GAME REVIEWS

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Exile

Telenet/Working Designs - 1992 - U.S.A.
CD-ROM



Hit and miss effort from the venerable Telenet, localized for the US by Working Designs. Exile is an adventure RPG where most of the game is played out in sidescrolling action areas that are linked together by world/town maps. The game has nice, bright, well-shaded graphics, some parallax where it counts, good to great music and an easy to navigate and use menu system.

This guy offers lots of helpful commentary throughout your journey. Pay very close attention to his words.


You can't help but ponder the thought process that led up to this comment.


The game falters in the one area that really counts, though-- the gameplay. I played through this game for the first time in about 4 hours and never once really felt challenged. Some of the level designs are kind of nice and maze-like (I liked that aspect), but on the whole the game felt very short and perhaps somewhat rushed during the design and planning phase (although what IS there, looks nice and polished). Leveling up is pretty quick and painless, and you are usually always strong enough to defeat your foes without much effort whatsoever. After such epic adventures like Anearth Fantasy Stories and The Legend of Xanadu, this game almost feels like a joke, but at least the superficials keep it a bearable one.

Exile isn't a total disaster. It's a mildly fun game capable of providing a nice diversion for a lazy Sunday afternoon. But it's hard to get really excited about a game like this when the vast Duo library, rich in RPGs, has so many other fantastic adventures awaiting your attention.

Posted by Ai Cho Alexei at 2:11 PM