recruited at a time, though.  Bard's Tale is also quite infamous for its ruthless difficulty - reviving allies is ridiculously expensive even at the lowest levels, stat gains from leveling up are totally random, enemies attack you almost constantly, often in enormous groups, and as the dungeons go on they start pulling some extremely dirty tricks.  Not just in the form of damaging traps, but all manner of scripted nastiness from level drains to permanent charms that can absolutely devastate your party; sometimes irreversibly.  Basically, be prepared to either go through a lot of characters until you get your footing and considerably more even once you do, and even then you'll have to savescum an awful lot.  But if you're into these sadistic old dungeon crawls and want to see one with quite a bit of imagination behind its design, Bard's Tale is right up your alley.

(The remastered versions on the Bard's Tale Trilogy compilation are considerably more forgiving than the original releases, although if you're so inclined you can enable a "Legacy Mode" that restores the original version's difficulty and some/all of its irritating quirks)

Developer: Interplay Productions, Krome Studios

Publisher: Electronic Arts, Ariolasoft
Released: 1985, 1986, 1987, 2019
Platform: Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Apple IIGS, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Macintosh, MS-DOS, NES, PC-98, ZX Spectrum, XBox One, Windows

Swords & Serpents

Most first-person dungeon crawling experiences on the NES were relatively mediocre ports of computer games, but Swords and Serpents was an exception, being built exclusively for the system and taking advantage of its capabilities to deliver something relatively unique for the genre.  But does it prove to be a satisfying experience for genre fans, or are they simply better off sticking to MS-DOS?

The NES has several iconic RPGs, but nearly all of them are Japanese in origin.  While most obviously drew inspiration from early CRPGs - Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy being two prominent examples - they took advantage of the hardware's capabilities to create a fresh and new experience that looked and sounded good, as well as making substantial interface improvements and curbing a lot of the overly irritating quirks that made those games difficult to enjoy for all but the most masochistic gamers.  While made for a younger audience, many older gamers found them more fun as well, leading to a split in the genre that drove both camps to up their efforts for later projects.

Most ports of computer games to the system didn't fare quite as well, doing little to tone down the irritating elements of the originals and adding plenty of bugs of their own.  Names were changed, items didn't work as they should, and the push to add graphics and sound mostly just made them slower and less fun to play.  Swords and Serpents was a definite oddity, however; being made by a western company and specifically for the NES definitely set it apart.

Further setting it apart was the fact that it was a slightly more actiony take on the genre, with a simpler UI, relatively fast-paced combat, little focus on stats and even multiplayer support; if one had an NES Satellite or Four Score, they could have up to three friends join them on the adventure, each controlling one of the four party characters.  The game put a relatively minimal focus on stats (paring it down to just Strength, Intelligence and Agility), has only three classes and keeps a minimap on screen at all times, making it one of the easiest games of its type to pick up and play too.

Of course, the game isn't entirely a cakewalk or it wouldn't be particularly fun.  Random encounters are frequent, and locating a temple so one can heal up and restore their MP quickly becomes key to not getting overwhelmed by their sheer frequency.  Finding clues and new spells hidden throughout the game, saving money to upgrade equipment, and finding shortcuts back to earlier floors to solve puzzles are other key elements of the experience.  Floors are also relatively large, so it may pay off to have maps handy (or make your own) regardless of the minimap present on the screen.

Interestingly for an RPG on the NES, Swords and Serpents features no battery backup, instead opting for a password system.  It's implemented in a rather strange way, though, as there is not one, but FIVE passwords - one to track your progress in the dungeon, the other for each of your four characters.  This does theoretically allow each player to power up their characters separately on their own time, but this does come with a couple of drawbacks.  First is that you have to punch all five passwords in each time you game over or turn the console off, and second is that gained experience resets to zero each time you do.  So if you're even just a few points away from a level and get wiped or turn the game off, you have to start from scratch at whatever level your last password recorded.

Swords and Serpents, all in all, is a competent and entertaining dungeon crawler.  It reaps the benefits of being built for the NES console. having some nicely detailed visuals, relatively good music (by George Sanger) and sound, and a simple, easy-to-use UI.  The option to have multiplayer gameplay is a novel one too, if somewhat underfeatured, and while somewhat clumsily implemented, one can also power up their characters separately without having to use the same cartridge.  It may not reach the plateau of being a classic of the genre, but it's a fun, decently-long and well-made experience that won't break your wallet.

Developer: Interplay Productions

Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

Platform: NES
Released: 1990
Recommended Version: N/A

(There is also an Intellivision game titled "Swords and Serpents", but it has no relation)

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

A spinoff rejected by fans of the PC series and ignored by console gamers who had no previous exposure to the franchise, Brotherhood of Steel is a Fallout game without a home.  But was there at least some merit to be found for the few that did play it, or is this one franchise offshoot that is heavily maligned for good reason?

