Added: 4 months ago
From: phreakindee
Views: 22,034
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (261)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • They should remake the old Elder Scrolls games

  • @fungstupid I think if they remade the original elder scrolls it would be one hell of an undertaking, as it was the entirety of tamrial rather than just a single province

  • I haven't tried this game, but I played Ultima Underworld 2 quite a bit. The control system seems a lot similar to that game. Is it? Or does it just look like it?

  • In Arena I kept dying, so I googled the best weapon in the game.

    I was able to go get the best weapon in under and hour and walk through the rest of the game.

    What is "balance"

  • even though you make some mistakes.. i liked the review thanks

  • I believe you are bashing the game more than it deserves, clearly you are no fan of classic RPGs and while I respect that; if you are going to take a fair look at Arena you have to know the basic conventions. Such as the manual should always be read at least one cover to cover, there have even been games that integrated the manual into the gameplay. Also this was the really early 3D PC era and I mean the movement is fairly good in that respect. Also to stop crashes, set memsize=32 in dosconfig.

  • Hey, can you do one for Daggerfall?

    I really like the vids, would be awesome.

  • Did you say Emperor Urethra? O.O

  • hahahahaha

    Loved your version of the story! Great review. Lots and lots of info. Love your channel.

  • Jagar looks like a nice dude.... oh wait!

  • 05:58

    Spice girls, Aha aha aha aha! so Tell me "What you want, what you really really want"

  • Sooo I've just discovered your channel. Late pass. I'm sorry. However, our nerdy taste in games is remarkably similar. I'm only a few deep into your reviews, but I hope you've got one for Ultima Underworld. Stygian Abyss is 38,064 times better than Arena. Oh, and Ultima Underworld 2...well that's probably my favorite of all time so I hope you've reviewed that too. Either way, I'm glad I've stumbled upon this channel. On to the next one.

  • @ChazzRockwell Awesome, glad you're enjoying!

    Probably noticed by now I don't have any reviews of the Underworld games. Not yet anyways. I'm still hoping to add them to collection, so when I do, a review will be high on my list.

  • @phreakindee Ultima Underworld = Tibia in 3D

    :D

  • "And choose your reproductive organs" lol, great way to put it.

  • You need to have a show of you reading text cut-scenes.

  • Is TESL Battlespire worth buying?

  • Where are my five Internets?

  • you're hilarious

    

  • subbed :D

  • Comment removed

  • If you too you are here because you play Skyrim and you want to remember the old's Elder Scrolls ;)

  • @xArK4iz

    I am here because I am a total classic products nerd.

  • i understand your fury, i´ve been playing this game for 20 hours and only got 4 pieces of that stupid staff.....3 more to go......damnit, the worst thing is that even thought im frustrated as hell I REFUSE TO QUIT, I WILL BEAT IT EVEN IF ITS THE LAST THING I DO!!!! amazing review by the way

  • Brilliant review! I absolutely loved it and it made me laugh out loud a few times as well. :) Thank you very much.

  • Has anyone figured out the point of the large blank area on the right side of the HUD? I've seen about 10 videos of this game, and even played it myself, but I've never seen it do anything.

  • @BlTLlFE That was my problem was trying to scroll the map in very large areas. I assumed incorrectly that you couldn't scroll anywhere.

  • If I had to sum up this review in one word, it would be "disappointing". The first 7 minutes or so are pretty much flawless, and it got me all hyped up thinking "wow, FINALLY, a quality review of this game!" But then, it went downhill, and never got back up. Worst moment, the inconsistencies and downright mistakes, like claiming that the game is too fast, ignoring that the manual tells you how to speed up or slow down the game (this is NOT the same as the DOSBox cycles, btw). Too bad :(

  • @Eshlar That is a genuine oversight, your comment is the first I've heard of this. I've talked to several other players of the game who have mentioned the gameplay was too fast, and never once has this come up. I suppose that's what I get for not reading every word of the manual... annotation added.

    I'm curious as to what else you found dissatisfying? The only other thing I know of is my saying the map can't be moved, which I added an annotation to correct.

