TimeSplitters 2 (Xbox) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing a little more of TimeSplitters 2! Just a little bit more, not much.

TimeSplitters 2 came out in October 2002, around the same time as games like Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, Metroid Prime and 007: Nightfire. Also No One Lives Forever 2, Red Faction II, Unreal II and Star Wars: Jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast. It was a great time for fans of single-player first-person shooter sequels, and the multiplayer was pretty decent as well.

In fact many would argue that the best first-person console multiplayer was right here in TimeSplitters 2, especially if you didn't have an Xbox for Halo. But right now I'm more interested in the game's single-player and I've only made it up to level two so far so I need to pick up the pace.

If you want to read what I said about level 1 you should CLICK HERE. Otherwise, I'm just going to jump straight into the next level.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 20: Eye of the Beholder (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I'm playing the rest of Eye of the Beholder.

(Click this text for PART ONE, or this text for the LIST OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS GAMES I've played so far.)

The game was originally for MS-DOS, Amiga and PC-98 computers, then made its way to the Sega Mega CD and SNES a few years later. So for once no one involved had to think 'But how do we get this to run on an old 8-bit Commodore 64 in 64 KB of RAM?' Even the game it borrowed its gameplay from, Dungeon Master, was a 16/32-bit Atari ST title.

The Atari ST was left out this time, though owners were likely used to that by now. It got two more Dungeons & Dragons games this year, Curse of the Azure Bonds and Shadow Sorcerer, before being dropped entirely. This was technically the second and last D&D game for the Mega Drive/Genesis too, with the Mega CD release coming out after the Sega exclusive Warriors of the Eternal Sun.

Anyway, I'd give you a spoiler warning about all the story I'll be playing through, but it's not really that kind of RPG. I could give you a warning for new dungeon tiles though, as I'll be delving deep enough to see all the art.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 19: Eye of the Beholder (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

Westwood

|

Release Date:

1991

|

Systems:

DOS, Amiga, PC-98, Sega CD, SNES

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm returning to an old nemesis of mine, Eye of the Beholder. I've tried this a bunch of times and never gotten anywhere in it.

The text says it's A Legend Series Fantasy Role-Playing Saga, Vol. 1, so that's a little different. Pool of Radiance was a Forgotten Realms Role-Playing Epic, Vol. 1, but this time it's a saga and it's part of the Legend series! A series that only has games called Eye of the Beholder in it, as far as I'm aware. Plus they missed out the 'Forgotten Realms' part, even though that's where this is set.

Oh, this is by Westwood Associates, by the way, the folks who made Hillsfar (bad) and DragonStrike  (awkward), and the internet says it came out in 1991, not 1990 like it says on the title screen. 1991 featured more Dungeons & Dragons games than any year before or since, with Eye of the Beholder being right at the start of them. And also at the end of them.

• Eye of the Beholder
• Death Knights of Krynn
• Neverwinter Nights
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier
• Pools of Darkness
• Shadow Sorcerer
• Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon

Two Eye of the Beholder games in one year is a bit much, though I suppose it's not as bad as four Gold Box RPGs!

Alright, this is the second time I've covered this game, if the first time even counts. All I did was wander around the first floor of the SNES game for a bit before getting bored and giving up. This time however I'm not quitting so easily and you can expect to see hours worth of identical-looking plain dungeon walls. So get a drink and make yourself comfortable. That's just good advice in general, really.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 9: Gold Box - Curse of the Azure Bonds (MS-DOS) - Part 2

This week on Super Adventures, I feel like I should write a little more about Curse of the Azure Bonds. It's a big complicated RPG, so one article wasn't really doing it justice. You could argue that two isn't enough either and I should really finish it, but... I don't want to.

Like Pool of Radiance, the game was released on a ton of systems: IBM PC, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, the venerable Apple II, Apple Macintosh, NEC PC-98. Not the NES this time though; the Gold Box RPGs never returned to the console. And D&D was done with the Sharp X1 and PC-88 entirely by this point.

On the plus side, the Atari ST got a port this time! Their first and only Gold Box game. It's a shame that ST owners were left out after this, as it was one of the higher spec machines of the '80s and its weakness with scrolling backgrounds wasn't a problem for these turn based RPGs.

