As E3 rages on around us and games are getting announced left, right and center that they're being delayed until 2015, that can only mean that it's time to hit the big red button that summons a merciful distraction to all the unnecessary hype and posturing of the biggest video games event of the year. It often feels as if the no-longer-burgeoning Indie market and an ongoing lack of faith in traditional games media outlets (hey, how about that cancelled Last Guardian, IGN?) are conspiring to marginalize an already marginalized expo event, forcing it to one day vanish into myth and legend like a proverbial Kentia Hall, but as long as the Bomb Crew find dozens of fun guests to shoot the breeze with every year the Electronic Three won't stop being a treat for fans of this site any time soon.
Talking of legends though, I've been inspired by the adventure game top-heavy Steam feature to which I just subjected you all to cover the games of the much-missed Legend Entertainment, which went effectively defunct ten years ago this January. Legend Entertainment was an American company funded by ex-Infocom employees that developed adventure games just when the genre was beginning to pick up, evolving from state of the art interactive fiction to join the golden era of graphic adventures of the mid-90s with their own specific brand of point and clickery.
Legend Entertainment has effectively three "ages":
The early years of 1990-93, when they resumed creating the deep, rich fiction that made Infocom a household name, adopting a windows system that was reminiscent of the ICOMMacVentures series. These were mostly standard text adventures, of the kind where you'd type in sentences and hope to Zork that the game understood what you were trying to do. While I have some affection for text adventures, my absurd tendency for typos made the "point and click" graphic adventures that followed infinitely more preferable.
Which brings us to Legend's second age: their (IMO) creative peak of 1993-98, when they created a series of seven games with their own persistent, point and click interface that were based on various contemporary fantasy and sci-fi novels of some repute, though there were a few entirely original stories in there too. The games of this era are usually sadly overlooked compared to the Sierras and LucasArts classics, though were still remarkable for their writing and imagination (helped considerably by their various source materials), as well as some truly clever puzzles. We'll be exploring four of these seven games in detail with some of my patented "Brief Jaunts" for this year's Alternative to E3, and I'll see if I can't squeeze a bit of info on the other three in somewhere too.
Legend's third age, subsequent to being bought out by Unreal Tournament developers GT Interactive -- which would itself be bought the following year by Infogrames and turned into Atari SA -- was an interesting time for the company, though one that would step away from the thoughtful adventure games and assume more action-oriented fare. They developed the disappointing Star Control 3, but also The Wheel of Time which -- despite being an early Unreal Engine shooter -- managed to remain as faithful to its literary source as many of Legend's earlier works. The financial tumult surrounding its father company and its father company meant that Legend Entertainment would go defunct in 2004, with Unreal II being its final project. It was almost merciful.
Death Gate
1994's Death Gate is based on The Death Gate Cycle, a fantasy series from Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman: authors best known for their Dragonlance books. The game approximates the events of the first four books, expediently and without many of the major characters. It also creates its own ending independent from the series, because the final book hadn't yet been released when the game was published. So it's sort of like the Game of Thrones TV show adaptation, fidelity-wise.
Here's where we get the backstory out of the way, so I don't have to spend half the image limit of this post to cap its in-game description: The Death Gate setting is one where a superhuman race named the Sartan sundered the Earth to halt a conflict that threatened to destroy every living creature (or so they claim). From this sundering came four separate but symbiotic worlds each based on an elemental force: one for air, one for fire, and so on. In addition, a fifth world was created: The Labyrinth, an interdimensional corrective facility into which the Sartan deposited their powerful rivals the Patryn. The Labyrinth was designed to teach the destructive and individualistic Patryn how to work together to overcome obstacles and reach the same level of community-focused serenity that the Sartan exhibited. Unfortunately, the Labyrinth's magical self-awareness mutated into pure hatred for the Patryn, and would constantly wage psychological war on its overwhelmed prisoners. Patryns died in the thousands trying to escape, befalling diabolical tricks and insurmountable challenges.