  • @phreakindee If it helps, here are a few more examples "the game controls with the keyboard, mostly" followed by "a lot of the work will be done using the mouse".Sounds inconsistent. Most of the complaints about the combat system, map system, and technical issues don't make sense since this is a game from 1994, and you didn't have much better at the time (think of top RPGs of the time like Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, etc). Why talk like it was a game released recently?

  • I also don't see how finding what to do can be considered "vague". There's nothing to it. Find a NPC (any will do), and ask "Where is" followed by the last option on the list (which is ALWAYS the where the next main quest is). Again, this was much simpler than, say, Wizardry games of the time. Side quests don't give you a small amount gold and XP, it depends on your level. If you get a side quest at a high level, gold and XP match your character.

  • I also don't see why anyone would need a Wiki to see where to go for the main quest. The map is pretty simple. There are only 3 icons, one of city-states, one for towns and one for villages. Main quest locations always look different, and if you still can't find them (some people do have poor eyesight), you can type the name of the dungeon and it will automatically select. How hard is that, really? Finally, the game is not as big as it the map may lead some to believe.

  • In fact, Arena is incredibly short, specially if you focus exclusively on the main quest. All travel is made by fast-travel, so you hardly see any wilderness (unless you really want to, for some reason), and all settlements and basically a combination of inns, stores and temples, with one mage's guild and palace, so navigating may be boring, at worse. I may have a few more nitpicks, but those were the big ones for me.

  • @Eshlar my question is, if you already know all about the game, why are you watching a review of it????

  • This game shows you the evolution of graphics, 16 year's on and look at the graphics now. How will it be in 16 year from now, well i cant wait

  • lol @ 13:05, i thought i was doing that alone. nice and funny review --> LOVE IT !!!

  • 1:47 The sad times when looking at Minecraft's graphics would make you drool.

  • 05:00 Empreror Urethra. XD

  • Amazing game, I remember playing it when i was a kid. still play it on dosbox :D

  • The game plays too fast? Damn, when I played it on DOSbox, it seemed really, really slow.

  • Comment removed

  • Jägermeister? xD thats a drink :D

  • wow the terminator man never knew that they made that lol

  • haha........he said rectum

  • That sucks that six hours of effort went down the drain XD

  • @NonstopRam Such is the life of a classic game reviewer!

  • what is the cast of heal? "boob" xD

  • You went out and bought this? You can get the full CD-ROM version for free legally online.

  • @JackD791 Yes, I know it's available for free: I mentioned this fact in the video, after all. I "went out and bought this" long ago, as I've been collecting games for 20 years. I'm a collector, and just grabbing a ZIP archive kind of misses the point.

  • @phreakindee Oh sorry, didn't know that :P

  • mmmmm options

  • Heh speaking of rpg manuals, the neverwinter nights 1 manual was really nice and detailed.

  • This is a fantastic review and one I agree with wholeheartedly. Arena was just too ambitious for the time. Glad Daggerfall rectified that (for the most part.)

  • Hey, could you review all the games (except for Oblivion and Skyrim), include TES Adventures and legends?

  • Hmm... Fart of Fury...

    ... Primal Rage?

  • @Zero0rn You got it! Best name for a special move ever.

  • @Zero0rn damn I was about to put that down :(((

  • You should do a review of daggerfall when elswery is released :D

  • Keep up the good work man, your reviews are not just about the game. They're also really informative, and with the crisp, geeky humor that I really appreciate. ^_^

  • DUDE! That is the best intro story to any game EVER! This is now officially my most favorite youtube channel! You even outran InecomCompany....

  • An amazing review!

  • DUDE. My steam name is Farticus! :D HAHA

  • I used to be thrown down, but then I took an arrow in the knee, no joking :D great video PhreakIndee!

  • i love doory doors :)

  • I hope Bethesda remakes Arena for one of their last ES games. When I first read about Arena,I instantly fell in love with the story,the fact that you could travel to any province in Tamriel,and just the want to travel to unseen provinces from other ES games. Even though I knew it was released '94,I still had the excitement going on,but didn't expect much in quality wise of course,sadly a Goblin killed me 10 seconds into the game....then ragequit pretty much took forth

  • im just waiting for Daggerfall review also in Arena was whole Tamriel? thats impressive

  • Are you playing this with DosBox? Since DosBox isn't perfect.. I wanted to know what sort of framerate you would get on a 486 or so. If you don't put it at like 10,000 cycles then the fades and everything are horrible.. but then you get a great frame rate.