Alright, if you want to return to part one then CLICK HERE. If you want to see a list of all the Dungeons & Dragons games I've covered CLICK HERE. And if you want some Curse of the Azure Bonds spoilers then you're already in the right place.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 8: Gold Box - Curse of the Azure Bonds (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

|

Release Date:

1989

|

Systems:

DOS, C64, Apple II, Amiga, Mac, Atari ST, PC-98

---

This week, it's my first Super Adventures game of 2026: Curse of the Azure Bonds! 

The game came out in 1989, which means I've still got three more years of Dungeons & Dragons games left to get through before I've finished the first decade. That doesn't sound so bad, but this is the point where they begin to get abundant.

Strategic Simulations Inc. had the licence at this point and their tactic to increase game sales was to give people more games to buy. They released an average of six D&D games a year, half of them proper Gold Box RPGs.

To make things more straightforward, or more confusing, the Gold Box games alternated between three different series. Well, three plus the Neverwinter Nights MMO. And the Buck Rogers games I suppose, but they're something else.

Anyway, this is A FORGOTTEN REALMS Fantasy Role-Playing Epic, Vol. II, which makes it the second volume of the Pool of Radiance saga. It's also a sequel to the novel Azure Bonds so there are two sagas intersecting here. Though you'd be forgiven for thinking it was an adaptation as it has basically the same name and the same cover. I know most/all the early D&D games used recycled art for their boxes, but they were taking the piss a bit with this one.

I'm going to play the game for a few hours, probably spoil a bunch of early twists for you, and show off screenshots. I won't be playing enough of the game to form a proper informed opinion (ie. all of it), but I'll try to hang in there long enough to get what it's doing.

Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 6: Silver Box - Heroes of the Lance (MS-DOS)

Developer:

U.S. Gold

|

Release Date:

1988

|

Systems:

Atari ST, Amiga, DOS, C64, ZX Spectrum, CPC, MSX, PC-88, PC-98, Sharp X1, FM Towns, Master System, NES

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm still in 1988 playing Dungeons & Dragons video games. In fact I've barely moved, as this apparently came out almost simultaneously with the first Gold Box game, Pool of Radiance. This time though I'm playing the first of the Silver Box line... it's Heroes of the Lance, by British developer U.S. Gold!

I didn't even know that U.S. Gold had made any games themselves, I only know them as a publisher. It turns out that they released hundreds of titles (not all of them gold from the US), but only ever developed eight of them themselves, including this and its two Silver Box sequels. Hang on, I need to turn the volume down, as its beepy PC Speaker music just scared the crap out of me. It sounds better on the Atari ST, which was apparently the lead system this time. In fact it sounds better on a lot of computers, as I believe this had the most ports of any of the D&D games.

Heroes of the Lance was released on 13 systems over 4 years, beating Pool of Radiance and Dragons of Flame, which each only made it onto 9 of them. It didn't matter if you were a European with a Speccy or Amiga, a Japanese gamer with a PC-88, or if you preferred Sega or Nintendo consoles instead, there was a version of Heroes of the Lance for you. Except for Americans with Apple IIs who were somehow left out! The system was getting on in years, but it had been the lead RPG platform throughout the '80s, so I don't know what publisher SSI were thinking there.

A lot of big name publishers had competed to win the Dungeons & Dragons licence, but it was Strategic Simulations, Inc. that had been victorious, thanks in part to their ambitious plans. They had three product lines in mind: role-playing games based on AD&D rules (Gold Box), action-adventure titles (Silver Box), and software to help a Dungeon Master run a tabletop D&D game. That last idea didn't catch on, but there are 10 Gold Box RPGs and this Silver Box Classics bundle I just picked up on Steam has a decent number of games in it too, so two out of three isn't bad.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 3 - Guest Post

Previously on the demo of Small Saga, our hero Verm and his new friend Siobhan had a disagreement with a cat and rescued a pigeon from a wheelie bin. Now airborne, the pair continue their journey to the rodent capital Murida.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 2 - Guest Post

Previously on the demo of Small Saga, tragedy struck when mouse brothers Lance and Verm undertook a daring mission to steal from the gods. Who dares wield the Titan Reaper now?

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Part 1 - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, guest poster mecha-neko has decided to mix things up by writing about a game so new that it's not even out yet. It's indie RPG (rodent-playing game) Small Saga!

It seems like it's been nothing but drab sci-fi games forever around here. My previous post was dystopian misery in Crusader: No Remorse, and my next post is going to be a gloomy survival horror derelict spaceship thing. What I need is some wonderful, colourful, adorable game to lift everyone's spirits!

