Duke Nukem: Won

"Duke the Fluke", okay, Proton needs to be taken down. I know the whole attempt to rule over humanity thing is something we should focus on, but these puns are crimes against humanity. This level is simple, but nicely laid out. Criss-crossing paths. I'm genuinely surprised at how merciful these levels are being...you know, when the game isn't some insane maze. This is basically just a straight, easy shot to the time machine and then...

The future. Gotta say, that background, despite being awful in at least one respect, is very nice. When I look at that, I think to myself yet, that is the future. This is a mostly typical Duke level at this point, lots of side stuff you don't need, fairly straight shot to the exit. The odd part is that the way forward is set up slightly strangely, at least in my head. You have to go back to a seemingly irrelevant computer board slot to advance. Seems like I never made the connection between the barriers those have and the ones that turn off. The nuclear reactors, which are more and more seeming like an afterthought, seemed more obvious in their connection to the barriers throughout the game.

Next up, remember that level where everything was an x shape? This is like that, except harder. There's only one way up, and naturally the game puts a lot so you have to keep climbing up. There are a lot of enemies, mostly mechs, and flame jets. That said, while the majority of the level is harder, the key is on the left side of the level and the way out is on the right, so assuming you're swift and avoid most of the fighting it's not that much more difficult.

This one changes up the formula, still a lot of platforms in an X shape, but this is confined to a smaller part of the level. I suppose it's better than another maze, but it feels just as lazy. There are a lot of mechs in this part, and when they're on small platforms it's hard to hit them without getting hurt. Moreso when you still don't have any additional shots. I got the jump boots now, but that's essential. I actually went through all of this level, at least as much as I could, twice, hoping to find another shot. There are some platforms I couldn't reach, which leads me to suspect the game placed the grappling hook in an earlier level as a secret.

I don't know how it got there, but that thing's stuck.

The next level ends my shot drought, as there's one right out in the open a little ways in. The level is set up in the same way as last time, so the mechs are in a position you can't easily defend against, yet it also does it in such a way to nullify the advantage they gain from this, and results in them jumping to the floor. There's also the easiest set of DUKE letters to collect, which is only possibly rendered less easy if you approach from below, which is one of those jump over a dangerous pit under a low ceiling bits.

Robohand time. Or is it Robot Hand? Guess the developers didn't decide on a proper name. This level is very easy, so much so that it feels odd on first playthrough. There's a slot for the computer card that you'll solve long before ever seeing the Robohand or it's slot or even knowing what the card was for. Otherwise this level is fairly typical, including making your ability to shoot the nuclear beam annoying by means of traps. Oh, and there's another shot out in the open, bringing me to 3.

"You have done well to survive this far, but what lies ahead may be your match!" I dunno man, this has been fairly easy so far. At least, until I see how green this area is. Yeugh. Quickly, one finds the grappling hook, assuming one doesn't die to the horde of traps placed on this level. Guess they remembered this was supposed to be the final episode. For a start, the game is suddenly taking advantage of the grappling hook's abilities, to advance you have to climb up one seemingly random ceiling hook. And this is where you'll be going a lot, because there are a lot of blind falls where you either fall back to the start, or onto traps. That's not getting into how the two key items are towards the end and the slots are closer to the beginning.

Having come out of the last level with only 1 health point, the next level was quite tense...until I got a full heal, anyway. This level uses the funneling thing the last one did, without all the danger that came with that one. The only real dangerous time I jumped down blindly was towards a bolt on the ground, which strikes me as incredibly cheap even for early Apogee. But by that point I had plenty of health, so it didn't really matter.

Now I'm in a lab, next to a locked door. Seems a strange and sudden choice, but I can roll with this. This level is almost a complete cakewalk, almost an apology for the last level. Except at the end there are the hidden spikes on a conveyor belt. I smell Broussard. Come to think of it, a lot of what I've said about level design in this game wouldn't be too out of place in the Tomb duology he did. Curiously, there's a slot for a computer card I just never found.

Surprise, you thought you were going to get to do things easy starting another level. No siree, falling down with some mines. I left the last level in bad shape, so this turned into something far more dangerous than it should be...unless you go all the way to the left, then you're fine. This level is weird. There's the same old funnel back to the start, which I did fall into once, but you can also just...ignore it and go to the way to the boss. The level isn't that generous with health, even if I did get two full heals. Oh, and the boss is basically the same as the one in the last episode, the arena is even basically the same.

