Catacomb Abyss: Mausoleum

I have returned. And the game has a screen for starting off with a save. Neat. I mean, its got really, really, really bad shading. Its not the worst thing I've ever seen, but we don't talk about the worst thing I've ever seen. Ever. The game doesn't start you off with the sound on even if you load. I don't remember that.

The area starts off with several portraits of Nemesis and several statues of trolls. I understand the portraits, but why statues of trolls? Why are they a completely different color than the surrounding walls? There's Nemesis's mantra again.

I see someone's heard the commotion outside and just has to get away as fast as possible. These are what I call necromancers, but judging by my track record with calling things necromancers, these are probably called Disciples of Nemesis. According to the Catacomb Wiki, they're called mages. Presumably that's because one of the levels refers to mages. I don't really care. They're necromancers.

The necromancers are much like the ones in Heretic, if you're familiar with that game. They jump around like freaky maniacs dodging your shots as much as possible. Unlike that game, they don't move vertically, they don't shoot three orbs back, and they're usually placed in tight place. I give chase, blast him, and another one pops up, flees and I give chase.
I can't see them on my radar right now because they're red enemies and I don't have the red gem. The previous runaway has stopped here, where he is joined by another friend. Screw it, I use a zapper. Takes about half of one to get rid of a necromancer. His friend doesn't elect to flee, so I finish this farce. This might have been because he couldn't flee any further. Portraits on one wall, with an ordinary wall separating them, portraits on the other, all grouped together. This requires pondering.

Three at once! The horror! An exterminator later, safely away from any treasure. My patience is rewarded by putting my stores slightly above what it once was and a key. "Meditiation Chamber", so they just teleport out?

I go back, checking the walls as I do. Lo, and behold, skeletons awaiting me as I turn back. Enemies aren't alert if you don't see them. That seems very exploitable, but I guess that's to save on memory. Remember, this is 1992, if you throw too many enemies at the player at once you'll quickly regret it as the computer blows up.

Putting aside the secret here, what's the point of this area? You have...several portraits, of which if you blow up will reveal more portraits behind it. This is a wall made out of portraits of Nemesis. I have many questions about this and none of them really make any sense. Back to the starting area, I only went to the southern half so far, don't want to go to the back area just yet.

More enemies being honorable and not shooting me in the back. The wiki calls the shadows Wraiths. I don't really care, but I think you should know. I carefully plink some shots at the shadow before rushing the precious treasure. The shadow and the necromancer quickly fall soon after. Naturally as I enter the northern passage another necromancer shows up. After dealing with him I look to the east and fire off a stray shot.

Another necromancer pops up as I turn back. That's not a problem. Skeletons behind the destroyed wall? Not a problem. The back area catches my attention. I slowly advance, taking care not to destroy any walls. A group of necromancers are on the access to the next area. They're not a problem, either. I already have the key, I just think its best to fully explore this area. Never know where that gem could be.

I blow up the wall across from the crypt access, checking my corners as I do so. Only one way through. Should be easy. Necromancer pops up, blamo. A subtle hint as to my current wisdom. And...

This is big, I carefully look around. So carefully that a necromancer spooks me. He's down, they barely do any damage anyway. I use a cure for once. Some treasure and more enemies, fine. The only thing left's the "Enchanted Cubes". First one contains some nice chests. Second, shadows. Blow up the third with skeletons in it while dealing with them. I carefully move out of the way of the fourth before dealing with them now. The fourth has a few necromancers with the gem. It could blow up. I'm not taking any chances and carefully shoot the necromancers.

I wander around a bit, going after the side areas called Spirit Chamber. They had treasure and skeletons in them. I finish up with the other Meditation Chamber. More necromancers, which might be a problem if they did more than four points of damage per magick missile. On to the crypt!

Look at that radar. Sneaky. But no match for me. Probably ever. Now, let's take a look around...

Things the Catacomb series did first:
FPS [X]
Hub Levels [X]
Fantasy [X]
Satanic Themes [X]
Naked Women [ ]
Verticality [ ]
Science Fiction [X]
Stepping Sounds [X]*
I check the other walls for treasure, since I don't really want to think about Mr. Satanic Messages here. In my haste to ignore him, I end up killing his friend who hid a chest and a necromancer. The only cursed thing to happen to me is a shadow joining in on the fun.

I understand why this game caused me so much terror as a child. Enemies frequently show up as you turn around. This group happens after I've already cleared out everything on the east side south of the start. Probably because this is the only major gameplay loop. The corridor behind them reveal a series of rooms full of the dead.

More undead. I think this is another area that completely loops in on itself. The way further south has what has got to be undead #36. I guess that means the area west leads back to the start? Nope, that leads to a treasure room. I guess I better check the next room out.

