The Golden Age Of Gaming: Part II

A New Age Of Gaming

Bards Tale, Bards Tale, Bards Tale…. If you don’t know what I’m talking about you can count yourself out of the old school geek circle. This Golden Age classic rates at the very top of the mid 80’s games for the early game PC’s like the commodore. In my humble, albeit nerdy opinion, in everyway that I can think of, Bards Tale defines good gaming even for today’s standards.

For starters Bards Tale offered a tremendous amount of flexibility and choices. Before you even start the game you had to create a party of characters which would in turn affect your fighting strategies from that point on. After you created your party you had an entire world to trample through, of which, if you were a true nerd you mapped every inch on grid paper. The graphics, for it’s time, where great and the perspective of the game was in the first person. There were monsters, trap, annoying puzzles and most importantly a large dungeon to explore securing any doubts that this game was in fact a dungeons and dragons role-playing game.

Still this early RPG like ZORK, required a lot of imagination as the combat had no sound and all you really got was a report of what your characters did via a little text box. Ultimately you had to imagine the fight, the scene and what your characters looked like. The heart of the Pencil and Paper RPG ideology was still secure in these early games but Bards Tale ultimately was upped by Bards Tale sequels and others like Wasteland. All of which were golden classics in their own right.

This true gem had a big impact on the gaming community, mainly through expectation. After a game like Bards Tale going back to text based games or earlier RPG’s with lesser graphics like Ultima just didn’t produce the same nostalgia that Bards Tale did. Gamers expected much more from their games at that point and luckily so where the developers of these games..

To me, after Bards Tale, every role-playing game I played from that moment on was an effort to find the feeling I had with this lovable classic. Fortunately the golden age of gaming had just begun and the excitement and anticipation of a great game would not be disappointed in the coming years. In fact, some of the best games in gaming history were about to be released and they would not only redefine gaming, but they would unit an American sub-culture that had already existed for over ten years. Still like ZORK, Bards Tale was a moment in gaming history that would never come again and unless you were there just at the right time you probably missed it.

Well, perhaps not. The classics as they say can never be forgotten and thanks to some friendly old school gamers who cling to the past like a 90 year geriatric holds on to the steering wheel of his oversized Cadillac, these games can still be found on the internet. I urge anyone who hasn't already experienced these wonderful classics to give it a go. You won't regret it!! http://www.c64unlimited.net/gameslist/games_aaa.htm