Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 17: Gold Box - Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

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Release Date:

1990

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Systems:

DOS, C64, Amiga, Mega Drive

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing Buck Rogers XXVc: Countdown to Doomsday! A Science Fiction Role-Playing Computer Game Vol. I. Not to be confused with Buck Rogers XXX, that would be... something else.

I actually played this once already, 14 years back. Though the PC version scared me off, so I played the friendly Genesis/Mega Drive version instead, with its icons and isometric levels. I don't recall much about it now, but there's one thing I'm sure of: it's got nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons' medieval multiverse of knights and clerics whatsoever. It didn't even come in a gold box.

It does run on the Gold Box engine though. Plus it's by D&D video game developer SSI and it was an adaptation of the Buck Rogers XXVc tabletop game from D&D publisher TSR. I think that makes it worth a look.

Hang on a moment, the more I stare at that logo the weirder it seems. Half the letters have impossible sharp corners, you can't do a T or a D that way, and the letters W and M are straight up impossible to reproduce on a 7-segment display. Also the T has a single pixel of red missing and it's bothering me.

Alright, now I'll be able to sleep tonight. Doesn't really look as good though.

Anyway, it seems a bit strange to build a new tabletop RPG around a character people mostly knew from a campy TV show from the late '70s, but there was actually a good reason why TSR were trying to resurrect the brand: they were being run at the time by Lorraine Williams, whose family owned the Buck Rogers IP. If you've got a classic sci-fi brand and a tabletop RPG company, it's not the worst idea to try combining the two. And it apparently sold an okay number of copies. Not great, but enough to justify the sequel that came out a couple of years later.

Okay I'm going to play the game for a while and see if I can get further than I did in the Mega Drive game. I remember walking around a damaged spaceship, though I can't recall if I managed to walk back off again.

Starfield (PC) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm contemplating the fact that 'Starfield' is only two letters away from being 'Garfield'. Though one of those letters is the longest T I've ever seen in a logo.

I've already put a few hours into Starfield, but I'm not quite done with it. Mostly because I haven't really done anything yet. If you want to see the story so far click here: PART ONE.

I'm not promising that I'll be able to get anything done in this part either, but I'll certainly make an effort to try out all the game's features before I'm done with it. Even though it will mean that I also have to write about them and try to explain them. RPGs always need a horrifying amount of explanation.

Note: like I said at the start of part one, this is an old version of the game from early 2025, not the shiny new April 2026 updated release. I won't be comparing the different versions because I don't actually know what's different. The update isn't even out yet at the time I'm publishing this.

Another note: beware of SPOILERS.

Starfield (PC) - Part 1

Developer:

Bethesda

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Release Date:

2023

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Systems:

Win, Series X|S

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This week, Bethesda's infamous Starfield is getting a free update to coincide with its launch on the PlayStation 5! It's a huge upgrade that apparently makes the game better in every way.

But I won't be covering that.

I actually played Starfield way back in January 2025 and never finished writing about it. Because I somehow keep forgetting that trying to do seven things at the same time always leads to nothing getting done. So this week on Super Adventures, I'm opening a time capsule containing my opinions on the game as it was.

It's a shame I couldn't have been more hyped about Starfield, as I love the 3D Fallout games and Mass Effect, and space games like TIE Fighter and Freelancer used to be my thing. So "A new space RPG by the makers of Fallout 3" was right at the top of my 'dream game list', just underneath "A new space RPG by the makers of Fallout: New Vegas". I can't believe I actually got both of them in the end, though it wasn't a huge shock to me that both turned out kind of flawed.

Still, it's a new IP from the developer that gave us the Fallout sequels and the Elder Scrolls sequels and nothing else in two decades besides IHRA Professional Drag Racing, so that on its own is interesting. Though it wouldn't have been so bad if they had used an existing IP for their space game... like that Star Trek licence that Bethesda Softworks had at one point. "A Star Trek RPG by the makers of Fallout 3" is even higher on my 'dream game list'. 

Alright, I'm going to go on an expedition into Starfield to see if there's any joy in there to find. It's a big universe so this will be the first part of two.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 16: Gold Box - Secret of the Silver Blades (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing a little more of the MS-DOS version of Secret of the Silver Blades.