    Maybe I'm thinking of Daggerfall. Either way, I want to see both on an actual old machine =(

  • I think you can scroll the map using the compass on the top right

  • Uterus scrotum

  • You should do a review of daggerfall I love the elderscrolls games, just gave skyrim a break to eat and check out the Internets but would love to see more reviews on the elder scrolls games, daggerfall at the very least maybe morrowind, oblivion and skyrim I am sure have more then there fair share of reviews.

  • Whoah...how did I miss this one. This is so informative and interesting. Thanks so much for this video! I've always wondered where Elder Scrolls started out!

  • th 5th game THAT COULDN't RUN ON MY FREAKING OLD PC!!!

    well Arena is fine for now

  • Do you think the freeware version is less buggy than your hard copies?

  • 6:23 Hey! Look! Morrowind and Skyrim are there in the atlas!

  • I've played a lot of Morrowind, and tried to get into Daggerfall but couldn't get used to the controls or how overly huge it was. I've not tried Arena yet. Is it harder to get into than Daggerfall?

  • "African Swallow speeds" I smell a refrence.

  • Yes! +5 internet!

    

  • Can someone help me?

    I cant get my USB gamepad to work in dosbox even though my USB keyboard and mouse work fine!

  • Hey LGR, they used the same combat in Daggerfall, did you find it as annoying?

    I havent played Arena, but I actually enjoyed the daggerfall combat more than Morrowind's.

  • I never played Arena, but I played Daggerfall a whole lot. Looks like they pretty much just updated the graphics and didn't fix any of the problems....namely the dungeon layout, broken quests or the retarded combat.

  • Oblivion was incredible and i'm obsessed with Skyrim, there's just an astonishing amount of detail in everything. I don't think i'd get along too much with the older games.

  • I played this game and I failed getting past the first level

  • Hi! How about adventure games, mainly Lucas Arts games? Like Full Throttle or The dig?!! Looking forward for those. Love your channel. Thanks!

  • Do you have a desktop/laptop and what are the specs?

  • Are you going to review Portal™ 2?

  • "The entire appeal of the game really is to do stuff till something happens so you get more points to do more stuff"

    Isn't that the entire appeal of life?

  • "The eyesight of a dead bat with its eyeballs jammed up its butt."

    ROFL That's a new one xD

  • Lol, good thing they decided to keep the lack of feeling like you're actually hitting your opponents in all the other TES games, even in Skyrim it still feels far too much like flailing :P

  • Your reviews are hilarious and very informative. I really really enjoy watching them. The games you choose to review are just perfect. I've had a lot of "Oh wow, I totally forgot everything about that game!! I GOT to try it again, yaay!...."

    "...but you're just gonna have to play the game first to know what you want, what you really really want..." Lol xD

    Thank you phreakindee

  • I wanted Captain Blood!

  • I'm so glad to know that this game is just crappy. I tried playing it through and just could not even make it out of the first dungeon. I thought I might have lost my old school hardcore RPG edge, but knowing that even you had a hard time with it is reassuring.

  • Please review Skyrim!

  • 03:52 That´s one of the reasons I´ve subscribed to your channel! I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THOSE UNBOXINGS! I love PC games old package and its contents. Nowadays PC game software package is just an ugly DVD case and big packages is just for limited and overpriced editions.

  • Speed busters! I have this game with the retail box too! The most sad is this game could be even better than NFS but the annoying control really screws the gameplay.

  • or shall i say PRIMAL RAGE!!!!!!!! i was thinking fart of fury wile typing.....internets fail T_T

  • ahh i love me some primal fury :P id like my +5 internets in a gift card please :D

  • Aladdin FTW.

  • ODDWORLD ! you must be playing it for that review you promised ;)

  • Are you going to review Daggerfall? How about Morrowind and Oblivion?

    And just to make a Lazy review, you shouldn't review Skyrim, but you should review Skyrim's MAIN MENU. Trust me on this. Everyone is reviewing the game. Nobody is reviewing the main menu.