Fallout is among the most highly-acclaimed of all CRPG franchises, with some even going so far as to credit it for reviving the genre with its emphasis on quests, world-building and gameplay that actually felt like a tabletop RPG and not just devolving into a mindless kill-fest as most RPGs before then were wont to do.  It found a new level of fame and attention in 2008 with Fallout 3, a revival of the franchise now under the helm of Bethesda Softworks; while the gameplay was now reworked to be more action-driven, Bethesda's talent for building huge open worlds and intriguing settings paid off, making it a game that found appeal among old Fallout fans and bringing many new ones on board too.

Among both old and new Fallout players, however, there is one game that is almost never spoken of - Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.  The only console-exclusive game in the franchise, which was famously released in a period where Interplay was in a financial crisis and putting out quickly-made cashin titles - in other words, the complete antithesis of Fallout, a game noted for the care and attention put into every facet of its design.  That was certainly evident in the game's reception, too - shunned by fans and given mediocre scores overall by reviewers, it sold an abismally low 120,000 copies across both platforms, making it the worst-selling game in the series and the lowest-rated Fallout game until 2018's Fallout 76.  Even Bethesda Softworks barely acknowledges its existence, only commenting to confirm that it is considered a non-canon entry due to many elements of its lore contradicting those of the series proper.  But is it really as bad as its reputation would have you believe?  I was intent to cut through the hyperbole and find out, so I went and picked up a used copy.

The first thing to note is that Brotherhood of Steel plays very unlike any other Fallout game.  Rather than being turn-based or even turning it into an open world action-RPG as the later games do, Brotherhood of Steel can more aptly be described as a "Diablo-like".  Playing in the Snowblind Engine (the same one used for the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance spinoff franchise), Brotherhood of Steel utilizes a top-down perspective and a rather simple real-time combat engine, with nearly all of the gameplay consisting of shooting approaching enemies or taking them out in close quarters with a melee weapon.  The player can also lock on to single enemies and from there can perform a quick dodge while locked on with the Triangle button, though as this also greatly slows their movement speed, its usefulness is dubious in melee combat.  And of course, numerous crates, boxes and barrels exist solely to be smashed open in order to find more ammunition, money and the occasional piece of equipment inside.

Second, RPG elements in the game are rather minimal on the whole.  There is an experience system in the game, and by defeating enemies and completing quests, the player earns "Perks" that give them small bonuses for future combats - from getting more health back from stimpaks to bonus HP to a slight boost in melee combat damage or critical hit chance.  Still, these really don't add a lot of variety to the game, as it is almost entirely focused around combat and chances to "role play" are relegated to doing sub-quests for a bit of extra resources.  Equipment upgrades are equally utilitarian, with armor and weapon upgrades becoming available in a strictly linear fashion with no opportunities to "sequence break" and even relatively few hidden secrets that may give the player an early advantage.  Probably because the game's short length (three overarching chapters, which are divided into a handful of sub-areas) and lack of free-roaming exploration simply don't allow much wiggle room.

There was at least an attempt made to give the experience some variety with its playable characters.  There are six in total - three to start and three more unlocked over the course of the game.  Cyrus is a stronger but slower character who can wield heavy weapons, Nadia is weaker but speedier and can dual-wield small arms, and Cain the Ghoul is the oddball of the group, being relatively average overall but having resistance to radiation - in fact, once he has a certain perk, coming in contact with radioactive hazards will actually heal him (a mechanic which conspicuously resurfaces in Bethesda's Fallout games).  Each also has a unique perk or two, though there isn't a huge amount of difference between them from a gameplay perspective.  The unlockable characters don't add much to this either, with two just being stronger variants on Cyrus and Nadia and the final being a nod to Fallout 1's protagonist (though as he is exceptionally powerful, he is only available on a second playthrough or later).

Some other trademarks of the series are conspicuously absent.  Ron Perlman's iconic narration is gone (replaced by Tony Jay) and the 1950's comic atmosphere is largely lost, with tunes of the era now replaced by ill-fitting hard rock and metal songs (including tracks by Skinlab and Slipknot) and the aesthetic overall bearing very little resemblance to the franchise proper, with the only tenuous tie being occasional load screen art or a snippet of an FMV ripped straight from the earlier Fallouts.  The closest it comes is the design of Jane, the game's first major villain, who is a lewder (and much crasser) caricature of Bettie Page, but even that feels like it was done just for cheap T&A rather than trying to match the setting.

"Crass" could also aptly describe the game as a whole, as it seems more intent on showing sleaze than building anything resembling a story or atmosphere.  Between near-constant appearances of women in skimpy clothes, a rather juvenile sense of humor, plentiful cursing and combat seemingly built around splattering foes as messily as possible than anything resembling mental engagement, it feels like a game meant to get cheap reaction and sales from kids whose ages have barely hit the double digits.  Given Interplay's finances at the time of its release, it probably was, too.

