Wizardry 8 - PC *Masterpiece*

"Grimpack the Mook hired you as an escort for a long voyage. He didn't say where you were going  .  .  . "

.  .  . and with these ludicrous yet immortal words begins the greatest expression of hardcore cRPG gaming the denizens of planet Earth have yet produced. Seamlessly splicing the good things old-school RPG's brought to the tabletop with the glittery trappings of the new school. Wizardry 8 was the culmination of 20 long years of cRPG evolution: making it a great ape amongst hordes of pitiable, gibbering; makak's, marmoset's and lemur's. This was software house SirTech's swan song and it hits a high note very few others can match.

The world and its many proclivities are well established: combining both the high-tech and sorcerous with aplomb. What a disappointment when every supposed fantasy world is populated by the same tedious gobloids and stunted misfits as Tolkien's was some 70 years ago: then embellished with a hodge-podge of creatures chosen at random from world mythology. Not quite so with Wizardry: your party may consist of Faeries, Mooks and Androids and while wondering the realm you may encounter Battering Hogar's, a Drunken Rapax or heaven forbid a Kaos Kube: at worst you may sight a Golem. There is a hint of cyberpunk, not a rehash of that genres tropes but quite an unusual combination of anti-heroes, artificial intelligence, doom-laden techno-magic and at the stories core: a pervasive sense of irony.

Looking at the party members: humans suddenly seem rather exotic.

Wizardry's character development is amongst the best in any RPG, marrying experience from level gains with good ol'fashioned practice: allowing for a bizarre range of career options. The combat system is equally well developed: seamlessly transferring from real-time exploration to turn based battle. There is a plot arc of bewildering proportions stretching back to Wizardry 6: yet you are free to meander the entire world on a whim. The addition of randomly spoken dialogue from your party members in most games is painful . . . not so here: actually adding personalities that aren't toe-curlingly offensive. Dungeon design, script, sound track, story arc; excellent, excellent, excellent etc: this game has quality in spades.

The days before eBay

Played on Iron-Man mode the challenge is unforgiving especially for an inexperienced gamer: but this is how it was meant to be played: the fear of death made palpable indeed almost real as 40 hours of you actual life go to waste as you are set upon by Ratkin Goon's. People with things to do and appointments to keep need not apply.

Flamstryke's Pre-eminent Fansite
Ironworks Wizardry 8 Forum
Wizardry Walkthrough's
Editors and Mods
Download

The Wizardry series is hugely popular in Japan yet it is the antithesis of the typical console RPG; with their anodyne game-worlds populated by buffon haired monosyllabic sociopaths possessed with about as much personality as a bowl of rice. OK, that was a bit harsh: the Japanese have made some truly phenomenal games, just not many like this: that may explain its popularity and vica-versa. It is possible to export characters from Wizardry 6 through 7 and into 8: this game arc is perhaps the most challenging feat of human endeavour available to mankind: making Shackleton's expedition seem like a light stroll after xmas dinner. There will almost certainly never be a Wizardry 9. Imagination, humour, and depth, when software is rated on these criteria we, as a civilisation, will be getting somewhere.

Darklands - PC *Masterpiece*

Heroic Role-Playing Adventures in Medieval Germany

The computer RPG has become a rather different sort of animal to the pen and paper progenitors of the genre. The computer was originally expected to take the role of dungeon master: encouraging the player to engage imaginatively with the source material: however this attitude gave way very quickly to the computer acting as automated taskmaster, reducing the player (by way of exp, new weapons, magic etc) to an beleaguered dogsbody; grinding characters, amassing trinkets and killing the proverbial foozle. I am not saying this style of play isn't fun and it can be integrated with the more imaginative style of cRPG: but it should be considered of secondary importance if you want a game with substance.

