Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 1: Cloudy Mountain, Treasure of Tarmin (Intellivision)

Not actually a real cover, though the illustrations are real

The week on Super Adventures, I had the idea of playing every Dungeons & Dragons game ever released! Or at least the first decade or so. I don't own Baldur's Gate III, so that's not where this is going.

It's not that crazy an idea, I already wrote about the first 10 years of Castlevania and Need for Speed, and I covered 20 years of James Bond games, so a couple of decades of D&D shouldn't be so bad. Unless they're all really long and complicated RPGs with a ton of stuff to study and memorise. That would really slow me down.

I have to admit, all my knowledge of D&D comes from Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and the Chris Pine movie. I've never played the tabletop RPG or watched a stream of other people playing it. I haven't even seen Stranger Things to be honest, or that Community episode. I'm sure that the game involves dice and possibly graph paper though, so I can kind of visualise it being played.

What I do know about is video games, as I've been writing about them for long enough that I'm a bit of an expert. Well, except for classic '80s-'90s CRPGs, I know bugger all about them as I've never had the patience to get anywhere in them. The '80s in general is a bit of a blind spot for me when it comes to games (outside of what I've seen in AVGN or Chrontendo videos), so I've only the vaguest idea of what the RPGs of the era were typically like.
 
Anyway, my plan is to play the Dungeons & Dragons titles in mostly chronological order, beginning with Cloudy Mountain and Treasure of Tarmin on the Intellivision. I'm skipping the Dungeons & Dragons Computer Fantasy Game LCD game, along with all the unlicenced PLATO games that were inspired by D&D. If I start adding games inspired by D&D to my list, I'll end up playing every RPG that's ever existed, and that'll make this take even longer.

WarCraft: Orcs & Humans (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Blizzard Entertainment

|

Release Date:

1994

|

Systems:

MS-DOS, Mac OS

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm finally playing Blizzard's hit Warhammer-flavoured real-time strategy WarCraft: Orcs & Humans! 

I'm sorry, I know I promised this at the end of April and now it's October, but I suddenly had a new season of Doctor Who to review for my other site and I got sidetracked. Don't worry, I don't think I'll be having that problem next year... or the year after that. (Edit: hours after I published this the BBC announced they're making more Doctor Who, presumably just to troll me).

Blizzard apparently tried to make a deal with Games Workshop to make this an actual Warhammer licenced product for the brand recognition, though it didn't work out. I always assumed that Games Workshop went around to developers and forced the licence into their hands, considering how many Warhammer games there are, but I guess not! Going with a new IP worked out pretty well for Blizzard in the end, considering that the game got a franchise, a legendary MMO and a slightly less legendary movie adaption.

The game also got a shiny new Remastered version in 2024 with high resolution graphics... and Blizzard decided to take the original version off GOG so it wasn't competing with it! I wasn't about to miss out on DRM-free WarCraft, so I grabbed it right before it was delisted and now I want to get my money's worth out of it. So I'll be sticking with the GOG version of the game, which is the MS-DOS CD release v1.22h... not that there's many other versions to check out. The game was heavily inspired by Dune II (which makes sense as it's the foundation of the entire genre), but they decided not to follow its lead and make ports for the Amiga and Mega Drive/Genesis. In fact the RTS genre basically just took off and left those systems behind here.

Okay, this is going to be the same deal as always. I'll play the game for a couple of hours, quit while I'm ahead, and then write a bit about it afterwards.

Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown (PC) (Demo)

Developer:

GameXcite

|

Release Date:

2025

|

Systems:

PC, PS5, Series X|S

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing about Star Trek: Voyager - Across the Unknown! Okay, to be accurate I'm writing about the demo, but I only play games for an hour or two anyway so this is basically business as usual. It's just going to be a little more... unfinished than usual.

Oh, before I start, here's an interesting fact: I promised I was going to write about WarCraft and then disappeared for six months. Then I wrote about this instead of WarCraft. What happened was I got completely focused on writing about Doctor Who over on Sci-Fi Adventures and then afterwards I found it really hard to get back to any of the work-in-progress I'd put on hold for so long.

So I'm writing about something brand new instead. In fact this demo is only days old, part of the latest Next Fest on Steam.

The developer's pretty new as well, as gameXcite released their first game, Asterix & Friends: Remastered, in 2021. They followed it up with Idle Asterix on Android in 2022, and then Asterix & Obelix: Heroes in 2023. That's not a track record that fills me with confidence, but it got them a shot at the Star Trek licence and now they get to show off what they can do with it.

