Posted August 30, 2012
Heretic Kingdoms: Inquisitor: A thoroughly mediocre isometric action/RPG ala Diablo. Feels decidedly low-frill and low-budget (no CGI sequences, no voice-acting; exposition is revealed through dialogue boxes), which wouldn't have been out of the ordinary in 1995, except again, it's released in 2005. The gameplay gimmick of Heretic Kingdoms is this "Dreamworld" you plane-shift back and forth to from the "Real World." However, that's just an excuse to fight ghosts and apparitions in the former vs. bandits and wild animals in the later, and to mask the rather skimpy enemy bestiary. Combat is simple but made burdensome by awkward control schemes. Theoretically you can customize the character towards a fighter, thief, or mage character, but in reality the bias is heavily towards fighter; the other two build options are quite impractical in combat (Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader suffered from a similar problem in the later half, but at least that was a much better written and designed game in the first half). An oddly self-deprecating and sarcastic sense of humor also permeates the game, like the writers from Bard's Tale were on loan, which really trivializes any sort of epic adventuring vibe the game was going for. As far as your action/RPG knock-offs go, Nox or Divine Divinity is leagues beyond this dross anyway.
Metalheads: Replicant Rampage: Very poorly translated Russian cRPG. Weak Fallout clone with some slapdash cyberpunk elements thrown in. Boring, plodding, and aggressively linear. Stiff American voiceactors reading abysmally translated Russian is especially painful to listen to.
Ultima IX: Dragon Edition: The extra money I spent as a teenager for the deluxe boxed version was icing on the turd cake of momentous disappointment as a gamer, and betrayal as an Ultima fan.
Singles: Flirt Up Your Life!: It's embarrassing to admit I even have this in my game library, but there you go. I never played The Sims during the initial craze but decided to see what all the life-sim fuss was all about with this German-developed knock-off that was ported to America. Basically it's the exact same sort of game with simulated (and heavily blurred) sex scenes if you pursue the "romance" subplot to conclusion that's written into the code. The "writing" in that subplot makes an episode of Friends read like Jane Austen.
Incidentally, I bought these during the last hurrah of Brick-and-Mortar stores before most of them shuttered their windows or were bought out. Since then in the Digital Distribution age (basically the only PC game in town) I've been a much more discriminating gamer and make very few impulse buys, so the number of outright clunkers is much less.
:P
