I just finished my latest battery of games. As so often before, they were slid under the giant wooden door, alongside some lukewarm water and black, moldy bread. It's very cold here. . .dark and damp. But at least now I get some light, even if only from the cathode ray tube implanted in the dank dungeon wall. Sometimes I think I see things in the pitch black emptiness of my cell. The tube is so much less terrifying.
Did you ever have a nightmare where you were running from a terror so bloodcurdling that your frenzied mind would not allow it around that last corner? Well, I have, when I'm lucky. The Realm of Impossibility is a return to those happier times, but it is merciless, allowing your antagonist - much to your horror - around that last bend.
The evil cleric Wistrik has stolen the seven crowns of the Middle Kingdom, hiding them in his vast network of dungeons. As you may now have surmised, you must set foot in the caves, face the peril, find the crowns, and flee with your life (and don't forget the crowns).
At the start of a round, you enter any of 13 dungeons. Some are locked and cannot be entered without the key secreted in another. While 129 rooms may sound impressive, the dungeons themselves are similar, and after the first couple, there are few surprises. It's just in and (if you can survive) out. Also disappointing was the predictability. The dungeons did not form a maze, having only one obvious way in and out. I could never get lost, one of my favorite nightmares.
Indeed, the action is fast and furious, and you're never able to stop and catch your breath. Just run, run, run; dropping crosses to repel the evil creatures chasing you. Like vampires, they are unable to pass over the crosses; but, alas the crosses evaporate in only four seconds, so hurry.
You also have, from infrequent time to time, one of three spells to thwart your antagonists. CONFUSE won't help you much, but PROTECT and FREEZE are mighty effective. That's if you can successfully cast the spell.
Your problem is that you must be perfectly immobile to cast your spell, and in this game you can't afford to stand still too often, or for very long. If you don't believe me, just ask the spider who is stomping on your still and lifeless body. However, this wasn't my only difficulty with Realm. I wanted to zap those zombies and slaughter those spiders. Laying down crosses and running was just too good for them. I wanted a weapon. A rapid fire laser cannon. Anything. Probably the similarity to Berzerk got to me. The spells were impotent. I was never able to destroy my adversaries - my best hope was a temporary escape from their relentless attacks.
The one-player game is standard fare, but the two-player mode has a few surprises. You and your partner must cooperate, rather than oppose each other. To make it more entertaining, only together can you leave the dungeon, and trying to leave your former friend behind will only strand you at an invisible barrier, where you'll quickly be surrounded by spiders.
These spiders have only one thing on their minds. . .and it's not your health. When this happens, wait for your companion - or dash back and revive him, if dead - then, perhaps, you can both escape, but I doubt it. Four levels of difficulty keep the challenge fresh.
There is no manual; instead, a pregame option displays the instructions on the screen. Using the space bar, you page through them at your leisure. This will work nicely, but I still missed the superb instruction manual I'm used to from Electronic Arts. Just another disappointment in the Realm.
So while the Realm of Impossibility fails on many levels, it is still not bad enough to make me lose faith in Electronic Arts. But I cannot recommend it sight unseen, like so many of their other offerings. The Realm is a fair game from a fine company
The Scrolls of Abadon contain spells, but you'll need more than magic to successfully master this new machine language mediocrity.
Not that Abadon is the worst game that I've ever seen. It's just that it retrashes some familiar themes which I hoped I had seen the last of.
Abadon's creator, Frank Cohen, is not completely unknown to me. He authored a game (Cohen's Towers) under the Datamost label, which, unfortunately fell into my hands a few months back. Not even intense psychotherapy could return me to normalcy after that one. And, although Abadon has not cured him of lack of originality, it does at least prove him capable of producing a visually interesting product.
In the world of Abadon, the Wizard transports you onto the game grid and curses you with the task of collecting the four pieces of his magic amulet. The game is basically a variation on the Pac-Man theme, which I never did find very apetizing. The twist is that gathering up a gem leaves an arrow in its place, an arrow that, later, cannot be passed over in the wrong direction. This is referred to as the "Rule of the Arrows" and makes it child's play to trap yourself in a corner with a hideous creature. When this happens, there is only one hope: a spell.
Scattered throughout the grids you'll find scrolls containing spells to change some condition of the game, giving you an advantage. For example, the WALK spell allows you to cross over the arrows in the wrong direction, while the ICE spell freezes your foes in their tracks.
