Ring (video game)

The four individual chapters of the game refer to the first two parts of the opera cycle, Rheingold and Die Walküre, and the story is, for the most part, recognisable from its source material. However, there are several significant differences.

The most obvious alteration is the inclusion of a science fiction backstory that precedes and concludes the game. Another change is that in the opera, Siegmund is killed while fighting his sister's lover Hunding, whereas in the game he is saved by Brünnhilde. In the opera, Wotan confronts Brünhilde for saving Siegmund and confines her to eternal sleep, while in the game, she brings a magic artifact to the asteroid.

Ring was a commercial hit.[1][8] Libération reported its sales as 150,000 units by May 1999, following its launch in October 1998.[1] According to Guillaume de Fondaumière of Arxel Tribe, it continued to sell for two years after release, which brought it to 270,000 units sold by March 2001.[8] By October 2002, its sales had reached 400,000 units.[9] Philippe Druillet placed Ring's lifetime sales in France near 200,000 units by 2006,[10] and its overall sales above 450,000 units by 2007, at which time it had been released in 47 countries.[11] Conversely, de Fondaumière reported in 2009 that it had sold more than 600,000 copies worldwide.[12]

The game received mainly negative reviews. It holds an aggregate score of 40.38% on GameRankings, based on twelve reviews.[13] Ray Ivey of Adventure Gamers wrote that it "received some of the worst reviews of any game in the late 90s."[14] However, The Electric Playground named it one of the best adventure games of 1999.[20] Reviews in Slovenia were more positive.[21]

GameSpot's Ron Dulin scored the game 3.7 out of 10. While he was impressed with the graphics engine, he criticised the art design as "bland and colorless." He was especially critical of the puzzles, which he felt suffered from a lack of logic. He concluded that "There are many problems with Ring, but the greatest one is that it is so utterly uninviting. A cold world filled with uninteresting, incoherent characters, bad voice acting, puzzles involving little or no logic, and an almost absolute lack of direction all add up to create a world that is unpleasant for all but its musical accompaniment."[5]

Daniel Erickson reviewed the PC version of the game for Next Generation, rating it one star out of five, and stated that "Even if you're a fan of adventure games, opera, and Wagner's Ring Cycle, you'll still hate Ring."[15]

IGN's Tal Blevins scored the game 2.7 out of 10 calling it "abysmal at best." He was highly critical of the science-fiction aspect of the story, and argued that anyone not familiar with the opera would be completely lost for the majority of the game. As with GameSpot, he was critical of the puzzles, which he called "utterly ridiculous." He praised the music and sound but was critical of the graphics, and called the game "a complete travesty" and "a 10 hour CGI movie with a horribly confusing plot."[3]

Game Revolution's Johnny Liu gave the game an F. He too was highly critical of the puzzles and the trial-and-error nature of the gameplay. He argued that playing the game could be summarised as "you watch a sequence. Then you turn around, a lot, looking for "hot spots," and then watch another sequence. It's about as involving as channel surfing." He called the graphics "pixelated crap," although he praised the art design, and concluded that "Poor Richard Wagner is probably rolling in his grave. Even if it had the graphics, without strong gameplay and logical puzzles, Ring snaps under its own weighted ambitions."[6]

Adventure Gamers' Rey Ivey was more impressed, scoring it 3.5 out of 5. He felt that the plot of the game made little sense and was critical of the dialogue, but, unlike almost all other reviews, he praised the graphics and the puzzles, saying "the graphics are a knock-out," and lauding the unusual nature of the puzzles.[14]