Christmas is almost upon us so I’m going to stray from my usual one game a day (well usually one) and post a few each day when it’s my turn. Officially this in my last day for a week, but Wizzard and I are going to share the responsibility again, just over the Christmas and New Year period. We should be taking it in turns a day at a time, but I’m thinking as its Christmas I may post some games on the days that Wizzard posts his game/s as well. So I thought I’d start off today with a bonanza bunch of games, that include mainly strategy games, a couple of platformers (from the same series and another point and click that I’d meant to post with yesterdays games, but had misplaced it.
I’m not going to post much in the way of details, apart from that which is easy to cut and paste (all referenced), so you’ll have to work everything out for yourselves; however this shouldn’t be difficult. I do like to post reviews, images and video’s if they are available, but this week hasn’t been the best for me, so I thought a quick post would be appropriate. If you do have any problems running any of the games please do ask for help.
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Stronghold:
Of all the games I’ve posted today, this is the only one that you have to run via DOSBox. If you haven’t already, see the post about setting DOSBox up (found elsewhere in the games discussion forums) as if you try to run it straight from unzipping you may run into problems. There are a few methods that you can use. I followed Wizzards instructions as they were the first to be posted and I’ve not had any problems running any of the DOS games that I decided to keep. :)
Stronghold, not to be confused with the castle building strategy game of the same name, is an interesting game set in the AD&D universe. At this point you may be thinking I'm talking about a RPG but no, this really is a strategy game. Stronghold runs in real time and displays each 'tile' of the land in 3d, complete with citizens wandering around and crops growing, seasons changing and monsters and characters battling. This really is quite amazing especially considering how old the game is, it all looks pretty good and there are quite a few different buildings to construct and a nice variety of monsters to fight. Everyone in your kingdom has an opinion of you as their ruler as well as their own suggestions, click on anyone and you'll be given a more than adequate view of their current status and thoughts. Your aim is to build up your empire and then defeat the other monsters or strongholds. Enemies vary from very stupid creatures like giant bats who just flap around attacking things to evil wizards who construct their own buildings. Your own people can be 'attracted' to training, building or recruiting. Surprisingly you can train any of the people in your empire and they will gain levels and new abilities, including spells and suchlike. This means that with a bit of micromanagement you can train up a powerful group of characters and use them to deal with your enemies. Somewhat strangely though the characters in your empire don't seem to conform to the AD&D rules too closely. I'm no expert but some characters are clerics by race, whereas others are elves. I suppose they just decided to simplify it into general types, I mean the game is quite confusing as it is so clerical elves might have been a step too far!
Stronghold is an ambitious game, it aims to put you in charge of just about every aspect of running a fantasy empire. It looks good, there is no doubt about that, but it is confusing as well. Balancing gold, food and housing is one thing but when it comes to actually grouping a party and sending them out to do something you'll almost certainly need to read the manual carefully and experiment a bit. My own personal experiences with it led me to believe that whoever designed the 'magnet' system of movement needed an extended beating with a +3 mace of sense seeing. That said, perseverence yields rewards and though you will still long to be able to just group select as you can in say Command and Conquer the system does make things possible, though never especially easy. Battles occur when your forces meet enemies and everything is pretty much automatic. You could send in some nearby reinforcements but chances are by the time they turn up everything will be over anyway. The battles are watchable though and there is a good variety of enemies. Character types sometimes play a huge part in combat, for instance an undead force will have little chance against your gang of clerics whilst a pack of thieves are likely to spot an enemy far faster than your other characters. This is pretty good and justifys the different character types as far as I am concerned, there is genuine tactical difference between them and though all you can do is watch the battles it is gratifying to see that different characters have different abilities. I should mention that 'you' the player also has an alignment that changes the victory conditions. Good players must simply attain high rank by seeing off attackers and building a huge and thriving stronghold, evil players must destroy everyone else and neutral players must do both!
