[typing]
After years of waiting,
Skyrim, the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series of FPS RPGs is here in all its nerdy glory.
But you can go to a hundred other people if you want a review of Skyrim.
So, here on Lazy Game Reviews we're taking a look at the very first Elder Scrolls game, Arena.
Released in 1994 by Bethesda Softworks,
Arena was a bit of a shaky start for the now-revered Elder Scrolls series.
Just looking at the box art and even the name of the game,
you might be inclined to think that you're in for some good old melee combat
in an arena of some kind.
With sexy high-fantasy chicks and bloodthirsty crowds watching from the stands.
But then you flip it around and read the back of the box
and you see magical monster slaying,
character creation with lots of stats and repeated mention of the term CRPG.
Yes, this is purely a computer role-playing game
so you're better off just forgetting the "Arena" name because it's just deceiving.
But why the odd name for a pretty traditional CRPG experience?
Well, there's a good reason for this and it starts back in 1992...
Bethesda Softworks was a small company mostly making sports and movie-licensed games,
like Wayne Gretzky Hockey and The Terminator.
But in 1992, Origin Systems released Ultima Underworld,
a 3D first-person role-playing game that was a huge technological leap from
older CRPGs like Dungeon Master and Wizardry.
The guys at Bethesda were already fans of Dungeons & Dragons and the Ultima series,
and then came along Legends of Valor, which further inspired them to develop
their own fantasy action game.
They had the idea for a first-person action game where the player and a
team of fighters would travel a fantasy world
competing in arena battles and gaining new skills along the way,
eventually being proclaimed the ultimate victor in the Imperial City.
Eventually, they decided to add side quests to vary the gameplay a bit
and it wasn't long before they realized that the side quests were more fun than
gladiatorial combat.
More stats were added, more fantasy elements were added
and pretty soon the arenas were replaced with the large open world for a
player to explore
instead of just hopping from battle to battle.
Eventually, they just said, "Screw it, we're nerds."
"Let's make a full-blown RPG with awesome, nerdy RPG stuff!"
But there was a problem: the marketing material and artwork for the
arena combat ideas were already being printed up and they were rushing to make
a Christmas 1993 release.
So, some weird backstory was quickly created that explained that this world
called Tamriel was such a ruthless place
that its citizens often referred to it as "the Arena"
and sur-title "The Elder Scrolls" was added to make it sound more like a role-playing
game,
and to provide further fantasy plot devices.
However, they still missed the Christmas release
and didn't get the game out until March of 1994
when nobody cared
and those that might have cared
were thrown off by the "Arena" name.
It only sold about 3,000 copies.
But as time went on, more copies kept selling,
and due to word-of-mouth
the game became a cult classic, eventually leading Bethesda to come
out with even more Elder Scrolls games.
The first was an enhanced version of Arena, the CD-ROM rerelease,
which added some speech and computer-animated video sequences.
Then came the Deluxe version of Arena, containing the latest CD-ROM version,
a mouse pad with a map of Tamriel on it
and the Codex Scientia hintbook.
I have here the original floppy disk release from 1994
which is actually dated 1993 all over the place.
Take off the sleeve and you have a nice box
with entirely too many Bethesda Softworks logos printed on it.
And inside of this, you have the guts.
The guts include the game,
which comes on eight high- density 3.5-inch floppy disks,
an installation guide,
an ad for the Codex Scientia hintbook,
and the manual itself.
The manual has a nice RPG texture to it,
and if you've had many RPGs, then you know exactly what I'm talking about.
It feels good.
Sadly, the quality inside is kind of bland
with only sepia-toned images instead of full-color.
But that's just nitpicking.
The information within is solid
and it is absolutely required to play the game for more reasons than one.
Once you start the game up, you'll be greeted with some percussive music
and pixels.
On the floppy version, the game pretty much just starts up without any fanfare,
but the CD-ROM version also gives you a short and somewhat needless intro.
In both versions, a scroll will unravel before you
and you're given some vague details about something fantastical or something.
Next, the menu pops up
and it's incredibly basic with no options to speak of,
only the choice of starting a new game or loading a saved one.
Starting a new game will provide you with yet another bit of backstory,
this time detailing the main plot.
Emperor Urethra Septum IV is just chillin' and is summoned
by Imperial Battlemage Jägermeister Tharn,
sporting his best Nazgûl attire
But holy balls, Jägermeister is actually a
douchebag and crap happens.
Emperor Uterus Rectum is sent off to a galaxy far, far away
and Ringwraith Mick Jagger himself takes the throne.
