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Is Pool of Radiance really that bad?

Vieo

Member
I bought a copy on eBay for about $0.99. It's still in it's box sealed with a compUSA sticker on it. :lol I only bought the game for collector value, but when looking at the back of the box, the game looks pretty good so I'm trying to decide whether or not I should break the seal and give it a whirl. I remembered people saying they didn't like it though. It uses the D&D 3e rules. How is it in comparison to Baldur's Gate and NWN?
 
Is Pools of Radiance bad?

the first one from SSI gold box fame rocks! the ugly bastard son you got for$.99 is pretty bad and shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence with bg and nwn expect to tell people that it shouldn't be mentioned in the same sentence.
 
Vieo said:
I bought a copy on eBay for about $0.99. It's still in it's box sealed with a compUSA sticker on it. :lol I only bought the game for collector value, but when looking at the back of the box, the game looks pretty good so I'm trying to decide whether or not I should break the seal and give it a whirl. I remembered people saying they didn't like it though. It uses the D&D 3e rules. How is it in comparison to Baldur's Gate and NWN?


Its funny you mentioned this .. I want to pick up a copy since its so cheap. I have played alot of bad RPG's in my time ... It can't be THAT bad, can it?

So ... open it and tell me!!
 
So ... open it and tell me!!

No way! =P

On eBay, copies of The Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall are going for $25 - $35, and that's just for the the original game disc! I've got both Arena and Daggerfall with the original manuals. I paid $20 for them at EB. If I sold them, I could make more than double the profit. :D

Let's take another example. The Ultima Collection. It retailed at EB for $20. Then it even dropped to $15. They sat on shelves and no one bought them. Ultima Collection game discs alone can get up to $40. If you have an factory sealed copy, forget about! They can sometimes go for $70+! And if you happen to have the Dragon Edition of Ultima IX that comes with the Ultima Collection, you can get $100+ for that easy.

Unfortunately, I was one of those people who passed up on the Ultima Collection for something like Diablo2. =*(

People think I'm crazy for collecting PC games, but a collector's market is forming as we speak. If you've got old DOS games that are damn near impossible to get running on XP, box them away now. In a few years, you'll have gold!!! Gold! GOLD I TELL YOU!! MWHAHHAHAHA!!!

::starts dancing on top a table::
 
And if you happen to have the Dragon Edition of Ultima IX that comes with the Ultima Collection, you can get $100+ for that easy.

Woah, really??!! Wow, I own that too, along with the mailed-out pre-patched game disc they sent out for free. Not sure I'd want to ebay UltimaIX though, as I like to install it and play through it ever now and then.

Never played any of the other games in the Ultima Collection though, always had issues getting them to run - what's the best way to play the really old ones (pre-Ultima VII) games nowadays. Hell, what's the best way to play UltimaVII nowadays, I could go for another playthrough of that too.
 
You'd be better off getting Temple of Elemental Evil if you're looking for a D&D fix. I've heard only bad things about the newer Pools of Radiance.

But, hell, open it up and play. Just make sure you patch first.
 
ManaByte said:
When you uninstall it formats your HD.

ahah yeah, it was something like that. my PC crashed before it could actually format if i remember, but my HD was never the same. i was so pissed.
 
shoplifter said:
You'd be better off getting Temple of Elemental Evil if you're looking for a D&D fix. I've heard only bad things about the newer Pools of Radiance.

But, hell, open it up and play. Just make sure you patch first.


bad advice.

do not install this game under any circumstances :)
 
I started out enjoying it but the repetitive gameplay, awful story and dozens of bugs made it tiresome after a while, never ended up finishing it. I don't recommend it at all, it's very bad.
 
I remember I got the first Pools of Radiance as an 8th grade graduation present from a friend of mine... one of the first "Western" RPGs I've played (other than the NES ports of Ultima)... boring, aimless game :P
 
teiresias said:
Hell, what's the best way to play UltimaVII nowadays, I could go for another playthrough of that too.

This web page has some useful info. I've never used Exult before. For DOS games I keep two of my old systems around: a 20MHz 386 with an Adlib sound card and MS-DOS 6.22 (for the really old stuff) and a 200MHz Pentium with ISA Soundblaster and Win98 SE (for the more recent games). Less fuss than using DOSBox or other solutions (IMHO) although you do need the space (those old PCs were damn big) and a KVM to get the most out of it.
 
The original game can erase your hard drive. I'm not sure if this was after an uninstall or just loading the game.

http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/september03/25overrated/index16.shtml

Unfortunately, the actual release was a disaster. First there was the technical issue of killer bugs -- including one, it was reported, that could erase a user's hard drive. Yet, even when the game was patched, it turned out that the updating of Pool of Radiance was a barely passable dungeon crawl filled with uninspired monsters, a boring, linear storyline, and a very bad implementation of the D&D 3.0 rule set. Sometimes the past should stay in the past.
 
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