Stronghold is more sim city than fantasy general, building a large fantasy city and seeing it flourish is pretty satisfying and the large variety of enemy forces is pretty good too. Combat is the weak spot, beyond being an interesting spectacle from time to time, and it all looks good enough despite the games age. Really the question is how much time and effort are you prepared to put into enjoying it? If you like a quick, straightforward strategy game - and there's nothing wrong in that - you will probably find Stronghold overwhelming and a bit fiddly. If you like a game you can really get stuck into and which plays more like a sandbox simulation than a hardcore strategy game you will almost certainly find months, if not years of enjoyment from this title. Personally, for what it's worth, I found it quite engrossing but wished there were better controls to move a party around since individual troops are not enough to make an impact. There's a lot to like in the game and if you like the fantasy setting, or AD&D especially, and you don't mind poring over the manual a bit then you will probably be completely lost in this game for hours. The learning curve is steep, probably more so than any game I've played recently and this might explain why it didn't do very well in terms of sales despite its nice appearance. If you are prepared to climb that curve though you'll find treasure awaits, just don't forget to pack plenty of provisions.
Reference: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/642/Stronghold.html Accessed Nov 08
Download Link:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/642/Stronghold.html
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P.U.R.E. (330Mb)
This isn’t strictly in the right place because it’s a free beta version of a game that I believe will be commercial once it’s been completed; however for the time being it's totally free. I'd planned to post it as a seperate post until I discovered the commercial bit. I also thought it was an intriguing game and will probably interest those into strategy games. It’s got a steep learning curve though, so if you’re the sort of peron who likes to jump straight into a game, this isn’t the game for you.
Download Link
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Prince of Persia 1 & 2:
The first one takes me back. I remember playing it for hours on end. Unfortunately it was one of the many games that I had on floppy disk that became corrupted. I never bought Prince of Persia 2, so it was a pleasant surprise to find it with the first one. I hope you enjoy both. You don’t need DOSBox to play either. You can download a cheat codes file from the same page as the download link.
Quote
I love this game! :) In general, one of the things I like the most about a game is the story it contains (if one contains any). And, just like it's predecessor, Prince of Persia 2 has a story that you've got to love. And it's well told: this game contains several minutes of illustrated and narrated "storyboard" to pull you in (which is rarely seen in other games from this computer era). In fact, I find it admirable how they've put so many images, sounds and colors in a "less than 5 MB package". Unfortunately, besides huge visual and auditive improvements, Prince's gameplay hasn't changed a bit, and thus many hardcore fans of "Prince 1" were a bit disappointed by it. I wasn't - play it.
Reference: http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/51/ Accessed Nov 20th
Prince of Persia 1 - Download Link:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/10/Prince+of+Persia.html
Prince of Persia 2 - Download Link:
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/51/Prince+of+Persia+2.html
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Commander-keen-7-keen-dreams: (< 1Mb)
This can be played without DOSBox, but it’s recommended that you play it in the box.
Download Link
http://www.bestoldgames.net/eng/old-games/commander-keen-7-keen-dreams.php
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Aftershocked: (47.3Mb):
I meant to post this with Thursday’s games because it’s a point and click adventure, but it was mislaid. I have several folders filled with games that I’m planning to post over the next several weeks, but I’ve not been very good at keeping things in order, so everything has become a little mixed up. Thankfully I found it earlier today so instead of waiting for the next lot of point and click adventures which I’m going to post towards the end of the Christmas break I though I’d add them to today’s games bonanza. I’d even dropped several of the games that I have ticked for the next few weeks into the already posted folder. The following is a message from the author.
- --- SMALL WARNING from the author ---
Despite its cartoony look, AfterShocked! isn't a children's game, so
you might want to think twice before letting little Billy get his
hands on it. If you're under 13, stay away, or be scarred for life.
I must agree that some of the language is not suitable for younger children, so please don’t download it if you’re worried that your children may get hold of it. (Not that it’s outright X rated material)
AfterShocked is a full-featured post-nuclear comedy adventure game in the vein of Monkey Island and other classic adventure titles. Nearly every known city and town has been destroyed by nuclear missiles, leaving behind a strange world full of drug dealers, mutant talking fish, and disgusting, yet friendly, zombies, whose skin has been blown off. You play as a teenager trying to save what's left of the world from certain destruction at the hands of a madman, while simultaneously keeping under control the conflict between zombies and norms. Features hand-drawn 16-bit color graphics, an original musical score, dozens of hilarious characters to interact with, plenty of scenes to visit, and lots of puzzles to solve. The download size might seem a bit large, but keep in mind that this is a complete game (not a demo) packed with hours of gameplay.
Reference: http://www.download.com/AfterShocked/3000-7564_4-10133189.html?tag=lst-1 Accessed Oct 08
Download link:
http://madgames.adventuredevelopers.com/after/aftdownloads.htm
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