That's actually the title screen from the PC-98 version up there, that's why it looks so dithered. They took a picture made to fit into a tiny EGA palette of 16 colours and then squeezed it down to just 7. Still, it could have been worse - the Macintosh version is black and white. I don't mean it's monochrome like the Game Boy, I mean it has two colours: black and white.

The game was released on five systems, MS-DOS, PC-98, Mac, C64 and Amiga, and they'd all gotten the previous two games as well, so anyone playing through the saga on one of those machines was in luck... for now. People who'd been playing on the Apple II or Atari ST were less fortunate as those computers got dropped here, and I doubt it was possible to get the saves working on another system. Their heroes had to all retire at game #2, never levelling up past level 12... or past level 4 if they were a halfling fighter with low strength (1st Edition AD&D is weird).

Okay, if you want to jump back to part one, CLICK HERE.

If you want to view the Dungeons & Dragons games I've played, CLICK HERE.

And if you want to keep reading, be aware that there will be SPOILERS beyond this point.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 15: Gold Box - Secret of the Silver Blades (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

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Release Date:

1990

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Systems:

DOS, C64, Mac, Amiga, PC-98

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm playing the 11th Dungeons & Dragons video game, Secret of the Silver Blades! 

I'm playing the DOS version to be precise and I can already tell from this title screen that the game isn't going to be supporting 256 colour VGA graphics. That's fine though. 4 colour CGA was no fun for anyone, but Tandy and EGA hardware allowed artists a large enough palette to come up with something distinctive. They gave us a style tied to a specific time and place in history that otherwise would have never existed. A style with lots of magenta and cyan.

(I hope the VGA era isn't too far off.)

Secret of the Silver Blades is the third game in the Pool of Radiance saga, following on from the events of Curse of the Azure Bonds. This means I've finally made it back to the Forgotten Realms campaign setting after a surprisingly long stay in the Dragonlance universe. I'm also back to the Gold Box engine, so I already have a good idea of what this is going to be like.

Anyway, I'm going to be playing the game for a few hours, so there may be SPOILERS here for this and earlier games in the series.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 14: DragonStrike (MS-DOS) and DragonStrike (NES)

This week on Super Adventures, I've finally got another excuse to Photoshop together a title image. The weird thing is, I started adding the ripped cover effect to it before I noticed that the Amiga version's cover already uses a torn paper effect (you can see it the top left behind the dude). That's such a weird coincidence. Their effect is better, but I think mine came out looking okay.

Anyway DragonStrike came out in 1990 and is the 10th Dungeons & Dragons game. Meanwhile DragonStrike (NES) came out in 1992 and is the 21st Dungeons & Dragons game. It was pretty common at the time for different systems to get wildly different games that all shared the same title, but in this case it's only the NES release that just had to be awkward.

Covering both games at the same time requires breaking the timeline a bit, but doing it this way means I get to compare them, so you're getting double dragons this week.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 13: Gold Box - Champions of Krynn (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm just playing some more of the DOS version of Champions of Krynn, but I thought you might want to see the PC-98 title screen instead this time.

The game was released on just five systems this time: IBM PC, Amiga, PC-98, Commodore 64 and Apple II, so we've lost the Atari ST and Apple Mac - both 16-bit systems weirdly. The 8-bit C64 is still hanging in there, but this was the final Dungeons & Dragons game to be ported to the legendary Apple II. It had been the main platform for RPGs in the US, giving the world titles like Ultima, Wizardry and The Bard's Tale, but it had its last major hit in 1989 with Prince of Persia. A computer that couldn't run SimCity or Golden Axe didn't really have a place in the early '90s.

In fact technology had moved on so far by this point that the PC version of Champions of Krynn actually has Adlib sound card support! It's also one of the very few Gold Box RPGs to support the Roland LAPC, which is basically an MT-32 on a card (the next few games didn't support it for some reason). It doesn't really change much however, as I think the only music in the whole game is the theme tune at the start.

If you want to go back to part one, CLICK HERE.

If you want to see all the Dungeons & Dragons games I've played CLICK HERE.

Beware of SPOILERS beyond this point.