And the game ends with Duke winning in vague terms. Guys, Arctic Adventure had more ending text than this, couldn't you have said something about a parade in his honor or something? I know this wasn't exactly an exciting story, but come on. Well, I'll think of something to say in the summary.

This Session: 2 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 7 hours 25 minutes

Duke Nukem: Under Construction

Not with Duke's can-do attitude!

Right away, there's a slot for the Robohand and a green key door. The green door I can understand, but use of the Robohand seems relatively pointless since it isn't like you can get rid of it. There's a trick that I don't think the game actually says, where you can press up while hanging on something to climb up it. No going back down though. Once you get past that, it's simple, but annoying. Lots of platforms with hidden flame jets. This is Broussard's doing, I just know it. There's a roof you can hang from, and fun fact, if you get hit while hanging from something, you get knocked to the floor. Which is very high up if you're in this area. That's basically the level, outside of a fall where you get blown back and forth by fans. Naturally, there's a secret here. 

 The Bubble City of Dr. Proton. Which starts you off in a hole where when you climb up, enemies and hazards fall down. Despite knowing this, I got hit by them a lot, so either I suck at this game or this is really annoying. This makes itself clear that you will need a lot of keys early on, but said keys are not particularly forthcoming. I manage to find another computer card, guarded by flame jets, which doesn't help me yet. So, there's some trick I haven't noticed yet. And it turns out that the reason is that the computer card is used on a down arrow. That isn't annoying...

This level is big, so big there's just a massive amount you don't need to ever see. It's worth it just for the two health refills. What you actually have to go through is a sort of factory area, which isn't too tricky. What is tricky is a spot with two flame jets and a nuclear beam you have to take out. The only place you can shoot is right in front of the jets, and did you know that touching the beam is death? What was I expecting anyway? At this point the level is mostly typical, a few side areas, the usual go where indicated and gather up points.

Then Doctor Proton shows up, looking like Doctor Robotnik. He goes around in a U pattern, stand below it and jump up and shoot at him when he's waiting at the top, and he dies quickly enough.

What, nobody noticed Doctor Proton smoothing out the surface of the moon?

We get a weird little level outro, and then there's the usual speech. This won't stop him, I'll go after you. Also, moonbase, Duke really loves returning to moonbases. Onto Episode 2. The intro is the usual back and forth.

I see the north-eastern part of America and the British Isles have sunk into the sea.

To start with, this level is wide, expansive, fairly easy. Enemies approach in small numbers and traps are rare. Health items are so plentiful it's practically impossible to go anywhere without accidentally using one. I like it. There's a cleverly laid out secret near the start, if you notice that a hole near the start has a floor once you go past it, you can find an elevator which will allow you to reach some points and health.

The way this level is laid out does result in some slight issue. The top half is nice, lots of points items, tricky jumps and the one large group of enemies. Which makes it seem like the way out. The way out is, if you go there by slowly climbing down this area with a big pit, hidden. It's something that just looks like a hole to the bottom floor, which I already came up from without having noticed that there were more floors.

This level is weird, basically a series of Xs going on unto the top, sides and bottom. Carefully jump on individual blocks, with missing either resulting in a little progress lost or a lot of progress lost. It's an interesting concept, somewhat ruined by the keys basically just being at the bottom, then going through a series of doors on the sides. It's basically all but impossible to see the entire level because of this setup, but at least the way out is simple enough.

Find the Robohand says the level introduction text. Go up a giant elevator shaft, says the level. You better believe that the game is making the most of its verticality here. Only, it's a long ride up, then a long climb down. There are also certain points that funnel you back here, which isn't entirely annoying. There are two secrets attached to this shaft, one if you find your way back in from elsewhere, and another on the way up. One of the walls is destructible and has another blaster.

The actual level isn't much to talk about, just towers where you have to use elevators to climb up vaguely designed buildings. It's haphazard and annoying to go through, with the Robohand in some random room, and the eventual activation of it seeming just as random.

"You might find that the next level is too windy for you...!" What is that the three dots and then an exclaimation mark trying to convey? Waiting, then sudden surprise? Doesn't really work in a between level hint. There's no wind, just long jumps. So long they go off the screen, and then you go expecting another platform only to start free-falling. Outside of that big wide open area, there's another labyrinth. Interestingly, there's a section near the exit that technically requires a key to enter, but because the exit of this section is within normal jumping range, you can see the other side without having reached it first.

