Many years after the original game, the sequel Alice: Madness Returns is almost finalized and scheduled for a June 14, 2011 release in the US and a June 16, 2011 release in Europe.
Alice: Madness Returns is a sequel to American McGee’s Alice, which was made for PC in 2000. This game was quite a hit and sold over 1.5 million copies, resulting in high expectations for this sequel that will be released for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
Important to mention is that the game is definitely not for children. It is rated PEGI 18 as the game has strong horror elements with lots of blood and suspension.
Trailers
First released in 2004, Fable is a high profile role playing game series on the XBOX, Windows and MAC PC. They are among the best fantasy games made.
Fable is best know for the choices between good and evil the player will have to make continuously throughout the game. These choices will determine the storyline of the game and the development of the character.
Hype
The first Fable game was much anticipated due to a good marketing campaign by Lionhead and positive previews. After release, the game was also mostly well-received by critics and gamers. Fable was one of the best sellers of 2004 and by 2007 had sold more than two million copies (including the extension The Lost Chapters).
The two sequels, Fable II in 2008, and Fable III in 2010, were also received well and successful. However, both games also have quite a few bugs and glitches giving them a bad reputation on this end. Most agree that especially Fable II could have been really exceptional without the many bugs.
Story & Gameplay
In the Fable games, set in the land of Albion, the player starts out as a young boy or girl destined for greatness. The character evolves to a good or devil hero, depending on the choices made by the player throughout the game.
Fable has often been criticized as being too easy, everyone could complete the games without much effort but I see this also as one of the strengths of the game. This, together with the nice graphics and the fact the easy way of moving and fighting.
Bethesda has announced that the game Hunted: The Demon’s Forge will soon be released.
The fantasy game can be best described as a third-person co-op dungeon crawler and will be released for PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 and PC. Below the story line of the game and the trailer, which looks really good.
Unfortunately, often a trailer is not quite a good representation of the game itself. Then again, as creator of the The Elder Scrolls, one of the best fantasy game series ever made, Bethesda has to produce something good.
Story
“The dark ages have become corrupted. Heinous creatures have emerged from underground. Townsfolk are disappearing.
Upon the promise of their fortune in gold, two mercenaries have taken on the daunting task of finding out where the innocents have been taken and to stop the madness. Their journey will take them on a dark and twisted path where they will encounter vicious creatures, death and sacrifice. This path will lead them deep within the world of Kala Moor…and to the secrets of The Demon’s Forge.”
Trailer
Review of the fantasy role-playing game series The Elder Scrolls.
The first The Elder Scrolls (TES) game, called Arena, was an open first-person RPG released in 1994 by Bethesda Softworks. As one of the first good RPG’s around, The Elder Scrolls made a name for itself, earning a place among the best fantasy games ever made.
Currently, Bethesda is working on the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series, called Skyrim.
Story
The stories of The Elder Scrolls games take place in a world called Nirn, mostly on the continent of Tamriel and partly in the realm Oblivion. Tamriel consists of nine provinces, home to several different races like Elves and Orcs.
The player starts out as a prisoner in this world with the goal of completing or preventing the prophecies written down in The Elder Scrolls, which often means killing strong, god-like opponent.
Setting & History
The setting for this game, and the Elder Scrolls games that would follow, is a large, open and very detailed world. The player has to follow an overall story line but can also partake in many other quests, solve riddles, explore dungeons and fight demons. In general, the focus of the game play is nicely balanced between exploring, finding artifacts, solving puzzles and fighting.
With Arena being moderately successful, a second game called The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall was released in 1996. Parts III (Morrowind, released in 2002) and IV (Oblivion, released in 2006) have been highly acclaimed and very successful. Several related games and expansion pack were made between 1994 and this day.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda is currently working on the fifth game in the Elder Scrolls series, called Skyrim. It is scheduled to be released on November 11, 2011 for Pc, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
In Skyrim the player assumes the role of the last Dovahkiin (Dragonborn), who seeks to stop the god Alduin, in the shape of a dragon, from destroying the land of Skyrim and even the entire world.
