Backlog #5 - Albion

     This is one of those games that I've owned for years (almost 2 decades), yet have never gotten around to playing it.  I had heard it was good, and it even looked like the sort of game I'd really enjoy, but I was always either busy with other things, or knee-deep in some other game.
     So, here we go.

     Albion, by Blue Byte Software, was released in Germany in 1995, then later ported to english and released internationally in 1996.  I remember buying this on my lunch break when I was working as a technical support lackey for an ISP.  My main job was telling every poor sap who called to either stop using Windows 3.1, to reinstall Windows 95, or that it meant jack and shit that their modem supported "56k Flex".

     The game was released for MS-DOS, which, to you younger folks, was a popular command line operating system that PCs used "back in the day".  Many will argue that some of the best PC games of all time were released under this OS.
     To play this, I will be using a modified build of DOSBox called "DOSBox Daum".  It includes all sorts of extra things, as well as making many aspects of DOSBox part of the GUI, such as mounting cd images and resizing windows while maintaining aspect ratio.  (Honestly, I don't understand why this stuff isn't in the official build of DOSBox to begin with, but whatever.)

     The game starts out with you chilling in your room aboard the spaceship "Toronto".  Upon leaving, you're approached by your girlfriend who gives you lots of hints about plot stuff and what I need to be doing, other than searching for anything to take.

Wait, what?

     The graphics are awesome.  I mean, if you're a fan of "oldschool" pixel artwork, then this is good stuff.  It kinda reminds me of the game "Dreamweb", actually.

     You learn from others on the ship that, A- you need to go down to a planet to do "researchy stuff" for the company that you work for, and B- someone has died horribly from touching something he should not have touched.
     Other than these 2 points, it's all a matter of searching about for stuff to take.  I did manage to find the room of the person who got blown up, and found that he had gun ammo stashed.  Further searching led me to a guarded room, where the lethal accident happened, as well as another NPC that the game pointed out as a good friend of mine.  You can ask him about the guarded room, and he will tell you how to get into a maintenance tunnel that will get you in there without alerting the guards.

In the tunnels.

     Once in the tunnel, the game went from having an overhead view of you and your surroundings, to a first-person view, with you controlling it as you would a FPS.  I was kinda surprised by this, and after a few minutes of getting used to it, I'm finding it a pretty cool element.
     From this view, you can also access an automap.

Pretty handy.

     After navigating through some simple door puzzles, (push that, step on these, etc.), I was able to find my way into the upstairs room.  Searching here yielded more ammo and a gun.
     Now, in the tunnels, there's a pair of doors just before you go into the guarded room that can only be opened from one side of them.  One door closes once you open the other door to get up into the room, meaning you have no choice but to leave through the main door with the guards.  The trick here is that you're supposed to go back down into the tunnels and find a cabinet close to the door you can no longer open, and stash the gun and ammo in there.  This will allow you to go back into the tunnel from outside the room (again) and get the gun, only this time leaving the way you came in.  If you don't do this, the guards will take the gun and ammo.
     I had to reload my saved game twice to figure this all out, but it was cool.  I'm hoping there's more stuff like this further on.

     While doing all of this, while in the top-down view on the ship, you keep getting a message that you are needed in the hangar to prepare for exploring a nearby planet.  Since it keeps coming up every 2 minutes or so, I can't help but feel as though I'm being rushed where I really should explore.  In any case, once you accept the games demands of advancing the story, you're brought to the hangar to witness an exchange between yourself, the captain, and some guy that's going with you.

     Then I was given a small cutscene of myself and "Mr. Hofstedt" talking while descending to the planet, followed by the ship having tons of problems and then crashing.

     You crash, then find that the planet is not what you were expecting.  Both yourself and the Scientist seemed to be under the impression that it was a dry, lifeless, desert planet, but instead it's a lush, forest planet teeming with life.
     Then the ship explodes, and you're knocked unconscious.

     Then you wake up to this -

Uhm...

