Albion (MS-DOS)

I can't decide what I think about that logo. It looks great and terrible both at once.

The game starts with a cryptic intro showing a glowing orange figure flying through a trippy dreamscape filled with evil looking balls.

But it turns out we're actually on a spaceship!

These are pretty nice graphics I think, though his walking animation is a bit... crap. He looks like he's limping. My first guess would be that this a sci-fi rpg. Which sounds good to me.

After a couple of steps I get dragged out of the doorway by a cutscene with the guy's girlfriend. We chat about my nightmares for a while, then she mentions that my co-pilot just exploded while I was asleep. Poor Snoopy.

With Snoopy dead, this guy is going to tag along with me instead. Apparently messing around with COM units in over-c makes you explode, so I gotta remember not to do that.

Okay, now I need to go find my shuttle and... okay this thing is really starting to piss me off now. This damn Star Trek looking machine has been making annoying beepy computery noises all through that conversation and it's still doing it. Why is it in the middle of a corridor anyway, what does it even do?

COM connection? So the ultra dangerous COM device is just a video chat console? They really are using Star Trek computer panels on this ship, one little glitch and you'll likely get a face full of sparks and shrapnel.

So my instructions are to fly through outer space to a desert planet in a tiny little vulnerable shuttle that uses the same computer tech that explodes if you watch youtube on it? Sure thing boss, I'll get right on that.

It's all good so far. Man it's a shame Snoopy wasn't alive to see this.

And then my ship starts falling apart for no reason. I am truly shocked.

Fortunately our guy is an ace pilot, and he manages to bring the broken shuttle down from space with both crew members completely unharmed!

Now we're safe to get our supplies from the ship and explore the area.

Well... fuck.

Trippy dream sequence reprise!

Our hero awakes 30 days later to hear the co-pilot whining about American TV. Apparently he's been helping the natives treat my wounds, and has already learned their language. It seems I'm too weak to get up just yet, so I lie in bed for another few weeks recovering.

That means we've been here two months, and still no rescue ship. I guess they must have blown themselves up by accident while we were gone.

Okay, it's been a while but I'm finally back to gameplay. I start off by stealing anything that isn't nailed down. Or at least I try to. You select what you want to interact with using a cursor, but the cursor can only move a couple of squares away from your character. So I keep having to reposition him, trying to squeeze closer to the edge of tables to grab objects on the far side. It's a pain in the ass.

That's our guy, space hero Tom Driscoll. Looking through the inventory it seems that the first thing we grabbed was a towel, which is always handy.

This guy is always way too excited about all this stuff. I asked him what he thought about the natives and I got three screenfuls of hard to read text about them. Apparently they're furry humanoids, they live until they're 40, and they like building open plumbing and walking around naked.

That's enough playing around in the toilets then.

I got dragged off to meet the chief, who tried to buy my spaceship off me. I figure if they can be bothered picking up all the pieces they've earned it, so I let them have it. Then, because I'm an idiot, I manage to trigger another screenful of hard to read yellow text.

Blah blah blah, holy ritual, blah blah, magic act, blah blah, stole the body of his newborn son and transferred his own soul into it to double his life span, blah blah... wait, WHAT?

He switched his consciousness into his own son and then went through childhood again. Damn.

Okay screw that guy, I've nicked his storage room key and how I'm going to help myself to everything he owns. Like this nice little pixelly axe. Nice of them to spoil the entire character list there.

We were all thinking it.


About the game I mean. The text in the game. Oh whatever.

Okay, what the fuck? I went down some stairs and suddenly everything's turned into Doom. I'm still doing the same thing, walking around corridors and stealing stuff, I don't get why this bit needs to be in 3D.

I guess that's part of my spaceship over there. Bits of the wreckage are scattered all over the place. I think I can fix it, but first I'll need to steal some alien duct tape.

Oh noes!

Fuck these things look nasty. Why is every basement in every rpg always infested with killer vermin?

... what?

A turn based tactical battle system? What the hell, game? Find a style and stick with it will ya?

I tried attacking them from each side, but apparently space hero Tom Driscoll is as bad at fighting as he is at not crashing spaceships.

Man, we weren't even that far from the steps. Those natives should have been able to hear our pathetic screams from upstairs and sent someone down to save us.


Oh well, next game.