Then some chick with lovely assets is zapped by Darth Sidious
and hair metal makes a comeback in the land of Tamriel,
complete with horny demons
and skinny naked dudes surrounded in fog.
You're then told to select your class,
which is accomplished by either generating one
or taking a Myers-Briggs personality test for role-playing nerds.
Or by selecting one outright without knowing anything about it at all.
You'll probably want to read the manual if you want to be
anything other than completely surprised at what you pick and thankfully it's
sorta kinda explains what you need to know.
But you're just going to have to play the game first to know what you want,
what you really, really want,
so just pick something and see how fast you die.
You can also pick your name, and anything goes,
so be sure to make it count!
Next, choose your reproductive organs and then choose
the province your character will call home.
This will determine where you start the game and your race,
so choose randomly
because you really don't know what you're doing.
Or just check the manual once again like the little RPG slave you are.
You can then choose to place some stat points anywhere you like.
This will affect how much you suck in the beginning of the game,
so allotting the proper stats is key to your survival.
In other words, you're screwed.
Finally, you get to customize your character's look,
and by "customize" I mean choose from a small handful of predetermined head sprites.
Next thing you know, you're being looked down on by some translucent female in the sky
who is basically telling you that you're important and the fate of the world
and yeah, don't die and stuff.
She just spews text at you in the floppy version,
but the CD-ROM actually has her speaking
in all of her cheap cloud lady majesty.
LADY: In that act of arrogance, he has made his first mistake.
LGR: The gist of it is that it's up to you to
find the eight remnants of the Staff of Chaos,
Lord Voldemort's seven Horcruxes,
the Nine Pirate Lords' Pieces of Eight and the one ring to rule them all.
It's a very ambitious game.
Freaking finally, you're into the gameplay itself
and like any good role playing game, you start off in some dank dungeon
with freaking nothing,
being hunted by rats and goblins and looking for a way out.
The game controls with the keyboard, mostly,
with your typical CRPG set of controls
that end up looking more like a flight simulator setup than anything else.
But a lot of the work is going to be done using the mouse, including picking up items
like this Golden Key
and opening doors like this door-y door.
It also serves as your method of combat,
where you'll have to face your enemies, hold down the right mouse button
and swing in different directions in order to do damage.
This is just awful.
What makes this more annoying is the fact that it sucks.
And what makes it even more annoying is the fact that not only do you use the
mouse to attack, you also can use it to move around.
If your cursor gets anywhere near the edge of the screen, an arrow will appear
showing which direction it will move you.
I guess this was to appeal to the old CRPG play style of games like Dungeon Master,
but in Arena it makes no sense.
It's incredibly clunky to move like this
and instead it only gets in the way any time you try to click on something on-screen.
Since you can't turn this off, you'll be getting aggravated at this constantly
and it's just dumb.
Another thing that provides an unfortunate amount of stupid is the user interface.
Yeah, the entire thing!
Now, I know this was a first effort on Bethesda's part,
and it was basically a converted gladiator game, but still.
You have these little buttons along the bottom of the screen that allow you to
access to most of the features of the game.
Stuff like your status, magic, spells, map,
combat and pickpocket modes, resting, etc.
But what you're not told is what any of these are.
Since they're just icons, you have to figure out through trial and error
or read the crap out of the manual.
Some people will be just fine with this.
*I* find it needlessly annoying.
Another thing that's not so obvious is that some of these have alternate modes.
For example, just clicking on the map will bring up a map,
but if you right-click on the map, it'll bring up an even larger map.
Okay, why not just have this larger map available from the regular map screen?
One other complaint is jumping.
You press J to jump, but that's useless.
You only hop about a quarter of an inch straight up.
You have to press Shift+J to jump forward,
which is used not only for jumping chasms, but hopping directly on top of short walls.
The sound effects don't help either.
They're extremely simple.
You don't always know what is making the sound or where it is.
Not only that but only one sound plays at once.
So if you happen to be doing something that's making another sound,
it will cover up the sound of an enemy nearby,
so often you'll just be attacked in silence.
But really, once you look past all that, the game is incredibly frustrating.
For one thing, these dungeons are the textbook definition of complex.
What moron Tamriel architect designed these things?
The layout makes no sense half the time.
Almost all the walls look the same,
so you get turned around super easily.
And then there's these waterways underneath floating walls
all over the place,
which function only to get you killed by enemies standing above you.
So you're going to have to be using your compass and map
all the time to try to navigate,
which I would have less of a problem with if it weren't so clunky.
For one thing, these transitions bother the nuts off me.