     You wake up and find that A- you been out for several weeks, B- you were saved by your scientist partner and some feline race that inhabits the planet, C- your partner has learned the alien language, and D- the new alien race isn't big on clothing.
     After all of this, you're told you're not well enough yet, and that you have to stay in bed for another month or so, in which time you too learn the new language (so the game will make sense from here on out), and you are finally able to get up and start figuring out what next.
     That's where I decided to save the game for now.

     So far I'm liking this game a lot, and am sort of upset with myself for not playing this back when I had originally got it.  A few other things -

     - I wish searching items was different, in the sense that there seems to be many cabinets and shelves, etc, but very few have anything in them.  If something is empty, you can't search it at all, so there's lots of being told that something is just a wash basin, instead of it just being empty.

     - I'm hoping that any sort of level advancement just hasn't been shown to me yet in the game.  Back on the ship I manged to gain a level by smuggling the gun past the guards.  My character screen shows "training points", but I have no idea what to do with that.

     - I wish there was some sort of character creation instead of having a predetermined role, but whatever, I can live with it.


HuckleCat

I've had my fill of Destiny

     Over the last month or so since it has come out, I have been playing a lot of the game "Destiny" by Bungie, the creators of Halo.

     What started out as a pretty satisfying FPS has slowly degraded into an insanely repetitive and unrewarding grindfest.

     I really wanted to like this game.  I was hoping it would be one of those games where I played it for months on end, sort of like a FPS Diablo.  Honestly, I do like the game, but now that I'm at the point where I'm doing the same shit over and over and over in an attempt to get materials to slightly upgrade the gear that I have, only to come out empty handed, I find myself no longer giving a shit.

On left, my Hunter, on right, Titan.

     You start out choosing one of 3 classes, then one of 3 races.  While the races only offer cosmetic differences, the classes each offer a variety of bonuses and special attacks which help greatly to completely unbalance multiplayer games.   (Supposedly, via rumors, the game was originally supposed to have a different storyline depending on the race that you picked.)

     The plot of the story is that years ago, mankind discovered a large floating object on Mars called "The Traveller".  This object launched us into a technological golden age, and also went and terraformed Venus, Mars, and the Moon.  The downside, is that there's a galactic evil force, called "The Darkness".  This has consumed the galaxy and wiped out all other races, except mankind.  And the Fallen, from Venus.  And there's also those big dudes, on Mars.  Oh, wait, and those shady "Awoken" guys from "The Reef".
     Actually, the Darkness does not make any sense.  The only "real" bad guys seem to end up being these robot guys, called "The Vex".  Both the big guys on Mars (Called "The Cabal"), and The Fallen have been fighting against them.  There's also another race of bad guys, called The Hive, that show up on the Moon and Earth, but then they're all forgotten by the time you get to Venus, so, whatever, fuck those guys.
     Despite the 2 common enemies that make sense, The Vex and Hive, both the Fallen and the Cabal fight you anyway, even though the sensible thing would be to join up.  But, hey, video game.

The games only sense of diplomacy in action

     The story is so flawed, and everyone is bitching about it.  You can find all sorts of other sites bitching about the holes as well as conspiracy rumors about what "The Darkness" is.  One idea is that you yourself are the Darkness. "The Traveller" causes war everywhere it goes. Then there's also the weird detail that your army, "The Guardians", are really nothing more than an undead army, carrying out missions that basically revolve around committing genocide.
     While this story twist would be awesome, it's highly unlikely.

     Bungie has made totally clear to everyone, despite the "story", that the game does not really begin until you hit level 20.  See, the maximum level that you can attain is 20, but high level armor has something called "light", which really just equates to item levels, as seen in games like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIV.  Through the "light" of your gear, you can gain "light levels" up to level 30.

     This is where the repetitive grind starts.

     At this point, all you can do is either run the same missions over and over, or run the same multiplayer matches over and over, or, if you have 5 other friends that play at the same time as you, run the same raid over and over.  All of this just with the hopes that you either find better gear, or materials to improve your current gear.
     The problem with this, other than the boredom that sets in, is that you rarely obtain any of the things you actually need.  It ends up being tedious and unrewarding.

