霍博肯超级英雄联盟

Superhero League of Hoboken

自从 1980 年 Infocom 发行了魔域帝国以后，在之后 10 年里该公司雄霸了文字冒险类游戏。而 1989 年被 Activision 收购后，部分旧公司的员工跳槽成立了自己的公司——Legend Entertainment。

该司出品的第一款《魔力校园（Spellcasting）》系列是一款配静态图片且游戏界面友好的文字冒险类游戏。但在 1994 年因为有了新的游戏引擎助力后，公司进而研发出更加独一无二的产品。

《霍博肯超级英雄联盟（Superhero League of Hoboken）》是一款幽默的冒险与 RPG 融合的游戏，由资深玩家 Steve Meretzky 创造，该游戏讲述了末日后一群超级英雄在新泽西州的荒谬故事。

游戏中玩家所扮演的英雄是猩红磁带（Crimson Tape），其唯一的超能力就是画组织结构图。玩家的任务是召集一群能力奇葩的英雄团队，合理地利用团队人员的能力去完成各种任务。

完成这些任务的方式是典型的老式冒险游戏类套路：玩家收集使用无数稀奇装备并结合特别又不特殊的技能来对付不同场景和敌人——比如播放弗兰克·辛纳特拉（Frank Sinatra）^[1] 的歌曲来杀死一群坏蛋鸽子。

然而，这款游戏的探图是以 RPG 风格为原型进行的，玩家可以自由地从总部前往不同地点，如村庄、商店、博物馆和已成废墟的地标。破解谜语后玩家能穿越棘手的图和获得地铁通行证并解锁更多的区域。

玩家时常还将遭遇神奇怪物并发生战斗，比如灵能传道士（psionic evangelists）、基因突变的官老爷（mutant bureaucrats），还有机器人版本的理查德·尼克松（robotic version of Richard Nixon）^[2] 。战斗是回合制的，非常简单，它允许最多 9 个英雄参与战斗。大多数英雄只会近战或射击，但有一些奇葩技能且强大的技能，如热带石油人（Tropical Oil Man）的“增加敌人的胆固醇”。

After releasing Zork in 1980, Infocom ruled the text adventure genre during the 80s. When the company was purchased by Activision in 1989, a few employees decided to jump ship and set up their own company, called Legend Entertainment.

Their first games, such as the Spellcasting series, were roughly text adventures with static images and a friendly interface. However, in 1994, armed with a new engine, Legend tried something truly unique.

Created by veteran Steve Meretzky, Superhero League of Hoboken is a humorous Adventure/RPG hybrid about a team of ridiculous superheroes who live in post-apocalyptic New Jersey.

As the Crimson Tape, a hero whose only power is to create organisational charts, your task is to gather a team of similarly underpowered heroes and wisely use them to complete various missions.

These missions are solved in the usual old-school adventure game fashion: you collect countless weird items, using them and your “unique” powers to create rather unusual solutions – like playing Frank Sinatra songs to kill an army of evil pigeons.

The game, however, is explored via an RPG-like world map, where you can freely travel from your HQ to various locations, such as villages, stores, museums and decayed landmarks. More areas open as you learn to cross rougher terrain and acquire subway passes.

You'll also face random battles against bizarre creatures, like psionic evangelists, mutant bureaucrats and even a robotic version of Richard Nixon. Combat is turn-based and very simple, even though it allows for 9 party members. Most heroes will just melee or shoot, but a few weird powers like Tropical Oil Man's “increase foe's cholesterol” can be quite useful.

Legend 公司还生产过很多神作，比如《死亡之门（Deathgate）》。
不幸的是该公司于 2004 年关闭。

Legend would still produce a few more games, such as the cult classic Deathgate.
It then closed down in 2004.

RPG 与文字冒险并融的缺点有：玩家得一边花大量时间跑图，一边在与怪物战斗，同时途中还常常为了游戏里的谜团冥思苦想；二是要么玩家的任务所需要的道具位于危险且未被探索的遥远地区，要么只能碰运气在战斗中获取。

出色的文本使游戏自成一派的同时还保持了趣味。从购买鳄梨酱到与起诉你的律师战斗，《霍博肯超级英雄联盟》做到了有趣，但在游戏性上却有待提高。

The downside of this unusual mix of genres is that you'll spend a lot of time walking across the huge map and battling monsters while trying to figure out the puzzles. Often the item you need for a mission is on a dangerous and undiscovered area far away, or even only available as a rare drop from battles.

What holds everything together and keeps the game enjoyable is the brilliant writing. From missions about buying guacamole to lawyers suing your party mid-battle, Superhero League of Hoboken manages to be as funny as it's flawed.