However, spells are limited in duration and number of uses. Casting the spell is difficult: you must abandon the koystick and type the name from the keyboard, a clumsy task. I could rarely get the spells off fast enough to survive.
Although the outer packaging states "Full instruction manual included," the manual itself is little more than a slip of paper. But the pamphlet does let you quickly start playing the game, and that is the important factor. The background story is best ignored.
Visually, the game is interesting and reminiscent of Zaxxon. The field is constantly scrolling, displaying only a portion of the current grid at any one time. A peculiar sound accompanies the arrival of one of your enemies, and if you don't pay attention, one of them is likely to drop in right on top of you. You are trapped on the game grid until you've collected all the gems, whereupon a power disk will appear to carry you on to the next screen. Once you've obtained the four amulets, you may move on to the next level. Tapping the space bar shows an overhead view of the grids completed, allowing you to plan future strategy.
Overall, the Scrolls of Abadon is an interesting game which you can play for a fair amount of time before mastering, the main problem being there is little motivation to do so.
Beach-Head is billed as the ultimate war game, and is also self-proclaimed as destined to be a video game classic. Although this boast goes unfulfilled, Beach-Head is a bit more original than Abadon - a good starting point for any game. Unfortunately, Beach-Head goes little further and falls far short of the finish line.
The was is comprised of a number of battles utilizing air, sea and land forces. You passs through multiple screens on your way to the final conflict.
In the Aerial Reconnaisance phase, you are shown an overhead map of the enemy territory. At this point, you decide upon either a sneak attack or full frontal assault.
While the sneak attack catches the enemy by surprise, you must navigate a heavily-mined, narrow channel to circle the enemy, and this strategy usually costs you a few ships. However, chancing the channel will lessen the number of enemy crafts you must battle in the following phase.
In the second stage, you battle enemy fighter squadrons, while moving back and forth and controlling range of fire with the joystick. The problem here is getting used to three-dimensional battle. Once you do get used to it, you will move on to the next stage.
Enemy battleships and cruisers are now attacking, and control is similar to the last stage, except that you lob your bombs at the enemy, mortar style. A readout shows you how far you over- or undershot your enemy, the trick being to home in - in time. Succeed and you will be ready to land.
Land your tanks on the beach and fight your way through the island defenses to the fortress of Kuhn-Lin. The road is lined with mines, bunkers, and enemy tanks, so only a few of your tanks will reach their final destination.
Kuhn-Lin. The fortress must be hit by ten shells, in the right order, before it will fall. Here, you'll need all your boot camp training to survive. Once the huge defense cannon gets you in its sights, it's curtains - it never misses. The more tanks you get through, the better your chances are.
But, although the format seems great, the complexity seems to breed some rather unpleasant side effects. The joystick is sluggish, and not only because I use the old Atari CX80. No, sometimes, particularly on the second stage, it controls like a BASIC game - slow and frustrating.
Graphics are far below average, wasting the power of your Atrai. The instruction pamphlet does not describe the game adequately, but is as exciting as a mess hall meat loaf recipe. Much time is spent waiting for the disk to load new information into the memory, and some of these loads were so slow I thought program had crashed
In fact, the entire game is lacking in overall quality, to such an extent that its originality cannot compensate. Beach-Head would be best suited to burial at sea.
This game is the official video version of MAD magazine's "Spy vs Spy" feature. Thus, to understand Spy vs Spy, you have to understand MAD magazine, which is quite a task in and of itself.
While I'm not sure whether I should admit that, on occasion, I have not only understood but also enjoyed MAD, I am sure that those who don't understand MAD are much more likely to enjoy this game - because, as we all have learned by now, few artistic achievements survive the translation to another medium.
The video version places the distinctive black and white spys onto your display, utilizing a process called Simulvision. Using a split screen, the two spies Simulplay at the same time, white on top, black on bottom. Your mission is to escape the embassy with the top secret briefcase.
As each spy moves through the building independently, each display shows a three-dimensional view of each spy's current room. Moving with the joystick, you search the room for needed items.
Using the Trapulator, you can set and defuse traps, as well as generally keep track of your progress. The Trapulator is simply a visual icon menu located to the right of each spy's display. Using an arrow controlled by the joystick, you make selections of traps, remedies or a map of the complex.