  • @BanjoGate I'll review Daggerfall eventually, but until then look up the Ancient DOS Games review by my friend Gemini! His vid covers pretty much everything I'd cover, and then some. Pixelships(dot)com is his website.

  • @phreakindee - Don't forget to try and squeeze in a review of 'Redguard'! Please? :p

  • @phreakindee i think you should review everygame its always funny nomatter way i laugh at all your vids

  • WOW, you have the PC version of Aladdin

    I bet the PC port was only sold in the UK was it as I seen pictures of the DOS version in 2005-6 as a 11 or 12 year old but I never could find a copy of it on amazon dot com?

  • @Dakkiller1 Yes, as far as I can tell it was only sold in the UK. I imported my copy, I am a big Aladdin fan :D

  • @phreakindee Hmm, I suppose you also have the 2 disc CAV laserdisc of Aladdin with its awesome cover, or your looking for it to add to your collection of LD's and/or Aladdin merchidice

  • @phreakindee I had Aladdin on PC and I live in sweden, might have been imported since I was too young to buy it myself but seems kinda unlikely.

  • I downloaded this game recently. It's really fun.

  • ultima totally looks like minecraft!

  • Can you PLEASE do a review of all the Elder Scrolls games?

  • Thanks man, This made my day!

  • Avatar dude at 6:32 ???

  • You should be a Youtube Partner

  • Uturis Rectum. Hhahaha

  • Review Oblivion,

    Or any other elder scrolls game

  • Lgr before arena came out the game was only going to be called arena until they saw how much it wasn't about arenas so they put it elder scrolls

  • @buildercarmine Okay? Are you just paraphrasing what I said in the video...?

  • Ooh. I actually used to own this game. I gave it away after i played it through.

  • @Shiqna1 oh, I thought you were talking about the cover to dagggerfall.

  • Quake????

  • Will you review DOOM and Wolfenstein 3D???

  • it seems like you don't use the mouse to walk with once you are outside?

  • I believe you can click on the compass directions to move around the local map mode. Also the digital version from Bethesda's website (which you can also get Daggerfall for free off now) doesn't seem to have as many (if any for me) crashes that you described in this video,so perhaps try that version w/ DOSBox.

  • @Shiqna1 What? If a game looks realistic then it has better graphics.

  • This game has its moments of brilliance, but quite frankly, it's no System Shock. Sure, System Shock had it's issues, but I thought it was a MUCH better game.

  • Going to review Daggerfall next? I want to understand why people prefer (When it comes to classic ES games) Daggerfall, than Arena, even though they look like the same game.

  • One thing that caught my attention is that you have two different buttons to select either "Male" or "Female". In Skyrim, it's a slider bar... o.o

  • i acutally thought daggerfalls combat was worse than arenas. iv only played the first bit of arena got out of the prison thing and into the town. but when i tried to play daggerfall i barely made it past the first rat it was so much harder to get the sword to swing properly, i dunno maybe i was doing something wrong

  • Man it's crazy to think this is where it all started.

  • Those early first-person games are plagued by clunky interfaces. If only Ultima Underworld and System Shock had mouse look...

  • jägermeister ftw!!!

  • you should review all of the TES games sequentially, because it might be interesting.

  • also it was a fabulous review my dear sir

  • the first elder scrolls looks alot like minecraft :D

  • Arena can be used in broad terms like the arena of gaming. I still remember that battle chick in her super protective bikini "armor". I think in that FMV part that lady is just saying Watermelon and they loop it. ^_^ Yep old controls do not age like fine wine. Still what about basic ergonomics WASD instead of J for Jump, did the designers have 3-4 hands to play with? Great review, man RPGs have come a long way in user friendliness. :D

  • Hair metal makes a comeback! Yeah!

