Albion (1995 [ger] / 1996 [eng])
Blue Byte
PC/MSDOS (There is an unfinished demo version for Amiga, though)
Available: Abandonware, can be found on all appropriate sites.
[spoiler:aa6043dd9b]
Overhead view:
First Person view:
Combat view:
[/spoiler:aa6043dd9b]
So, Albion.
What is Albion all about? Well, it's an RPG by Blue Byte, the german devs who made The Settlers, Battle Isle and Archimedean Dynasty. In Albion you play as Tom Driscoll, a shuttle pilot for the DDT Corporation who is tasked to scout ahead of the massive starship Toronto to check out the planet Albion. The planet is believed to have massive ressources that are to be mined by the Toronto, pretty much devastating the planet. But it's all fine, Albion is a lifeless desert.
En route to the planet your shuttle breaks down, though, leaving you and your crew crashed on Albion. As it turns out, Albion is not actually a desert but filled with life, the data was false.
It's now Dricoll's task to stop the Toronto from destroying Albion.
Albion plays much like other classic RPGs, but there are a few distinctions that make Albion rather unique. The game is not strictly 2D overhead view but also features sections from a first person perspective much like System Shock 1. Luckily, though, Albion's controls are a lot more comfortable than that.
You control your character using mouse or keyboard and use the mouse to interact with the enviroment. 2D or 3D views handle the same, basically, with the right mouse button opening a context-menu depending on what's possible.
With that you can comfortably move stuff from containers to your inventory or vice versa, talk to persons and so on.
Talking to persons is done via fully formulated sentences (for the important stuff) and keywords (for fluff and details). You can also write out keywords to ask about specific things that are not in the list and also give things from your inventory to the other person to talk about that.
Outside of combat, the game moves in real time, but combat itself is turn-based, taking place on some sort of chess-board (see the thrid screenshot). At the begin of each turn you assign an action to each character (the usual Attack, Move, Use Item, Use Magic, Flee). The order in which characters act is actually important, as movement speed is a factor in hit detection. You actually aim at the squares, not the enemy itself, so you have to lead your target and try to predict the enemy's movement. All in all a rather tactical system.
So why is this a classic?
Albion is huge, colourful and interesting. As you might have noticed in the combat-description, the game actually has magic in it. The game manages to merge science fiction and fantasy in a rather unique way without using too many tropes and clichés. There are three different races in the game, the terran humans, the celtic humans native to Albion, and the Iskai, cat-like humanoids (who have no taboo considering nudity, having sparked some controversy in the US back then). During the game you visit many different locations which all look quite differently, ranging from the spaceship in the beginning to lush jungles and deserts.
Albion is beautiful, too. The animation quality lacks, and characters don't look to good, but the backgrounds and designs are great. Even the 3D sections with their detailed sprites still look good in my opinion.
Albion is unique, too. As it's a german game written by german writers it has a certain style to it, with a few german names and the dialogue reminding of Perry Rhodan.
Last, but not least, though, Albion sucks you in into a large world full of interesting characters, intriguing stories and exploration.
Needless to say, the game features a lot of text describing the enviroments.
Oh, and the music is nice, too.
So what sucks about it?
Sadly you're given a character rather than creating your own. You have, of course, full control over your actions and your development, but you'll always be Tom Driscoll and you can't change any of that.
As I mentioned earlier, the animation quality isn't all that great. The background design makes the game visually enjoyable, though.
The levels can be very large and confusing, but the detailed automap is very helpful.
The worst part is that there's not really much choice&consequence going on. The game is more like Amberstar/Ambermoon (it was actually conceived as a sequel to Ambermoon in the beginning, but then Thalion went down and the team went over to Blue Byte) than Fallout in that regard.
All in all, Albion is a great, underrated game for those who like games like Ultima, Might and Magic or Wizadry.
More screenshots are here.
