I mentioned in another thread that I was looking forward to seeing Talisman Prologue's release. Well, it's just been released (not quite on Steam yet, but from what I read, it may be coming in the future). Anyway, I couldn't resist, and I picked up a copy of the game. First the good: It is very reminiscent of the old Talisman board game. You roll dice and move around the board, trying to defeat monsters, collect treasure, and keep getting stronger. It is a goal-based game, where you select 1 or 10 characters plus an adventure to play (although you have to unlock the specific characters and adventures before they are available to choose from). Each adventure poses a different goal that is specific to the character you chose. The card deck that you play with is weighted towards your character, so for example, if you play a warrior (initially, the only class available to you), then you will primarily deal with strength-based creatures, and collect strength items. If you play a wizard, then you will primarily deal with craft-based creatures and collect craft items. There is overlap, but the decks are simply weighted one way or the other. On the negative side, it's a single-player only game, and like the original board game that it's based on, the game can go on for a bit, especially for some of the goals. Furthermore, it's not a truly challenging game because it's very difficult to actually die -- you have too many lives, and too many ways of getting healed. That said, the game rewards you for achieving your goals quickly. You can earn 1, 2, or 3 points, depending on how quickly you 'win' (in quotes because I'm not sure anyone who is playing sensibly could ever lose). So it's not about winning, so much as winning with a perfect score. The game does track how quickly you 'win' a specific adventure, and so you can have personal goals of beating your previous score. But remember that just like in the board game, luck plays a great part. Certainly you can make good or bad decisions, but if the cards and dice are in your favor, you'll win. In the end, though... I ended up staying up much of the night playing it, because it IS addictive. And even more good news -- they are working on a multiplayer version now, with various levels of preorder packages (Gold includes all future expansions). And they did mention in the forums that if you purchased the Prologue version, you could contact them to get a coupon for a discount off of one of the more expensive preorder packages. Anyway, I thought that some of you might be interested in this. Honestly, if I were hoping for a game that I played years ago to be converted to the computer, Talisman would be far from my first choice. But still, I had a lot of fun playing it so I may consider pre-ordering the multi-player version.