Darklands is made of such wondrous substance and is amongst the handful of computer RPG's that grasped the potential of the medium. The only RPG ever released by legendary software house Microprose (developed by MPSLabs), it offers the player an experience unique in the computer gaming canon. The game world exists as a fantastical palimpsest of the real medieval Germany, where the myths, legends and superstitions of the time are layered over the deep historical reality of the period: encounters play out more like vignettes while beautifully illustrated story boards explain your current predicament. Characters age, grow old and die, skills are learnt and then forgotten, equipment rusts, your fame waxes and wanes and the game world is persistent, evolving and never ends...

Should modern games come bundled with a GPS?
No...probably not.












Another night on bald mountain.












"Well lets see...I can use flails, poleaxes and have a virtue of 99"
"You've got the job...but can you toss burgers?!"

Premier Darklands Fansite
Darklands Yahoo Discussion Group
Download from Abandonia
Intro at Youtube
History of cRPG at Gamasutra

...if you are looking for a game to play that will actually provide an enriching experience rather than a banal glorification of positive feedback then Darklands is the answer: it has had the answer since 1992 and almost nobody wants to know...

3 in Three - Mac *Masterpiece*

'There is no number 3 in Three'

3 in Three by Cliff Johnson is the best puzzle game ever made (with one possible exception...his earlier masterstroke: The Fools Errand). Welcome to a peculiar alien landscape ruled my letters, curious symbols and the omnipresent letter legislator. You are a typical number 3 (female) exiled from your spreadsheet during an unusual power surge and sent spiralling into the bowels of the computer. Your quest is to make the tortuous journey back to the desktop; through fields of binary digits, warped tesseracts and garbled symbolic crossroads: while all the time pandering the ludicrous machinations and cryptic jabberings of dollar signs, question marks, self important full stops and of course the letters.

Your so-called friends.


Ctrl-s.


Logic Grid


Linguistic Blackjack


Alphanumeralogical Codes

Between each puzzle is often a short cut scene where the true jumbled nature of communication is revealed and journeying ever deeper into the darkest recesses of the machine you come to realise that mathematics and language are not as different as they seem. Essentially 3 tries to tame the ambiguity of language with the rigours of mathematical logic while questing for a personal identity outside the rigid framework of number theory. All in a days work.

Cliff Johnsons Homepage
Home of the Underdogs Entry

A truly sublime game that will take give you many enjoyable evenings: puzzling contentedly into the night. It only ever recieved a release on the Mac but by using the excellent (and free) Mac Classic emulator for PC: Executor (donwload links and serial codes available on Cliff Johnson's site) the game can reach those who like their bread butter side up.

System Shock 2 - PC *Masterpiece*

Ranking amongst the very finest games ever made, System Shock 2 is still heralding the future of computer gaming almost ten years after its initial release. Alone and in constant danger, on board a vast starship billions of miles from Earth, you alone must thwart the sinister machinations of both a maniacal rogue artificial intelligence and an unknown alien consciousness; starting out with nothing more that a wrench. You wake to find the ship empty of human life and in a disturbing series of pre-recorded messages, journals and psychokinetic emanations (ghosts), slowly the dismal fate of your crew is revealed. Never in any other game has fear been made so palpable, never has the desire to survive transcended into virtual reality so distinctly. Played on the hardest difficulty setting (highly recommended) every bullet, every skill point and every ounce of cunning must be used to navigate the tortuous corridors of your interstellar prison. The groans, ominous mantras and the cold whirr of defence turrets keeps you transfixed to the edge of your seat; the use of sound in a game has never been used to such powerful effect. This game is deep and involving on a level that almost no other can match; employing the full use of an extensive range of weaponry, abundant psychic powers, skills, research trees, exotic cybernetic upgrades and gadgets. Ultimately System Shock 2 combines the depth and involvement of the best computer RPG's with the instant immersiveness typical of games from other genres. Merely describing the game mechanics do not do this game justice; the complete experience is one that will live on in video game legend.

Download from Underdogs
System Shock 2 Fansite
My Gamefaqs Top Ten Cyberpunk Games

It requires a little bit of patching and tweaking to get flawless performance on XP. There are various level editors, graphic updates and bug fixes which are all available from the aforementioned fansite. System Shock 2 gives a taste of what computer games could be. There can be no greater accolade.