Mazer II: Introduction

Mazer II is a weird game. I don't remember where I saw it, but the unplayed Mazer one is probably an actual maze game to my knowledge, something that's not within my concerns at the very least. It's very hard to find, bordering on impossible. The publisher, Big Red Computer Club didn't publish much, but it also put out a very neat looking Hercules beat 'em up I may or may not look at some day. I don't think the developer, Farfetch Software did much of note either, befitting this being an obscure game on an obscure platform.

But beyond those things, this is just really weird. It's a FPS on the Apple IIGS, released the same year as Wolfenstein 3D. All the boys at ID had Apple IIs. Just think, in another world Wolfenstein 3D could be the weird Apple IIGS game we talk about before going on about how cool Mike Howard is for inventing FPS games. Heck, it's halfway there, it's on IMDB for some reason. Which pops up next to the stuff I looked up for Rejection last time, which is one heck of a weird list.

Before I enter, I want to mention the computer briefly. I had no idea what to expect from the IIGS environment, I was expecting something like an Apple II, no, it's a color Macintosh before color Macintoshes. It's a Macintosh but it isn't one. I'm sure there's some technical stuff that makes it different, but I fail to understand why this wasn't just a color Macintosh. It's just a strange decision.

My first times playing and reading about the game are...weird. This is not exactly advertised as a FPS, more as a virtual world adventure game. One of the figures between Space Station Oblivion and Wolfenstein 3D. To start with, the game makes you, the player, the protagonist. No virtual avatar here. There are no real objectives, this is a lie, and the way the game controls is very dependent on the mouse.

You turn and move like your usual Wolf-clone, only exclusively on the mouse. Because we don't need keyboards...except to open the menu to save. Because this is an Apple computer, there's only one mouse button, and boy howdy, do I wish they used the keyboard. Because I'm on a regular computer using an emulator, right click screws around with the emulation processor speed, which the game needs at a specific speed or it'll go crazy. Left click does everything else.

You get four weapons, represented by different balls of light. Creative, destructive, affirmative and negative energy. Only destructive is an actual attack, the others are for conversation. Creative is also for conversation, but it has other purposes. You activate your "weapon" by just clicking, changing, you hold the mouse button down and move it around, with a blank option for dialog.

You're kind of in danger here, but amusingly, George and the Cat will just run around endlessly if you do nothing.

The game starts with the Cheshire Cat chasing around an invisible man, George, who asks for your help. Let me tell you, this is not an easy game to aim a weapon in. The Cat is a hard target to hit anyway, because he's invisible from behind...and you're really supposed to just walk up to him. Do this, he disappears and the invisible man offers to be your translator with the creatures of the world. Looking around, I gradually figure out how to not be in frustrating pain while moving and aiming, but only just.

You can, of course shoot them, but this results in you screwing yourself over. Also, there's no reason to shoot them.

Nearby are some colorful snails. It's tricky to talk to them, because it's not entirely clear how you open up a conversation. I think creative might be the key. The most colorful snail is the one to talk, explaining the backstory and my objective...

"Our troubles began with the arrival of the being we name the Adversary - a humanoid form. From whence it came we do not know, but we gave it welcome, for it greeted us with the old words of friendship, and appeared to seek only knowledge...
Yet even the living substance may be twisted to evil, though the source remain pure; for we discovered that our visitor was none other than Mordaine, a name of evil rumour out of distant past...
(George explains that this is a concise translation, the snails are into epic poetry)
Long ago, one Mordaine was the dread general of the Mazewar, rallying great forces to the call of darkness...
But before Mordaine could extend control over the Mazeworld, the Dark King appeared, draining the very energy of the living world...
Then all were afraid, for the Dark King could not be overcome, and he grew stronger as the Mazeworld plunged into darkness...
Indeed, none know the ending of the Mazewar, or how the Dark King was finally overcome, save that those cataclysmic days ended in the Sundering of the Ways, which divides the Mazeworld still. Since then, the world has been empty, devoid of both the old darkness and the old light; which so many had thought they could not see...
But now, Mordaine had returned, and demanded we reveal the way to the Dark Realm, which was supposedly was in our domain...
But even had we possessed the information Mordaine sought, that way may not be revealed. The Adversary became angered...
The Adversary threatened to bring a new enslaved army from the Outside, to destroy us if we did not reveal the way. We replied that our defenses were strong, and in any event we would die to the last before returning to the chaos of the Last Days...
Enraged, the Adversary promised to bend the very Maze itself, forging a path to bring the evil minions upon us. When we still did not yield, Mordaine began a terrifying work of magic...
But the living substance of the Mazeworld itself proved beyond Mordaine's art. Finally, frustrated beyond restraint and reason, Mordaine smote the very Maze wall with devastating force...
The Darkness flooded in, and with it unknown terrors of living shadow. But we stood transfixed, for Mordaine had become a figure of blinding light, shining into the darkness...
Then we were swept away by the assault of the creatures still cloaked in shadow. Only a handful escaped to the upper galleries. Some went to employ our final gambit of defense, but must have been lost. Only we three escaped to this forest...
Yet when we arrived, the four beacons were lit - someone must have departed to the outside levels. Perhaps Mordaine yet lives, and may yet bring about the final Conquest of the Mazeworld...
Could it be that you are sent to help us in this, our hour of need?
The amoeboids now patrol the upper level, and we fear even worse things lurk below. We are helpless to combat them..."

Then they ask me to clear out the way to an energy fountain for them. (well, the way to the upper levels, but the fountain is the objective) A short-term objective and a long-term objective. There's a story here, I don't know why the game implied there wasn't. Maybe it's very open-ended in how you can play it, but there's still a story. Feels to me like how one of those children's fantasy stories would go if the hero never showed up and the bad guy won. I like it.

