The Spoony Experiment

AD&D: Heroes of the Lance Review

by Scarlett on January 25, 2007 · 31 comments

Click here for a bonus commentary track.

Witness one of the most broken, pointless, and frustrating RPGs ever to blight the world: AD&D – Heroes of the Lance, a game with broken hit detection, unforgivably bad graphics, and the cheapest frigging enemies ever.

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{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }

1
Geoffrey December 29, 2008 at 8:17 am

Somehow this is the review I keep getting back to over and over and over again. The cynical tone and the razorsharp rants are just perfect!

My favorite Spoony-review (apart from the Phantasmagoria-series of course).

2
Joshua December 30, 2008 at 8:33 am

Man, I sympathize with you; they don’t make that many good DnD games.
But what I can’t figure out is how you can stand to play these bad games. Doesn’t it hurt you? Deeply?

Anyway, keep rockin’ it. Love the new site design!

3
oldschool gamer January 6, 2009 at 4:57 am

I have this, never beat it yet, but watching this wants to make me try it again. Those Dragonmen are annoying, but theres a trick to beatin them easy, Fire a Sleep spell at them, then hammer them to little tiny bits and your good. Those dwarfs however are that annoying, havent found an easy way to kill em

4
Lee January 7, 2009 at 2:00 pm

Haha, Is this a door? Ahhhh

5
Vincent January 7, 2009 at 10:24 pm

As a major fan of Dragonlance i had heard of these games but never had i thought they would have been so EPICALLY BAD! Thank you Spoony for helping keep my sanity by showing me i should never play these games.

keep up the good work and Gratz on the nod from Yahtzee

6
HyperactiveHyena January 10, 2009 at 7:50 pm

Gods, I would kill to play a campaign with Spoons. Then again, I’m far too much of a beginner to be bothered with. And because I am, I can’t get any experience and I never get to play…. *crys lonely nerd tears*

Anyway. Beautiful one, can’t beleive I passed it over time and time again.

7
WantedSoab January 12, 2009 at 8:40 am

what a shitty game !

8
Jackfields A113 January 17, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Not only is it one of the worst games ever gameplay wise, it’s really glitchy!

9
Gobbo January 29, 2009 at 1:04 pm

Nice, KODT in the Background

10
Mycroft February 12, 2009 at 9:45 pm

Wow that game sucked. Good review though. It’s too bad Dragon Lance doesn’t translate well outside of the books.
There is also a crappy DVD as seen here:

http://www.crapculture.ca/artical.php?thisone=78

Fans of this series, hang your head in shame.

11
Jayme February 24, 2009 at 8:08 pm

haha I was sitting at my computer at work doing quality control…for software nonetheless…while listening to this….no one knew I was listening to this till I got to 7:10 and let out a rampid snort out of no where…I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe…..”and the music never changes….nu nu nu nu NU NU NU NU NU….”

This was my second favorite review besides the ultimate review on phantasmagoria II! Hey I think i can even get away w/ listening to this at work….since I’m involved w/ the “what not to do before this software gets published” crew.

12
HSling March 16, 2009 at 4:38 am

“ive seen 5 year olds playing cowboys and indians with better hit detection” Made my day, you rule!!!!

13
Mikey March 27, 2009 at 9:22 pm

If you’ll DM sometime, I’ll get the men. We’ll bring our dice too.

I have to say I absolutely love your frustration for the game. I want to smash my monitor, that’s how frustrated I get watching you play.

14
JollySam April 5, 2009 at 4:01 am

What’s the intro music called? Thanks.

15
Akihiko April 16, 2009 at 9:09 pm

I remember actually TRYING to get this game when I was younger, because I loved the book series… All I can say is thank god I never found it.

16
poisontongue April 30, 2009 at 4:56 pm

*coughcoughusemagiccoughcough* Mages usually have glass chins :p

But anyway… yeah. Looks bad. Too complicated… it scares me. Me no likey complicated things, it hurts my brain.

17
Fdragon May 9, 2009 at 2:59 pm

Why is the cover art from the Legend of Huma book instead of the one from Dragons of Autum Twilight?

18
Ink May 17, 2009 at 9:47 am

Yeah…..Good story- not so much a good game.
Hell, that looks downright infuriating to play.

19
mgaggy June 6, 2009 at 12:36 am

haha… this brings back bad, bad memories of when i was maybe 7 or 8, and my older brother was into these books, so we rented this game… i remember standing on top of the random swords or bags of gold for close to an hour, freaking the hell out trying to pick the damn thing up. this was the only game i remember actually trying to return early that we had rented

20
Jess June 15, 2009 at 7:42 am

That’s freaking hilarious…thanks for bringing back my childhood :)

21
Rhyel July 6, 2009 at 5:13 pm

Lol that game really looked like it sucked. A good AD&D console game is AD&D: Pool of Radiance for the NES. It basically takes the actual paper and pencil game and converts it to the console control. You roll up characters, purchase your gear, and go kick monster ass. The best part is you can play with up to four friends if you don’t mind controller passing.

I also noticed that I have the Heroes of the Lance miniatures set XD

22
Erm July 12, 2009 at 4:54 am

Damn technical problems! I love this review, but it got 3/4 of the way through and then just ended. D:
WHY OH WHY

23
zachary July 31, 2009 at 9:58 am

reminds me of AVGN’s Terminator review for the NES.

24
KratosWriter July 31, 2009 at 1:24 pm

When you arrived at the first naked dwarf, I starting yelling at you (yeah, like you could hear me) to use Tas or Flint to kill the dwarf, only to realize that it was pointless all around because you still have to hit downwards… ugh. Why was this game made?! I’m so glad I never played it! I think I’ll stick to the books and the crappy movie they made.

25
inzyster August 6, 2009 at 3:43 am

That may be an odd comparison, but the music from this game sounds like “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” at some point. Or maybe that’s because I saw “Manhunter” yesterday.

26
Max August 13, 2009 at 6:02 am

This is such an atrocious game. But everything dealing with Dragonlance (outside of the books) tends to be atrocious.

They made a crappy movie too:

http://crapculture.ca/?r=article&i=78

I’m sure there’s an awful radio drama about it that no one knows about.

27
Ricky Fitts August 17, 2009 at 1:37 pm

I dont really know why, but of all your reviews this is the one I keep comming back to. I guess its because I love that its just pure unadultered nerdrage. Well maybe I just like hearing you say “stabbin’im in the nuuts” with the horrible 8-bit beat in the background.

28
Jeremy August 23, 2009 at 12:53 pm

Oh, to pick up stuff on the ground, you need to pause the game, and use the “Take” command.

29
gadaboutgirl October 8, 2009 at 5:25 pm

Oh, Spoony <3 This remains one of my favorite videos of yours of all time.

30
someone October 19, 2009 at 5:07 pm

OMG mini naked zombie Sean Connery

31
Ted Raimi's Sweaty Costume October 23, 2009 at 6:52 am

I had the Amiga version of this game, and played it to completion once. It’s much, much better than this worthless PC conversion. On the other hand, I tried it again on an emulator not long ago and I couldn’t get anywhere in it.

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