     As far as the endgame Raid goes, there's no way to match up with people playing.  Unless you have 5 other friends that play at the same time as you, you're screwed.  No Raid for you.  Bungie seems to think this is a good idea, because they won't add matchmaking for it.  They also won't add any way to socially interact with others other than pointing, waving, and dancing.

Another awesome raid candidate I can't communicate with.

     So that's it.

     Right now I have a level 26 Hunter, and I started a Titan, but at this point I just don't feel like playing it anymore.
     I mean, the game looks great, and plays well.  It just seems unfinished.  It's a shame too, because you can see where it ultimately could have been awesome, it just falls on it's face so badly.

     Eventually Bungie will add more to the game that may or may not fix the problematic storyline or stale content, but by that time I'll be onto Diablo 3, Far Cry 4, and many other older games.

     In the meantime, maybe someone should send Bungie a copy of Borderlands 1 and 2, so they can see how to do this right.

HuckleCat

Distractions and progress

     No, I haven't checked out again, I've just been distracted by other games.  A few months back I had gotten my hands on The Last of Us Remastered for the PS4, and could not put it down.  I don't own a PS3, so this was the first I had ever played this one.  I always heard about it being one of the best games of the previous console generation.

Also one of the better looking games from last generation.

     Like I said, I could not put it down.  The story, characters, and game mechanics were well done, so it was fun as opposed to frustrating all the way through.
      There were a few things that puzzled me.  For example, why is it that I could not pick up the guns of every assailant that was armed?  You could see the gun one the floor, right there, but I could not pick it up?  I realize that they wanted to add to the tension of the game by having ammunition limited, but if someone is shooting at you, it traditionally means they have bullets.

     I've also been distracted with Final Fantasy XIV, and, in the last week, Destiny.  Both are MMO games, and both are quite addicting.  Well, Destiny is getting old fast, but I'm still giving it the benefit of the doubt.  FF XIV, on the other hand, is a pretty awesome game.  I used to be a big fan of World of Warcraft, and in my eyes this game is just like it, but with several improvements.

     From the graphics, to the world, to how classes are handled,  it's just a welcome alternative to WoW.


     In other news, I have decided to go ahead and get moving on building a new PC so that I'll be able to play and take screenshots of PS2, Wii, and Gamecube titles in addition to the ones a already currently have access to.  This will only leave out the Xbox, and Xbox 360 as systems I really can't take screenshots of.  It'll take some time, but I'm getting there.

HuckleCat

Shining in the Darkness (Final)

     I was able to level up pretty quickly while grinding about in level 5.  I also discovered that having the "Magic Ring" item in one's inventory actually assisted against magic damage.  I really wish I knew this awhile ago.
     Once I got everyone around lvl 50 I decided I was strong enough to try and take on Dark Sol, as I anticipated that he'd be crazy strong.

     I made my way back to the glowing fountain now that I had the "vial of tears" to see what all that was about.  Upon using the vial, an apparition appeared and told me that I was now the "Shining Knight" and that she would make me stronger.  Also, she healed the whole party and replenished magic points, so I was pretty set to go.

     Dark Sol was supposedly nearby, just north of where the fountain was.  I actually had to fall down a pit back to level 4, then up some stairs to get back to where he was.
     I made sure that we were healed up, and that everyone had a "miracle herb", which would revive anyone who died with full stats.  I went into the room, and the fight started.

     The room looked all crazy and had what looked like machinery, which was different from the rest of the game.  He told me was going to kill me, etc, etc, and then we went at it.  Surprisingly, he did very little damage, and I was able to kick his ass pretty quickly.

     Well, it tuns out that this was only his first form.  He went on about the powers of darkness helping him, and thats when he turned into this-

     So now the damage was much more, and he attacked a few times per turn.  However, despite all of his new crazy power, I managed to kick his ass pretty quickly again.  In the last round, he did manage to kill Pyra, but the next round would have seen one of the others using a miracle herb, so it was no big deal.  In fact, I never used any of them.