Click here to go to the official website of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
The start of a new year is a good time to glance back at the past year and try to make some sense of everything that happened. I will do this in a small way by summing up some of the major ripples in the pond called fantasy during 2010. This means that I have made an overview of the best fantasy novels, series, movies, TV series and games of the past year.
Perhaps this short overview will point out a movie you have not seen or remind you of a novel you should have read during last year. If not, it will at least help you form an opinion of the level of the fantasy media in 2010.
Fantasy books and series
First, a quick look at the most popular fantasy books of the pas year. Several novels stand out but in particular Towers of Midnight, the 13th novel in Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. It has been written by Brandon Sanderson and the general opinion is that he has done this quite well. This is also reflected by the number one position of the book in the New York Times Best Seller list and the fact that it remained high in this list and was sold in high numbers for many weeks.
Another novel that is absolutely worth mentioning is Under Heaven, written by Guy Gavriel Kay. Kay is probably best know for Tigana but has shown that he can become a stable and important author in the genre.
Last book I want to mention is the recently released Stonewielder. Written by Ian Cameron Esslemont and set in the Malazan world he has created with Steven Erikson, it is a great read that I will review in the near future.
Fantasy movies, TV series and games
The major fantasy event on the screen in 2010 must have been the latest Harry Potter movie The Deathly Hallows: Part I. This penultimate movie in the Potter Series was of course very popular and successful and, I have to admit, quite good. I will review the movie sometime in the coming weeks.
Of course there were more new fantasy movies in 2010, like Twilight: Eclipse and Clash of the Titans. Both are entertaining films but not ones you will remember as a classic.
Looking at fantasy television series, there was the news of the cancellation of Legend of the Seeker which is a shame but not that big a loss as this TV series had dwindling viewer ratings and simply wasn’t that good. Hopefully, HBO can fill the gap and show how a fantasy TV series should be made when Game of Thrones airs on April 17, 2011!
On the game front there has not been much fantasy activity worth mentioning. The World of Warcraft expansion pack Cataclysm was very successful but that was hardly surprising.
Looking back, I would say it was a pretty decent year for the fantasy genre but not a great one. In one of the next posts I will look ahead and will explain what the year 2011 has to offer and boy, that will be something!
Baldur’s Gate I and II are fantasy role-playing games made by BioWare. These highly acclaimed games have a dark setting and involve demon hunting and puzzle solving, with the ultimate goal of stopping the followers of Bhaal, the Lord of Murder.
The games are comparable to Diablo game series but then somewhat less action-orientated.
Another differentiator of Baldur’s Gate is that the games are licensed to make use of the Dungeons and Dragons rules-set and also contain several of the Forgotten Realms characters.
Story
The story of the game revolves around the main character fighting demons, evil gods, vampires and the like in and around the city of Baldur’s Gate with as the ultimate goal to stop the followers of Bhaal, the Lord of Murder.
In the original Baldur’s Gate, the player searches for the killer of his or her foster father and tries to find out what causes metal to crumble into dust.
In the second game, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, the player is imprisoned but escapes into the city of Athkatla, the capital of Amn and tries to figure out why he has been captured.
Games & Gameplay
The Baldur’s Gate games are RPGs (role-playing games) based on the rule set of the Forgotten Realms role-playing setting, using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition rules. The game is played in real-time and not turn-based.
The player begins as a weak character but obtains new and more powerful weapons, armour, and spells during the game. Also, experience points can be gained by killing monsters and completing quests.
The following games make up the Baldur’s Gate series:
- Baldur’s Gate (1998)
- Baldur’s Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast (expansion pack, 1999)
- Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn (2000)
- Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal (expansion pack, 2001)
- The Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance (unrelated plot and only game to be released on game consoles, 2001)
Conclusion & Future
With over 5 million copies sold, Baldur´s Gate I and II have been very successful. However, it is unclear if a third game will ever be made. It has been mentioned many times in the past, both by BioWare and by license holder Atari but currently there is nothing but rumours.
It is hardly surprising but the latest World of Warcraft expansion “Cataclysm”, launched early December 2010, is a huge success.
Blizzard Entertainment has announced the the expansion pack, in which most of the game world Azeroth is destroyed by disastrous events, has been sold 3.3 million times in the first 24 hours. How many more copies have followed since, has not been made public but the number will easily have doubled.