But for all of its faults, Brotherhood of Steel isn't a terrible game when judged on its own merits; it is at least a competently made top-down hack-and-slash with a few RPG elements beneath the surface, and it can provide a few hours of mindless entertainment, especially with two players working in tandem to clear it.  But the fact that it carries the name of a franchise that built its name on intricate lore, an immersive roleplaying experience and deceptively deep gameplay where one's choices actually had a tangible impact makes it a very disappointing end to Interplay's involvement with the franchise.  There is little wonder why Brotherhood of Steel failed to find an audience, as fans of the Fallout series and gamers who were fans of Diablo-style action-RPGs both had  better options available that didn't make them feel like they were being pandered to by cynical marketeers who were on the verge of losing their jobs.

Developer: Interplay Entertainment
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
Platform: Playstation 2, Xbox
Released: 2004
Recommended Version:  Both versions seem to be identical, so just pick your platform of choice.

Fallout

Interplay's return to Computer RPGs was lauded as a true role-playing experience, unlike the heavily combat-driven design of most others of the era.  But does it live up to the hype, or is it just another mindless shoot-the-monster simulator?

Intended at first to be a sequel to Interplay's 1988 hit Wasteland, Fallout eventually became its own IP when EA showed no intention of relinquishing the rights to that title.  Both titles do show a lot of similarities (taking place in a North American setting after a nuclear war), but Fallout ultimately took advantage of the technology of the era to create a more fleshed-out experience in every respect.

As its tagline implied, Fallout was intended from the get-go to be an actual role-playing game; rather than solving problems only with force, the player had a variety of options in almost every scenario, and all of them were equally valid.  For example, to resolve a kidnapping that happens early in the adventure, the player can take a stealthy approach to free the hostage, negotiate for her release, challenge the leader of the raiders to a one-on-one duel, or simply go in guns-blazing and wipe them all out.  One even had the option to go down a less savory route and join the raiders themselves, and the game treated all of these options as equally viable.  It is even possible, with some effort, to go through the entire game without your character killing anyone.

Supporting this, the game features a very complex character customization system, deeper than perhaps any other to that point.  The SPECIAL system gives the player seven stats - Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck - and a list of skills, three of which can be "tagged" for faster growth over the course of the game.  The player also has a choice of up to two Traits, which each carry their own advantages and drawbacks.  For example, Small Frame grants the player an extra point of Agility at the cost of significantly reducing their total carry weight, and Jinxed causes the player and everyone they encounter to get many more critical failures in combat.  The numerous combinations of skills and abilities available, as well as the gameplay styles afforded to each, lends Fallout some considerable replay value.

For every 3 levels the player gains, they also gain access to a list of "Perks" that grant them new abilities or enhance their existing ones.  Action Boy gives the player an extra AP for each combat turn, Bonus Rate of Fire reduces the AP cost of using guns (allowing the player to sneak in an extra shot or two per turn), and Fortune Finder will double the amount of money the player finds in chests and random encounters.  Unfortunately, these don't support the multiple gameplay styles nearly as well; many of them require a high stat or skill level as a prerequisite, and getting to that point with that skill/stat generally makes them redundant.  As a rule of thumb, only the combat skills are the ones that prove consistently useful here.

Where Fallout truly shines, however is in its writing.  A post-apocalyptic setting generally lends itself to a heavy mood and a bleak amosphere, and the same is true to a degree in Fallout.  However, it also possesses a more light-hearted tone in many respects as well, seemingly drawing some inspiration from 1950s-era science fiction and comic books to deliver some more outlandish elements (like giant animals and people mutated into more grotesque monsterish forms), as well as a wry sense of humor in many respects.  This is also punctuated by the occasional "talking head" NPC, who are given a fully-animated model and even some surprisingly decent voiceover with the aid of professional actors like Tony Jay, Jim Cummings and Richard Dean Anderson.  There is even a surprising amount of dialog with many NPCs in the game, as well as a large number of text logs and computer files to read that effectively offer a lot of insight into the world and its lore from the perspective of people who lived it firsthand.  This alone makes Fallout a much more compelling experience than many RPGs that fall back on the lazy "plot codices" that simply explain the events leading up to the current day in a dry Wiki-like format.

Despite a somewhat poorly-planned Perk system and some unbalanced gameplay elements, Fallout was (and remains) an important milestone for the genre. It proved to be instrumental in turning Computer RPGs away from being mindless monster mash-fests and truly putting the Role Playing aspect into them.  By giving the player numerous paths to complete each objective and a true sense of consequence for each choice they make, Fallout felt much more alive and dynamic than any CRPG before it, and it continues to be one of the finest examples of design to this day.  Its sequels may have surpassed it in many ways, but without such a strong foundation to build them on, we'd probably still be seeing a lot more mindless first-person monster bopping simulators.

Developer: Interplay Entertainment
Publisher: Interplay Entertainment
Platform: PC
Released: 1997
Recommended version: N/A