Game 37: Voyager I: Sabotage of the Robot Ship

Name:Voyager I: Sabotage of the Robot Ship
Number:37
Year:1981
Publisher:Avalon Hill
Developer:William D. Volk
Genre:FPS
Difficulty:4/5
Time:Under 1 Hour

This was a surprisingly painful game to get running. I couldn't find any versions for a non-DOS platform and the DOS versions were all Basic files, and ergo, not something you can just fire up in DOSbox. Even the Internet Archive's version was Basic. How that got past people, I'll never know. Even this version was difficult to play, but I could play it, so that's something to be said. Part of the problem is I'm a person who didn't bother looking for old versions of DOSBasic, another is there wasn't anything for the emulators I have and I'm not bothering to do that for one single game. Can you guess who was proven right? Me.

Look at me, I'm so tough, destroying laser rifles

Voyager I is a game that technically falls into the category of FPS, if only because there's nothing else to call it. You walk around in an interface more at home with a top-down RPG than a shooter and hope you don't die. This is very difficult. I'm sure its possible, just as sure as I am that I don't care. Numbers on the right go down, and pressing C increases one of them. This is recharging my laser rifle. Taking a laser rifle off the ground increases the same bar to max. Shooting is pressing f for fire. If it isn't an elevator, it'll be destroyed. Combat is bull. It seems like you have a limited amount of time to shoot an enemy. This isn't for one enemy. This is for all enemies. Is it any surprise I flaked out after so little time?

Weapons:
A single laser rifle that seems to constantly drain. Firing was satisfactory though. 1/10

Enemies:
Robots...maybe the generators. 1/10

Non-Enemies:
They don't exist. 0/10

Levels:
Randomized wireframe levels. 0/10

Player Agency:
Walk around and hope you don't die. RPG-like interface. 1/10

Interactivity:
Up and down on an elevator doesn't count. 0/10

Atmosphere:
None. 0/10

Graphics:
Looks ugly. Shocking for 1981, isn't it? 0/10

Story:
Robots invade or something. 0/10

Sound/Music:
PC speaker. Standard stuff. 1/10

That's 4. Not bad for a game that's basically unplayable by today's standards. Scratch that, 1986 standards.

Game 36: Stellar 7

Name:Stellar 7
Number:36
Year:1983
Publisher:Software Entertainment
Developer:Damon Slye
Genre:Vehicle Sim
Difficulty:3/5
Time:1 hour

Its interesting to think that in six years a man who made a good Battlezone-clone would go on to be one of the top flight sim makers of the mid DOS era. I wouldn't even think of it. But Stellar 7 bears all the marks of something I actually like. Multiple enemies, levels, that sort of good stuff. Despite its relative simplicity, it is a distinct motion towards the kind of shooters I know and love.

But as part of a self-defeating loop, I don't like Battlezone, ergo, I am not good at it, ergo I don't like it. The game is generous with ammo and health, but that's something you'll need. There are seven levels and restocking of supplies is not on every level. And as it turns out I'm not very good at figuring out where to shoot in this game, especially with flying enemies. So I could only make it as far as level 2.

Weapons:
Same as Battlezone. 1/10

Enemies:
Quite a decent variety. You've got turrets, tanks, suicide bombers and flyers. Some of varying attack and armor levels. Nothing with a personality, but that can be forgiven. 3/10

Non-Enemies:
None. 0/10

Levels:
Now, part of the problem here is I only made it to level 2, but I think it can be said that later levels are not going to be mind-blowing. 1/10

Player Agency:
I dislike the way backing up works, but chances are that's just the same old, same old. 1/10

Interactivity:
None, really. 0/10

Atmosphere:
I still feel like there's nothing here. 0/10

Graphics:
A bit nicer than typical wireframe stuff, but eh, not that much. 1/10

Story:
Some breakaway faction of humans are attacking, stop them. 0/10

Sound/Music:
There is no music, typical bloops. 1/10

That's an 8. Considering that its early in anything approaching a genre, and its a kind of game I don't like, high praise. Reviews back in the day usually praised the game, but today its been forgotten. Well...I can't blame anyone too much.

Stellar 7 is the first game in a series that spanned a decade and seven systems. Four of which you'd need to own. Two appeared on consoles, one on 3DO and one on Sega CD. In practice, these are just remakes of the remake of this game. It will be interesting to see if either game is hampered...or if I can even play the 3DO game. Last time I tried, it ended badly. There's one official sequel and Arcticfox seems to also be a sequel, but nobody has that bit confirmed. Damon Slye will reappear multiple times over the course of the following two decades.

Flames of Freedom: African Wolves

There were some unpleasant facts I had to face at the start of this session. I could play the game with crap sound...or I could try the Amiga version. This would make it the first multi-floppy game I've played on the Amiga. But sure enough on the second attempt everything goes smoothly. No graphical downgrades*, but some obvious loading times. Hopefully that won't screw with anything. Even the sound is a marked improvement. There's also the issue that I won't be able to save in-game, but I can work around that.
Testing with the vehicles end up showing the sound is greatly improved. The music amazing, the 3d scenes don't make dogs within a ten mile radius start barking. There's even the odd background sounds. There's some minor control issues. However, considering my previous talent at the shooting in Midwinter, I think I'll be choosing the novice setting here.