     After he dies, you see the roof tear away, and doves flying overhead, then you're instantly taken out of the dungeon, which you can no longer enter.  Going back to the castle, you're greeted by everyone with praise for saving them all.  The King actually makes you a knight, but also the ruler of the land, which is confusing because he still sits in the throne, wearing the crown that sounds like it should be yours.  I'll let it slide.

     So that was that.  I got credits and "The End".

     I liked the game a lot.  It was the first 16-bit console RPG I had played, and was quite a step up from anything the NES had to offer at the time.  I had always looked down on console RPGs what with being used to games like Wasteland or Ultima V for 8-bit computers, but this game started turning that around.

     The Genesis also saw other "Shining" games, such as Shining Force 1, 2, and CD, but a proper sequel to Darkness never really came out.  In the future I'll probably play Shining Force CD on here, since it's the one of the 3 others I haven't played.

     I played the game using Fusion, a Genesis emulator for Windows.  You can actually get it here.

HuckleCat

Shining in the Darkness #2

     More grinding along.  I did manage to get a bit further, this time getting all the pieces of light arms together and saving the princess.  I remember the first time I played, I figured the final end boss fight would result in saving the princess, but that's not the case.

     A bit about the "dungeon proper", like I said, it's the 4 levels above the main ground floor.  Each one graphically looks about the same as the others only with a different color scheme, with the exception being level 5.

The one on the left is level 5

     A few things take place outside before you actually go into the upper levels.  First, you're told that one of the kings lackeys has not only disappeared, but the he actually was Dark Sol in disguise.  Second, Dark Sol actually shows up twice, once to tell the king that he's in deep shit, and again in the tavern to try and get you to join him.

     Third, the parents of the 2 adventurers that join you in the earlier part of the game, Pyra and Milo, show up at the tavern to yell at their offspring for doing such a dangerous and stupid thing.  In fact, Pyra's mother is so angry that she literally beats her ass.

The good old days.

     Despite the rage, they end up letting your party stay with you since the game would become otherwise unplayable.

     Back to the dungeon, I had managed to grind through level 4 enough that all my guys are in the mid 40s in terms of level strength.  I did not really find anything else of note besides the Light Blade and the princess stuff.
     The princess stuff - yeah, I did find her.  She was locked up in a cell and told me that she had in fact been locked up by my dad, who evidently went apeshit and is now working for Dark Sol.

     So not only does he now work for the bad guys, but I also have to fight him in order to get the key that opens the cell door.  She also lets me know that he's just around the corner.
     I head over, and sure enough, there he is.  I honestly thought the fight would be tougher than it actually was, but I managed to beat him pretty easily.  Afterwards he tells you that he was given a Darksword, and that it drained his soul and turned him into a serious asshole.

     So I killed my dad.  On the bright side though, I did get the cell key, saved the princess, and also managed to obtain the Light Shield, which was locked in a cell back in level 3.

     Beyond this, I have been grinding level 5.  I did manage to grind enough that I found the Light Armor, and now have all the pieces of Light Arms.  I also found a colored fountain, which did nothing upon finding it.  However, when I got back to town after this, the Princess and the others in the kings room gave me a vial of the princess' tears, and that I should go and use it with some water spirit.  I'm guessing that's what the glowing fountain was about.

     So that's where I am now.  Use the tears on the fountain, then find and kill Dark Sol.

HuckleCat

Backlog #4 - Shining in the Darkness

     I actually had this game the year it came out, and had completed it back then.  A few years ago, in 2011, I had required another heart surgery, and was pretty scared at the time.  I picked a few games to go back to and finish again before I went under the knife, Wasteland, and this one.
     While I managed to finish Wasteland again, this one I did not.  I am picking up where I left off from that saved game.

The boxart, from Wikipedia.