The fun begins when both spies occupy the same room. Both spies appear on one display and battle with clubs, (or run, depending on your courage).
Before you begin play, you choose a difficulty level, which sets both the number of rooms in the embassy and a time limit. The embassy varies from six to seventy-two rooms, sometimes on multilevels. You can also choose whether to have the exit door hidden until the end, or marked throughout play.
However, your most important choice is whom you choose as your opponet. If you choose the computer as your adversary, while you can set its IQ from imbecile to genius, the resulting play is the usual video fare - basically a hunt and hide-and-seek game with little excitement. This game cannot be recommended.
But, when two play, the program becomes more enjoyable. It's a MADcap mission, with the other spy taking on the personality of your soon-to-be-ex-friend. It becomes a fight between two old enemies, both aware of the other's strengths and weaknesses. Will he fight or run? Where would he be most likely to hide that bomb? The tension is oft-times MADdening.
However, there are drawbacks. Due to the fact that the potential display size is halved, thanks to Simulvision, resolution is below average and some smaller objects are tough to distinguish.
The rules of play are complex, and time must be invested to learn them. Also, while control is good in hand-to-hand combat, it takes a long time to learn to efficiently set traps and defuse them ... often, the game simply becomes one of "chase and fight," rather than one of stealth, cunning and trickery - the true essence of Spy ve Spy.
The manual fully and completely describes game play, but, while trying to duplicate the spirit of the magazine, it fails to achieve the requisite level of MADness.
So, as a one-player game, Spy ve Spy cannot be recommended, but, when two play, it becomes a game combining both fast reflexes and a little insight and strategy, rising from a poor game to a fair one.
The Serpent's Star returned me to the world of graphic adventure, a genre that combines puzzle solving with colorful, high-resolution graphics, whisking the player away to strange new worlds.
Almost two years ago I tackled my last graphic adventure, S.A.G.A.'s Adventure, and since then I have chosen Infocom exclusively for my adventures. Happily, during my abstinence, they've begun to rectify some of the problems inherent in games of this type - some, but not all.
You as Mac Steele, Archeologist and Finder of Lost Treasures, have discovered that, after months of searching, the sacred scrolls were to be in your hands for only a night before being stolen again ... But not before a partial translation revealed to you the existence of the Serpent's Star, a miraculous gem which bestows upon its owner immortality, as well as great monetary potential.
So you set out, again, in search of the scrolls, which rumor places in a glass case in a sacred monastery. After finding the scrolls, completing the translation will lead you to your final goal, the Serpent's Star - but only after solving riddles and avoiding a premature termination of the game , and your life.
When graphics are used to enhance an adventure, a number of distinctive problems arise. Plot and character development are subordinated to colorful images; long disk loads slow play; the simplicity of the game (usually only a search for items, rather than an integrated story with places to go, people to meet and worlds to conquer) makes for boring play.
Fortunately, Star has remedied some of these deficiencies. First, while the lengthy disk loads are necessary, usually many images are loaded at once, lessening the total loads and allowing rapid successions of images to flash on the screen.
Star has also improved its program to allow use of more complete sentences than simple subject/verb commands. It accepts subject/verb/object commands, as well as strings of commands. Still, while this is certainly an improvement over Adventure, the program structure comes nowhere near the complexity of an Infocom adventure. Also, some commands which should work, according to the manual, simply don't.
Finally, although the game does have a plot, it isn't much more than the usual search plot. It's true that there are riddles to solve and people to meet, but the riddles aren't very challenging, and the people are less than two dimensionial.
The manual explains all versions of the game for the various systems (Apple, Atari, and so forth). While allowing you to start play, and answering some of the basic questions, it lacks depth and supplies little background story or helpful hints.
Call the exterminator! The program is full of bugs, probably due to inadequate testing. There isn't room to mention all the bugs I found, but they are both annoying and deadly.
Some commands cause objects in your possession to be dropped, and often you cannot exit a certain position - the program tells you that it doesn't even recognize RESTART GAME, a very important express command. When this happens, you must reboot the game and start anew.
So, while Serpent's Star shows great improvement in the graphics adventure, it is still not enough to win me back from Infocom. However, if colorful images are more important to you than strong plot and characters, then the Serpents Star is for you.
Well, that just about rounds it up for this time, but before I power down, I'd like to thank Perfect Computers of Niles, Ohio for their assistance in the creation of this article.