A sacrificial altar. You sure we don't need a priest here instead? Depending on if this is supposed to be D&D-like it might be obnoxious for Tyr to keep throwing Hammer of the Gods at these guys. Better have "Words Constructed from a Dartboard" deal with it. The sacrifice room doesn't lead anyway, but it looks cool and has a key. That's what counts. So I go back, through the "Hall of Bones" and the "Meditation chambers". Quick a zen-like level, yes?

Returning to the start, and destroying the first wall I really saw. I fight a necromancer over an embarassingly long amount of time before getting a scroll I should have already gotten. More carnage ensues thereafter on the other side of the room. I could show you, but you know how it is. Point, shoot a hundred times, collect any treasure you didn't destroy.

I continue through a few enemies, before I find two shapes on my radar I can't yet see. Interesting, that's the first time that's happened. They're shadows, and while I look around another appears before treasure. Carefully dealing with him and adding to my ever-growing arsenal, I slowly advance. A skeleton awakens, proving that there's something wrong with how this game causes enemies to become alert.

I little bit of tactical retreat, getting the shadow on my tail, before blasting him, going after the other. Finally, no more enemies. I turn around and see another skeleton. Well, how did the shadow get behind them then? Questions, questions. This is something the great philosophers will have to figure out, because I just don't care. A little bit of cleaning up and blamo, the crypt area is done. Next time, Den of Zombies and the aquaduct.

*There's not an easy place to put it, but there are really nice stepping sounds in the game. They're not distracting at all.

Catacomb Abyss: Graveyard

When the boys at iD left Softdisk for green pastures, they left behind the Catacombs series. Well, it wasn't much of a series yet, just a whole bunch of different games with the same name really. Softdisk took to the cast quickly and cast a new team on the engine for Catacomb 3-D to make it slightly better and more commerically successful. As I've already got an opinion on this, I can't say I wouldn't rather buy a copy of this rather than Spear of Destiny. And yet I own that game on disc.

GETTING IT TO WORK:
DOSbox, no fancy wrangling.

Catacomb Abyss or whatever that lame other name they gave it is the story of an unnamed wizard implied to be the player and his evil nemesis, called Nemesis. Who is the big evil wizard who was named Grelminar in the last game, or possibly the guy named Nemesis last time. Protip: Don't name your villain after a completely unrelated character in a franchise you only have three characters in. I guess we know that the Greek gods really don't exist in this universe then, if there are multiple people running around calling themselves Nemesis.

So the game begins. I'll be playing on Warrior, because I am a badass. The game doesn't start with sound on, which really confused me. And you have to turn it on every time. I don't remember that. We don't really have another John Carmack working here, but that's okay. If you've already read the first entry for Catacomb 3D, you'll know that this series uses little notes on the hud in order to show the player where they are. This is immensely useful at this point in time and will be of great use to me.

A zombie appears, a quiet unpleasant one to behold, even today. I dispatch him with no trouble. After looting the place and accidently using a zapper. I have one of every item. The Zapper, or machine gun, the nuke or the eXterminator, that shoots a circle out from you, and a potion or Cure, which heals you. From here, I quickly discover no more open road. No further place to go. It feels weird talking about things I already know the answer to.

The way out is to destroy a wall. There is no activation of anything. Just shoot it or bump into it for it to work. Life's funny that way. Despite having played this quite a number of times, I still get blindsided by the first two zombies. One behind another wall I destroy, aptly called "Weakened Walls". SUBTLE. This brings me to the first scroll.

Now that I'm an adult and I start to question the logic of this scroll. Who wrote this? Who has a reason to? Whatever, I'm sure one questionable item is peanuts to whatever inane garbage I could be playing right now. Now, let's journey onward-

Enemies are sneaky in this game. Really sneaky.

I didn't see you there. A quick solving of this, followed by a journey through "Shinbone Alley" into "Private plots" via the path of "Don't miss the Purple Gem in this region". I'll explain this after I deal with two of the undead appearing out of the plots below the nice weapons.

SNEAKY!

You no doubt see that little radar-like thing in the corner. It is a magic radar. But without any gems its just a compass with the ability to see where my shots are on the screen. I have to fill those slots with gems, then I can see the enemies. Usually you get some chance before you see an enemy to get the gem, but that doesn't apply on this level. Back to the regularly scheduled blow-by-blow.

Just like Heaven's Gate

The intro level continues to throw softballs at the player. Today, I feel they're softballs, but back in the day it was kinda nice. Well, the first weakened walls was a useful hint. Now its just pointless. You'd have to be denser than a diamond to miss the third pink wall being exploding. I continue gunning down zombies, ignoring a single pink window to enter...Heaven's Gate. Overdramatic name aside, it contains a single chest that, when opened, bring up two zombies behind you. Charming.

Is it just me or is that Japanese?