The game features one of the few Patryn to ever escape the Labyrinth, Haplo, who is sent by Lord Xar (the first Patryn to escape, and self-appointed Lord of the Nexus) to the other worlds to discover what happened to the Sartan. The Sartan were meant to stand guard at the exit to the Labyrinth, ready to welcome the newly converted Patryn to their society. Instead, The Nexus facility that connects the worlds is completely abandoned. The game, like the novels, involves Haplo travelling to each world to find clues behind the Sartan's disappearance and to occasionally fix whatever's wrong with that world's "mensch"- the three lesser races of the humans, the elves and the dwarves that the Sartan were supposed to protect.
The novels are a great read. It's a somewhat unique fantasy setting full of some really grim shit at times, which certainly helps, but there's also the palpable anger and distrust of the main character Haplo and his leader Lord Xar that's been honed after years of fighting against an incredibly powerful and hateful force that's tried its best to kill them since birth. If anything, it's made their individualism and resentment of the Sartan even stronger. Haplo's a great anti-hero as a result, only ever helping people if it benefits him or the Patryn race in some way, and who is considerably more powerful than everyone he meets thanks to his race's innate magical powers and the brutal trials that have shaped his development. At the same time, he isn't just some brooding prick protagonist that seemed to be everywhere in the 90s, and there's times when the humanity he was forced to put aside to survive in the Labyrinth bubbles up to the surface. In the history of this world, the Sartan were the good guys and the Patryn the bad guys, but it's obviously never going to be that simple. Still, Haplo and Xar are both very aware that were there more than a handful of Patryn loose in the Nexus, they could easily take over the worlds that the Sartan left behind. As well, they're deeply invested in finding some way to undo the sundering of Earth, if only to free the rest of their race from the Labyrinth.
My particular favorite is the second book, Elven Star, concerning the fire-based world of Pryan which has an inverted globe (like Terranigma, or Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne) with several small stars in the center that are meant to also provide power to the other worlds. There's a lot of secondary characters from the mensch races that the book introduces before it moves onto the tytans: an innumerable race of colossal monsters that slowly destroy the jungle world of Pryan as they march across its surface, causing mass deforestation and the death of anyone unable to keep one step ahead of them. The book does an incredible job of making the reader aware of just how dangerous these creatures are, and how irreversible and inevitable their slow doomsday march becomes, at least until it becomes evident exactly what they are, why they were created and what they are marching towards. It's very Attack on Titan, long before that series ever transpired.
Anyway, enough yapping about the books and onto some pictures. I promise the other introductions will be less wordy (I still need to read most of the novels they pertain to):
Part 1: Kickstarting This Patryn Adventure. Go Go!
We're introduced to the Sartan in the opening cutscene. Like their GI Joe namesake, they're all cloaked and mysterious.Here they are being dicks and sundering the World Glyph, separating the Earth into several smaller worlds and giving some unlucky sod a bunch of hexagonal McGuffins to find millennia later.Welcome to Death Gate! This title drop happens right after you see the Earth explode. If you're going to drop a title after any occasion, that's probably the best one.We get our introduction, and a brief look at the wonderful Labyrinth. It's a place that wants to murder you horribly the moment you step inside. Sort of like London.I don't even know what nightmarish scene we've stumbled onto here, but the game's still automatic at this point. No colossal vine monsters for us today.And here we meet Xar in the Nexus, the region after the Labyrinth, and the game begins proper.The way contextual commands work in this game is that many hotspots, like our pal Xar here, have their own specific options relating to them. If one of the seven defaults up there is insufficient, the game makes one up for you. Usually it's the one you want, but not always. I like that they never spell it out to you too often.So yeah, Patryns have a thing called a Heart Rune. Patryns (and Sartan) are separated from the lesser races with their mastery of Rune Magic, which is one of those "controlling the essences of reality directly" sort of deals. Not too dissimilar from Jedis, if I'm being reductive. The other difference is that all Patryns have black hair with white tips, and all Sartan have white hair with black tips. As far as I know, frosted tips come with the territory. The 90s, am I right?The voice acting in this game is excellent. The amount of vitriol