Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Review First Mage Knight Apocalypse review - 2/5

Vault Dweller

Commissar, Red Star Studio
Developer
Joined
Jan 7, 2003
Messages
28,024
Tags: Bandai Namco Entertainment; Mage Knight: Apocalypse

<a href=http://www.gamepro.com>GamePro</a> was the first site to <a href=http://www.gamepro.com/computer/pc/games/reviews/82728.shtml>review the trainwreck</a> known as <a href=http://mageknight.namco.com/>Mage Knight Apocalypse: The Quest for More Money</a>, generously giving it 2/5.
<br>

<br>
<blockquote>Also problematic is Mage Knight's attempts to replicate the multiplayer party experience in a single-player game, an experiment that's derailed by your party members' uniformly generic personalities. For example, when you meet up with Janos Freeborn, you may choose either Janos the Warrior (axe), Janos the Marksman (rifle), or Janos the Gadgeteer (bombs). The only difference between the three iterations is the weapons they carry. So anyone hoping for a little character in their characters will be disappointed by the rigid system imposed on your allies' behavior.
<br>

<br>
Even worse are the pathing issues associated with this faux-party system. Allies constantly become stuck behind walls and pillars, enemies lose track of you when you walk out of their line of sight, and glitches allow you to hurl spells at blissfully unaware boss mobs. On occasion, we were forced to complete an entire level solo when our two computerized comrades became stuck in a maze somewhere. And people thought Everquest had pathing issues.
<br>

<br>
During lengthy invasions, battle till you drop; even if you die, you can revive at the closest save point and all the enemies you've vanquished will be gone.</blockquote>While nobody has money for decent games anymore, there is always money for trash like MKA.
<br>

<br>

<br>

<br>
 

obediah

Erudite
Joined
Jan 31, 2005
Messages
5,051
Well I hope the DS game is better. I guess it was ninja-released this week, which is never a good sign though.
 

Monolith

Prophet
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Messages
1,290
Location
München
Vault Dweller said:
During lengthy invasions, battle till you drop; even if you die, you can revive at the closest save point and all the enemies you've vanquished will be gone.
HAHA. What utter bullshit. But at least they know their target group...
 

whatusername

Scholar
Joined
Jun 14, 2006
Messages
619
Location
burp
What do you do in the lengthy invasions? Click attack and wait for everything to happen, clicking the health potion button when you need it? I never got MMOs in the first place.
 

bozia2012

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 17, 2006
Messages
3,309
Location
Amigara Fault
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again!
When you die you MUST load a game. And SAVE/LOAD is a very liberal system. There were more hardcore ones including deleting your character files (not present nowadays)... Torment had that immortality thing but I've always reloaded after death. I remember playing F2 for 4-5 hours without saving (and that is called immersion) ambushing mobsters to get better weapons, doing some cross-city trading and solving some minor quests. Of course the game crashed after said time... But the time spent was not lost as I could do everything the alternate-way.
 

Crichton

Prophet
Joined
Jul 7, 2004
Messages
1,210
Also problematic is Mage Knight's attempts to replicate the multiplayer party experience in a single-player game, an experiment that's derailed by your party members' uniformly generic personalities. For example, when you meet up with Janos Freeborn, you may choose either Janos the Warrior (axe), Janos the Marksman (rifle), or Janos the Gadgeteer (bombs). The only difference between the three iterations is the weapons they carry. So anyone hoping for a little character in their characters will be disappointed by the rigid system imposed on your allies' behavior.