I go through the section further out from the entrance, Memory Lane, finding nothing but monsters, baubles, and a pauper's grave that actually looks bigger than the rest. I go back to the single pink window and what I presume to be the gravekeeper's secret storage with the red key. No bats, but a zombie. I go back to the Purple Gem region, where I find a purple window I missed and get the green key. Which pretty much finishes it up for this level.

These lead you to the next level

Or so I thought. Turns out I must have missed something after Heaven's Gate, so now I have to find the BLUE key. Back through Memory Lane. The storage door opens to reveal...the bats. Maybe my memory is of little use here. "Ankle deep in guano". I'd call that the child-friendly version of Knee-Deep in the Dead, but that's not true with these zombies, is it?
The door offers the option whether or not you want to advance. Very useful if you missed a gem.

The Garden of Tears starts off with no short amount of time in getting to enemies. I dislike levels like this, but I'm just going to let that slide for a moment. The opening hallway contains goodies. To my left and right are further passages. These a north and south respectively.

There's something written in stone at the end of this corridor. "A garden of tears to expose your fears." Who put this in a town cemetery? You know, come to think of it, there are a lot of statues of demons and trolls here.

North first. I keep forgetting I don't have Z set as an alt key subtitute* anymore and fire off a zapper at a potion, a zombie just getting up and a wall I didn't realize I needed to destroy. I meant to that that. It would have been obvious anyway, "Unstable walls". This is still the second level and "doors" are easy to spot.

New enemy, some kind of shade. I assume that's the case. He's not very difficult to kill, but he doesn't make any sound when he hits you. That would be a problem if this game didn't give you health potions like Doom gives you health potions. I advance and reach an open area, with many paths and some presumable destructible walls.

The central midway, is of course connected to the northern midway

In "The Northern Midway" I get ambushed by a goodly amount of zombies and shades. Hey, this is what the zapper is for. More treasure, more exploring. Zombies keep poping up in places I've already cleared up. I seem to recall this making me uncomfortable the first time around. Its like Resident Evil for the kiddies. I got to stop calling this a children's game.

"The Field of Sighs", another ambush place. Because when an enemy comes out of the ground, might as well ambush the player. After about twenty enemies later, I find the level exit, I just need to find the red key. I think there aren't any useful secrets, I.E., another gem. Further exploration of the field reveals to walls without any vines on them. I wonder what's in there...

More zombies, more items, and a yellow key. I guess its somewhere else, maybe south of the entrance. Judging by even more zombies popping up where I've already been, there could very well be a horde of them down there. Better check out the last part of "Midway" before doing so. Another obvious wall, revealing a bat and a locked door. What's behind door #1?

Which I probably should've taken a picture of.

If you guessed, red key and more zombies, then you win absolutely nothing. If this level's already done, what's down south? What's in this hedge maze? Bats? A Shade? A return to the level entrance? Why yes it is. How disappointing. It'd be a good level for a Catacomb DM though.

The Mausoleum Grounds start off with a corridor that only has a single thing blocking access. Progress! Of course, these have zombies in them. Zombie on the side, and while you're distracted with him, another pops up at the exit of the corridor. These guys have set up a weird daisy-chain of pop-up zombies. Each time one in the starting area goes down, another pops up.

After dealing with the swarm of zombies, I finally get to breathe again. Then I turn slightly and discover Mr. Skeleton. He looks a lot like the skeletons from Golden Axe, but I'm sure that's just a coinky-dink. I think he's slightly tougher than the zombies. I'm not certain. Speaking of which, they just keep popping out.

Why is there a town here again?

What a charming place I would definitely bury my dead relatives in. I soldier onward, disposing of another skeleton on the opposite side of the mausoleum. A single zapper plus a single extra shot and they're dead. That leaves the walls that are obviously traps. I go through the southern section, clearing up the undead as I pass by. A path eventually opens in two different ways, the eastern empty and the western blocked off. I take a gander at the western one. A red key is my reward, protected by some skeletons.

Strategy? What's that? I don't even need a zapper

Taking the western passage now, I eventually come across a true attempt at ambushing me. One in the front and one in the back. Before it was just dumb luck. "Corridors of Death", huh? Who names parts of their graveyard that? I eventually make it behind the mausoleum. Two undead, thanks to close proximity manage to harm me as I just make a turn. Stop game, you're making me have fun. If only I didn't have 15 health potions this would be terrifying.

Tough crowd.

Several more undead try to kill me as well. But at this point they're essentially undead #86 or something, hardly troublesome. On to checking the walls for cracks. Its not so obvious here behind the mausoleum. There are several windows and non-vine walls that don't explode when I shoot them. There's a door, but that needs a yellow key, and I only have a red. I guess that's the exit key and the yellow key is for the yellow gem. Hahaha, guys. The question now is, is the yellow key in this section or do I have to go back to the start and pick the other section? Decisions, decisions.

What? Another one?