Developer:

Jeremy Noghani

|

Release Date:

March 2022 (Demo)

|

Systems:

Windows

---

It's time to play the brand new demo of Small Saga! Well, it's brand new to me. The Kickstarter ended three years ago, but this latest standalone demo was released this year. I was told there was a cat in it, and that's all I need to know.

Small Saga (Demo) (PC) - Guest PostPart 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Stonekeep (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Interplay

|

Release Date:

1995

|

Systems:

MS-DOS, Mac

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out Interplay's notorious first-person dungeon crawler RPG Stonekeep.

All this year I've been playing games the people have placed on a top ten list, and I found Stonekeep in Computer Gaming World issue 148. It made it to #10 in its '15 Top Vaporware Titles in Computer Game History" list. The game was a bit of a Duke Nukem Forever in its day as development dragged on for way longer than intended when feature creep took hold. It was supposed to cost $50,000 and take 9 months, it ended up costing $5,000,000 and taking 5 years. That's longer than Daikatana took to come out!

Sure 5 years seems like nothing compared to DNF's 15 years in development hell, but time worked differently back in the early 90s. 5 years was the difference between Ninja Gaiden and Doom, A Link to the Past and Final Fantasy VII, or Super Mario Kart and Gran Turismo. When the developers started work on Stonekeep the average PC was put to shame by an Amiga 500 and they couldn't assume that players would have a hard drive or a mouse. When it finally came out it was released on CD with live-action cutscenes and full voiced dialogue. They just kept working on it until PC hardware had caught up to their ambitions, even after main programmer Peter Oliphant quit because he'd had enough. Here's some trivia for you: he went on to work as an extra on the TV series Deadwood, and no I'm not getting him mixed up with Timothy Olyphant.

Okay I'm going to play the first hour or so of the game, and hopefully get far enough to understand the basics of what you're actually supposed to do in it. I haven't had the best track record with games like this, but I'll do my best.

WARNING: There's a jump scare coming up at some point. I'll let you know when.

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG (PC) - Part 2 - Guest Post

Previously on the self-explanatory Y II K: A Post-Modern RPG, childhood buds Alex and Michael encountered a spooky ghost in an abandoned factory and freaked the heck out! Are you ready to see the photos they took?

You are invited to review the game's Content Warning in Part 1. Oh, and don't forget to click the screenshots to enlarge!

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG (PC) - Part 1 - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, indie guest reviewer mecha-neko is giving under-rated indie RPG YIIK a fair chance to impress him. Uh, I don't mean it's underrated because people aren't giving it a high enough score, I mean it's gotten fewer ratings that you'd expect for a game so notorious. 186 user reviews on Steam, 35 user ratings on Metacritic; it's like people don't even want to play it for some reason!

I don't know much about the game myself, though the title claims that it's a post-modern RPG, which I guess is a bit like a post-nuclear RPG except without so many super mutants. I'm sure mecha-neko will bring us all the facts.

Developer:

Ackk Studios

|

Release Date:

17th January 2019

|

Systems:

Windows, PS4, Switch

---

Take a seat and enjoy the strange, warbling, echoing elevator muzak. It is time for our minds to be expanded and our preconceptions to be obliterated as we begin Y II K: A Post-Modern RPG.

Other than knowing it's an RPG set in the modern day (yaaay!), I'm completely oblivious to all things YIIK. Some people can't stand it. Maybe I'll like it! There's only one way to find out:

Click the pictures to enlarge!

YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG (PC) - Guest PostPart 1 - Part 2

Rolling Ronny: The Errand-Boy (Amiga)

Developer:

Starbyte and/or Touch of Magic

|

Release Date:

1991

|

Systems:

Amiga, Atari ST, C64, DOS

---

This week on Super Adventures I'm playing an Amiga game about a clown on roller skates!

Why? Because the title Rolling Ronny popped into my head the other day for no reason and decided it was going to sit in my brain for a while. So I went looking through my memory for clues to why I remembered this name all of a sudden and realised that I have no idea what the game is. I'm sure I must have played it back in the day but what I saw on my flicking CRT TV screen was apparently so horrifying that my mind blanked it out to protect my sanity. Either that or it's just not very memorable. So now I'm playing it again so that I'll know one way or the other, for my records.

