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A Tale in the Desert PC
  • Publisher: eGenesis
  • Release Date: Feb 15, 2003
A Tale in the Desert Image
Metascore
79 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critics What's this?

User Score
7.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 4 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Summary: The ancient Egyptians wrote about Seven Disciplines of Man: Leadership, Thought, The Human Body, Architecture, Worship, Conflict, and Art. They believed that if a man could achieve perfection in all seven, he'd live forever. A Tale in the Desert centers around the tests, which measure your skill in the seven disciplines. They don't measure your character's abilities --- they measure your abilities. That's a big difference. For example, to advance in leadership, you'll actually need to be able to convince people to do things. To advance in conflict, you'll need real tactical and strategic ability. To advance in art, you'll need artistic talent. All of the tests share one thing in common: your goal is to affect your fellow players. In conflict, you must defeat them. In architecture, you must outbuild them. In worship, you must coordinate them. No matter the discipline, passing a test revolves around other players. [eGenesis]… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 6
  3. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. Just Adventure
    91
    You can’t begin to experience the complexities of this game or reap its full benefit during a review period. If I had more free time right now, I would embrace A Tale with all of my gaming heart and dive deep into Egypt.
  2. IGN
    89
    Incredibly ambitious and delivers more than I expected. There are so many different things to do and so many different ways to play the game that I can't imagine anyone getting bored.
  3. Computer Games Magazine
    70
    It's a beautiful, creative tale told in the desert of originality, a startling flower in a wasteland of murder-and-loot online games. [July 2003, p.71]
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See all 6 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 4
  3. Negative: 1 out of 4
  1. AndrewA.
    9
    Incredibly deep and well-thought out gameplay.... it is like a long-term first-person game of civilization. There is no combat, but there is a lot of conflict and competition.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. Dustin
    6
    Interface! I honestly believe there is an interesting game somewhere in here, but holy-awful interface Batman! I had to click through about 7 drop down menu's just to change the color of my characters outfit. The concept is compelling and well done, but the interface is a huge impediment. The game was built by a very small team, so I can accept a certain lack of polish, but I don't appreciate wading through and endless serious of drop down menu's to do anything. There are also a number of settings whose default values are bafflingly stupid. The default behavior is for a pop up window to force its way to the front every time your character hits something it can't walk over. This can be incredibly frustrating if you get stuck on a hill. Oddly enough you character STARTS on a hill, on which it is easy to get stuck. You can alter this setting, which I imagine nearly everyone does, but to do so you must of course navigate several levels of drop down menu. According the the creator, 80% of the people who try the game out don't make it through the tutorial section. I suspect this is primarily do to the terrible interface. If they put a little time into fixing that, they might have a real hit on their hands.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. AG
    3
    Poor Quality, looks good at first, but requires a lot of time to suceed in or skills in the limited selection of mini games/tasks. An example being, those who get very good at blacksmithing and gemcutting which require skills in Colour and shape will tend to get rich selling their products and using that wealth buy all the stuff they need and then have pleanty of time for the tests. Those who aren't as good at the select skills will either have to join a rich guild and work as essentially a slave doing work for it or slave around on their own. The game would work better if it truely met the idea of cooperation, but it falls in between all the camps. In that as a solo player on your own you have very little chance of getting far due to all the competition, cooperation outside of guilds is little and due to some of the very competitive parts even within guilds it falls apart. This is all rather long winded, all I can say is it looks good, but what is already apparant in tale 2 is that it fails in the long run. Already the population is down from 2000 players to 1500. The game is a failure and I hope Mr tepper goes out of business.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

See all 4 User Reviews