Another maze level. This one has the added bonus of having a conveyor belt full of mines. This is about all that's interesting about this level, it's another big maze, albeit one that's mostly straightforward once you know two tricks. The conveyor belt full of mines is optional, and you need to get the jump boots to win this one. After that, it's mostly going through the same passages hoping to eventually find the exit.

An ancient underground lunar city. Beware of the snake techbot. I don't know what it is, but I see another one of those segmented worm robots. Little late to warn me about that one, boys. Then again, I can't blame them, I don't have anything worth talking about in regards to this level.

The between level hint tells me to find the grappling hooks. This level is simple enough. It's set up like a construction site and makes decent use of the verticality of the game. Even if it is basically just up, down, up, down, up. If it weren't for the requirements of both the Robohand and the grappling hooks, this level would have been a lot better earlier, since outside of a part near the start where you can get blind-sided, it's a cakewalk. I don't know if I didn't notice this before, but the game has two backgrounds depending on where in the level you are. It's cool.

Mercury Mines, which is about the same as the last level. Dangerous start, then easy. In this case, you start at the bottom and your two choices of getting out involve going past a mine at the edge of a platform or past a moving flame on a small platform. That said, it has one element that's weird, the key is easy enough to find, but the door is quite tricky to reach.

Next level starts off with an elevator maze. Remember, elevators always return to the bottom the second you jump off, and it is somewhat slow going up them. Further, Duke starts going down the second he hits the ceiling. Unless it's a climbable one. But quickly it's out into a glorious open section. I stumble upon a door and start looking for a key. I find it, but not before Doctor Proton brags about how Duke will never escape his next maze. Great, I think...only that's the end of the level.

The final level of this episode. It's a conveyor belt maze. This is quite possibly the most tedious concept for a maze possible. Do one thing wrong and it's entirely possible you'll get sent back to the start. Take the wrong path, and you might end up wasting time only for points items. I don't even need useful items at this point, I have everything. But that's just the first part. The second part is more reasonable, just climb over the usual single block things in the sky. The trickiest part is a blind jump, you really just drop down, but you can't know that without failing first.

Doctor Proton is the exact same boss fight, only...actually the last one was over spikes. You're on a single block in the air, maybe? Whatever, I just kept blasting him and he died quicker than last time. No joke, the second I get on his level and start firing, he doesn't even get a real chance to defend himself. That's worse than the mechs throughout the regular level.

Doctor Proton is remarkably calm talking to someone who looks and sounds like he's going to slowly torture him to death.

There's another ending sequence where he goes from the moon back to Earth, where he shall go into the future to build up his robot army more. Because he had a time machine randomly placed, which I assumed was a joke, in a level in episode 1. Next time, Duke kicks Proton's ass for the third time. Will we see new enemies? Will Proton find a new way of attacking Duke? Will I learn to stop asking questions I already know the answer will be no?

This Session: 3 hours 00 minutes

Total Time: 5 hours 25 minutes

Duke Nukem: Introduction

I've never quite gotten Duke. Of all the side-scrolling characters to turn into a tough as nails FPS protagonist, Duke seemed like he was just sort of there. Outside of a kickass intro in his second game, and even that was just the novelty of animation, there wasn't anything that put him above Johnny Dash or Snake Logan. I'm pretty sure I only beat the shareware episode of Duke 2 simply because that's just what I had at the time. Because I remember despite some good stuff, my overall impression was that I played it because it passed the time. This is also the last Apogee game I haven't played until 1995. (well, outside of Wacky Wheels, but from Crystal Caves until Rise of the Triad, I've played everything for at least a little while)

That said, this is an important game because it's the first to have all the important Apogee guys together. That is, Allen H. Blum, George Broussard, Scott Miller, and Todd Replogle. John Carmack helped with the coding, which probably means that this is going to play a lot better than previous titles that were effectively in-house. This is still EGA, and there's only PC Speaker sound, compared to previous titles which were either CGA and PC Speaker or EGA with Adlib/Soundblaster options.