I'll give it an hour or two, take some screenshots and write what's going on underneath them as I go. Because that's what my site's about.

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (PC)

Developer:

Revolution

|

Release Date:

1996

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac, GBA, PSX

---

This week on Super Adventures I'm playing Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Not to be confused with Shadow of the Beast, Shadow of the Colossus, Shadows of the Empire, Shadow of Memories/Destiny or the Christian Slater/John Travolta movie 'Broken Arrow'. Wow, I haven't seen that film in forever, I should give it a rewatch some time.

In America the game was originally given a different subtitle: Circle of Blood. I guess shadows and Templars just didn't seem as marketable back then in those pre DaVinci Code/Assassin's Creed days. In 2009 it got another subtitle: Director's Cut, as the game was remade with extra content for PCs, phones and the Nintendo systems of the time.

This is Revolution Software's third adventure game, after Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky, but I've also written about In Cold Blood as I'm getting to them all out of order. Plus it's the second graphic adventure I've played this year about the Knights Templar, as I took a look at Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade back in January. There, I think I've just broke the record for the amount of games I've mentioned in an intro! I'll say Monkey Island as well just to make sure, seeing as it's inevitably going to get brought up at some point anyway.

Alright, I'm going to give Broken Sword an hour or two and take lots of screenshots, while writing up what I've been doing and what I thought about it. Same deal as ever.

Breach & Clear: DEADline (PC)

Developer:

Mighty Rabbit

|

Release Date:

2015

|

Systems:

Win, Linux, Mac

---

This month on Super Adventures, I'm playing Unity 5-powered special forces sequel Breach & Clear: nFΛnLINԷ. Uh, I mean Breach & Clear: DEADline, or perhaps just Breach & Clear: Deadline; I'm getting conflicting information on that and as usual the logo's in all caps so it's no use.

As the name hints, this is the follow up to tactical counter-terrorism game Breach & Clear, though I'm sure it has very little to do with tactical counter-terrorism game Deadline, and I'm doubly certainly there's no connection to "authentic hotel maintenance simulation" Breach & Clean. I can detect a little Call of Duty influence though, as the game's gone from modern warfare straight to... hnng... zombies.

Zombies man, it's always the fucking zombies. Why is it never wizards? Breach & Clear & Dragons: Origins, it could totally work!

I'm coming into this entirely blind, as I've never seen the game, I didn't play it in Early Access, and I know next to nothing about it. In fact I went to do my normal research, looking for some stuff to write up here, and it seems that neither Wikipedia or MobyGames have an entry for it. So if you've ever wanted to add a game to either site and leave a semi-permanent mark on history, now's your big chance!

But one thing I do know about the game, and this is something you should definitely be aware of, is that a friend of mine worked on it. So I can't promise I'll be entirely fair in my assessment of the game. But this site's about showing games off as much as it is about my opinions, and I can still do that while being biased. So if you decide to carry on reading, keep repeating to yourself "This guy's predisposed to be nice to the game," in your head the whole time, and then ignore all my conclusions.

(Click any screenshot to expand it to twice its current size!)

SiN (PC)

Developer:

Ritual

|

Release Date:

1998

|

Systems:

Win, Mac, Linux

---

This week on Super Adventures I'm taking a look at SiN, the first actual game by Ritual Entertainment. Or 'sin' according to the box, title screen, menu, intro etc. (the manual just calls it Sin).

I used to play a lot of first person shooters back in the 90s (and every other decade), so if I haven't seen the full version of something, chances are I've at least played the demo. But SiN apparently slipped right by me. All I know about it is that it starts in a bank, I don't even know if it's 3D like Half-Life or 2.5D like Doom (though in my head I'm imagining it looking like Duke Nukem 3D).

Part of the reason I never got around to it might be that when the game came out it wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders. The game was full of bugs, it took minutes to load levels and save games, and a lot of people didn't even get sound. But now it's full patched up and it even runs on modern PCs! I hope!

(Click the screenshots to view the images at 800x600 res! I was playing in fake 3dfx mode so it's the best I could get.)

Sword Coast Legends (PC)

Developer:

n-Space + Digital Extremes

|

Release Date:

2015

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac, Linux

---

This week on Super Adventures I'm playing a few hours of shiny new RPG Sword Coast Legends! Well it's pretty new, as it came out in October 2015.

