io9
Ever wanted to carry a laser gun back in time to the Dark Ages and have everyone worship you as some sort of demigod before they eventually overthrow your ass and toss you down a well? Well, now you can. Ascaron Entertainment is releasing the role-playing game Hard To Be A God in April, and it's probably exactly what you'd get if you crossed Star Wars with World of Warcraft.
It's a tale of two planets, Earth and Arkanar, who live together in brotherly love and all that boring jazz until a bitter war broke out between the two worlds. Afterwards, the Earth ages, matures and develops things like technology, computers, and digital watches. However, Arkanar stays rooted in medieval-era weaponry and warfare and starts stagnating. No one know why until the forces on Earth decide to send a spy to Arkanar, and guess who you get to play? It sounds a bit like Assassin's Creed where you get "regressed" back into the a similar era inside your head, except this time you get to take a blaster, a missile pod, or a hand grenade with you.
This might be the closest that a game has come to sticking you into a Harry Turtledove novel, except you have to also unravel the mystery of Arkanar's situation to boot. Bonus points if your character gets to brandish a laser rifle and tell everyone "This is my BOOMSTICK!"
Comments
Continued:
"This is my gun! This one's for fightin' This one's for fun!"
This is all well and good, but we'll see whether or not an M-1 Tank can survive a direct hit from the Hand Grenade of Antioch.
How did 2 different planets go to war in the midevil era?
Run around screaming "Pew! Pew! Pew!"
I cackled out loud at the fist line. I've always aspired to be a doomed demigod. My time has finally come!
@CMG: "first" line. nothing Freudian about that...
@brent_w: If you read the description, one of the planets develops technology while the other doesn't, thus one planet is able to send people to the other planet (God knows how) and you fight against people who have stayed in the "What we know as" medieval ages.
TRUE FACT: "This is my boomstick!" was in the first draft of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
" BY BRENT_W AT 10:16 AM
How did 2 different planets go to war in the midevil era? "
With 'Ye Old Medieval Starship'.
or there was a wormhole generator left over by some ancient uber tech race that mystiersly died off, and everyone just uses that.
this would be a lot cooler if it was more akin to "reverse stargate movie" instead of "having nothing to do with actually being a god or apparently acting in any manner like one but it is a good title so let's use it"
related Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
'Ye Old Medieval Starship'
LOVE IT!
*sigh*
Do some research.
[en.wikipedia.org]
Perhaps link to the game's website.
[www.hardtobeagod.com]
@Dresarius: I am stunned at the difference between your links and the linked press release in the main story (this post is based largely on the info in the presser). The book sounds infinitely more interesting than the game, to boot.
the game the presser describes sounds only tangentially like the book - not the first case of a press release failing to be accurate, especially one that seems to have been process through BabelFish a couple times.
@Dresarius: *sigh* Yes, life is just so very, very hard.
So, are all men from the future loud-mouthed braggarts?
it looks awefull though from that one screenshot
The plot sounds way cool, but execution is everything.
Then I saw they were the same guys behind Fantasy Wars, which was one of my fav games last year.
Hey, the game demo is already out:
[www.fileplanet.com])
only has a 3/5 star rating
here's the gamespot link:
[www.gamespot.com]
I've only dreampt of going back into the middle ages (they weren't all dark) and being treated like a god, not a demi-anything. You think I'd tell them I was just mortal when I can have them believe I'm the Son of God returned to save them? I'd play that card for all it was worth.
@brent_w: Two seperate planets aren't fighting in the medieval era, One planet is the battle ground, and they have Medieval-era0like technology.
I wonder how they fought an interplanetary war if one side has nothing more than swords and pitchforks. Is magic involved?
@Rockstar Ghede: @jobbo_fett:
Read a little more closely.
It clearly states that the earth advances in technology AFTER the war occurred, not before. .
WHen the old planet needs to talk with Earth, do they fox it over? :P 200 scene points for whoever guesses that.
Sounds like a 19th Century Euro-Colonial wet dream to me. Bet all the skin heads over at Storm Front are fapping to it.
Helloooo from Kotaku.
Now THIS is going to be fuuuuuun...
Seems Arkanar is gonna have some magic to counter the tech... but still, this should be hilarious. I hope they don't take it too seriously. The title hints they won't.
Surprized that noone has mentioned that "this is my boomstick" also is a quote from Evil Dead 3 (Medieval Dead). :)
@Syntheticus: Where else would it be from? Noone here would not know that its fromArmy of Darkness..
I've tried out the demo. It's meh... 3/5 stars was right. It reminds my of Ultima for some reason.
The combat system is pretty screwed, and the dialogue is very iffy.
And that camera! Maybe there's a setting I haven't found yet that makes it suck less.
At least it doesn't need a very powerful computer to run it.
I have encountered anything about the futurism vs medieval in the demo yet.
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