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Other Games, Development, & Campaigns => Other Games => Topic started by: James J Skach on March 18, 2008, 05:27:17 PM

Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: James J Skach on March 18, 2008, 05:27:17 PM
Interesting List...

Go here (http://www.d20haven.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=62), then go there.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: J Arcane on March 18, 2008, 05:55:48 PM
That list is a terrible joke.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Spike on March 18, 2008, 07:16:38 PM
How did I know that jenny would be in here in a heartbeat, all bitter hatred and bile...




... I love you, man.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: arminius on March 18, 2008, 07:46:23 PM
I haven't played that many in a long, long time. I remember Dungeons of Doom for the Mac, Temple of Apshai for the Apple II and C64. The former was just too brainless, but it was addictive and not very hard. The latter was really hard and not very interesting ultimately. The only one I really liked was something for the Apple II, where you wandered around an outdoors map having adventures, with neat subsystems for buying & selling, and picking up followers. Also, if you ran across a dungeon/ruin, you'd be dropped into a dungeon map you could explore in detail. Ultimately I believe your goal was to fight some evil wizard, but I think you could decide yourself when you felt ready.

I don't remember the name of the game. People have told me its name was "Apple Quest" but I've never been able to locate it under that name.

These were all clearly D&D derived, with similar if not identical attributes, classes, levelling up, armor class, etc.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Skyrock on March 18, 2008, 08:04:13 PM
The only one that I really liked was Pool of Radiance.

Another game that I enjoyed (but less) was DragonStrike on the NES, although it was more a shoot'em'up with very thin D&D veneer.

The whole real-time stuff like EotB and Ravenloft made me kill the games from my hard drive after the 2nd combat.
Hillsfar had me some time, but it was frustrating and more like an arcade collection than a D&D game.

And of course there's Heroes of the Lance, in my opinion the worst video game of all time, and in and of itself alone a good reason to loathe Dragonlance.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: jrients on March 19, 2008, 12:34:05 PM
I agree with J.  The electronic boardgame?  One of the worst things I ever owned that had a D&D logo on it.  Hell, I liked the official woodburning kit better.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: J Arcane on March 19, 2008, 01:04:49 PM
Quote from: jrientsI agree with J.  The electronic boardgame?  One of the worst things I ever owned that had a D&D logo on it.  Hell, I liked the official woodburning kit better.
The only things on that list that are actually good are NWN, and the D&D arcade game.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: arminius on March 19, 2008, 01:40:14 PM
I looked over several lists and did some searching, and I think the game I remember may have been Questron. But the dates are off, it had to have been 1983 or earlier, and the screens images I've seen don't look quite right.

One other detail I remember is that instead of just rolling the dice for you with a random number generator, the game would show a little window with rapidly scrolling numbers. You would hit the spacebar or enter or something to stop it and generate your diceroll. In theory you might be able to improve your chances by timing this right; I don't remember if I was really able to or not.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: James J Skach on March 19, 2008, 03:22:25 PM
And to be clear, I make no claims as to the accuracy of the article or it's selections.  I simply thought it interesting for a couple of reasons.

And that boardgame thingie - the guy at work who has a collection but hasn't played in 20 years - he has one, with all the pieces and the original box.  Wonder what it's worth to collectors...
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Lancer on March 19, 2008, 08:28:26 PM
No.. No.. No..
That has got to be the worst list I have ever seen.. Neverwinter Nights sucks. At least they didn't mention Icewind Dale.

Any top 10 D&D electronic game list worth its salt should have these 4 no questions asked:

-Planescape: Torment... This is by a good margin, the best overall AD&D game every made. IMHO, there is no better... The tabletop setting is just as spectacular.

-Baldur's Gate I: This is the only one they actually got right

-Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal

- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

The following two are excellent but obscure D&D console titles that deserve to be on the list as well, IMHO.

-Order of the Griffon: Little known but excellent Turbo-Grafx16 title. A fantasy game with an immersive horror storyline and soundtrack. 10x better than the Eye of the Beholder series
- Warriors of the Eternal Sun- Little known gem on the Genesis. Similar to Order of the Griffon.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Thornhammer on March 20, 2008, 10:56:27 AM
The list is just mistitled, it's more of a "history of" list than a "top ten" list.

I had that little electronic handheld game.  Bought it at Radio Shack.  It wasn't very complicated, but I was young and had fun with it.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: KenHR on March 20, 2008, 01:08:11 PM
Not a great list, but it has some nostalgia value.