To promote the expansion even further, Cataclysm can now be played for free during a 10 day trial period.
Sales numbers like these leave both other fantasy games as well as other MMORPGs at a very, very far distance.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm trailer
Like Warcraft, Diablo is also made by Blizzard Entertainment. The player is a hero who has to face monsters, undead beings and demons from Hell, eventually facing the three Prime Evils from Hell (the end-bosses of the games): Mephisto, Baal and of course the Lord of Terror: Diablo.
Diablo I and II are among the most popular fantasy games ever made and Diablo III is expected to do just as well when it is released in 2011.
Theme & Setting
The Diablo games are real-time, action-RPGs with a lot of focus on fighting. The games are of the “hack and slash” type in a setting often described as “dungeon roaming” as the player travels through several levels that are situated in dungeons.
The type of fantasy to which Diablo belongs, clearly is dark fantasy as the games are set in a gritty world filled with demons and other unnatural, demonic beings.
Diablo I
Released in 1997, Diablo I has become one of the most popular and influential role-playing games ever made. It is considered to have had a large influence on many other games.
The player is either a warrior (sword fighter), a rogue (archer) or a sorcerer and can increase the abilities of their hero by collecting experience. After travelling through 16 dungeon levels the hero eventually battles Diablo, the Lord of Terror, and traps him in a soulstone.
Diablo II
Diablo II was released in 2000 and tell the story of what happened after Diablo I. The evil Diablo has not been imprissoned but has taken over the body of the hero of the first game. Once again, the player has to hunt down Diablo but now also has to face Mephisto and Baal.
Diablo II was also received positively, winning game of the year awards, and many millions of copies were sold.
Diablo III
Diablo III is under development and several trailers of the game have already been released. Anticipation is high but when this third installment will be released has not yet been made public. Most likely, it will be somewhere in 2011.
Watch trailers for Diablo III.
Created in 1986 and having sold about 60 million copies since, Zelda is one of the major game series of Nintendo and one of the best and most popular fantasy game series ever made.
The setting is classical high fantasy with a storyline revolving around magic, gods and artifacts.
The main character Link is an elf-like character who, throughout the games, is continuously trying to save Princess Zelda and/ or looking for pieces of the Triforce in order to prevent evil forces from taking over the world.
Type of game & Popularity
The Zelda games are best described as action-adventures. There is a lot of exploring to be done but puzzle and riddle solving also plays a fair part. It is the combination between action and puzzles that attracts so many people both in Asia and in Europe and the US. Also contributing to the popularity are the charismatic setting and atmosphere of the games and the great music that is used.
Many Zelda games have been made over the last 15 years and most of these games, especially the original The Legend of Zelda, are considered to be among the best games ever made. The latest Zelda game “The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword” is expected for 2011.
List of Zelda games
The list below shows the official Zelda games that were published over the years. However, many spin-offs and remakes were also made.
The Legend of Zelda – 1986
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link -1987
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past – 1991
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening – 1993
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – 1998
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask – 2000
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages – 2001
The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons – 2001
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – 2002
The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures – 2004
The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap – 2004
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – 2006
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass – 2007
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks – 2009
Blizzard has released a new Diablo III trailer at the yearly Blizzcon conference. It shows the fifth and final class that will be availabe in the fantasy game Diablo III: the Demon Hunter.
Diablo III will be the latest installment of the very popular and successful Diablo game series. Diablo III is highly anticipated and is expected to be released somewhere in 2011.
Below both the Demon Hunter trailer and the Cinematic trailer.
Demon Hunter trailer
Cinematic trailer
The producers of Lord of the Rings Online have announced that the MMORPG is doing very well after switching to free-to-play in September 2010. Over a million new accounts have been created over the last month and the revenue has been doubled.
LotRO is now making money through in-game transactions. Apparently, 53 % of the gamers purchases new outfits, XP points etc. in the game.
In the mean time, Blizzard announced that the number of people playing World of Warcraft has grown to a staggering 12 million, showing that LotRO still has a long way to go before catching up with the market leader.
Lord of the Rings Online is one of the major players in the MMORPG field and together with the other LotR games is one of the most popular and influential fantasy games around.