I'm really curious about this one as it's the first proper Baldur’s Gate-style 'Dungeons & Dragons' RPG since Obsidian's Neverwinter Nights 2 a decade ago. The thing is though, it's by n-Space, the people who brought the world games like Mary-Kate and Ashley: Crush Course and Hannah Montana: The Movie, when they weren't busy porting first person shooters to the DS. But Dragon Age: Origins director Dan Tudge joined the company to lead development on the game, and that's got to be a good sign. It also means I'll likely be typing 'Dragon Age' a lot.

Sadly it seems like n-Space may have been better off on their path they were on, as this was their last game. After 22 years of game development, the company closed down last week.

Oh I should mention that I'm only playing the single player campaign. A big deal was made about the game's innovative multiplayer Dungeon Master Mode, which lets one player guide a group of others through their home-made dungeons, so be aware that it exists and I'm just ignoring it. Because I do that.

(Remember: clicking images will display higher resolution screenshots.)

Hexen II (PC)

Developer:

Raven

|

Release Date:

1997

|

Systems:

Windows, Mac

---

This week on Super Adventures I've finally gotten around to replaying some of Hexen's slightly more three dimensional successor, Hexen II! It's been ages since I've played this one so I should be coming into it reasonably clueless. Plus it's a Hexen game so I likely didn't get anywhere in it the first time around anyway.

Hexen II is the last of the 'Serpent Riders' trilogy, following on from Heretic and Hexen, so there's apparently a story here to resolve and this game finishes it off. But just to make things confusing, Heretic actually branches off to another sequel, Heretic II, which tells the tale of the original game's protagonist returning home and fighting a plague. Plus there's the expansion packs like Deathkings of the Dark Citadel and Portal of Praevus which slot in somewhere.

But this is definitely absolutely the final Hexen... until Raven Software gets bored of making multiplayer modes for Call of Duty games and decides it's time for Hex3n: Beyond Heretic II.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (MS-DOS)

Developer:

Lucasfilm Games

|

Release Date:

1989

|

Systems:

Amiga, Atari ST, CDTV, DOS, FM Towns, Macintosh, Windows

---

This week on Super Adventures, I'm having a quick look at another one of those Lucasfilm/LucasArts adventures. It wasn't really part of my masterplan to play a pair of Sam & Max games in July then follow them up with a pair of Monkey Islands in September, but seeing as that happened I might as well finish the trilogy with a duology of Indiana Joneses. Uh, bit of a spoiler for the next game there, sorry.

The difference this time though is that I've never played this and I've got no idea what it's like. I don't even know if it's considered to be any good. But one thing I do know is that its full title is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, as Lucasfilm also developed a multi-platform Last Crusade platformer in the same year called The Action Game and they didn't want gamers to get them confused. That's good responsible labelling, I applaud them.

Weirdly another developer called Software Creations went and made a third Last Crusade game a couple of years later, exclusive to the NES. Which means the console got two entirely different Last Crusade action games. Later Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures and LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures would revisit the movie as well. Not a whole lot of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull games out there though, you'll be shocked to learn.

South Park: The Stick of Truth (PC)

Developer:

Obsidian

|

Release Date:

2014

|

Systems:

Windows, PS3, Xbox 360

---

This week on Super Adventures I'm playing another game based on a cartoon series! It'd be fair to say that South Park: The Stick of Truth is a little better regarded than Family Guy: Back to the Multiverse though, as it's got over twice the score on metacritic.

In fact Stick of Truth gave Obsidian their highest metacritic score since Knights of the Old Republic II back in 2004, beating games like Fallout: New Vegas and Alpha Protocol. Which goes to show how broken metacritic is/how rubbish reviewers are, as Alpha Protocol's totally a better game than KotOR 2! It has an ending and everything.

I still can't believe that Obsidian of all developers were working on a 'South Park' RPG, though in retrospect I suppose I should be more surprised that they finished it, seeing as they have the worst luck with their licensed games. The original publisher for Stick of Truth went bankrupt a year before release, Aliens: Crucible and their 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' prequel were both cancelled during development, and in a parallel universe they would've made a 'Wheel of Time' and a 'Star Trek' game as well. We're never going to get a proper single player 'Star Trek' RPG at this rate.

Though we did get a 'South Park' RPG and it's right in front of me, so I guess I should play it already.

(Click the screenshots to examine at their original resolution. It's not a great resolution, but it's bigger.)