The first of many lava lamps.

There's only one way out of this central forest, a pair of lava lamp-looking things. They're blocking my exit so I need to shoot them. I'm guessing these are some sort of fence. Use creative energy to open, then you can go through. This leads to, what else, but halls full of these amoebas. This is where the adventure part kicks in, you don't shoot them to kill them, you shoot them to get them away. You need to find out how they die and get rid of them. Especially since there's a big room full of them which don't move.

I guess it's hard to see these things in a screenshot compared to motion.

This, ironically enough, gives this section a survival horror-ish feel. There's no sound in this game, so if they sneak up on you, you're going to get a screen full of amoeba.  The first clue that there's something else you can do are more lava lamps, which the amoebas often get stuck on, but just wailing on them while they're in there is no good.

Then there are red lava lamps, these are exploding barrels. These will take out the amoeba, but there are a few problems. One, your destructive attack does a zig-zag, which throws my aim off in a game where I already don't understand the hitbox. Two, this is leaning on the no mercy side of adventure games, there's no way to get more and it's a long way to drag the amoeba. And this is the hallway to the fountain, my objective, which has the bonus of healing and restoring my ammo.

So I sit around in wait for the amoebas, then blowing up the red lava lamps on them. And it turns out that it really isn't that hard to handle, or even wait for. It's deceptively easy. Even without the fountain healing you. You just need to activate the lava lamps with two more more amoebas behind them and then get lucky with the red ones.

This results in something more boring, a long march for the snails to the fountain and then to the big room of amoeba. Only this time, if they touch an amoeba, the amoeba dies. At first I thought I should be close to a snail, but instead I just need to let them clear out the room, they aren't respawning. I just wait, and then the snails want to talk to me again.

The leader of the snails informs me that this is where we part, but to watch out for evil from all sides and a confrontation from the past. (Probably Mordaine) He tells me to consult the Oracle, which awaits me below. The path to the portal is clear and off I go.

Underhyping a threat like this is probably the best way to go, because if it isn't scary, you've lost nothing, if it is, people won't expect it.

The second level is full of hooded figures who are hostile to you and are immune to destructive energy. That's...great. This is playing out less like an early FPS and more like an early survival horror game. This is annoying me a lot less than a more modern game like it would. You can't kill these things, but the game isn't playing them up as some unkillable threat, they just are, and there's no obvious safe spots. Because there are no safe spots, even the suspicious overhead balls, as I discovered before dying. There's no lighting up the lava lamps here, either, they drain them away.

I wonder if I missed something here and should have done something on this floor instead of just leaving.

What you actually do is stumble upon the Oracle in the darkness, activating the two lava lamps in front, then getting your next objective, find the portal out, then stop the hole from the Darkworld into Mazeworld. The balls lit up, which combined with the Oracle telling me to distract the creatures leads me to believe they do something, but I'm safe enough dodging the hooded figures.

Level three is suspiciously empty. Too suspicious. What's here? Nothing, it's level one again. I hope I didn't do something wrong, because I don't really have any guidance at this point. Taking a gamble, I return to the forest, while I was screwing around, affirmative energy turned the pyramids light blue, so I do that and another portal opens up. I feel like I'm sequence breaking. Oh, well.

This leads to a maze with enemies I can actually shoot for once. Huzzah! It's both annoying and not annoying. Enemies move in the center of a tile, they don't move along the edges like you, and with enemies like these, who are all ranged, this means you can run by them. Combat is fairly interesting, even considering the handicap of using awkward mouse controls. Dodging isn't actually that bad and I can pull it off fairly easily. The real problem is the hitbox, I think they're smaller than the enemy, but I'm not quite sure.

After dying once, I discover my objective here, disable the control sphere, by someone who seems to be working with the Adversary. I really should just take him out, but I'm going to play it what I think should be the proper way. I just need to find the back way. I'll do things slowly, shooting monsters as I come across them...only, they respawn. I can't rush the area, because they get real thick with monsters. This is not helped by the emulator not having a proper mouselock function.

What I end up doing is finding a safe dead end, then saving my game. Enemies have a habit of ganging up on you and because of the way shooting works, fighting in a panic does not work in your favor. Only...this doesn't work, and I end up pinned down trying to recover all my health. It's like nightmare mode in Doom, only you're using the mouse exclusively and there's no practicing.

Eventually I make it to an area behind some bars. Bars that I can enter...but hopefully not the enemies. This leads straight into another problem, there are starfish on the ground which instakill me as soon as I enter. I can't run past it, although since it basically rushes at me, that might be intentional. I can't shoot it with any kind of energy, which isn't surprising at this point. There's clearly some trick to getting past this that I can't do yet.

The entire maze on this floor is all about reaching a star crossroad area leading to that area with the bars. I know there's a left and a right path from the start which leads here, but that leaves a fourth area with something else inside...and the fourth is just another entrance from the left path. Two paths from that side are connected. This leaves me pretty well stuck without also making a map. Oh, joy, making a map in an action game that was already fraught with danger. I have a few other options, check the second floor for a breach, and try to kill the guy who may or may not betray the Adversary.

"Four games left, should be easy, outside of the Singleton one." Yeah, that was a smart thing to say, but in my defense, I thought this was going to be some small and cute game, not a fantasy epic unrivaled in the world of FPS at the time. I'm not even sure I found the game this was a sequel to anymore. Generally speaking, the more novel systems like this one just haven't had much effort put into their originals.

That said, while I am digging this game so far, it is coming with drawbacks. Up until now I've never really experienced floppy failure, yet I've had this game's floppy bricked multiple times. I'm making sure to keep copies, but I am counting this against the game. Park this one firmly in the good for whoever it appeals to, and everyone should stay away kind of game.

This Session: 2 hours 00 minutes