Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One

Eyes of the beholder I - II - III are basically the quintessence of old school RPG, the grandfathers of CRPG genre, their features are literally foundations for all first-person RPG games out there that don't involve shooting. I know its pretty simplistic to say but their graphics, gameplay and level design are masterpieces that transcend time. You can even play Eye of beholder I with different graphic and sound settings, make you relive the old classic as you experienced them. For all the newcomers, just three useful info, there s no automap (so take notes), prior knowledge of 2nd D&D edition helps a lot and these games are relatively hard, but Goddamn it's worth it.

I always wanted an Amiga when I grew up so I could play my favorite dungeon crawler - BLACK CRYPT. I never got one. My parents bought a PC. And on PC came the EYE OF THE BEHOLDER trilogy. The basic idea is, you create a party of four and can pick up up to two more and trek through a dungeon full of monsters, while solving a few switch/key/pressure plate puzzles to progress until you reach the big bad on the last level. Personally, I never liked the series as much as BLACK CRYPT, but until DUNGEON MASTER II came out years later it was the best you could get in the genre on PC. (That is, if you need a story. If not you got DUNGEON HACK.) If you play them in chronological order you can import your characters from the predecessor with (almost) all of their items and their XP. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER I is rather poor. It only features one save slot - not that you actually need any more since the game is way too easy. You start out in the sewers (yuck!) and work your way down through an underground dwarven city (rather a dungeon just like the others before), and dark elf territory until you find the titular Beholder. Graphics and sound are simplistic but do the trick, with monsters and dungeon tiles looking really good. Ideal for beginners. 2 out of 5. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER II gives us a proper intro and occasional cutscenes which were quite good. We're offered a beginning "outside" dungeon in the woods before we enter Darkmoon, which is just a short wooded dungeon, nothing to write home about. It is significantly harder than its predecessor with some hard (and annoying) enemies and slightly better graphics. 4 out of 5. EYE OF THE BEHOLDER III is widely regarded as the poorest in the series. but personally it's my favorite. There is a huge outside world to explore and the enemies are much more difficult but less annoying. Graphics got slightly polished but the sounds were given a major upgrade. Only the finale is lackluster. 4.5 out of 5.

Eye of the Beholder II I purchased the boxed version of this game back when it came out, I had not played the first and I had only just got a PC that had a sound card. (yes PC's didn't come with a sound cards back in those days). The intro blew me away, it had thunder and lightening and charm and atmosphere. I installed to my 20mb hdd (yes it was only 20mb, not gb), and started my adventure. I quickly realized that I would need to map out my exploration, so I grabbed some grid paper and pencils and slowly mapped out each dungeon, along the way I discovered secret panels in the walls, traps, pressure plates and hidden treasures. I raced home from school each day and spent hours building my character and improving my team of adventurers as I explored the underground dungeons of Darkmoon. I did eventually finish the game, and when i found out that there was a third I immediately purchased and started playing, I was slightly disappointed, but don't let that stop you from continuing the journey, the third is definitely not as good as the second, but still worth a look. I never had a chance to play the first, but I have now since the release on GoG, its quite good, but I still believe the second is by far the best of the trilogy.

I was thinking about quitting this game (felt tedious) when I found the All-Seeing Eye (ASE) automap addon. Most players are just to jaded to map out dungeons and the extras maps are not good for playing along. The ASE lets you concentrate on killing monsters and solving puzzles. ASE is easy to use and has GOG specific buttons. The game will ask you for codes from the manual; just type in anything, hit return, and play on. Great bit of video game history, but stands alone as a fun game to play.

Eye of the Beholder 1 , 2 and 3 were the very first SSI games I played. Sort of kick myself for not playing the Pools of Radiance , etc . That's OK though, I now have an opportunity! Anyhow, Eye of the Beholder gripped me so hard. I loved the dungeon hack style along with the puzzles and methods you had to do to stay alive. There is no auto-map however if you venture long enough, the map is in your head. Not too incredibly difficult to memorize. The games hard core, and Eye of the beholder 1 boss is Hard Core. Eye of the beholder 2 really builds off of the greatness of 1. For me it's my favorite game out of the three. So many nights cracked out playing it omg. This was one of the wishes I had made for GOG to release these masterpieces. It has been granted! I hope to see Dark Sun: Shattered Lands and Wake of the Ravager next! Those games also are incredibly fun as well