     Shining in the Darkness came out in August of 1991 from Sega, for the Sega Genesis.  In Japan it was actually called Shining and the Darkness.  Don't know what's up with the change.  The game was pretty successful, and spawned a ton of other "Shining" titles over the years of varying genres.
     It's essentially a "dungeon crawl" RPG, a type of game that was pretty popular in the 80s on 8-bit computers, modeled after games like Wizardry, or The Bard's Tale.  The player sees a first-person view of a dungeon hallway and you get lost endlessly while trying to get from point A to B.  These games, back in the day, usually required that the player bust out graph paper to map out the dungeons.  This was before games started introducing automap features.

     This just so happens to be the last game that I ever played where I actually mapped it out with graph paper.

     The plot sees "the hero", which is you, on a quest to find the Princess and your dad, who have both gone to do who knows what in the "local dungeon".  While absolutely not playing "tiddly winks", a bad guy named "Dark Sol" comes and kidnaps them.

     There's 9 levels in all, 4 of them are underground and consist of 4 "trials", while the other 5 are ground-and-up.

     The game starts out in the Castle, where the King tells me how his daughter and my dad are gone.   They give me gold, I go equip myself, then go to the dungeon.  It's set up with these 3 locations being where you can go - the Castle, Town, or the Dungeon.

Part of the town.

     In town there are several different building that you can choose from by going left or right.  Places to buy armor, weapons, and herbs, as well as a tavern to rest up in, and a shrine where a priest will save your game.  (This is sort of a common thing with JRPGs I'm finding.  Dragon Quest 5 does the same thing.)
     I like how the music in the town increases and decreases in volume relative to how close you are to the Tavern, making it seem like that's where the fun is.

     In the game's beginning I'm going into the dungeon by myself, but once I find the princess' tiara somewhere on level 1 I'm joined by 2 more characters, which helps a ton.  After this point you're given a key that will allow you go through 4 "trials" which are located under the first level.

     So far I have done the 4 trials, which are Strength, Courage, Truth, and Wisdom.  Some involved fighting a boss, getting a key, an orb of truth is somewhere in there, and grinding to gain levels.  Lots of grinding.

Some of the bad guys early on.

     Along the way you'll get better stuff with which you'll be better able to kick more and more serious ass.

I kicked his ass.

     I forgot to mention that while in the 4 trial dungeons, you'll eventually come across 3 other adventurers who were also sent to do the same job, but have each failed in some way.  They each join up temporarily until you leave.  This makes one of the Kings lackeys, who was very skeptical of your ability to do jack shit, less skeptical with each one you rescue.

The bald douche with the crazy eyebrows.

     Once past the 4 trials, by task is to enter the "dungeon proper", which is the 4 upper levels, in search of not only the princess, but also the "Light" arms, which will help me beat Dark Sol.  So far I've found the Lighthelm and the Light Sword between levels 2 and 3.  Now I'm grinding through level 4 in search of more light stuff and the princess.  I think I'm pretty close to the end, IIRC.

HuckleCat

Looking Back - Wasteland

     1988 was a pretty good year for computer games.  Especially for fans of RPGs.  Back then, I had an Apple //c, and while the following years may have seen a serious decline as the games industry backed off of 8-bit machines, 1988 was a good high-water mark.   There was Ultima V from Origin, Pool of Radiance from SSI, Battletech from Infocom, Bards Tale III from Interplay, and, of course Wasteland, also from Interplay.

     I had received Wasteland for my 14th birthday, and it instantly turned out to be one of my all time favorites, even today.  I had always been a fan of RPGs, but there was an issue I always had with them. I was always some guy with a sword, some guy who cast spells, etc.  I was sick of the dungeons, of the dragons.  Been there, done that.  Wasteland changed that.  It was set in the post-apocalyptic future, something that was mostly new at the time.  It had guns, grenades, rocket launchers, and if you died, you stayed that way.  The gameplay took the best elements of other games, with the top-down movement view of Ultima, and the simplistic combat setup of games like Wizardry.  It was, simply put, fucking awesome.  (It also helped to pique the interest of any 14 year male that the game came with a "PG-13" sticker on the box.)

My original box, booklets, disks, characters, and cluebook.