Every little thing fades in and out and in and out,
with some kind of delayed effect,
and after the billionth time you see this,
you just feel like the game is trolling you.
You're gonna have to physically walk to an area if you want to see it again.
Sure, you can use it to take notes and stuff but that's only useful
if your notes aren't on the part of the map you can't see!
Once you've stumbled around this stuff, you'll eventually level up,
and you'll be able to apply the points you've earned to new stats.
This is the entire appeal of the game, really.
To do stuff until something happens.
So you get more points to do more stuff.
Also, the loot.
The loot in the game is mostly random, so every time you enter a dungeon
or even reload a game,
the loot will be different than the last time you played.
So there's always a chance you'll end up with some
awesome katana or war hammer,
but chances are you'll have about 14,000 weak
daggers and bucklers instead.
Once you finally freaking holy crap what the balls exit the first dungeon,
you'll be greeted with the copy protection.
Yeah, just now do you get the copy protection.
It involves looking up some crap in the manual
so if you don't have the manual... [chuckles]
Oh, man, that sucks.
Once you put in the right stuff,
you can continue onward to whatever city you ended up in
and start exploring the game at your leisure.
At first, it's pretty fun exploring these towns
since there are a ton of people that bother you,
a ton of shops to buy and sell your loot,
and a ton of places to get drunk.
But you'll soon realize you have no clue what to do next.
Like most RPGs, the gameplay consists of the main quest and side quests,
and how you find these is kinda vague.
Side quests are usually found by talking to random townsfolk
and asking if there's any work around.
You'll go somewhere, like a bar, and a text box will ask you to do something
like deliver a piece of paper to a text box on the other side of town.
Do this and you'll have wasted your time for what is often a paltry amount of gold.
Hooray.
And then you have the main quest, which is progressed by doing
something.
Yeah, I–I don't know.
The first time around you just have to kind of
figure crap out yourself.
You're told to find some dubious place
but not where to look or even how to go about looking,
so I had to consult a wiki to figure out I needed to talk to a
million random NPCs
before one of them randomly told me I was in the wrong province.
How helpful.
Eventually, you'll find a place, which eventually leads to a person,
which eventually leads to another place,
which eventually leads to you wanting to
pull your hair out with a ball of barbed wire because you forgot to save
the game any crashes to DOS.
Right, so here's the thing:
when Arena works, it can be fun,
once you get used to the clunky UI
and the overpowering African swallow-speed enemies.
But then the game either locks up or crashes,
sometimes taking your save game along with it,
and it's just one more crappy thing to deal with.
It really sucks because this game has so much potential.
There's so much to see and experience here.
It's unreal for a game of this age.
You have the entire continent of Tamriel to explore
and each city and main dungeon is handcrafted to be awesome.
And outside of that is an endless procedurally-generated world to explore,
filled with tons of convoluted dungeons and annoying enemies trying to kill you.
And holy crap, I haven't even talked about the spell making.
The possibility for custom magic items in this game is insane!
With something like 2,500 unique magical items which can all be
combined into custom magic items and spells.
And yes, you can name these anything you want,
like my Fart of Fury here.
If you understand this reference to a classic arcade fighting game,
then congratulations, you win +5 Internets!
So the point I want to end on is that The Elder Scrolls Arena is really impressive.
But it's just too darned big and too darned clunky and unfriendly for me to enjoy it.
I played almost six hours and finally got my first friggin' piece of the Staff of
Chaos.
But then the game crashed for the nine quadrillionth time
and I decided I was done.
Seriously, done.
I don't think I'll ever play this game again and the reason is
that if I want to play a DOS Elder Scrolls game,
I'm going to play its sequel, Daggerfall.
And that one has its flaws too, but it's a far cry better
than Arena's convoluted mess.
And that pains me somewhat to say that because I really do like the ideas
and world in Arena.
It's still the Elder Scrolls.
It's got an incredible amount of gameplay and
an addicting way of advancing you through the story,
tossing lots of loot and experience points your way.
It's a respectable first effort,
but it's a game that never saw its true potential lived out
due to the overall scattered quality and ill-advised
implementations of gameplay elements.
In my opinion, Arena should only be viewed
as a curiosity for those interested in the beginnings of the Elder Scrolls saga.
And it's gonna cost you if you want the boxed game too,
since it's highly valued by collectors and its lowish production numbers resulted
in it selling for about $70 to $100 currently.
However, Bethesda has released the floppy version of the game as freeware,
so you can at least try a digital version of the game for free.
But seriously though, make sure you go into it expecting great ideas
but less-than-great implementation.