I had the handheld Mattel game, too.  You had one arrow to kill the dragon with, iirc.  And watch for the pit trap.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Melan on March 21, 2008, 07:05:03 PM
A best electronic versions of D&D list without Secret of the Silver Blades and the first Eye of the Beholder game? Now come on. :pundit:
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Pierce Inverarity on March 21, 2008, 07:46:04 PM
Funny, I was a console gamer (Odyssey) before I was a role-player, but the first D&D computer game I played was Baldur's Gate.

Quite frankly, it rocked the house. BG II, not so much. NWN, only in multiplayer, but man did it deliver in that regard. Still does, AFAIAC.

That list doesn't make me feel I missed out on anything.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: J Arcane on March 21, 2008, 07:51:27 PM
Quote from: Pierce InverarityFunny, I was a console gamer (Odyssey) before I was a role-player, but the first D&D computer game I played was Baldur's Gate.

Quite frankly, it rocked the house. BG II, not so much. NWN, only in multiplayer, but man did it deliver in that regard. Still does, AFAIAC.

That list doesn't make me feel I missed out on anything.
Why the hell they didn't use NWN as the model for DDO, I will never understand.  That game was excellent in multiplayer, and an MMO that was basically just a really big NWN PW would've been sweet as fuck.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Lancer on March 21, 2008, 08:21:53 PM
Quote from: Pierce InverarityFunny, I was a console gamer (Odyssey) before I was a role-player, but the first D&D computer game I played was Baldur's Gate.

Hehe.. I actually started with both the Atari 2600 and Commodore 64 before becoming a Sega Genesis enthusiast for the better part of my teenage years.
It was not until 10th or 11th grade that I discovered the beauty of tabletop gaming and never looked back.

My first computer games were those on the C64 like "The Eidolon," "F-15 Strike Eagle", and "Star-Rank Boxing", but my first computer RPG was probably "Lands of Lore" followed by "Dungeon Hack" and the "Eye of the Beholder" series.

I was a diehard console fan until the magnificient "Planescape: Torment" changed my allegiance to computer RPGs forever..

QuoteQuite frankly, it rocked the house. BG II, not so much.

That list doesn't make me feel I missed out on anything.

Yep. Despite people's cries to the contrary, I always thought BGI was better than II.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Pierce Inverarity on March 21, 2008, 08:42:14 PM
We played the living crap out of the C64. All 1990s FPSs pale before the addictiveness of some of those early games. I recall one in which you played, well, a bear on a pogo stick. "Pure awesome" is language's feeble attempt at conjuring up the fun we had.

BTW, we did play some NWN III over the Xmas break. The only major suckage was the registration/update process. The game itself ran very smoothly, the combat visuals were spectacular, and in "hardcore" mode (normal D&D mode, really) it was just the right kind of challenge.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: estar on March 24, 2008, 12:43:32 PM
Pool of Radiance was the first cooperative computer role-playing I played. Cooperative? Well Pool of Radiance was turned based. I got it and was playing  on my IBM PC (with VGA) in my apartment when my gaming group came over. I explained how it worked and they went NEAT!. So with me at the keyboard we made up characters for each of us and then played the game. During the game we alternated at the keyboard but when it came for our character's turn we told the guy at the keyboard what we wanted done.

A fun time was had by all. Especially it was the first time our group got to play D&D together simultaneously at one time.

Rob Conley
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Kaz on March 24, 2008, 01:11:26 PM
Quote from: J ArcaneWhy the hell they didn't use NWN as the model for DDO, I will never understand.  That game was excellent in multiplayer, and an MMO that was basically just a really big NWN PW would've been sweet as fuck.

Agreed. I logged a lot more time (and had a lot more fun) on NWN online than any 'MMO' I've tried. And it wasn't the Guild Wars/WoW grind and dungeon-running crap either. We had some great characters and some wonderful, laugh-out-loud moments to go with our killing sprees.

An official PW (maybe a version of all the popular ones, Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Al-Qadim, etc.) would have been beyond cool. I'd pay 10-12 bucks a month to play that. Easy.
Title: The 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons
Post by: Spazmodeus on March 29, 2008, 10:06:23 AM
Got the boardgame for Christmas one year.  Think it broke within a week and was trashed.  Kept the figures from it for a while until I got into minis and they were deemed too crude to keep.  Doh.  Still have the handheld game I bought when it came out.  Think it still works, but haven't had batteries in it for like 25 years.