xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (06/01/90)
In article <1990May31.204508.11855@tc.fluke.COM> logden@tc.fluke.COM (Leonard Ogden) writes: In article <1990May31.204508.11855@tc.fluke.COM> logan@tc.fluke.com writes: > >I'm thinking of my next purchase and was wondering if you'd >rate the following games for me: > >Dungeon Master -- Needs 1 meg, I think > >Are there any special memory considerations (I have 512k)? > >Any other adventure games you'd recommend? Even older ones >that you've enjoyed in the past qualify for the list since >I'm VERY new to the Amiga club. You'll probably want to get the memory expansion to 1 meg pretty early on; lots of the nicer games require it. A few adventure games I've really enjoyed: Keef the Thief - just finished - really nice game, but you will need to play it nearly through until you find the one place (up high) where you can build up your trap disarming and lock picking abilities a lot, then start over. Make sure you explore every single cell of the jungle; I felt really foolish when I found a whole city I had missed. Don't bother with the northern city until you build up some really awesome stats. The only gripe I have with Keef is that it only lets you save one copy of your game at a time; I'd rather have formatted a blank floppy and saved several copies at once. The endgame sequence is pretty awesome, and gives you the chance to go back and continue playing looking for stuff you missed. Great play interface, and the music is a special treat. Zak McCraken and the Alien Mind Benders & Maniac Mansion - After seeing these two games, I've decided to buy everything Lucasfilm Games puts out for the Amiga - they are really fun, like the old text adventures except graphic and you don't have to guess which word to use. I haven't finished either yet, but I'm enjoying myself immensely. Starflight I - a direct port of the IBM game; doesn't really push the Amiga, but if you like "adventures" in space (this is an exploration game, where you build up your ship characteristics by buying parts as you earn money, and your character's stats by training, but not much like D&D games) that can takes weeks to play, this might be for you. I got hooked on a friend's IBM and had to have a copy to play by myself. Aquanaut - sort of an arcade game with a plot. I'm not too far yet, but the game is fun, though the copy protection annoys me. Dungeon - I've played this a bit, but it takes a lot of concentration, and I've got some mental health problems that make that a bit tough for me. It is a very nice concept, with a "hall of heros" where you revive deceased former dungeon explorers with a little gear; you get to choose 4 from about 22 of them. The screen controls are really nice, with a lot of advantage taken of Amiga strengths. The plot is fascinating, but the game is eventually as much of a puzzle as it is an adventure. If your kids are young, and fleet of fingers, they might enjoy "Spy vs Spy - The Island Caper". Pretty simple minded, but they are the characters right out of Mad magazine, and they set traps, hit each other with sticks, explore one of seven island layouts for the three missile parts (and try to steal parts from each other), and, when one has the whole missile assembled, find the sub and sail off with a reward of a kiss from the pretty lady spy. It Came From the Desert -- a very different adventure; your task is to save a disbelieving town from the threat of the giant ants. Good sound, graphics, very nice interface. Seems to drag a bit in spots, but you'd better not let it, you're playing against a real time clock. There is also an It Came From the Desert, part II; every bit as fun. These games combine a puzzle, a very real feeling of participating, maps, clues, arcade action at times, strategy, and an intense feeling of pressure as the clock ticks away, and the mayor says "Ants, show me some proof!" Bard's Tale I & II - among the earliest adventure games for the Amiga, these are great puzzles and use a lot of Amiga features. They are ports from the IBM world, but good ones. Not for young children, probably 14 and up to adults OK. Lots of wonderful monster graphics, but not much feel of actually dueling. Faery Tale Adventure - Simply superb. I keep wishing for a follow-up game, but no joy. I understand this was done by a single author and then sold through a game distributer. Your view is 3/4th overhead, you see the monsters approach, you hack and slash, you run in fear, you explore a _huge_ map, you meet wise men and monsters, you solve puzzles, you listen to great music, you crawl dungeons. I just loved this game, and it has the most mind blowingly beautiful endgame in the world. Non-adventure games Strategy Games If you have another adult friend to play against, or enjoy playing against the computer, Empire is a good strategic simulation with all the grunt work taken out and done by the machine. It is a direct automation of a simplified version of the famous Unix game. Expect to take weeks to finish a two person game, though a game against the computer can be finished in a few hours. Kids can play this against kids, too, but kids against adult doesn't work in this game. Defender of the Crown -- Classic "show off the Amiga" game. Lots of fun, but somehow it wears out on you after a while. Joust, beseige castles, duel, go to war, try to conquer Britain with one of a choice of heros. Chess 2000 (there is now a Chess 2100, but I haven't tried it) is pretty good against an occasional chess player, though I understand it is no challenge to the expert. Makes nice use of Amiga graphics capabilities. Chinese Chess, the Science of War -- if you are a fairy chess buff, this is well worth the low price. I have yet to beat it - the "cannon" piece takes some getting used to, but I'm extending my survival time; best to date is 38 moves. Great use of the Amiga, and just a really well written and system friendly game. Not copy protected, multitasks, Rad: loadable, exits cleanly. Populous & Populous - The Promised Lands -- hard to know where to put this, it is an arcade, an adventure, and a strategic game all at once. The basic idea is that you are a deity, trying to use your awesome powers to aid your chosen people against the forces aligned with the enemy deity. You do this by leveling rough terrain for farmland, thus allowing settlement of towns and their improvement, creating warrior knights from among the common men, sending your people's leader where his followers can settle new territory and fight the enemy, building up your population, causing earthquakes, floods, raising mountain ranges, making bottomless swamps, and eventually declaring Armageddon, the final battle