     Wasteland came out in 1988 for the Apple 2 series, Commodore 64/128, and the PC.  It was designed by Brian Fargo, Alan Pavlish, Ken St. Andre, and Michael Stackpole of Interplay, and published by Electronic Arts.  The game came out to shining praise from magazines such as Dragon, and Computer Gaming World, where it received game of the year.  It actually still gets praise from modern gaming sources even today.

From left to right, Apple 2, C64, and PC versions.

     The game featured a lot of things that were either totally new or rare in use at the time.  It was the first CRPG that allowed you to split up your party in order to get tasks done.  It also used an unusual type of copy protection in the form of "paragraphs"- a booklet that came with the game that you were instructed to read at certain points containing important descriptions and needed passwords.  It also had several bogus paragraph entries to throw off any player who decided to read ahead in hopes of spoilers.  It also had a nifty utility that allowed you to restart your game using the same characters, resetting everything but your stats.  I honestly can't tell you how many times I've replayed this.

     Set in the southwestern US, the plot of the game starts out simple - you're the "Desert Rangers", a group that's pretty much what's left of the military/police of the "old days".  Your mission is the old "go see whats happening because something's up" routine.  You progress through small towns and villages, eventually landing in what's left of Las Vegas.  It's there that you start to find out that something much, much bigger is happening out in the desert.  Crazy robots are showing up, and nobody seems to know what the deal is.

A small sample of the many individuals eager to "air you out".

     After Las Vegas, the game gets crazier.  Secret bases, a compound of religious cultists, a mad individual playing with genetics, it all comes together in a crazy final sequence that, at the time, was seriously awesome.

     As I said, I had played the game on an Apple //c.  Back then, most apple users were losing their eyesight quickly staring at green monochrome screens.  Despite this, even today, I can still bust this game out and play it from start to finish on AppleWin.  It's actually one of the only RPGs I can play, finish, and then play again.  Even better, using a cool program called ADTPro and an actual Apple //e that I acquired off Craigslist, I am able to play with the same characters I created 25 years ago.

At 14, this sight was boner-inducing.

      Just like every RPG back then, it left a lot to the imagination.  It's a good or bad thing depending on where your preferences lie.  True, It's no Skyrim, but I feel that it's every bit as fun, though, this is probably because I'm still seeing the game with eyes "from the time".  I still remember doing lots of dumb random crap, like -

• Throwing myself into the river just to raise the swim skill of all my guys, even though it pretty much knocked everyone unconscious.
• Using a howitzer in one of the towns (Needles) and blowing up a hot dog stand.
• Staging a casino massacre in Las Vegas.
• A showdown with the Red Ryder.
• Wishing I could drive the Regan M3 Tank
• Leaving Danny Citrine or Christine in Base Cochise just to see the cool picture.  Also because I hated them.
• Killing Christine for firing single-shot at death machines, but then going full-auto, wasting ammo, on rats.

      It was also possible to just redo certain areas without totally resetting the story.  For example, by just recopying side 3 on the Apple 2, I could reset the Guardians Citadel.  This would allow me to do things I otherwise could not accomplish in one playthrough, such as getting multiple Ion Beamers, or equipping the entire party with Proton Axes.

Fallout -

     The game directly served as sole inspiration for the Fallout universe, which was also made by several members of the Wasteland team.  In Fallout: New Vegas, the Desert Rangers actually make an appearance, as well as other references to Wasteland.

Wasteland 2 -

     Recently Brian Fargo, now with InXile, launched a kickstarter fund for Wasteland 2.  It turns out I'm not alone in my love for the title, as it met its $900,000 goal in less than 2 days.  At the close of the kickstarter campaign, it ended up raising $2,933,252.

     The new sequel will be a direct follow up to the original, and even better, it's being made by the original 4 former Interplay members who created the original.  You can find out more on that here.

     So, in closing, Wasteland = good.  That's all I got.  If you're a fan of older RPG's there's not a better one I can recommend.  If you're a fan of the PC, DOSBox will help you out.  For the Apple 2, AppleWin is the best bet. For the C64, I recommend WinVICE.

Hahaha!

HuckleCat