Xar pours onto "They made it for us" and "we were supposed to be docile, rehabilitated" really helps to sell just how pissed this dude is at this whole situation. It's understandable.So the first conversation with Xar is meant to be a huge info-dump. There's a lot of backstory to get through, which is why I deigned to get it out of the way earlier. However, most of the exposition is optional (you can skip through the dialogue as well, if you want, though it's well-written and acted so why would you?)The only vital question to ask is the penultimate one, about Xar's plan. He then goes on to explain that he intends to reform the world, studying the various tomes left behind by the Sartan. Not sure why they'd leave vital information like that lying around, but then there were supposed to be more of them here. Like, more than zero.In case you hadn't been paying attention, he'll give you this summary whenever you ask about your mission. We're to find the Seal Pieces we saw in that intro, as well as learn about the disappearance of the Sartan and try to learn some magic. Haplo can cast any spell as soon as he sees the runes for it just once, such is his talent, but he has very little knowledge of them right now.Before we leave, we'll need a glowlamp. The ship is pitch black, so this is like the first minor puzzle of the game. As was the case with many early Sierra games, you earn points for solving problems. Some of them are optional, of course, so there's a very good chance you might make it to the end without solving everything.More interface stuff: The arrows to the bottom left give you all the available exits. It's essentially a graphical representation of that hoary "available exits are North, East and Dennis" interactive fiction trope. You can also hit "Map" and just walk to any area you've visited automatically, provided nothing's blocking the route. We went Northwest instead of West on the previous map, so here we are at the Labyrinth. We... we don't want to go back in there.Here's our airship. Unlike Final Fantasy (well, excluding X-2 I guess), they just give us one of these from the offset.We have a regular steering wheel and a steering stone. The stone is for interdimensional transport between the different worlds, while the wheel's for navigating locations within each world. So, warp speed and impulse speed. I guess. Why do I keep comparing this fantasy game to sci-fi?Welcome to the magic system. This is used for a number of puzzles, and it involves dropping those six runes at the top (you get more as you learn new spells) into the center and creating spells with it. There's a way to automatically cast any spell you've learned too, but there's a few spots in the game where you have to create a new spell by using your noggin.Xar gave me the spells of "Identify", which allows me to figure out how a magical item or effect works (useful for hints), and "Rune Transfer", that allows me to transfer runes from tablets to our Steering Stone here. Xar gave us the first rune tablet, for Arianus the Air Realm, but we'll need to find the runes for the other worlds before we can visit them. It's almost always the last thing you need to do in a world before you can move on.Whoo portals! Space galleons! Remember when fantasy used to be cool?And he were are on the first world of Arianus. We've had to touch down over on the bottom right continent down there, and that's where our adventures here in the Air Realm will begin.
Part 2: You Winsey Some, You Kicksey Some.
So we've landed in dwarf country. Dwarves are, of course, one of the "mensch" races who are usually subservient to us all-powerful Patryn. Or they would be if I had any spells. For now, let's just talk politely to this one.Well, I say politely, but there's usually a few sarcastic or outright dickish things we can say that usually quits you out of a conversation early. Fortunately, it's nothing game-breaking, as you can just start over by talking to them again. "Selective Memory Loss" is one of my more convenient spells.I wonder if her other names are Jean-Michelle? Anyway, we're getting our first hint that the dwarves might be getting scammed by someone more dickish than I.Exhausting all the dialogue options, generally the smart thing to do in any adventure game with NPCs, brings us to these tidbits about how the dwarven kingdom operates. The zingers (lightning rods, in other words. There's no Jay Leno business going on) are used to collect power for the Kicksey-Winsey, the ridiculously named machine that powers everything on this continent which can be seen in every screenshot via one pipe or a panel or another. Though the dwarves don't know it, it was created by the Sartan centuries ago for the purposes of assisting other worlds. We don't yet know what kind of assistance, though. So yeah, the dwarves just bought the "gods'" story because they were glowing. They aren't given a lot of credit in this universe, are dwarves.So once the talkin' is done, the stealin' (and prankin') begins. We begin by stealing some bread, the marmalade (we're told the dwarf next