of the forces of good and evil. The game gives you lots of "tuning" possibilities, and hundreds of screens on a variety of terrain, each with its own best strategy, but for lots of folks, there comes a point in tournament mode where it is just too tough, the computer is too fast, the game is too big. Still, until that point, it is great fun, and for such a complex game, has the most friendly mouse interface imagineable. I found the new terrain types on The Promised Lands supplement attractive and fun, but it came equipped with so many bugs I could rarely complete three screens in a row without a whole system crash, unlike the original game, which seemed pretty bulletproof. Arcade Games If you like the occasional arcade game, Crystal Quest is hard to beat; the action is furious, the monster types many, the sound really well done. The graphics are pretty simple, but I'd bet they stress the Amiga for all it's worth; the screen gets just full of creepies, crawlies, and nasties, all after _you_! Another good one is Araknoids, sort of a super breakout but really showing off the machine to good advantage, many hours of fun. Pipe Dream -- you have to deal well with stress to play this game; the pressure is killing, but it is addictive. Another reward for my decision to buy Lucasfilm Games. Keep the gloop from escaping by laying pipe ahead of it as fast as you can. Has a 1/4th speed practice mode for the mere mortals among us, but the kids will like it at full speed. Zany Golf -- really, really shows off the Amiga. Show this game to your friends who think their systems are better than yours. Putt-Putt golf with a vengance. I finally holed out on the ninth hole; felt like a million dollars. Now to try to do it in par, and see what the "hidden surprise" is. Key disk copy protection - when that track is gone, so is your game. A shame, too, since it is otherwise hard disk and Rad: installable. Shufflepuck Cafe -- totally mindless airhockey. Too much fun to describe. Just what you need when the world has been on your back all day. Great poster inside. Jinks -- the kids liked this a lot, though I couldn't get into it. A high performance joystick helps a lot. Just four screens, but lots of gadgets. Try before you buy. The Duel & California Challenge, Accolade -- I lost a computer for six months to two teenagers who played this every night after school. Lucky I had a spare Amiga! I object to the whole idea of these games which is to drive fast without getting caught by the cops, but the kids loved them. The installation of new scenery using the California Challenge disk is flakey at best; parts of it stopped working the second day. Buy from a dealer who smiles refunding money. Puzzles Poco -- the best behaved Amiga game around. Multitasks, doesn't hog the system, saves your progress, not copy protected, full docs on screen. Don't pirate it, buy it! We need more games like this! Purely for the intensely logical person. 50 levels, each a fiendishly difficult puzzle. Keeps time, but doesn't require you to play fast. Targis - very reminiscent of Lode Runner on the Apple ][+ - also an arcade game, in that you're being chased all the time, but mostly it is just a puzzle that you have to play very fast. Takes a lot of skull sweat, and is a lot of fun. Probably 12 and up, for a very bright 12 year old. Keep away from these I Ludicrous - no controls, nearly no point. It makes no visible difference whether you win or lose a fight, you just plod ahead doing whatever the computer thinks is appropriate, with no explanation as to why. Dragon's Lair & Escape from Singe's Castle -- you can easily get the urge to play these out of your system down at the arcade for $10 in quarters, 1/5th what you will pay for them each retail. Ignore the OS, deathly slow, repeat the same scenes even when you've already conquered them once, copy protected and beat the floppy drive to death, claim to install in HD (I wouldn't know), but bloat up to 10 Meg to do so, so they won't fit in Rad:. I'm sure I'll never finish either game. On the bright side, moving cartoon graphics full screen do show off the machine. Shadow of the Beast -- This is a tough call; the graphics are better than great, the big box comes with this snazzy T-shirt I wear a lot, the story line is pretty good; the problem is, the clock is set way too fast. Lots of monsters have flown onto the screen and killed me before I'm even aware that they are there. This is a really frustrating game for me; some hyperreflex mutant kids would probably love it. Tom & Jerry 2 -- Same problem. Nominally aimed at kids, this is an intensely irritating game for an adult. Kids trying to play it would grow up warped. Your basic horizontal scroll with the clock running at least 3 times to fast. Laughs right in your face when you get caught. Designed for the obsessive, no one else will spend more than 20 minutes on it. Naturally, these are just the opinions of an unpaid hack. Still, if anyone _wants_ to pay for these opinions, or even volunteer some games for beta testing or review, drop me a note. I know what I like, I have experience beta testing games, and I have no trouble expressing myself. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
elaine@hpmtlx.HP.COM ($Elaine_May) (06/03/90)
> I'm thinking of my next purchase and was wondering if you'd > rate the following games for me: > > Champions of Krynn > Dungeon Master > Drakken > Journey > > Are there any special memory considerations (I have 512k)? Dungeon Master is great -- you really feel like you're in a dungeon. You can hear the monsters sneaking up on you, gates opening, etc... The only problem is that it takes 1Mb of memory. I've got Drakken too. It has nice graphics, but the control seems more difficult. I don't know about the memory requirements. I'd go for the 1Mb upgrade & Dungeon Master. Another "adventure type game" I really enjoyed was Space Quest III by Sierra. Some of the other Sierra games have some pretty lame graphics and music, but Space Quest III looked and sounded pretty good. I'm a really lousy adventure player (although I like the genre) and I solved this (almost) by myself, so if you're good at this stuff it might be too easy. I thought some of the scenes were pretty funny, though. A couple of less adventure oriented games that are still a lot of fun are "Battlehawks 1942" and "Their Finest Hour". Both are WWII combat flight simulators. Battlehawks is about the war in the Pacific and Their Finest Hour is about the battle for Britian. You don't need to spend a lot of time learning how to fly the planes, and blowing up other planes is a lot of fun. You get to fly both sides if you want so you can see the battle from the other side.