Before I go in, the only thing I've really heard about this one is the plagarism allegations. There was going to be a paragraph mentioning that this wasn't something to brag about. Duke isn't that good looking of a game, since it's EGA. But once I actually found the stuff it was pretty conclusively some of the only actually good-looking stuff in this...and some stuff from Mega Man's DOS spin-off. Those barrels are making me ask the question, is it possible to draw something so poorly that you can't copyright it?

Now, this is coming from a guy whose art is considered objectively awful, but it isn't that hard to draw a crate if you have any drawing ability whatsoever. Stealing stuff from Turrican I can understand, if you're stealing, you steal from the best. Not the dinky Mega Man game nobody likes. Straight-up ripping other game's artwork and then taking one from a crappy-looking game is like becoming a criminal mastermind to steal from a 7-11. It is a complete and utter waste of time. Enough distractions, let's get to the game.

As per usual for a shareware the story is in the instructions menu. The year is 1997, a man called Doctor Proton and his army of techbots have taken over Earth's largest city. Tokyo? No, Los Angeles. I'm assuming they mean largest in size rather than population, but even then Tokyo wins out. Even in the US, Houston is bigger. Unless there's some weird trick or the authors just did not care. I'm making fun of a game for calling LA the largest when the developers assumed that someone could field a robot army in 1997. Naturally, Proton's robots have easily overcome our planet's military, until...

"Self-proclaimed hero, Duke Nukum" is hired by the CIA to stop Proton. "Armed with his [prototype nuclear] pistol and his can-do attitude". Is this Duke Nukem or Lester the Unlikely? This feels less like the badass hero that he was in Duke Nukem 3D and more like the overconfident guy who gets killed in the opening scene before the real hero pops up. Considering how they know where Proton's lab is, since they're setting Duke on top of it, that might not be an unfair assessment. The controls are typical, left and right move, ctrl jumps and alt shoots. Up interacts with things and of course, esc is the menu.

Before the game starts, you get a little cutscene where Dr. Proton mocks Duke. Proton reminds me of the villain of Power Rangers: Time Force, but I guess wearing a metal plate on your face and having armor tends to look alike.

Duke looks like the antagonist's right-hand man, not a hero.

This is the second lamest insult I've heard recently, but I'll give Replogle and Co. credit and say that they intended this to be lame.

Starting off, Duke does feel considerably different to the character of previous Apogee games. Unlike past games, you drop down from a height to an area with both directions open to you. No going in one direction at the start like in Dark Ages. Although this uses a weird save system, only save in a hallway between levels. Unlimited lives, at least. Duke's "pistol" sticks out of the middle of his torso, meaning that it shoots slightly lower than him. Assuming that he's two tiles high, it seems as though we won't be overshooting anybody. Technically, it's at his top tile, but it hits anything that's shootable on his bottom tile too. That is, it ignores solid tiles, but not crates or destructible walls. Jumping is smooth, but has the issue of no real control over height. There are also elevators, which you can raise by pressing up. As soon as you jump off, they retract into the ground.

Duke makes itself quite different from other games by virtue of having a lot of weird power-ups. Firstly, you get on-shot onscreen, find more guns and you get more. There's a jumping power-up which increases jumping power. Then there are health items, chicken, soda, which you can shoot, and an atom. Duke loves his atomic references. Most health items are in crates, which come in three flavors, oddly, the gray variety is the most dangerous. That has dynamite in it, which explodes after a moment and hurts you. There are also letters which if collected in the order N U K E M (or possibly D U K E) gives you extra points. I wonder if that's the first case of that? Mind you, most games I can think of that did that were by Apogee or Epic.

Getting to this opening level, I completely understand how this game was so popular at the time. Between how smooth Duke is and how easy it is to move around this place, this game is showing a great start. Boiled down, it's three floors, plus a secret nearly as big as the level below. You get there by just jumping on a suspicious floor. The only thing truly dangerous is in the secret, which is counteracted by having a lot of health items. There's this mech I didn't get a good shot of, which takes a few blasts to kill and shoots back, compared to everything else here being dumb walk back and forth types. Sometimes on the floor, sometimes on the wall. There are also bouncing spiked metal mines which are invulnerable. They only disappear if they explode, which happens if you touch them. They have a short bounce range, but I didn't notice much trouble getting past them.

The way out is in the middle floor, find a key, open the door, then shoot a nuclear reactor. Or a glowing pillar of light representing a nuclear reactor. I'm sure if Duke was actually shooting the radioactive materials, the nuke part of his name would no longer be metaphorical. Ending the level leads to a corridor, which is the only place you can save. You also find out the various bonuses you got on that level.

