超级旅行者 1:
MegaTraveller:
佐达尼的阴谋
The Zhodani Conspiracy

Paragon Software, 1990
MS-DOS, Amiga 和 Atari ST

Paragon Software, 1990
MS-DOS, Amiga and Atari ST

游戏是基于《超级旅行者(MegaTraveller)》的桌面 RPG 所改编,《佐达尼的阴谋(The Zhodani Conspiracy)》有着电子游戏史上最复杂的规则设定的游戏之一。然而,复杂性并不等同于质量高,游戏的大部分内容都被毫无意义的规则、陈词滥调的情节和把用激光枪决斗变成苦差事的战斗系统所淹没——这或许是每个科幻游戏的原罪。

开始游戏后(并通过游戏多重的防盗版机制),玩家可以选择从头开始创建五个角色,也可以选择通过预先生成的队伍快速进入游戏。

《超级旅行者》是提供了最繁琐的人物生成过程的游戏之一。你可以在这度过几个小时。在掷骰(很可能是再来一次)你的属性后,你的角色可以尝试注册五大军种之一(海军陆战队、陆军、海军、商人和侦察兵),或者参加征召。

你能成功成为哪个兵种并没有保证:比如说,海军陆战队是很难进入的,即使你成功地被录取,你也很有可能在一个学期内就被分配到炊事班削土豆皮去了——我说的是真的。

Based on the MegaTraveller pen-and-paper RPG, The Zhodani Conspiracy brings one of the most complex rulesets in any video game. However, complexity doesn't equate to quality, and much of the game is overshadowed by pointless rules, a cliché plot and a combat system that turns duels with laser rifles into a chore – a sin for any sci-fi game.

Upon starting the game (and passing the multiple-choice copy protection test), players have the option of creating five characters from scratch or quick-starting with a pre-generated party.

MegaTraveller offered one of the most extensive character generation process ever made. Hours can be spent here. After rolling (and most likely re-rolling) your attributes, your character can attempt to sign up for one of the five major services (Marines, Army, Navy, Merchant, and Scout), or enter the draft.

Signing up for a branch is by no means assured: the Marines, for example, are quite difficult to enter and, even if you're successfully accepted, there's no guarantee that you won't be pulling kitchen duty and peeling potatoes for a term – literally.

《旅行者》桌游于 1977 年首次发布,并在 80 年代非常流行。它有几个版本,例如MegaTravellerT4T5Mongoose 以及Hero SystemGURPS 和 d20 等改编版。

The Traveller tabletop RPG was first published in 1977 and became quite popular in the 80s. It had several versions, like MegaTraveller, T4, T5, Mongoose and adaptations for Hero System, GURPS and d20.

角色个性化定制忠实于《超级旅行者》的桌面规则集,这几乎是一款独立游戏。您甚至可能死于重伤!它后来被《网络奇兵 2(System Shock 2)》所借鉴。

Character creation is faithful to the MegaTraveller tabletop ruleset and almost a game by itself; you can even die to injuries! It would later by mimicked by System Shock 2.

每个学期你都会学到新的技能,但是你不是手动选择它们,而是选择一个类别,游戏会随机给你一个技能。例如,个人发展可能给你身体的敏捷 +1,你能更好的进行肉搏或械斗。当然游戏里仍然可以有子选项供您选择!例如,恶习可以让您学习贿赂,伪造和一些其他类型的阴谋诡计。

每学期结束后,您可以选择重新入伍或退休并成为雇佣军。您服役的时间越长,您的角色训练得越好,但是服役时间过长,你的数据会因为年老而开始下降——你可能会被开除,甚至角色会发生意外并死亡!退休后,每年都会获得一项随机奖励——属性值、武器、装甲或仅仅是一些现金。

当你的队伍组建成功后,一个神秘的女人闯进一家酒吧,雇你送走一张光盘,里面有可以结束战争的重要信息。然后你离开酒吧,遭到敌人伏击,游戏序章就在敌人的火力下开始,而且这期间你没有时间准备或学习如何控制角色。

更糟的是,战斗系统非常乏力。游戏战斗是实时进行的,但是玩家控制的 UI 却很慢,一次玩家只能控制一个角色。这意味着当您笨拙地尝试命令一个角色向敌人开火时,您的队伍其他角色就傻傻的愣在那不动。

这个问题使 Paragon Software 为游戏打了补丁,改变了战斗方式,允许玩家通过暂停来下达命令。尽管如此,战斗仍然是游戏中最糟糕的部分——游戏中没有战术或其他有用的反馈,您只是射击、射击、射击,直到敌人死亡。此外,在没有互联网的时代发行补丁是一个巨大的挑战,因此很多玩家从未见过这个补丁。

如果你设法在伏击中幸存下来——或逃离伏,那么游戏终于正式开始了,你可以一步一步地探索这个星球上的城市了。

Each term you'll learn new skills but, instead of manually selecting them, you choose a category and the game randomly gives you one of its skills, e.g., Personal Development might give you Physical, +1 Dexterity, Vice, Hand Combat or Blade Combat. Yet some of these can still have sub-options! For example, Vice can have you learning Bribery, Forgery and other types of skulduggery.

After each term, you can choose to re-enlist or retire and become a mercenary. The longer you serve, the better trained your character, but serve too long and your stats begin to decrease due to old age – you might be expelled or even have an accident and die during character creation! Once you retire, you get one random benefit for each term served – bonus attributes, weapons, armour or simply some cash.

With your party finished, a mysterious woman barges into a bar and hires you to deliver a disc with information that can end the ongoing war. You then leave the bar and get ambushed, starting under enemy fire with no time to prepare or learn the controls.

To make matters worse, the combat is atrocious. Battles play in real time, but the interface is slow and only one character can be controlled at a time. This means your party will stand still while you awkwardly try to order one character to fire at the enemies.

This was such an issue that Paragon Software made a patch for the game, changing the combat to allow players to pause and issue orders. Still, battles remain the worst part of the game – there are no tactics or useful feedback, you just shoot until someone dies. Moreover, hearing about a patch in a pre-Internet era was a challenge, so many players never saw the fixes.

If you manage to survive – or flee – the ambush, the game finally starts properly and you're free to explore the planet's tiny city in a top-down view.

《电脑 RPG 游戏史(The CRPG Book Project)》原书信息

英文原版主编:Felipe Pepe
原项目网址:https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/
授权协议:知识共享 署名-非商业性使用 4.0 国际许可协议 (CC BY-NC 4.0)

这本书历时四年,由 119 名志愿者共同完成。

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