AAAAGGHH! I just acquired and played KQ MoE for the first time and I am amazed at how bad it seems. It doesn't (so far) play much like an adventure at all. In fact, it appears to be more of an action game that even a RPG.
People regularly knock QFG5 and say it really didn't live up to the series. (I for one thought it was reasonably good, though a slight let down after Shadows of Darkness). If QFG5 is a disappointment, then what can I say about KQ MoE? It is a blight on the excellence acheived between KQ3 and KQ6.
I don't like KQ7, but at least it is clearly an adventure game and was made in the same spirit as the others. MoE to me is an insult to Roberta Williams' name.
KQ MoE
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Even small aracde sequences would be ok - eg: the seahorse ride in KQ2VGA and the robot fight at the end of sq(3?) - but having the fight legions of zombie in real time 3d combat from the offset is not what I was hoping for.
Rog, I don't know if you were serious with what you said, especially since you added a
, but I do think QFG5 was a good game. It played very similarly to the other games in the series with some changes made since it was 3D. Other than the combat and the map system (both of which i didn't like), the game was more or less the same as the rest and, in my opinion, worthy of the series.
Rog, I don't know if you were serious with what you said, especially since you added a
, but I do think QFG5 was a good game. It played very similarly to the other games in the series with some changes made since it was 3D. Other than the combat and the map system (both of which i didn't like), the game was more or less the same as the rest and, in my opinion, worthy of the series.-
ThreeHeadedMonkey
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Re:
MoE was an adventure game just as well as the other KQ's were. Only MoE took a different approach at the gameplay.
Sierra was sold during production, so Roberta didn't have total control over the game.an insult to Roberta Williams' name
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Senor Matt
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I played that game a couple of years ago and I couldn't even bare to play past the second level it was so terrible! 
I think that game should be permanently blotted out from the memory of all sierra fans and faculty and if another offical KQ is ever made it should be named KQ8 instead of KQ9.
Yes.. there is no mask of eternity and there never was one...
... that game never existed...
and freedom is slavery and ignorance is knowledge.
I think that game should be permanently blotted out from the memory of all sierra fans and faculty and if another offical KQ is ever made it should be named KQ8 instead of KQ9.
Yes.. there is no mask of eternity and there never was one...
... that game never existed...
and freedom is slavery and ignorance is knowledge.
I enjoyed the game kinda. The real problem is that it is basically a Tomb Raider knock-off. I mean, I enjoyed it when I played it and some of the concepts were really cool (I really liked the Dimension of Death), but in all seriousness it just gets tedious after awhile. I played all the way through it I think twice and then I haven't in a long time. If I ever play it these days, I play to the Dimension of Death and then quit because the DOD and Daventry were my favorite parts. Sad, yeah, but that's just how it goes.
I did also play all the way through, mainly because it wouldn't be fair for me to judge it if I didn't. While I was playing it, I actually did want to continue playing it.
I think this is mainly due to the addictive nature of the RPG elements. There's just a drive to kill more things to get more experience and more loot and to work at getting better equipment. This drive exists even in really bad games. This is clearly illustrated in Progress Quest. The "game" consists solely of rolling a character (picking a name, class, race, and stats, none of which make any difference). The rest is all automated; the computer will defeat monsters for you, complete quests, sell items, buy equipment, etc. There are status bars for everything. The disturbing thing is that Progress Quest is actually fun. It's satisfying to make progress there, even if it's completely meaningless. Thus the great appeal of the Number That Goes Up. MoE has this is as well.
Despite this, I stand by my statement that it's a bad game.
The graphics are hideous. Being able to see the polygons is always a bad sign, as is seeing the pixels on a texture. MoE was released in 1998. That year also had Half-Life. However, MoE was closer in graphical sophistication to Quake 1, released in 1996. That is, when it came out, it was already severely outdated graphically. And when that's supposed to be one of the strong points...
It also misses one of the necessary features in 3D games: the ability to set your resolution. You only have 640x480, unless you have 3Dfx, in which you can get up to 800x600. There's simply no excuse for not allowing higher resolutions.
Then there's the interface. One of the essential parts of an action game is smooth control. You should be able to control the game effortlessly, not even noticing that you are using your keyboard and mouse. A clunky interface will kill the game. MoE's is about as clunky as you can get. You can't edge forward; you always make a huge step instead. The jumping is horrendous. You can't jump, only leap. So there's absolutely no subtlety of control there. And there are the ridiculous black flips. And then there's the awful thudding when you run into things. There's also no strafing at all, nor mouse look. And, perhaps worst of all, you can't attack and move at the same time. Combat consists solely of "click, click, click," or perhaps "run away, click, click, run away." So, considering how often precise movements are necessary, the interface is very clunky, and considering how important combat is for the game, the combat system is really awful.