  • 11:56 so that's where everquest got that sound bite

  • @Thule000 that horn sound's a sound ideas one, the game show Figure It Out used it too

  • @leileilol haha i remember that

  • this is why i come to this channel

  • Not to be rude or anything, but TES is not an FPS RPG. It is, simply, an RPG that takes place in a first-person perspective. There is little to no shooting, as far as I know. (unless you count archery as shooting)

  • @forgottenimports I guess it just depends on how much such nomenclature annoys you :) For instance, there is certainly a fair amount of shooting, like archery, spellcasting, using marks, etc, but there's also a lot of melee. Does that suddenly make it a non-FPS? Does Doom become a non-FPS when you use the chainsaw instead of a gun? It's just semantics over something that is really not worth going on about in my opinion, since many fail to differentiate between FPS & anything first-person anyway

  • Comment removed

  • phreakindee, good work with the jokes. Keep it up !

  • Daggerfall is awesome! :D

  • omg the weird closet sound a the end

  • Primal Rage reference, yay! That's kinda how this game makes me feel after maybe two dungeons. It taught me that Daggerfall was best played on the surface, robbing everyone blind at night and the escaping across the rooftops, falling off, and then being copped to bits to the wonderful death chant known as HALT. :P Very much looking forward to that review.

  • I actually played this before. I have to agree, this game pissed me off. My first Elder Scrolls game I played was Morrowind, but then I decided to try the previous two games. Daggerfall was pretty good, but Arena was just subpar of an effort compared to what Bethesda put out in later years.

  • I loved Daggerfall more than Arena, honestly. The lack of customizing your controls drove me insane in Arena.

  • What's Bethesda's deal with interfaces? They made two horrible ones, then an incedibly awesome one, and went back to doing two more horrible ones again.

  • I've only played all the TESs but Arena.

    I love daggerfall, morrowind, oblivion and skyrim, hoho

    not sure about Arena tho

  • Only caught a glimpse of the gameplay (damn AT&T DSL), is this a spellbound FPS ? You kill monsters..ya Magestorm shits on this.

    Magestorm, ooo Sorien and RisingFire are to bring it back open public soon

  • I thought Daggerfall was clunky and damn near unplayable...I think I'll just forgo Arena.

    The Heavy Metal-esque erotic box art caught me by surpise, that's easily the most sexually provocative thing found in the Elder Scrolls universe...except breaking into huts in Gnisis and ravaging the local Dunmer...

  • @NIMHFS If Daggerfalls annoyances got to you, then Arena will absolutely murder your brain. The improvements in Daggerfall are many, but it still had a long ways to go.

  • @NIMHFS how is it erotic?

  • @xxXCalculatorXxx Agreed. Actually, I even like the graphics somewhat better than Daggerfall, but only somewhat. I like the old scaling pixels look.

  • ITS THAT ABE GUY!

  • @phreakindee: Also, you should start a thread on VOGONS for people to discuss your videos like Gemini did for AGD :p

  • Oh btw, wouldn't the freeware release improve the games performance, as far as not crashing is concerned ?

  • @phreakindee: You can turn off the pixelation effect on popup messages by hitting one of the function keys.

    Arena was really neat at the time, especially considering it's based on Wolfenstein 3D rendering technology. I remember being blown away by how immersive the graphics were at the time.

    Other than the control quirks, my only complaint is that it's too repetitive after a while. This is the main reason I've never completed it.

    Also, Arena's dungeon confusion pales next to Daggerfall's.

  • *Game starts out with sewer level*

    Somewhere, Spoony's in a corner, crying.

  • @TheApachacha HA! Spoony ftw

  • God! Your comments are go-go-go-godlike! =)

  • The first good TES was in my opinion Morrowind. Daggerfall was only slightly better than this, still confusing as hell and hard to control.

  • Hey! My pet bat died from eyeballs-up-the-butt-itis. Have some decency.

  • Before Bethesda were assholes... :)

  • Hmm... I always thought that TES: Arena was on 5 inch floppy disks

  • awesome reviewer is awesome

  • AAAAH I saw ABE in the intro!! *fanboyism*

  • @Mueiwark I hope you'll be pleased when I review it then :D

  • You should do a review of Ecstatica

  • I did play the game when it was released and while it did frustrate and confused me a lot I kept playing (but I never finished it). Like you said it has a lot of potential but sadly missed opportunity to be true classic. Oh and Legend of Valor, man, that takes me back, I completely forgot about that one :)