Retro Refreshed

The last time I saw the RPG The Bard's Tale was on my old, old, old PC when I was a kid. It was a turn-based RPG, where you form a party of adventurers to explore the monster-filled streets of the city of Skara Brae. It was pretty cool since it had nice (for the time) animated images for the monsters and characters you encountered, and the fighting was cool since you could really kick ass with some of the more powerful spells (Mangar's Mind Blade ROCKS for killing armies of nomads). The Bard was simply one of the many character classes you could choose to form your party- their songs aided your fight by upping your stats, healing you or whatever. Well, the Bard gets to be the hero in the recently-released update/successor game to the Bard's Tale name... or actually, he gets to be the anti-hero.

The new Xbox Action RPG, The Bard's Tale, is about as different from its old PC namesake as night and day. This one-player romp puts players in the boots of The Bard, a smarmy, snarky rascal who happens to be a pretty powerful adventurer with his creature-summoning songs. He's not a white knight or a crusader- the Bard is out to make a buck and get himself some coin and cleavage... if he saves the world along the way, it's a bonus.
Similar to games like Bioware's Baldur's Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, The Bard's Tale allows the player to choose branching paths through the game in his interactions with other characters. Depending on whether he elects to be decent or abrasive, the results vary... but are almost uniformly funny.

Reviews have so far commented on the refreshing nature of the game's story, which takes playful jabs at the conventions and cliches of RPGs and fantasy adventures. Also of note is the voice acting, which stars actor Cary Elwes as The Bard, and Tony Jay as the Narrator (who often verbally spars with the Bard along the way). I'm looking forward to this game... yep, DOAU has the cleavage quota down pat, but a cool RPG with a smarmy lead can't hurt. Heh.