The path further north from here leads me to more of the undead. Nothing troublesome, but they do try popping up in front of useful items. I don't think I'll really need it, but I remember Nemesis being a long fight. Burn through a zapper on a zombie, he dies faster. That answers a question I definitely cared about.

Enemies can't move past items in this game, and items usually break when shot, except for keys. You have to think about stuff like this for a moment, because otherwise you'll break something useful. Really useful, like this gem that lets me see them. That's not a problem right now, but later it should be useful. After I'm done spraying these guys with a few zappers.

Next time, The Mausoleum interior and whatever else until the next scenery change.

*Because the alt key usually causes you to get out of whatever game you're playing in Ubuntu. I don't know if this was a change from 16.04 to 18.04 or not. I also don't care.

Game 11: Battlezone

I don't really feel qualified to talk about Battlezone. When you get down to it, I'm not really an arcade game kind of guy. I like Star Raiders, Astrosmash and Night Stalker on the Intellivision, but that's about it. Modern arcade games are straight out. About the only thing I like that's arcadey are fighting games, but are those arcadey anymore? That's a question for someone who isn't me. Battlezone is thought of as the progenitor of the FPS. I still feel like for something to be a true FPS you need some kind of level design and different weapons. That's just me being pedantic.

Ode to Joy starts up the menu in PC Speaker goodness. I feel like that's all the joy I'm going to be feeling. After a while the menu shows a demo that doesn't really do much. I check my keys so I don't end up having to press the Scroll Lock key to fire and start wishing I didn't do this. In fact there's not really much for me to talk about outside of the dedicated categories. I'm not very good at this, and quite frankly I don't really need to be. I'm trying to force in a classic arcade game into the category of FPS, even if it does technically qualify.

Why purple for the moon?

I saw this screen a lot.

Christmas came here this year.

Weapons:
You have a single cannon. It fires straight ahead and never runs out of ammo. 1/10

Enemies:
There are enemy tanks, which suffer similar problems as you do. Flying saucers, which fly. What I think is supposed to be a plane that runs straight toward you. Decent variety for an arcade game. There are also supertanks, which I don't know if I met or not. They probably killed me if I did. 2/10

Non-Enemies:
Nada. 0/10

Levels:
You play in the same zone forever. Sometimes cover appears. 0/10

Player Agency:
Originally, Battlezone on the arcade controlled via two joysticks. One for each tread. This, of course since tanks don't move like other vehicles. On DOS, you control the tank via the keyboard. Turning goes in on direction and doesn't stop until you press the other direction. These are extremely difficult to use and not something I'd like to see done ever again. You should not attempt to emulate proper tank movement with a single set of keys. 1/10

Interactivity:
Nada. 0/10

Atmosphere:
I don't really get anything from this. 0/10

Graphics:
Once again, I feel like the DOS gamer got shafted. The original had monochrome, this has CGA. Why the porters felt the need to make the most out of the CGA is beyond my 21st century sensibilities. 1/10

Story:
Aliens have invaded and you're a tank defending Earth. 0/10

Sound/Music:
This offers the best possible use of sound and music with this kind of sound system. A simple musical opening that doesn't hit the high notes, and simple sound effects for destruction. 2/10

That brings the total to 7. That shouldn't be taken as a mark against it, just as a sign you shouldn't play it just for the FPS cred.

A-10 Tank Killer: On Amiga

Before I move onto the final campaign, and because I now have a working Amiga emulator, I thought, hey, why not see how A-10 works on an Amiga. As it turns out, that question was a bit of a problem. Not because there was anything regarding emulating Amiga, (that you probably weren't already aware of*) but because the game is very different. This will also lead into a minor statement on the original DOS version.

One thing I'm starting to notice regarding Amiga games is long loading times. While a lot of Amiga games look simply amazing compared to their DOS counterparts, for some of them, it simply isn't worth the obscene loading times. A-10 is no different.

Continuing the theme of rocking tunes, we have much expanded versions of the now familiar songs that graced the menus of the DOS verison. More instruments, perhaps too many. The themes on the DOS version came out better, despite being simpler. The menu features the smiling face of my almost completely useless co-pilot, Styles, and my character, Buck Ryan. Who, I for the second and third campaign named Rogers, because I thought that Buck on the quick select was a reference to Buck Rogers.
The game suffers the same mouse problems as the original game, although it is much more tolerable here. Perhaps Amiga owners were more used to using mice, whereas I know using a mouse in DOS was a bit of effort. The mouse originally required you to launch a program in DOS if you wanted to use it. That was a lot of effort, so I mostly stuck to a keyboard back when I had an actual DOS computer.

Cord's opening statements are different than I remember, mentioning the main character's name instead of the one you pick. The color also seems to be off in general, but that could just be because the Amiga's graphical chip offers less colors on-screen than a comparable VGA chip. You don't get to select what weapons, just what loadout you get. This arguably isn't too important, since most of what you'd choose is offered.