There are also the ridiculous wait times. Saving and loading takes some significant time. Worse, though, is the time it takes to load a new area. Instead of giving you the option of a full install, it'll always just copy new areas as you need them. And delete them afterwards. And it takes a long time to copy them. So, while you're saving perhaps a few hundred megabytes of hard drive space, you're spending minutes upon minutes of your time waiting. Whoever thought of this system, and didn't think to allow users to make a choice (even in 1998, the extra hard drive space wouldn't have a been problem), should be forced to watch that loading screen for a week straight.
Then there are the puzzles. Especially the jumping puzzles. The "try to jump with the clunky interface, die, wait for it restore, and try again" kind. Those just make the game so much more fun.
Then there's the plot. Or rather, there isn't.
Really, even if I completely disregard that it's not a KQ game or an adventure, I still can't say that it's good.
I think this is mainly due to the addictive nature of the RPG elements. There's just a drive to kill more things to get more experience and more loot and to work at getting better equipment. This drive exists even in really bad games. This is clearly illustrated in Progress Quest. The "game" consists solely of rolling a character (picking a name, class, race, and stats, none of which make any difference). The rest is all automated; the computer will defeat monsters for you, complete quests, sell items, buy equipment, etc. There are status bars for everything. The disturbing thing is that Progress Quest is actually fun. It's satisfying to make progress there, even if it's completely meaningless. Thus the great appeal of the Number That Goes Up. MoE has this is as well.
Despite this, I stand by my statement that it's a bad game.
The graphics are hideous. Being able to see the polygons is always a bad sign, as is seeing the pixels on a texture. MoE was released in 1998. That year also had Half-Life. However, MoE was closer in graphical sophistication to Quake 1, released in 1996. That is, when it came out, it was already severely outdated graphically. And when that's supposed to be one of the strong points...
It also misses one of the necessary features in 3D games: the ability to set your resolution. You only have 640x480, unless you have 3Dfx, in which you can get up to 800x600. There's simply no excuse for not allowing higher resolutions.
Then there's the interface. One of the essential parts of an action game is smooth control. You should be able to control the game effortlessly, not even noticing that you are using your keyboard and mouse. A clunky interface will kill the game. MoE's is about as clunky as you can get. You can't edge forward; you always make a huge step instead. The jumping is horrendous. You can't jump, only leap. So there's absolutely no subtlety of control there. And there are the ridiculous black flips. And then there's the awful thudding when you run into things. There's also no strafing at all, nor mouse look. And, perhaps worst of all, you can't attack and move at the same time. Combat consists solely of "click, click, click," or perhaps "run away, click, click, run away." So, considering how often precise movements are necessary, the interface is very clunky, and considering how important combat is for the game, the combat system is really awful.
There are also the ridiculous wait times. Saving and loading takes some significant time. Worse, though, is the time it takes to load a new area. Instead of giving you the option of a full install, it'll always just copy new areas as you need them. And delete them afterwards. And it takes a long time to copy them. So, while you're saving perhaps a few hundred megabytes of hard drive space, you're spending minutes upon minutes of your time waiting. Whoever thought of this system, and didn't think to allow users to make a choice (even in 1998, the extra hard drive space wouldn't have a been problem), should be forced to watch that loading screen for a week straight.
Then there are the puzzles. Especially the jumping puzzles. The "try to jump with the clunky interface, die, wait for it restore, and try again" kind. Those just make the game so much more fun.
Then there's the plot. Or rather, there isn't.
Really, even if I completely disregard that it's not a KQ game or an adventure, I still can't say that it's good.
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ThreeHeadedMonkey
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Re:
Actually, it isn't KQ8, just KQ MoE. The number 8 was never shown on any release.
And QFG5 was awesome indeed, perfect ending for the series.
And QFG5 was awesome indeed, perfect ending for the series.
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Blackthorne519
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I really don't have anything against 3D action/adventure/RPG games. I do have something against bad 3D action/adventure/RPG games and I do have something against 3D action/adventure/RPG games made as part of a series that has nothing to do with them.Yeah so whats everyones problem with 3D action/adventure/RPG games?
If they had fixed all the issues with MoE, gave it a better plot, better graphics, better puzzles, a better interface, better combat, etc., and didn't claim that it was a KQ game, then I'd like it.
I actually think the KQ name on MoE is a large part of why MoE wasn't an absolute flop. Many people bought it just because it was supposedly a KQ game. Even if they'd heard that it wasn't an adventure game, they might still buy it out of some sense of loyalty to the series. Also, if people generally only played KQ games and the like, such that MoE is their first 3D action/adventure/RPG game, they might not see all that's wrong with it. So, if they'd made it an independent game, market towards fans of the genre, it would almost certainly have done much worse, since the audience would actually know what such a game is supposed to be like.
well,
because it's more fun making a KQ2.5
Or a KQ9.
Or a KQ9.