Next level introduces some more mundane ranged enemies, and the mechs in regular areas. And boy howdy, does this shift up the difficulty. It's less the enemies and more the hazards. The non-mech is just a slow and dumb floating thing. There's also a walker with spinning flamethrowers you need to wait until the flame stops. It's less impressive than it sounds. The hazards are just dozens of spikes and ball mines, with the odd flame jet. It's not a big increase, but you could sleepwalk through the first level whereas you can realistically die on this level. So many spike balls and spikes in the ground. They try to hide the latter, but they're very easy to spot. It's very simple otherwise. two floors with an optional third floor leading to more points. Most of the level is, since the key is to Duke's left and the door out in down and to the left.

While levels are distinct, they aren't that important, as the game doesn't tell you how many there are or which one you're on. Level 3 starts with a helicopter attacking Duke. I must have killed it too quickly, or they just ram Duke. Which means it's just an oversized bird, really. Interestingly, it's another straight shot to the key out, just don't fall and go right. This also leads to a teleporter. Well, despite how easy it seems, I'll go explore the level. There are some fans around, which blow Duke away if he's within a certain distance, but if you shoot them, they stop.

What I sort of glossed over when reading the level introduction, there's one in the hallway between each level, is that I needed a computer card, which looks like a computer board. Oh, and four keys. This level is very non-linear, you can go in many ways to many different platforms. In this particular case, it's getting on my nerves. Perhaps 2D when the two dimensions are ZY instead of XY my brain can't navigate. I do know that I got lucky. After the fact, I discover that there's a secret level here. Sorry.

This next level is weird. Starting off there's a spinning fire thing and only one path, which eventually leads across a lightning barrier, you can see on the right. This game is actually throwing out a lot of jumps Duke can just barely make, but because of the engine they're all easily managable. I'm going to miss that about this game. Secondly, there's this flying centipede creature. Centipede in the sense that it has multiple segments. It's just an oddity, it makes a terrible racket but just goes in a fixed pattern.

I ended up skipping a big chunk of this by complete accident. Well, possibly a big chunk. There's a destructible floor which has two crates land on it, and one crate has dynamite and I jumped and made a big mistake. This nearly results in my death, because there's a mech on the ground below, but somehow I manage. There's no way back up, but the level does imply such a path with a series of blocks that you can now reach with some boots which increase your jumping power...sadly it's only a secret. There are also Energizer Bunny parodies roaming around. There are a lot of little jokes like that, despite how much more serious it appears to be, it's still spun from the same cloth as DN3D.

The boots and extra laser I picked up last level carry over, which is nice. This level's quite mundane at first, a fairly simple level which just has the illusion of non-linearity via tons of little side places. It does bring me into one of the game's few problems, no looking up or down. Every single jump down a pit is blind, which trips me up quite a few times. I found out those spiky balls are actually mines.

Back to this level, there's a moving car enemy, it doesn't seem to shoot at you, it's only faster than other enemies. The real enemy here is how freaking big and mazey this level has become. There is just so much of this level that's just wandering around trying to find a key. Looking at a map after the fact and it's just so big with little reason to it otherwise. It's just a maze, even in-universe Dr. Proton is trying to break Duke with it.

It's probably not that visible just standing here, but this is very annoying to see in motion. Gray against a gray background. Probably not helped my a headache I have as I write this. (Unrelated reasons) It does look nice, but Keen or Dangerous Dave this is not. This continues to be more about navigating around hazards than fighting, well, much of anything. This level is not quite as ponderous as the last one, instead centering around a tall elevator shaft.

And these stylish rockets you can shoot to spawn a blue crate.

There are two new elements, introduced soon after one another. The Robohand, which is basically another type of key. The difference is it seems to be used for non-door objects, and if you use the slot without having the Robohand, you get hurt. That little trick nearly cost me a restart. Conveyor belts, which function exactly as you'd think they would.

Is that water? A reflection? Or is that a glitch? Could go either way, since it's flickery as hell in gameplay, but there are a lot of them. This is another mazey level, but in comparison to the one a few levels ago, this is much better done, more straightforward, and you only need two things. The key out and a grappling hook that seems to be claw hands. On certain ceilings, Duke can navigate across them. How bizarre. There's not really much else about this level, it tries to do a trick where you have to go back to the start if you fall down to the bottom level, which is really easy to avoid.

