The First Templar - New Website

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
Only concern is historical accuracy, it looks like they are going for 13th century Europe but there is a beast that looks like an Ogre or something in the trailer?

Yes, this irritates me as well.

But their product page says : "20 historically accurate locations have been recreated for the player to explore."

Originally Posted by Saxon1974
Only concern is historical accuracy, it looks like they are going for 13th century Europe but there is a beast that looks like an Ogre or something in the trailer?

Yep, what a bunch of crap. Everyone knows that Ogres were extinct by the end of the 12th Century.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Yep, what a bunch of crap. Everyone knows that Ogres were extinct by the end of the 12th Century.

Its probably the inbred hairy hunchback with bad teeth everyone called him a ogre.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
The black plague was about to hit and kill more than 1/3 of the population.

Well the Black Death was in 1348 so the 13th century was 1200 to 1299 so even if it is set in 1299 its still about 50 years away.

This is a nitpicky thing thoung, still curious about the game.

I do feel the whole "RPG" bit is slightly odd - so many games use the term for their marketing, despite not being aimed at RPG players. It might be that they're simply trying to associate the game with as many genres as possible to draw in the biggest possible crowd, but I honestly thought targeting the right audience was the best tactic.

Bottom line: Trying to sell meat to vegetarians is probably not a good idea.

Well, part of the problem is that the word RPG has come to encompass such a large group of sub-genres, it's hard to find out what it means anymore. RPG elements has invaded pretty much every game, while at the same time, the stuff that, for old-school gamers, used to be the very nature of RPG, has more or less disappeared from the modern iterations of the genre.

We come up with a load of acronyms (ARPG, JRPG, SRPG, …) to try to make sense of what we play, but the industry still use the abstract RPG, as Maylander said, because that's what Joe Average saw on the box of the last game he enjoyed (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect, …)

Right now, when I see those three letters on a non specialized website, it means either :
- there's stats and progression (Stalker and GTA san Adreas are RPGs)
- there's elves/magic/swords (Mount and Blade, Zelda and Magicka are RPGs)
- there's a weird but kinda deep story (Syberia, Heavy Rain are RPG)

Looks like we'll have to put up with it until we can come up with a simple definition of what is, actually, when you go to the bottom of it, a Computer Role Playing Game.

(And being new and all that, and not having lurked long enough before registering, I apologize if that has already been said a frakload of times).

Originally Posted by Jogurt
- there's a weird but kinda deep story (Syberia, Heavy Rain are RPG)

No, I disagree. All major adventure game sites list Syberia definitively as an adventure game !

But … Syberia is of a non-action adventure games tradition. Which is in comntrast to the "action advenures" a la Lara Croft, for example, which are (as I guess/assume) kind of dominating the Adventures market elsewhere (but not here in Germany) …

"Adventure" is a word…you can not really blame ol`Lara & others for adding "action" and thus describing some platformer with shooting/puzzles.

From what I see point & click adventures are not doing so bad…perhaps better than indie Rpgs. And I don`t even mean the "hidden object" games - these are all over the place.

Played the demo of "Darkness Within" recently - it`s in full 3D, a la Tex Murphy, and I was actually impressed. Might put my Adventure hat back on and try some again after….hmmm….12 years?

Here in Germny, dtp (and others like Crimson Cow and Daedalus, and several developing studios) have built up a relatively strong adventure games market - unlike in other countries.

I heard (but I have no proof of it) that Germany is the only country in which adventure games flourish.

The DS seems to offer a lot of point & clicks, though it look likes it's the Japanese take on the genre (999, Ghost Trick and other Phoenix Wright).

Never been too interested, but I might as well have a look into it, it may be interesting to see how it compares to the western ones.

Ace Attorney series is genius you have to adjust for Japanese take on the genre, but it`s really cool. I have yet to try the other ones.

Played Broken Sword on GBA some years ago…it wasn`t as bad as it sounds (No pixel - hunting, thank god)

Broken Sword - the extended version - was recently recleased for PC in a Broken Sword adventures collection here by dtp.

Here in Germany, the "Broken Sword" franchise got the name after its first German game title "Baphomets Fluch", which is = "Baphomet's Curse".
Someone gave the first game this title - and then the whole series got it, too, even those which have nothing whatsoever to do with Baphomet …

We need more publishers like dtp… showing it`s able to thrive even in niche genres.

I didn`t know they`re also releasing Gray Matter - from Jane Jensen of Gabriel Knight fame.

Yes, they did - and even a collector's edition !

There's a demo too, by the way - AND the game is delivered containing BOTH English and German-language sounds !

At least that's how I understood it.

Actually, in the adventure game community we have discovered many genre; the puzzle-game, such as Myst or Rhem, the detective game such as FBI: Art of Murder, or the investigation game such Secret Files: Tunguska or Syberia. And of course, the story based game such as The Longest Journey.

Syberia and Heavy Rain are definetely not rpgs. There's no stat or skills you can raise, for one. There's a story yes, and there's dialogue, but it is rather fixed. The only game(s) I can think of that tries to this a bit differently are the Post Mortem games.

And regarding, dtp, i sometimes by the German magazine PC Games. And it, there are always some ads for adventure games like Black Ship or Gray Matter. And there's also reviews in this mag of adventure games. probably because adventure games are still somewhat big in Germany?

Interestingly, the 'dumbed down debate' has now also reached the adventure game sites. Hidden Object Games (or HOGs) are now becoming more and more popular, so the adventure games are and the HOG games are sort of nearing one another, e.g. being combined that is. Mostly this means that the puzzle mechanics in HOGs spill over to the adventure games.

Seems familiar this debate it do?

I must admit that I could never get into this "hidden objects" thing. I don't even possess a single game with this mechanics, although the Ankh-spinoff might be my first one.

Which means nothing but "I can't comment on this".

I can't comment on HOGs games either, except than I know that many adventure gamers really enjoy them.

Back on topic, though, this Templar game looks fairly interesting

I know a lot of game reviews from dedicated adventure games sites which complain on "hidden objects". At least those in *regular* adventure games.

I can`t comment either - but of course I do
HOG games seem to be a dumbed down version of `real` adventures - you have to find objects on the screen from the list you`re given. Hardly a challenge - which is why they sell well in the casual market.

Originally Posted by Sir_Brennus
The information I gathered sound like a game that is similar to an improved version of Knights of the Temple 2.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/window…-the-temple-ii

I was wondering if anyone was going to mention that series. I imported the first game from Europe since it didn't get a US release. Its a riot! Based on the Conan: Dark Axe engine and the mechanics are pretty similar. Conan was a riot too. I heard KotT 2 was a bit of a mess but it did add a few more RPG elements such as… an inventory? Anyway, thanks for the obscure reference!