door, Limbeck, loves marmalade on bread), the white shirt on the wall and, sure, the elbow pipe used to hang it up. I'm sure this stuff is all useful. I mean, that's how these games work, right? Here's Limbeck. He's a bit of a fop, working tirelessly on speeches to help convince others that the gods aren't real.Limbeck knows for a fact they aren't real, because he actually saw them use their magic to turn themselves glowy, as well as spotting several that weren't yet incandescent. Given the descriptions he's giving us here, they're very clearly elves, the second of the three mensch races. Elves are assholes in this particular world, as we'll come to learn.But we're done talking. What else is there to pilfer? To purloin? To appropriate? Hey, speech guy, you getting any of this high-falutin' vocabulary down? Well, I decide to steal the cork and then dip the white shirt into the ink because why not. Fuck your laundry, tiny person.The path through the caves splits three ways here. This crossroads room happens to be completely pointless, so I'm not sure why it's even here. For flavor, I guess.The left tunnel (Northwest on the compass) brings us to Grawple Rockdigger, an ornery dwarf with hearing problems and our first "comic relief" character. We'd best get this out of the way, then...Haplo's been stuck in a hellish nightmare landscape for the entirety of his life. I'd like to see how personable you'd be after all that. Then again, this guy did call us "Flappo".So the dwarf, in his hundreds of years upon this floating rock, has seen many a thing including the possible resting location of the Seal Piece for this world and/or the rune that lets us go to the next. He wants us to fix the part of the Kicksey-Winsey he's guarding though, which will require five pipe pieces. We got one from the first room and a second from the box in this room. He gives us the third, his "hearing aid", when we ask for it. Just two more to find, and eagle-eyed viewers might've already spotted one of them (currently unobtainable).The center path brings us to this panel and one of the glowy elves. We don't want to attract their attention, for reasons that aren't clear yet but will become clear later (I guess Haplo's just the cautious type?) but we've been told the hearing of this guard is particularly sensitive.So we have our first magic-based puzzle. Given the information in this scene, we know this machine has a heat sensor and what appears to be a loud alarm behind the sleeping dwarf. Let's see if we can't set that alarm off, shall we?Haplo only truly begins with two spells: Heat and Cold. Neither is sufficient to melt or freeze an object, but we can raise or lower the temperature to uncomfortable levels all the same. You get the sense that they're basic survival cantrips more than anything.Success! An irritated elf rushes to turn off the alarm that's driving him crazy, and I can sneak past to check out the elven airship.These figurines, as Limbeck already informed us, are generating the glowy effect for the three elves currently in the caves. We daren't wake this elf wizard up while we're here (we could, actually, but it leads to an early game over. Fortunately, there's an "undo" button) but we can always steal his wine jug.Ah, dammit. The black shirt will fit over the figurines, but it's not enough to completely block out the effect. We'll need to do something more here, later.First though, we visit the slave galley underneath. Here's the reason we can't fuck with the elves: Patryns resemble humans too much, and these humans are at war with the elves. If the elves catch us, it's either death or slavery. Of course, we had no way of knowing any of this beforehand. Maybe Patryns have clairvoyance on top of everything else?Gee, I wonder if one of these slaves is an important person. Like a noble, maybe. The Duke here gives us a signet ring and the location of his cousin, King Stephen. This adds a new location to the Arianus map we can go visit.First though, we'll just check out the last tunnel at those crossroads. These are the other two glowy elves and, again, Haplo hides in the darkness. There's not a whole lot we can do here with those glimmering dickwads in the way, so back to the ship.First though, I suddenly recall a puzzle from way back when I played this game originally. I have no idea why we need the document Limbeck's writing on, except that we do need it, so I put too much marmalade on his bread and hand it to him.This has the effect of him spilling it on his document, which he then throws away. I'm sure it'll come in useful for something. At least I'll have a gross sticky thing in my pocket, if nothing else.Before I wrap up part 2, let's have a quick glance at the map function. Since I want to get back to my ship, I could simply backtrack using the compass arrows, but doing it this way is far quicker.All right, we're off. Surely the humans will be friendly and helpful, right? We Patryns deserve respect, darn it. Can't have the lower races going around thinking they're equals. (Yo, this might be why no-one likes the Patryns or the Sartan.)
