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Dignity in tatters? Join the club. All of us have passages of our lives that we would choose to forget. We’d like to think that those social aberrations bear no relation to the older and wiser person we are now. At the very least they should serve as salutary lessons in the pitfalls of following a path many rightly consider wrong and abhorrent. So how come we keep making the same mistakes? Deep breath. Hi. My name is Ian and I am a serial purchaser of hack and slash dungeon crawls. You see, it all started when I moved to a new school. I was encouraged, expected even, to socialise - to get to know the other kids in my year. There were clubs and societies. They were for debating and rowing and witch dunking and torturing first formers. So many pastimes and all of them strange and alien to my stunted, small-town, comprehensive education. In a moment of Intellivision-inspired recognition I plumped for a Dungeons and Dragons club. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. The only shred of dignity I can carry from this is that at least it remained confined to pen, paper and funny dice. The pewter figures were an extravagant horror too far.
It was a short-lived obsession. Our adventuring sessions always descended into arguments over the finer points of the rules before we ever set foot inside a dungeon. I could so easily have put it all behind me and moved onto better, more grown up things, like girls and pornography. Instead I blagged my way into the 1985 Amusement Trade Exhibition and came face-to-face with Gauntlet. At last I could bludgeon my way through waves of goblins, orcs and *ahem* lobbers without someone storming off over the illegal use of a Vorpal Sword +2. For the duration of 10p I could even pretend I had mates and everything. Untold Legends is pretty much Gauntlet twenty years on, only without the pretence of friends, which is okay ‘cos the fuckers always shot the food anyway. It’s also pretty much every Baldur’s Gate/Neverwinter/Diablo knock off too, which again is okay ‘cos it’s comfort gaming of the highest order. The plot is the desperately average save townsfolk from plague/demon/evil wizard malarkey. That too doesn’t matter as it’s just a device to allow you to progress your character. That slow advancement of levels is what it’s all about. It’s comforting and predictable in a way that the real world isn’t. Hard work is rewarded with health and powers and inevitably gold. Almost any challenge in the game can be overcome by levelling-up a bit more or buying (or most likely finding under a rock) a more powerful weapon or piece of armour. It’s always a matter of literally loading the dice in your favour.
New tile-sets, new monsters and new sparkly magical effects: these are the rewards for slaying anything that crosses your path. It doesn’t matter that we’ve seen it all a thousand times before - somehow it works. It’s just enough to keep you pushing onwards, and in the meantime the cycle of exploration, bloodshed, pilferage and hawking of your ill-gotten gains is the gaming equivalent of a gentle hug or a warm cup of cocoa.
Untold Legends does exactly what it says on the tin. It rarely impresses but I can’t say that it’s actually disappointing in any way. The worst that can be said is that the load times are a bit rubbish. At least Wipeout gives you some jittery lines to watch. However, it can’t really match Neverwinter Nights for atmosphere and soundtrack, and all the red and black colours onscreen really show off the screen latency. It’s really no better or worse than any other console dungeon crawl. Bizarrely though, the game’s steady pedestrian nature makes it perfect handheld fodder. You literally can (loading times aside) play it in five-ten minute bursts and still make worthwhile progress. To the designer’s credit they also let you save at almost anytime. A guilty pleasure for sure, but still an evolutionary rung above spending my weekends in Games Workshop. July 2005
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