Before Zork, there was Colossal Cave Adventure, the first real major adventure game for computers. Soon, a game visionary added graphics to adventures and was a graphic adventure pioneer. Her name? Roberta Williams. She and her husband Ken Williams started Sierra On-line (Later Sierra) and created more legends than you can count. Now we have a new Colossal Cave reimagined by Roberta and Ken Williams as Cygnus Entertainment. The game carries over the original adventure very well. Despite being a graphic adventure, clickable narrations provide the classic text adventure feel this game needs, and does it well. The puzzles aren't always easy, and you get a true feeling of achievement by moving through them. The game requires taking notes, just as all the classic text adventures and early graphic adventures need. Essentially, this is a text adventure reimagined, and it is done right. It even ha the original scoring system. This game is an excellent experience. For those who lived through those days in the 70s and 80s to relive the glory days of Infocom and, yes, Roberta Williams' own classics from Beneath Apple Manor through Time Zone through King's Quest, this is a must. For anyone who wants to feel the feel of achievement we got back in the day from adventure games like this or who is interested in Adventure gaming history, this is a great study. I hope Cygnus continues to bring back more classics like the aforementioned Time Zone or creates new classics.
This is the beginning of it all. This is beyond an advanture, it's a living, breathing world. This is the high point of the Ultima series, and one of the high points in the history of computer RPGs. This is literally one of the required classics of the CRPG genre.
I've been waiting for a long time for this. This is a great RPG that's got some original features, and an interesting story that compels you on. Most interestingly, this whole game was done mostly by one programmer. He includes photo and video-based characters and some interesting combat features. I had this years ago, and I never finished it. I've been waiting nearly 30 years to buy this again. Instabuy!
These are early artifacts of D&D gaming. You get Heroes of the Lance and Dragons of Flame, both action games that work best with a joystick as the keyboard controls are not easy to use, War of the Lance, a SSI wargame built around Dragonlance, and Shadow Sorcerer, Shadow Sorcerer is worth the price of admission, and is a five star game. It feels like playing a campaign, and it includes the beginnings of the features that would make games like Baldur's Gate and later NWN so epic. The other three are great for tracing the history of D&D computer games, but Shadow Sorcerer is still just as good now as when it came out back in the day.
Skyrim- need I say more? Millions have already said much about this masterpiece. I've been playing CRPGs since 1980. I was blown away when Ultima VII came out because people had their own schedules- their own behaviors. But one day I was playing Skyrim and a woman offered to sell me fruit in front of her house. She invited me in to talk with her family. After a while she and her husband got up and went to bed. The child kept talking to me. This was all done by NPCs. All offline - this isn't Elder Scrolls Online. This is more than a game. It's a world! Every character has an attitude, a story, and that's in the base version. Add in all the add-ons including user-made add-ons, and the world just keeps getting bigger and deeper. This game has been out for a long time, but it always feels new. One warning: do not play this game if you have other things to do. You will be drawn into Skyrim and it's hard to get back out. You can have a family, buy and furnish a home, run a business, and, of course you can fight dragons and explore ruins and dungeons. You can choose a faction and take part in a war - or not. Skyrim gives you the freedom to pursue the story any way you like. Oh, and when the story is finished, you can still stay in Skyrim as long as you like. You will find subquests, explore, furnish your home, anything you like. I already have the full version of this elsewhere, but I support GOG and a DRM free Skyrim. It has happened.
This is basically like the original Wizardry, but with Manga graphics. Way back in the early 1980s, two games appeared. One was Ultima, the other Wizardry. Ultima had overground maps, a story, and 3D dungeons. Wizardry had 3D dungeons and grinding. No overground, not much of a story, but grinding, grinding, exploring 3D dungeons and yet more grinding. No quest markers or maps, you had to get out your graph paper and graph out each step lest you become lost. Now imagine that, but with manga graphics. The basics are the same. Enter the dungeon, map it out, grind, grind, and grind. The town is an illustrated menu, with more manga graphics. After Wizardry 8, the Western Wizardry series ended, and the series resurfaced in Japan. This game is part of the Japan-based series. It's called the Wizardry renaissance, and it's a fitting name. It's basically a new version of Wizardry I done with beautiful manga graphics. If you are looking for a deep, rich story, quest markers, and hand-holding, this is not the place to go. It's a grind, and a straight-forward dungeon crawl. But in my opinion, that's what makes it great.
Play this game or be Gosh darned to Heck! This bizarre church giftshop curio puts a Sunday-school twist on the Wolfenstein 3d engine. Originally released as a church gift shop cartridge to let religious children play those video GAMES by giving them religious twists, this one's interestingly fun. Whether or not you are religious (I'll admit- I'm pretty far from it myself) this game is weird and fun. From the silly music to the bizarre firearms used to feed the animals (no killing in this game) and save the ark, it's just plain weird fun. I recommend this artifact from a really weird part of the history of video games, just so you can see how bizarre things got back then. This is the best of Wisdom Tree's weird games, and, thus far, it's the only one to be picked up and republished by a non-religious publisher as a historical artifact from the Nintendo 64 era.
Although this one's kind of short, it does something you don't find often in D&D games. This one goes more into the realm of a point & click than the typical combat-filled D&D adventure. Based on a module used in tabletop games, it's heavy on story and investigation. It really does feel like playing a module led by a DM who prefers to have the characters investigate and ask the right people the right questions to advance the very P&Cish story. Along with the Point and Click feel, the adventure also has a strict time system. The investigation changes depending on who you ask, and on which day. You need to talk to everyone and learn as much as you can. Some will answer your questions, others will hide the information, and others will openly attack you in the streets if you ask the wrong questions. If you like games like Shadowrun Returns which are Point And Clickers with RPG elements, you'll probably like this one. I am enjoying it because I've been clamoring for a D&D themed point-and-click for years, and this one looks like it delivers that type of experience now. As far as NWN modules go, this is pretty much as far as you can get from the Friday-night dungeon feel of Infinite Dungeons. It's basically the other side of the spectrum. It's also great to finally have a module in a different part of the universe from Forgotten Realms.
I bought this back on my iPod Touch many years ago and played it every day on break. When I was forced to move to Android (Apple's beyond my budget) I was heartbroken until...The Quest on Android! It's a story of heroes (Of Lukomorye and elsewhere) and villains. You can play any type of character you like. The game itself is very much like a single player, single character version of Might And Magic (6-8 era) but it has a lot to offer that will draw you into its world. Many of the characters are represented by stock protraits (Phil Collins seems to run a lot of under many names) but you'll be so drawn in, you'll forget about that. You can enjoy excellent dungeons, towns, politics, underground dealings, gold, glory, and fame (or infamy). You can concoct potions, cast spells, and use some very cool weapons. You can do it all. You can even play a cool card game in inns for extra money if you find yourself broke. I'm so happy to see this here. Yes, I do have it for the phone (of course), but I'm also getting it here just to support it and encourage you to bring all the expansions.
To some, this module represents a NWN excursion into Diablo territory (action RPG) but to me, this is very reminiscent of classic (pen and paper) D&D sessions when the DM put together a quick dungeon for one night's play. These Infinite Dungeons are those one-night excursions brought to digital life through NWN. Are they packed with story and character development? Not really, but should they be? These are quick adventures in many different worlds (I've been to the Underdark, to a Middle Eastern themed dungeon reminiscent of Al-Qadim, another dungeon that looked like, of all places, Oblivion from Elder Scrolls, and some even stranger, more unexpected places. Level up your character here and be ready for classic single-session dungeons to your heart's desire.