Here, you start off next to some walking enemies. Not sure how I feel about this one. Sure, you have to be quick, but you also start in the hallway beforehand. It's a sign of how this level rolls, it tries to make enemies the real threat...by spamming a lot of them. It kind of worked, but that was just because they were in-between crates which often contained dynamite. I'm starting to loathe those gray containers. At least the level is nicely designed.

Another addition, moving fires. Duke can't shoot them. After all, he is shooting an atomic weapon, and aren't fires just mini suns? (Considering this game's fascination with the atom, that may not be untrue) This had a weird effect on my handling of the level, I could try to go past the sections with them, but I already have the key and found the exit. That's not really something that speaks favorably towards how I'm thinking of these levels. They're good, but in the short and sweet way. I think outside of the first level I wouldn't consider any of these classics, and that's more because I think the first deals with the assumption a lot would have in these days that you go from left to right mindlessly. Like Metroid's first section.

I would have preferred to have dealt with this on an episodic basis, but time got away from me this week. I'll try to cover til the end of episode 2 next week.

This Session: 2 hours 25 minutes

Mazer II - The Ghost of Mordaine (1992)

The subtitle is only in some places, perhaps because you don't know who Mordaine is until you've won.

Name:Mazer II - The Ghost of Mordaine
Number:226
Year:1992
Publisher:Big Red Computer Club
Developer:Farfetch Software
Genre:FPS/Adventure
Difficulty:5/5
Time:15 hours 10 minutes
Won:Yes (98W/73L)

Mazer II is business as usual when it comes to these early days of FPS. It's odd, but not really that unusual to its contemporaries. It's an exclusive to one system, in this case the Apple IIGS, (basically a color Macintosh before they were called that) unique control scheme, an elaborate story that seems unfitting for this era, and pieces of absolute frustration.

The first bit of important information is the title. No, you did not miss my coverage of the first game. I don't know what the first game is. Maybe there isn't one. But the experience is not ruined by the lack of the first game, it's ruined by other things. In fact, I daresay missing the opening of the game may have made the experience better. Mystery is key to a good story, and this game serves mystery up.

One of the curious Mazeworlders, telling me what his problem is.

The story is, you, presumably the player himself, has arrived in Mazeworld, which is a world made of mazes. Mazeworld is in pretty bad shape right now, beings from the Dark Realm are invading, slowly draining the life of the place. These creatures breached in part, thanks to a being called The Adversary, who brought in the Dark Worlders in order to enact some mysterious plan himself. Now you have to stop these people while figuring out what happened to the creators of Mazeworld and a past adversial figure called Mordaine.

It's a basic story, but told in an interesting way. It isn't obvious what the plot development is going to be until you see it, which is important, though I think if you stick to a thought you have when you get most of it, you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right. Being dripfed the story through encounters with people desperate for you to help them or villains about to order your death does wonders. But I think I liked it most of all because, despite being a sequel, feels quite like a story about a children's fantasy world being invaded by some evil. You truly are the only hope.

The game is controlled almost exclusively by the mouse, with the exception of the escape key for the menu. Only, it's a Macintosh mouse, basically. So you get one button doing too many things and then movement which you hope won't go out of the emulator's window because there is no true fullscreen command and even the mouselock function doesn't lock it in the window all the time.

Affirmative energy floating in the game world.

You get four weapons, as such. Only one is truly a weapon, destructive. The other three are for interactions with stuff. Creative, which could be thought of as a use key, except from a distance. Affirmative and negative, which are a yes and no answer to questions. You change, not via any reasonable method, but by holding the mouse button down and dragging it into a certain direction. There's technically a fifth, which is nothing, used for advancing dialog.

Every weapon drains energy, and you of course have health on the left. It regenerates, there are no pickups. Ammo also regenerates. Unfortunately, it regenerates slowly, and enemies are far stronger than you are in numbers, but usually not in actual strength. Combat is weird, because of the controls it was never going to be great, but the game kind of tries. To start with, direct confrontation is suicide. Enemies are better at shooting than you are...not because they actually aim any better, but because they don't have to worry about accidentally shooting creative energy. They actually have the same handicaps you do, in addition to dying in one hit.

