Hilarious Misadventures in DOSland. Redux.
By ArbitraryWater 20 Comments
Yeah. I'm doing another one of these. Sure, as my Alpha Protocol blog shows, people are far more likely to comment on something modern than old crap, but everyone's always talking about modern stuff. Old stuff is my wheelhouse. Anyways, thanks to DOSbox's internal video codec, I can show you people exactly the kind of obscure crap that I run into in my quest to play old games and blog about them. You know the drill.
Prior Installments:
(Blog 1)
(Blog 2)
The Elder Scrolls: Arena
I've already covered Daggerfall in one of my earliest blogs, and have since been torn on whether I like it genuinely or ironically (as well as having been chewed out by some crazy person who signed up just to chew me out. And then replied to my comments 6 months later. Dick. No seriously, check the comments out). However, one thing's for sure, and that is that Arena (the first Elder Scrolls game, released in '94) is not good. Certainly, it's open, as all non-spinoff Elder Scrolls games are, but it lacks a lot of other TES mainstays, such as custom classes, skills that progress as you use them, and enjoyment. It's rough. Admittedly, so are all the other TES games. But this game doesn't have anything to make up for it. Whatever. Just watch. You'll see. You'll all see.
Yeah. A double dose. The main reason it had to be two videos was because I had to consult the password sheet and I didn't want anything to crash. Will probably never genuinely play again.
Ishar: Legend of the Fortress
No. Just no. Of all the purchases I have made on GOG, this is one of the less smart ones. If you want a more concise and detailed description, check out my friend Ahoodedfigure's blogs on the subject. To be fair, Ishar 3 seems playable. This, does not. I blame the french. And I accidentally set the language to french. So it works out.
Betrayal at Krondor
What's this? Do I see competence? Why yes, I do. Unfortunately, I also see DOSbox screwing up when I try to record this game. So the video isn't by me. Anyways, BAK interests me for several reasons: 1. It doesn't seem agonizingly alienating. 2. It's based on a series of novels (albeit a fairly pulpy series. The Riftwar saga by Raymond E. Feist, if anyone is familiar). 3. It has a seemingly well written story in an era where Final Fantasy IV (or II, I guess if we are calling it by it's original US title) is the high watermark for stories in Video Games. 4. It uses digitized photographs of actors wearing absolutley hilarious costumes. 5. At the very least, the battle system isn't broken, archaic, or stupid. Here, just take a look. (remember. Not my video)
Master of Orion 1
Yeah, I already did Master of Orion 2. It was pretty awesome. Perhaps up there with X-COM in terms of "Oh, this is what you guys were talking about" territory. But what about the first game? Well, much like how MOO3 is denied much the same way anti semites deny the holocaust, it's pretty clear that when people say "Master of Orion" they mean the second one. To be fair, the first game came out in 1993, which means around the same time as Civilization 1. But by today's standards, it's pretty simple. That's not to say simplicity is bad. Some of the old games that actually hold up the best are fairly simple in design (Compare Wizardry 7 to World of Xeen. Both aren't for the average peasant, but I could finish the second one had I enough time and perhaps a walkthrough). But when there is a sequel that so dramatically improves everything (See: Heroes of Might and Magic 1 compared to HOMM 2), I can't see anyone playing MOO1 for anything except novelty's sake.
In any case, I'm probably still not going to play any sort of old game seriously for a while. Black Ops, Fallout NV and (weirdly enough) Puzzle Quest 2 are all occupying my time. We'll see.