It's sad that the characters are brain-dead and bland, but getting to choose their skill set is something RPGs should have had from the get-go. Imagine what some of the IE games could have done with choices like that;

Dakkon
90% warrior, 10% mage or
50% warrior 50% mage or
70% warrior, 20% stealth, 10% mage

Imoen
Pure thief or
fighter/thief or
mage/thief

Minsc
brutal barbarian or
stealthy ranger or
crazed animal-summoning shaman

I think this is an excellent way of adding party customizability to games with pre-defined, storyline-critical NPCs. Of course if the game has NWN-style disoriented babbling NPCs, it probably doesn't make any difference, but it's still a good idea.
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
I'm of two minds on this (NPC development, not MK:A :lol: ). On the one hand, sure, it's more fun to build several characters rather than just one; on the other hand, it just doesn't make sense to have total control over the development of NPCs who already have fleshed-out personalities and narratives. I'd rather be able to influence their character development, e.g. as through the rich dialogues with Dak'kon, rather than have direct access to diddling the numbers on their character sheets. But of course this is only satisfying if they're truly independent, interesting characters.
 

abstract

Scholar
Joined
Sep 20, 2006
Messages
444
Vault Dweller said:
During lengthy invasions, battle till you drop; even if you die, you can revive at the closest save point and all the enemies you've vanquished will be gone

Wtf is with all those quasi-rpgs having auto-revive? Titan Quest has this, this pos has this and NWN2 will have it. Is having to save/load too much of an effort for today's "gamers"? What is the point of allowing the PC's to die if the only inconvenience it causes is having to retrace your steps from the nearest revive point? You might as well make them immortal.
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
Otoh, Diablo 2's system (of respawning absolutely everything if you die) is punishing and stupid, at least imo. I'd much rather see areas gradually re-populated over time in a way that makes sense.
 

abstract

Scholar
Joined
Sep 20, 2006
Messages
444
suibhne said:
Otoh, Diablo 2's system (of respawning absolutely everything if you die) is punishing and stupid, at least imo. I'd much rather see areas gradually re-populated over time in a way that makes sense.

iirc, d2 only respawned monsters if you quit the game and reloaded; I might be wrong, though.
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
abstract said:
suibhne said:
Otoh, Diablo 2's system (of respawning absolutely everything if you die) is punishing and stupid, at least imo. I'd much rather see areas gradually re-populated over time in a way that makes sense.

iirc, d2 only respawned monsters if you quit the game and reloaded; I might be wrong, though.

You're wrong. :D

This may have changed in later patches, since I only played it at the beginning. But I died a few times and went back to retrieve my loot, only to have to wade through every single monster I'd just fragged 15 minutes earlier. No game restart, and total bs.
 

bozia2012

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jun 17, 2006
Messages
3,309
Location
Amigara Fault
Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again!
@suibhne: don't know what you're talking about. D2 didn't respawn all monsters after death. What version do you have? (i played up to 1.09 but i heard 1.10 changed some things drastically).

[shittalk] In original Diablo you had to reload after death. TQ has this stupid revive system but the game is so hard on legendary (for some characters even on epic) that respawning is a bless. Also big bad legendary bosses regenerate so quick that dying is not an option (Manticore on epic was unkillable for my first character so i tried several builds until i learned that you have to use different skills not just only max the damage :)... anyway when i nearly killed her she just one-hitted me and when i got to her again from the respawn she was at full health). [/shittalk]
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
bozia2012 said:
@suibhne: don't know what you're talking about. D2 didn't respawn all monsters after death. What version do you have? (i played up to 1.09 but i heard 1.10 changed some things drastically).

I'm talking about the original version, in single-player. I have no idea whether patches changed this or if there was different behavior in multiplayer. I also might be totally wrong - the last few years have been a haze of whiskey and mezcal - but I do remember ranting pretty specifically about it at the time. :?
 