Combat with some of the creatures on one floor, this is as close as it gets to a normal FPS.

Enemies respawn, at set points after their death. In theory, you should be able to survive better than your enemies, but in practice, as with Doom's Nightmare! difficulty, this isn't happening. This is basically just a repeat of Galactic Dan, all the good strategies I've picked up over the years don't work when my control scheme is a mouse alone. At least I don't have to jump with the mouse and moving is...normal for a mouse. I get the feeling that the author was really into this whole virtual world thing and using as limited a control scheme as he could manage to get that across. Nice idea, terrible execution.

These guys are blocking a portal, and if I get close they kill me, which would be 100% in place at your usual adventure game.

This ties into what I feel is the real meat of the game, the puzzles. This feels adventure-esque for the simple reason that the actual gameplay is just a disguise for navigating between puzzles. Fighting enemies is incidental. They either respawn infinitely or are invulernable. Not exactly a point in favor of combat. It's very odd, because if it were a few years later, one might say that the choice of an adventure disguising itself as something else was an attempt to make itself more palatable, but in 1992, when FPS wasn't a genre yet? I don't understand it.

The puzzles were pretty good when they were centered around using the four energies cleverly. Paying attention to the world and how someone else is interacting with it. There was one puzzle I couldn't find my way around without cheating, but I can be pretty certain it isn't just a clever application of some energy, since I tried a lot of things and never found a real answer to it. The puzzle after it is also kind of crap, both as a puzzle and what sense it makes with its solution in-universe. Every other puzzle is fittingly logical.

I like this game far better in theory than in practice. It's the world of a children's story if the villain won, where you slowly try to make things right. Dodging enemies stronger and tougher than you as you try to get help from the few remaining helpful entities. This is what it is in my head. In practice, there are two separate genres here, one of which has much more focus on it, while the other is stapled on awkwardly. Which seems to be a common problem with adventure/FPS hybrids, this, Galactic Empire, Inca and Isle of the Dead, to just list the ones I've already covered. I know in all those cases, the developers would have been better off trying to make the adventure half of the equation the whole game. With that, let's get to the rating.

Weapons:
It's hard to describe what you're given as a weapon, more like a single gun with four different ammo types, all infinite. 1/10

Enemies:
Sort of tied into interactivity intimately. Every enemy is tied into a puzzle on the level they're on. While you can delay them all, you can't stop them without solving that puzzle. Some are easier than others to delay though. 3/10

Non-Enemies:
Every time a character acts as a friendly it's basically just a scripted sequence, but it does feel more interesting than most FPS by this point. They're actually helping me for once! 1/10

Levels:
Fairly simple for the most part. As could be expected, a few levels are mazes. The first I didn't find too annoying, you can easily do the wallhugging trick to get where you need to go. (Well, in theory, that was where the puzzle I couldn't solve was) The second, meanwhile, does not allow this trick. It also has hordes of enemies who can easily kill you. The rest are all simple enough to figure out and center around the puzzle more. 3/10

Player Agency:
Annoying, tedious, and I'm tired of this sort of thing. The issues here are half what the game is doing, all mouse, and half what the emulator is doing, you can't really capture the mouse in KEGS. You're also slow and can't sidestep. It takes a moment to shift energies, unless you get unlucky in combat and accidentally switch from destructive to negative energy, which isn't the same thing. It's also annoying to have the use key tied to ammo. 1/10

Interactivity:
For such a limited amount of actions, the game gets some decent mileage out of them. 4/10

Atmosphere:
Mazer really sells itself on the once bright world enshrouded in darkness, with each corner hiding something unpleasant, often for ill. 4/10

Graphics:
Amateurish, but charming and effective. Very little animation though. 3/10

Story:
Were it not for the story, I don't think I would have powered through this one. It's not mind-blowing, but it was enjoyable enough that I felt the effort was worth it. 4/10

Sound/Music:
None.

That's 24. Which is a bit generous for another game with a repulsive control scheme, but does reflect that I found it enjoyable despite its handicaps.

With that, 1992 should be mostly smooth sailing. I have an arcade game and an Archimedes game left, but both of those should be simple enough to cover. There are going to be some replays, of course, but those should be simple. Outside of a Mike Singleton game called Ashes of Empire, everything in the near future looks to be simple enough. Which probably means some of it isn't, but enough of it is that I'm not too worried.