Part 3: Damn Elves!
I wonder how useful walls are when there are airships everywhere, but whatever. I don't have to worry about it. A man's home is his castle, and my home tried to murder me as a baby.There's choosing the helpful option, and then there's choosing the fun option.This smug a-hole is the king. He's decided we must've stolen the ring and snuck here to... I dunno, brag about it? Between all the threats to decapitate me, I explain why I'm there and what his ol' cousin the Duke's been up to. He's not keen on helping unless I can get the elves to vacate the dwarven lands tout suite. The Dwarven lands are out of reach of his forces, but the elves have to pass through human space to get home.Anyway, I didn't get too far with that conversation, so I decide some larceny is in order. Eh, makes me feel better at least. This is one of the game's annoying pixel hunt situations, since the only object I can use this shear on is this tiny sliver of grey next to the wooden window flap (it's the iron bar keeping it shut).Oh my, they really record these cutscenes at a much lower resolution don't they? Well, here we see the court wizard cast a spell on a painting and enter it. It's a pretty good spell, so I make sure to learn it. I'm sure I'll find a thousand uses for it too.I've learned the spell, so now I can use it any time.As you can see, they get added to the list of spells I can cast. But of course, I need a relevant target for them. This one only works on realistic paintings, I guess.While I'm stealing items in the wizard's bedroom (including a candlestick. Did you see where that extra pipe was? Check part 1 again. Or don't. This isn't Where's Waldo?) Anyway, we meet another haughty jerk. This is the first elf that doesn't try to kill or enslave you, if only because he's currently unable. He won't talk to you unless you ply him with libations.See? Now he's a lot friendlier. I mean, still a speciesist dick, but what do you expect from *elves*? Oh, now I'm doing it.Anyway, you can talk about why he's in chokey, but eventually he'll talk about the glowlamp in his room not letting him sleep. He'll then explain how the spell works to you. Hey, a black cloth, eh?These fucking elves, I swear, man.But hey, two new spells for the price of one. I get let out eventually, and the human wizard isn't even all that bothered. He was holding the elf without the King knowing apparently. I... don't ask.So the first thing I do is go back to that elven ship and drape my new cloak of darkness (previously known as "some dwarf's shirt I got all inky") over the figurines. Realizing they're stuck with a bunch of angry dwarves who are looking for a reason to tear their annoying "gods" a new one, they scamper.Of course, they're scampering in my direction, which isn't ideal. Unless I want to get my heart stopped by the elven wizard, I'd better make myself scarce.The correct path to take is through the slave galley and into this store room. When the elves take off, they dim the lights so that the humans can't see them. Well, fuck that. I don't want to be on this thing when it touches down in Elfland.Fortunately, the idiots stole one of the dwarf's zingers, so I decide to light it up and it goes off on a little light show.Apparently a Pink Floyd concert going on inside a tiny ship was subtle enough for the King's forces to notice. Looks like the elves are done. Let me find a tiny violin to play for them.See, now I'm not sure if this is actually sarcasm or not. This guy was threatening to chop my head off a moment ago, so it's hard to say how I should play this.Well, one thing leads to another and I reach Skurvash inside the elven ship, led by a few of King Stephen's men. This place is apparently a dive, full of assassins and whatnot, but it's also where the Seal Piece most likely is, along with any other Sartan artifacts. Once more into the fray, I suppose. Or it would be, except I think I've shown off enough of this game for one day.
That's going to do it for Death Gate. It's a bit goofy in parts but full of great ideas and a pretty cool universe to mess around in. It's more than a little like that Book of Unwritten Tales game I played recently, in fact (the Death Gate books are way more serious, honest).
So hey, thanks for hanging out. Hope you enjoy the rest of E3 Day 0. I mean, unless people actually read these things because they hate E3 so much. In which case: Welcome! I'll be back tomorrow with another Legend adventure to show you all.