The game is quite different than the patched version. Not only in the obvious ways, such as different ground colors, knowing how many missiles you have left. The entire simulation is much different than what it would be later. It seems less realistic. Going full throttle causes you to climb at a good rate, and trying to make a minor turn causes your wings to go back to neutral. Even at attack speed of 5 you're still climbing in neutral. This requires me to relearn to fly. You also get less in the ways of visibility and its also slower.

For the non-important things, they're not really better or worse. The sounds are different. There's possibly minor differences in all the graphics. It ultimately doesn't matter. This is obviously inferior to the patched game. A shame, but it was probably good before then.

Now, on DOS the original version has...additional problems. Namely, the bane of '80s sound design, the PC speaker. Now, I'm not usually one to say this, but PC speaker is very outdated today. I'd say the PC speaker was outdated the moment it came on the scene. The original DOS version features a single PC speaker song, playing over the entire game, from the start until you decide to turn it off. It stops whenever you shoot something or fire a missile, but if there's one thing I hate when it comes to old sound, its when it stops to play a sound effect.

So, there you have it, a once highly outdated game because immensely playable thanks to patches down the line. That's honestly some quality work. We'll see just how quality next time. So, if you ever want to play A-10 Tank Killer, make sure to get the CD version.

*Put it simply, I would rank emulating old games on this scale of difficulty:
1:NES/SNES/GEN (systems that don't require anything beyond the game)
2:Sega CD/PSX (systems that require a BIOS)
3:DOS/PS2 (systems that require a bit of fiddling to get some games to work)
4:Apple II (systems that require messing around with floppies)
5:Amiga/Arcade** (systems that require fiddling around to get to work and to play some games)
6:Macintosh (systems that are very difficult to emulate and require a lot of time on your part)
7:LaserActive*** (systems that there is no emulation of)
Windows games can be anywhere from 1 to 7 depending on how they are set up. Realistically, there should be no Windows games at 7, but you aren't going to be testing them that throughly.
**I am aware that there are multiple underlying arcade systems. I don't care.
***A system I considered worth working on solely for its translation of the third J.B. Harold game, at least I did until someone did a translation for the PC version.

Game 10: The Hunt for Red October

 Tom Clancy. It seems so strange that twenty years ago the man was popular and we were all on the train for freedom and justice and bringing democracy to the world. Now all I ever see popularly consumed is James Patterson and other kinds of mystery novelists who judging by the content of their books I wonder why people call video games violent. A lot of romance novels too, have tons of stuff that proves anyone who throws stones at video games are living in glass houses. I'll stick to my Agatha Christies, my sci-fi and fantasy novels. Yes, Robert A Heinlein is never going to do any of that weird stuff*.
I'm strangely nostalgic for Tom Clancy despite not being a fan, he reminds me of the schoolboyish fascination I had with military equipment back in my youth, and something I associate with people from a more optimistic era. Its funny calling a series of decades in which we were afraid of nuclear war or terrorist attacks happening at any moment, but today despite having the greatest communication tool of all time, we are constantly told lies about our politican opponents in order to make us gibbering paranoid wrecks with no consideration for the past or the future. Its only natural I have some form of optimistic nostalga for a man who wanted to write about spies and submarines.
The Hunt for Red October is, of course, the first novel by Tom Clancy, it was made into a movie starring Sean Connery and James Earl Jones, and I was bored to tears by it. This is not based off the film, although there are games based off the film adaption. You can tell because they have the mug of a greatly beloved British actor on them. This does not. This has the same dry cover you'd expect to find on the original novels. Its the story of a Soviet commander who defecting to America with the submarine Red October, a experimental prototype nuclear sub with an advanced caterpillar drive, which is silent. He acomplishes this by on her maiden voyage with him as commander, he provides a bull explaination to the crew, his officers are in on it, and sets sail for Virginia, then Cuba. Of course, Cuba isn't in the cards.
A MINOR NOTE:
Just as I was ready to call this quits, I accidentally deleted all my screenshots. As a result, the new screenshots are not entirely in line with what I've written.

GETTING IT TO WORK:
I played the Amiga verison, at first. That's a bit more complex to explain than just telling you to do X and Y. It does work just fine with a seemingly standard imitation of an A500. The DOS version works just fine as is, although I had to play in CGA because the EGA version freaked out.

Firing up the game reveals it should be a bit outside of my bailey-wick, but I already wrote the intro to this and I want to keep it. Besides, it'll let us know what's up with Red Storm Rising** and 688 Attack Submarine later on. The submarine is already an instrument of stealth and strategy and this game takes that even further, you are supposed to use stealth and strategy to escape the oppressive Soviet Union and join the freedom and democracy loving Americans. Your men do not know of this plan, so you must be careful.

The main game takes place at this here map screen, with additional help from a short-range map screen. (telling you where your enemies are) Because I am once again playing this without a manual, I do not know if the Soviets are already aware of my plan or if the boat following me thinks I'm on his side. Well, no matter, let's see how our missile compliment handles.

Let's see what to put this under, shall we:
[  ] Playing a shooter
[  ] Playing a shooter badly
[  ] Playing a strategy game
[X] Playing a strategy game badly
I'm glad to see I'm only nine games in and we've gone pretty far off the reservation. I'm playing a game where I thought I'd be shooting things, and as it turns out the shooting part isn't first-person nor very possible for me to aim. I fired off like five missiles at this guy who may or may not be my enemy. Ultimate Submarine Combat Simulation my buttocks. So that leaves stealth and speed. As to speed the slowest Soviet craft at the time of this game is something like 29.5 knots...we can reach...37 knots. Interesting.
Starting over, in case I need those missiles for some reason. One thing I have to say is that this game is very slow. Sound, despite not being very sound-y, is very important to the game experience, so I can't exactly put on some music. I can't read or anything or I'd miss something vital happening. This leaves me with staring at a single screen for long stretches of time. Riveting, isn't it? I'm now essentially describing paint dry. Fitting as the start of the game has about an hour of dead time. Its about three seconds per in-game minute and I've got a full couple of days ahead of me.
There are two engines and two propellers. Nuclear and Diesel; Caterpiller and Propeller. The later of course, create more noise, but the propeller is faster than the caterpiller. You have four missiles, two fire straight ahead and two more which seem to just drop out of your sub. These, of course, are probably completely useless to me. Other ships fall under various categories, but I find it safe to assume that engaging with any of them will result in my death. There are also mines, but that's an assurance, not a safe assumption.

It takes me til 8:16 or something in-game to finally get away from the high tips of Norway. Next stop Iceland. A few more mines. Hey, I can get through these, so I gun it. As it turns out, gunning it through mines is a terrible idea. I die a few more times, once instantly after I reload. Thanks, fellas, thanks a lot. Too boring to solely focus on, too involved to not solely focus on. Thusly, I assume that saving only saves time and location. Thanks for making the game so exploitable. Hopefully I won't need it.

Now I guess would be as good as time as any to discuss essentially the main screen, the nearby map. It contains varying colors of blue, which I believe measure the depth of that particular area. The lighter areas make it less safe for you to gun it, which seems to be the primary attempt at limiting your speed in this simulation, as otherwise you could just go full speed all the way to Virginia or whatever. Beyond the mines and hostile ships.

Its December 8th 15:10 at this point and I've been playing this off and on for several days. Finally reached a point where its all dark blue. Progress. Just off the point of Iceland. Still at the point where I could literally play a different game in another window. I'm reading something while playing this, which you know, is just what we always wanted to hear about a video game. I mean, I tend to read books during other slow strategy games like Dwarf Fortress, but at least then I'm just doing it because there's downtime in the game. Here I'm just waiting for something to happen at all.
Since I'm on this neverending journey, I found a manual for the Apple II version. The site says its the manual for the Apple II version, anyway, but the manual says its for all versions. This proceeds exactly according to the book, I have to somehow meet with the US somewhere, where I will be able to defect to the glorious USA with Ronnie Reagan, apple pie and blue jeans. I also discover that soon I will have to deal with a leak in the nuclear power plant on-board. Soviet engineering, eh? The good news is I figured out how to make time go faster. Ah, progress.
Well, thanks to the time trick and a lack of anything underneath, I can go at full speed towards America. Three days in and I'm halfway there. And nothing's happened since Iceland beyond me seeing a ridge sometimes. A ridge here and there, requiring course adjustments. This leads me to question if I will see any action at the end. The game says I'm going to find Soviet subs near the US's bases, and the novel does involve an explosive confrontation with a sub after the ruse has almost been completed.
Now, its worth pointing out that the combat in this game is properly garbage. I know I explained the manual firing of torpedoes, but when you're near the surface, firing torpedoes against a ship on the surface, supposedly guided, it still comes out garbage. I could miss Mt. Everest twenty feet away from it. My previous experience is Battleship and Down Periscope, but aiming is legitimately hot garbage. Is this just a general problem with submarines, or is this a problem with Red October?
Of course, as I write this the nuclear drive gets thrown out of commission. I don't know whether to blame quality Russian engineering or the story. The Diesel engine requires frequent trips to the surface. I presume this is due to toxic gases building up inside the sub. I don't under how subs work at all, is what I'm saying. At this point I think I'm just going to give a token effort towards any subs that try to sink me and resort to save-scumming.
It doesn't take long for me to get close to the coast of America. So close, but how far away am I? Answer?

Ah, Maine, just how I remember it.

Right on the coast. I have touched America and no one has done anything about it yet. Now what do I do? Am I too low? Too high? The manual is useless. Something eventually happens. I can't pass time quickly. Who is it? Who knows. I switch to stealth mode.

The ships that approach are American. Only took me so long. They send info on how to proceed and win this thing. I even get info on where the Soviets are. Or is it the American fleet? No matter. If nothing else, this is a really enjoyable minute and a half. Let's see where I have to go...
This seems easy. Will it be easy? Will I be able to find them? Is the game just jerking me around despite having no actual provisions to finding out where the real 33W and 75N is? Am I throwing all these questions out merely to pass my own time and pad out this review's word count?

A lot of ships arrive. They're not really doing anything. I'm not actually close to the contact point, having missed it slightly. I'm starting to get antsy. Surely the Soviets know roughly where I am and roughly where the US ships are. They're going to send someone after me, and I know that according to the manual any combat against Soviets while the US are in range will result in the US deciding I'd look good if I was Swiss, if you know what I mean. I don't know what's happening. I keep circling the contact zone and nobody tells me anything. None of the ships contact me. This goes on for much, much, much longer than it should. Actual hours. I get impatient and eventually end up beaching myself trying to find wherever it is I'm supposed to go to end this game already. I'll give the developers credit and say the long wait was something they couldn't fix, but this is objectively garbage. I'm pretty sure this has already reached the point where I've hit the eight hour mark. Another trip across the Atlantic it is then...By the way, this is roughly a two hour real-time experience with the proper speed.

Comrades, it was just a joke. Comrades? Comrades?

This time I follow the curvature of America. Sure, if this game was anything close to realistic I'd cause a bigger scene than a bunch of K-Pop fangirls locked up with their idols. Then, if it was realistic, something would fricking happen when I blow across the Atlantic full speed. Go past Florida...where's everybody? What happened? I'm about to hit Cuba. I think its Cuba, I don't know anymore with this map. By the way, when you use the periscope near land, it doesn't show anything other than sea. Quality work guys. You know, I've heard a lot of negative things about '80s British computer games. Like lots of absolute garbage that no one would ever play if they saw in-depth beforehand. This is mostly regulated to bad action games. Usually platformers or fighting games. This is really new ground I'm breaking here. I don't like it. Its more of a challenge to make an unfun and uninteresting strategy game.
After a while it starts to occur to me it may just be a problem with the Amiga version, we're not exactly playing the highest quality gaming experience here or anything. DOS it is. For some reason the EGA setting causes the game to crash so the CGA setting.

Make your own jokes here, I can't see anymore.

Kill me now. Its one thing to play a game made for CGA, but its another thing to play a game made for EGA downgraded to CGA. There's a reason why it took until EGA for the PC to take off as a gaming platform. I won't be rating this based on the DOS versions graphics and sound, but it is worth pointing out that both are terrible. I don't find anything I'm looking for and at this point I'm ready to call it a day. Ross Scott of Accursed Farms may like to finish games for his internet thing, especially for obscure ones without the ending documented online, but he's lucky if he gets through twelve games a year. He can afford to wait. I wanted to be done with this a long time ago. That's what I would like to do. Unfortunately, I deleted all my Amiga screenshots by mistake, so I get one final shot for this.
Now, I obviously didn't win this time around either. The game's a straight shot once you know what you're doing. Only two hours of waiting. The problem is you absolutely have to find US ships before you hit the US coast. They're obviously not patroling anywhere around the obvious route for a Soviet submarine to invade. I'm sure if I cared I'd check more along Greenland or France for some, maybe further south along the Atlantic than I've been. I'm sure there's a way for the game to be beaten, I just don't care to enter the developer's head to find out.

I guess its time to rate it, as part of my grand shooting game project. You might be saying, "But Morpheus, this isn't a shooting game, why are you rating it?" Well, three reasons, I spent time on it, I started this with the knowledge that it would be the first Amiga game I play for the blog and I don't really care, we've got some other submarine games coming up, better start with something. Even if its garbage.

Weapons:
You get torpedoes. Non-specific torpedoes. Ultimate Submarine Combat Simulation my buttocks. 0/10

Enemies:
Effectively, there are no real enemies, in the sense that there's nothing you have a decent shot at killing. Some technical effort was put in making each individual ship, but, these are functionally the same in combat terms. You fight an enemy, you will probably die. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
The US does or does not qualify depending on circumstances. They're...something... 1/10

Levels:
Each time you reload the game you get a different scenario/layout. Meaning you can save just before a thousand missiles are about to hit your vessel, but you reload and nothing is there. The opposite can happen too. The game itself is a long slog across the Atlantic that never changes beyond layouts. Effectively, there are no levels. Also, the terrain is extremely questionable and I can go across the green area much longer than I should be able to. 0/10

Player Agency:
You have a great many options available to you, even if most of these are solely useful to whatever situation you are in. I didn't really use most of them, but it is better to have some options that might not be so useful rather than lack options that would be. There's no real way to measure what direction a particular area is from you, however, which is a minus. 5/10

Interactivity:
There is no interactivity with the game world. 0/10

Atmosphere:
I don't feel like I'm on a submarine, I feel like I'm playing a simulation of what someone thought a submarine would feel like. If I have to spend time doing something else while the game is going on,  0/10

Graphics:
While it does look nice on a surface level, when you get down to it it looks rather questionable. The geography on the main map looks wrong. The sea map is just a blur of blue color. I'm sorry, but I just look for more in my games. 2/10

Story:
There's not much story happening in the game, in fact, you mostly only get story whenever you crash. If I randomly came across this, I'd wonder what the hell was going on. 1/10

Sound/Music:
Bloops for shooting missiles, a buzzing sound for the propeller. 1/10

That's 11. Let's just adjust that down to 9. That being this really isn't a good strategy game either. It is the very definition of a video game as a pointless time-waster. How ironic it's the adaption of a novel. Thinking about it, I don't know how you would adapt the novel into a good game. Oh, sure, you could certainly make it into a competent game. Fix the ending issues, map, maybe something happens New Yorkers or Icelanders see a sub barrelling through. That'd make it competent. But good? Maybe in the downtime try to ferret out any moles. I mean, you still got problems, but then its just a crummy Covert Action-type of game, without a career mode.
Hmm, maybe as a single scenario...

Next time, the finale of A-10 Tank Killer. Probably.

*This is of course, sarcasm. Science fiction and fantasy, being the domain of weirdos, has just as weird sexual and violent content as James Patterson's novels and most romance novels. But the point is that the more popular novels frequently contain content that people might actually imitate, as opposed to the content in Friday or Neuromancer. Mostly. Weirdoes being weirdoes, there are the crazies who take the absurd into the real.
**Also a Tom Clancy adaptation.

Game 9: Spear of Destiny

ID, iD, iD. I'm starting to think my fondness of Doom is just a fluke brought on by a series of easy map editors used by a dedicated community for over twenty years. I just don't feel like this stuck in my mind at all beyond a big blue and grey mish-mash and the final three levels. Why? I haven't thought long about it, but compared to my more loved Wolfenstein clones in Catacomb Abyss, Blake Stone and Nitemare 3D there is nothing exciting in the level design here. Hell, when I think of Wolfenstein's levels I think only of Hitler and the levels from a freaking mod. Its not the relative time either, I played the full Wolfenstein as a child with nothing better to do at the time except make levels in The Incredible Toon Machine.

I can draw a handful of conclusions from this, leading me to think one of these is right:
1)Tom Hall and John Romero are terrible at designing 2D levels.
2)Tom Hall and John Romero were terrible at designing levels, but realized how bad they were and changed for Doom.
3)Tom Hall and John Romero are terrible at designing levels and Doom was a fluke.
4)Doom's levels had better feedback, Wolf's levels did not.
Pick your guess! Any guess! Who knows? I don't.

I better rate give this a lackluster rating before I think of twenty more that probably aren't it.

Weapons:
Same as Wolf. 2/10

Enemies:
Same as Wolf. 4/10

Non-Enemies:
Same as Wolf. 0/10

Levels:
Gosh, you know, I have mixed feelings here. You have some terrible levels and some good levels. I liked the last three, and I liked most of the ones preceeding the Castle. They weren't good and they don't really stick out in my memory too much, but I liked them. A better ratio of average-to-crap makes me give this...4/10

Player Agency:
Same as Wolf. 5/10

Interactivity:
Same as Wolf. 1/10

Atmosphere:
Wolfenstein feels chunkier compared to its parts. You have new pieces and parts, but most of them don't really feel like they belong in the previously very pixel-based graphical scheme. Whereas the new stuff feels like it doesn't belong. Like someone slapped together two different movies and hoped no one notices the difference. 3/10

Graphics:
I guess everything I complained about in atmosphere applies here too. It lacks a whole. 4/10

Story:
I think the ending cutscene deserves a minor credit for being the most interesting story in one of their games after Keen but before Quake 2. 2/10

Sound/Music:
There are some curious sound effects, like the new gatling gun get sound is a low hum, like someone got a violin and tuned it really, really low. Its barely audible over the music. Most of the music is recycled from the first game, although there are a few new tracks. Quite frankly, I like midi music and I'm sick and tired of this game's soundtrack. 4/10

That's 29. Two points lower than Wolfenstein 3D. Even if you want to say the level design is better than still isn't a good score for a commerical sequel. I can't honestly say I feel disappointed in the score. I dread the appearance of the mission packs. For now, a journey to another place, by submarine. Its less interesting than it sounds. Much less interesting.

Note on the publisher: Both Apogee and FormGen are listed as the publisher. I've arbitrarily chosen FormGen. I don't care either way.