Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 34: Gold Box - Buck Rogers XXVc: Matrix Cubed (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

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Release Date:

1992

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Systems:

DOS

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Buck Rogers XXVc: Matrix Cubed - Science Fiction Role-Playing Game, Vol II, for MS-DOS. It's nice to get back to science fiction for a bit. I like fantasy, but sci-fi's where my heart is.

DOS has its moments too, especially now that I'm in the VGA/Sound Blaster era, though it's a shame that the game was entirely bound to it. Volume I came out for C64, Amiga and even the Mega Drive/Genesis, but this is DOS exclusive.

This is the second and last of the Buck Rogers XXVc Gold Box RPGs made by Strategic Simulations Inc., though the theme music makes it sound like it should be a Wing Commander game. It wasn't a huge shock when I saw Wing Commander composer The Fat Man credited (along with Ralph Thomas), and I won't be surprised if this is all the music I get either. I've already played a few Gold Box games at this point, in fact I've played almost all of them, so I know what they're like.

If you're wondering why I've labelled a Buck Rogers game as "Dungeons & Dragons", it's because it's based on a tabletop game by D&D publisher TSR, it's made by D&D video game developer SSI, and it runs on the Gold Box D&D engine, so I'm including it as a special bonus to finish off my articles on the first decade of D&D video games: 1982-1991. Even though it came out in 1992.

As usual I've no plans to finish the game, but I'll play it for long enough for there to be SPOILERS, probably, so be aware of what you're getting into.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 33: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (MS-DOS) - Part 4

You're reading Super Adventures and I'm playing Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon. Not for much longer though.

This is part 4 of this epic 4-part saga, but if you'd rather read PART 1,  PART 2 or PART 3, then click the text.

This is also part 33 of my attempt to play the first 10 years of Dungeons & Dragons video games, spanning 1982 to 1991. Hang on, this is the last game of 1991. That means I've done it, I've played everything on the list! It's over!

It's a bit of an awkward place to end things though, seeing as there's still another Eye of the Beholder game left to play, along with a bunch of Gold Box RPGs. On the plus side, Eye of the Beholder III apparently sucks, so maybe it'll work out for the best if I quit while I'm ahead.

SPOILER WARNING: whatever happens, you're going to know about it.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 32: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (MS-DOS) - Part 3

This week on Super Adventures, it's been pretty much nothing but Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon. Version 1.1, apparently.

You're reading part 3 of 4, but if you'd prefer to be reading PART 1 or PART 2, then those links will get you where you want to be.

Here's a bit of insight into how bad I am at estimating how much I'll end up writing about a game: I was originally going to cover Eye of the Beholder in one article. I mean the Eye of the Beholder series, all three games, on the same page. I had the layout in place and I figured that 10 screenshots each would be enough. Turns out that 100 would've been a better guess.

Anyway, there's barely any story in the game, but I'll put a SPOILER warning here anyway just to be safe. Maybe I'll end up spoiling a puzzle for you or something.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 31: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (MS-DOS) - Part 2

Hi, this is still Super Adventures, and I'm still playing Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon.

This is part two of four, and you can jump back to PART ONE by clicking the bold text.

The game is a part two as well, as it has a "II" in the title. I'm bringing this up because I don't think I've come across a numbered sequel yet while playing these Dungeons & Dragons games. They like to say things like "A Legend Series Fantasy Role-Playing Saga, Vol. II", but this was the first to put a number in the actual name. And then Eye of the Beholder III was the last, until the Baldur's Gate games seven years later.

Here's some more trivia for you: the Steam launcher suddenly stopped launching for me! I tried installing the game to a different PC and it ran on that just fine, so after trying a bunch of troubleshooting I just reinstalled Steam to skip to the part where it works again. That's proper old school difficulty.

There may be SPOILERS below, though that depends if you think it has enough of a story to be spoiled.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 30: Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

Westwood

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

DOS, Amiga, FM Towns, PC-98

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the second Eye of Beholder game that Westwood released during 1991. And I thought SSI were rushing out their Gold Box sequels a bit fast.

Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon was released in December 1991, just 10 months after the first game, and it came out on many of the same systems. But not all of them. Sega CD and SNES owners were left out, probably because they didn't get a port of the first game until 1994. 

At least the Amiga still got a port! The gap between the PC and Amiga 500's hardware specs kept getting bigger, but they continued bringing Dungeons & Dragons games over for one last year. Hang on, the more powerful Amiga 1200 was released in 1992, they could've released a few games for that!

Anyway, this is going to be the first of four parts. It was going to be two, but I thought splitting them in half would be less of a gruelling test of endurance for you, and it's less editing work for me. Plus I really want to publish four articles a month and I've almost ran out of time! I wouldn't count on me finishing the game though, as... no time, too much to do. Sorry.

I'll throw a SPOILER warning here even though it's not exactly a plot heavy game, just so you're aware of what you're getting into by reading past this point.

Super Methane Bros (Amiga CD32)

Developer:

Apache Software

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

Amiga, Amiga CD32

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Super Methane Bros on the Amiga CD32!

The game came out in 1994 and there were already a few games with "Bros." in the title by then. First there was Mario Bros., which is its original Japanese title by the way. The abbreviation was there even in Japan. Then afterwards there was Super Mario Bros., Buster Bros. (which is not its Japanese title), Blood Bros., Snow Bros., and Bonanza Bros. And there's one thing that all these games have in common: they remembered to put the dot after "Bros".

Oh hang on, it seems that "Bros" without a dot is the correct way to write it in British English, and Apache Software was British. Actually Mobygames says they were from , but that's close enough. The studio didn't get to make many games before vanishing in the mid '90s, and half their credits are for ports of Sensible Soccer, but they did make the graphically impressive Amiga first-person shooter Death Mask and Mega Drive/Genesis platformer Marsupilami. Plus the sprite artist went on to become the lead artist on some of the Ratchet & Clank games, so there's some bonus trivia for you.

Okay I'm going to play this until I get bored or run out of lives. Shouldn't take long I expect.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 29: Silver Box - Shadow Sorcerer (MS-DOS)

Developer:

U.S. Gold

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

DOS, Amiga, Atari ST

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This week on Super Adventures, I've reached the last of the Silver Box games: Shadow Sorcerer. Well, it's the last game included in the Silver Box Classics collection anyway; the box was actually brown in the US and blue in Europe.

The US box calls it "An animated fantasy adventure", which is maybe promising a bit much. The game isn't Dragon's Lair. The European box calls it "A Dragonlance Role-Playing Adventure Vol. 1", which is also a bit weird, because it's not. 

U.S. Gold made three games set in the Dragonlance universe, starting with Heroes of the Lance, based on the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop module DL1 Dragons of Despair. A year later they released Dragons of Flame, based on DL2 Dragons of Flame. Finally we got Shadow Sorcerer, which is apparently an adaptation of both DL3 Dragons of Hope and DL4 Dragons of Desolation. I suppose putting "Vol. 3 and Vol. 4" on the box wouldn't have helped sales.

I can already see one big difference between this and the other two games: it was only released on three systems, none of them Japanese. Plus anyone who'd been playing through the series on 8-bit machines was entirely out of luck here, though that was true in general at this point. The NES held on for one more year and a few C64 and ZX Spectrum D&D games were still waiting for their European release, but I'll not be needing to boot any of those systems up again going forward.

Okay, there will be some SPOILERS below for this and the earlier games, which will also be spoilers for the books. But I don't expect to get very far in it.