Nightjed

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
675
Location
Wasteland
monsters in d2 do not respawn after death in single player or non-bnet multiplayer (cant say anything about bnet because i havent played there for years). the thing is that the monsters that killed you like to hang around your body so they might give the impression of respawning

the punishment is a gold discount (from the money on hand, not the stash) that you cant get back, the money not discounted drops to the floor so if you reload youll lose that too, and an experience penalty (i think this one is only on nightmare and hell) that you can get back if you reach your body
 

suibhne

Erudite
Joined
Aug 21, 2003
Messages
1,951
Location
Chicago
Alrighty, I'll cry uncle and you can henceforth disregard all of my incoherent ranting about D2. I could swear I remember drying near the end of the desert and then wading back there only to encounter everything respawned, but such are the ravages of age. :wink:
 

Nightjed

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
675
Location
Wasteland
there are some units that spawn new units but they only do so when a player is on their line of sight (i dont think they are even loaded on ram until you get near them so they couldnt really spawn anything)
 

Nightjed

Liturgist
Joined
Jan 27, 2004
Messages
675
Location
Wasteland
OccupatedVoid said:
From the article:
In an RPG like Oblivion...
:lol:

uh, does saying "Oblivion" work better than the good old "BOOBIES!" for marketing games now ?

just when i thought i was starting to get sick of being slapped with photoshop-processed pictures of naked implant-enhanced-women all the time
 

psycojester

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 23, 2006
Messages
2,526
Boobies are an important part of the immersion, they play an vital role in intergrating the player into the meta-game.
 

Diogo Ribeiro

Erudite
Joined
Jun 23, 2003
Messages
5,706
Location
Lisboa, Portugal
I have to agree that this type of ability selection overriding predetermined character personalities isn't too grand. In a multiplayer game this does make much more sense and at first the mention of this reminded me of online shooters where there are different play modes or specific character abilities or weapon loadouts. And most online character personalities are delegated to sycophants who furiously type leetspeak anyway, so it's no problem either.

I'm not going into a long rant about possible ideas that could have been implemented here to make this a more logical situation. Three popped up: some sort of alternate planes shifting into each other not unlike Torment's plane sliding; this would make characters phase out of their identities, allowing manipulative PCs to suggest them to *become* more like a given character type; Some kind of demigodish ability for the PC, such as being able to slightly tamper with space and time niches, thus being able to do some backstage altering of NPC characteristics; a scenario where souls are the NPCs instead of meat cannons. When an NPC body dies the soul tries to find a nearby body to possess. It could ask the PC what kind of body he would find more useful - with any given characteristics.

Dumb as they may be I wasn't even trying hard and they make more sense than just allowing for them to be asked on the spot to change - especially the third one.

But looking at the example given couldn't they have just allowed for the token character - and by association other NPCs - to use all of these skills but situate them in a skill tree so they can't use it all the time and thus allow for choices? An axe, a rifle and bombs all seem to be pretty useful depending on situation. Or even allow them to use all types of weapons, with associated perks and penalties depending on proficiency?

I don't know if there was any intent by the design team to adhere to any of the rules of the original system (and if there were I couldn't tell because I know zero about it), but considering there's no short amount of arbitrary variations in PnP to PC ruleset adaptations in other games, this could have been considered here.

Maybe even make it so NPC abilities are determined during dialogue but prior to the NPCs personality is defined. I assume the game does something like a cheap Force trick like getting someone in your party and asking them

PC: "So, what are you good at?"
NPC: "Oh, I dabble in axes."
PC uses mind trick
PC: "No you're not."
NPC: "...No I'm not."
PC: "You're good at raising public awareness and social issues... With EXPLOSIVES!"
and the NPC dumps the axe and reminds the neighbourhood just how bad it is being poor and horribly blown to pieces.

They could instead set up NPCs to ask the player what kind of help he is wanting. If the PC answers something that runs contrary to, or is too different, from the NPCs set of skills, he/she will refuse to go - or go but will warn the PC he/she may not be what the PC expects. And leave it at that.
 

Spectacle

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 25, 2006
Messages
8,363
Ouch.. I knew MKA wasn't going to be a good RPG, but I didn't expect this kind of trainwreck, I thought it migth atleast be a fun dungeon basher.

It seems the devs aimed low but still managed to miss their target.
 

The_Pope

Scholar
Joined
Nov 15, 2005
Messages
844
This kind of thing restores my faith in humanity - looks like the lowest common denominator actually does have some standards.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom