Joystiq Restrospective on SSI and Gold Box RPGs

Joystiq’s Rowan Kaiser has turned his attention to Strategic Simulations Inc., known more conveniently as SSI, and their classic Gold Box titles that helped define computer RPGs during the late 1980s and early 90s. Though a fairly typical retrospective, it’s nice to see people still acknowledge the impact that games like Pool of Radiance and the original Neverwinter Nights had on the RPG world.

The Gold Box games didn’t have the reputation of an Ultima or Wizardry in that era. They were considered too combat-heavy, too similar to one another, and they seemed to show that SSI was too content to rest on its laurels. There is merit to these criticisms: they can certainly be quite repetitive, and eleven similar games in five years is the definition of over-saturating the market. However, they also represented and influenced several of the future paths of the industry as a whole, in addition to PC RPGs more generally.

SSI was far ahead of its time in a business sense. The idea of making games using an official license is now extremely common. The sports game genre is built around licenses, in addition to games based on movies, comics, or even bands. License-based games existed before the Gold Box games, and SSI made other AD&D games using the license like Heroes of the Lance (1988) and Hillsfar (1989). But the Gold Box games demonstrated a level of quality in adapting the license to video games which is now seen as common. SSI’s use of a single game engine has also become more and more common. (The Savage Frontier games weren’t even developed by SSI.)

If you’re interested in getting your old-school on, it’s worth noting that many of SSI’s games are currently available for free as abandonware on various web sites out there, and GameBanshee has a few guides devoted to SSI’s games, like Curze of the Azure Bonds, just in case you need a helping hand.