They've already got me sold on the premise: revisiting Voyager episodes and choosing a different outcome. I rewatched Voyager recently and I thought that it was just as entertaining as Star Trek: The Next Generation... as long as you know in advance that it's going to waste its potential and hit the reset button on any storyline that's going somewhere interesting. It seems like Across the Unknown is going to confiscate the reset button and I'm interesting in seeing how that even works.

SPOILERS I'm going to show off all the demo including the consequences of the big choice at the end. This is also going to spoil the first episode of the Star Trek: Voyager series. There'll still be 167 episodes that don't get spoiled though.

Return to Monkey Island (PC) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing a little more about Return to Monkey Island, which is an island I'm not 100% hyped about returning to. Don't get me wrong, I've got a lot of affection toward the Monkey Island games, but Monkey Island itself has never been the highlight of any of them. Plus I doubt I'd find any friendly faces there. I can't remember Guybrush antagonising anyone in particular, but I know what he's like.

I got started with Part I back in Part 1, so now in Part 2 I'm going to see if I can reach Part II. That's as far as I'll be going, I won't be playing through the second chapter. But I feel like I need to at least finish the first chapter to have a proper understanding of how the game is going to play.

That means there will be SPOILERS here for the whole of Part I... which could be a third of the entire game. I won't be giving away anything that happens beyond that point however, especially not the controversial ending, as I have no idea what it is.

Return to Monkey Island (PC) - Part 1

Developer:

Terrible Toybox

|

Release Date:

2022

|

Systems:

Win, macOS, Linux, PS5, Series X|S, Switch, iOS, Android

---

Hey they've returned to the original logo again, without the swirly 'O' and fancy 'A'. I kind of liked the new logo to be honest, but this is good too.

This week on Super Adventures, it's a Monkey Island game I've never played! I haven't even seen it being played and I've managed to dodge all the spoilers too. I get the impression that people who have played it generally like it... most of it, but even that I'm not sure about.

One thing I do know is that it's the sixth game in a critically-acclaimed, beloved and long-running adventure game series, following on from The Secret of..., LeChuck's Revenge, Curse of..., Escape from... and Tales of Monkey Island (they didn't quite have the naming scheme nailed down until the third game). I wrote about the other MI games in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019, so really I should've had this published in 2021 to keep the pattern going. In my defence, the game was still a year from being finished at the time. This is practically brand new!

Okay, I should warn you that there will be SPOILERS here for the earlier Monkey Island games and the first hour or two of this one. And this a game all about puzzles and conversations, so I'll be ruining the story and the gameplay for you this time. I don't want to sound like I'm trying to talk you out of reading, just be aware of what you're getting into.

Diablo IV (PC) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm writing a little bit more about Diablo IV.

I'm using the game's original red logo colour for part 2 as the updated green logo makes it look the official video game of Monster energy drink. Though I miss the old logo from the first two games, with its beautiful animated flames. This one's not terrible, but it doesn't have any fire at all and it looks like something heavy landed on top of the letters and did some damage.

It was probably due for a redesign to be fair, seeing as Diablo 4 came out 11 years after Diablo 3, which came out 12 years after Diablo 2. Oh, plus there was also the free-to-play MMO Diablo Immortal in 2022, for fans who had phones and $200,000 lying around to afford to max out their character. I don't have any immediate plans to play that one.

Alright, there are three things you should know before you read any further:

1. This is part two, and you can find part one HERE.
2. There will be SPOILERS for stuff that happens in the first few hours.
3. I actually played this in January so a lot of things could've changed in updates since then.

Diablo IV (PC) - Part 1

Developer:

Blizzard

|

Release Date:

2023

|

Systems:

Win, Xbone, Series X|S, PS4, PS5

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm taking a look at a game I said I would never buy due to its unnecessary always-online DRM: it's Blizzard's action RPG sequel Diablo IV!

So what made me change my mind in the end? Nothing, I didn't buy it, it was included with Xbox Game Pass so I thought I'd give it a try. Oh, I should mention that I played it way back in January, so this is going to be hilariously out of date. These regularly updated modern games are a bad match for my 'Eh, I'll finish the final draft later' work ethic. They're not a great fit for my 'Hey, here are some screenshots of retro games!' site ethic either, but I've found procrastination can actually solve that problem as long as I keep my articles on the back burner for a decade or so.

I had somehow managed to avoid learning anything about Diablo 4 before playing it, so if I seem entirely clueless, that's because I was. I'm still clueless actually. I'm assuming that there's something people don't like about it, some kind of controversy (because: Blizzard), but I haven't looked into what it is. Plus I did my best to ignore all the multiplayer stuff, all the microtransactions, and all the... whatever else it has. I don't even know what it has, I ignored it.

Though I did pay attention to the story, so there'll be SPOILERS for the first few hours of the game. Or at least what the game was like a few months ago.