We're also going to pretend I didn't forget to crop these shots

I start the campaign off at Lobos, the western-most fortress. The fortresses different from regular islands in that these supply the Saharan Empire's armies just as much as the mainland. I completely cut off the mainland, and nothing will change, because these places are still in operation. I have three tasks here, one, kill the admiral of of their flying sub unit. Destroy the radar, and destroy their underwater base. This won't be easy...probably. I'd just like one moment of pause, while we consider the island named after wolves have nothing to do with land. I will arrive by helicopter and my armament will be quite pathetic.

No, seriously, can't I get some more ammo? Sigh... The journey to the island takes 36 hours. I have two pieces of information to help me. There's an insider on the northern most village, ignoring the big crescent thing. And an enemy to kill west of the big spire. Which tells me nothing. This island is clearly very empty in terms of population, having two villages of a very small population.

It takes a while to get to the upper village. My helicopter is fast, but going fast in this game isn't the best experience. Its not like the first game with the skiing. Its not even snow. When I arrive I hit upon a minor problem. Landing. So I very gently put down my helicopter...and it crashes. Okay, time to talk with my contact and maybe commandeer a vehicle or two.

Talking with my contact proves...interesting. I first ask them to give me information about people, at which point she tells about a farmhand and a street musician. Which feels very 21st century revolution. Both of these people are on the other side of the island, which is not someplace I plan on going unless necessary. My other option is secret journey, in which they lead me to someone who's whereabouts need to remain secret. In Achebe's case, his option looks like a serial killer, but stopping him can wait for later, there are more important things right now.

His master is the Harbor Master, better to dump the bodies at sea. No one's going to blame you if bodyparts mysteriously wash up on shore. He shows me where some enemy squadrons are, not that I needed to know that, but any information is good information. There's a lot of them, but they're out at sea. He takes me to see a member of the local resistance. He looks a lot like me, but without the sunglasses. He wants me to destroy the control tower at Jubilee Plateau. Its at this point I realize I have a tiny problem, I can't destroy this building or the other two I need to. The Admiral? That guy is going down. Don't need a rocket to kill a man. I also realize I don't have transportation. There's a garage here, but it only refuels, not give me a vehicle. Fortunately, I see a truck approaching. It is mine now.

This leads to what I like to call, problem number 3. The map doesn't tell me where the secret base nor the radar. This is going to take a while, isn't it? So let's take an autoroute. Which in case it isn't obvious, is fast travel. Straight off, I see a minor problem with this. I still have to be at the screen. At least, that's what I think at first. Then I hit F4, thinking that'll turn autoroute off. That makes me go faster. So, right at my destination.

Then I start fighting some hot air ballons right off that autoroute. This seems really easy as long as I don't screw things up. My missiles seek out flying enemies, I guess its a SAM truck. They fire rockets at me, but I'm sure they're missing. Eventually...I get taken out...or not...? The menu I'm taken to just tells me I took out six out of eight balloons. And it shows me the normal return menu...

Its back to normal. More balloons, and some tanks, helicopters. You know, I don't think they're going to buy this is a simple rebellion if one guy with a truck is crushing their military might. Also, I'm running into the very real possibility of running out of ammo. That could be a problem, because neither me nor the truck are capable of fleeing this area. Better be a garage nearby. But as my bodycount keeps racking up, I notice that some of the icons on my radar are different. It takes a while to check the manual, but nope, I'm not doing anything wrong.

Then things go wrong. They destroy my vehicle. This is going to suck....I can commandeer a moving vehicle? I can do that. Huzzah. The tank actually seems worse than the truck in combat prowess. That's right, its slower, less missiles, and any damage absorption seems pointless. It gets blown apart in short order. After a short panic run around, dodging missiles, I jump in another truck and blow my enemies away in short order. In-between loading screens and checking the manual, I don't think I need anything else here. Oh...good. Escaping proves difficult. Because I think the enemy damaged the truck I'm driving. At first I thought it was just slow as balls, but no, its screwed, like a boat. Maybe that was the problem.
Now I'm no expert in such things, but I don't think that's how vehicles brake down unless the steering is locked one way or another. This also happens if the player injured. I wasn't aware they were shooting bullets laced with alcohol or shooting flashbangs. Whatever, this doesn't affect autoroute. I can rest when I'm done with James. He offers me knowledge of where the secret underwater base is, blows up an important piece of enemy infrastructure and takes me to see a nurse/nun. Which turns out to be a wise thing, as the nurse offers me the location of the enemy sub squad. There's a lot of subs. She also heals me.
I start to understand that I might have screwed something up when starting the game. Instead of campaign, I think I chose raids. Might as well see this one play out to the finish.

This Session: 3 hours

Total Time: 5 hours

*Technically, this isn't true, but the dithering is good enough that the graphical limitations are ignorable.

Pharaoh's Accent

Pharaoh's Ascent is a straight-forward puzzle game. If it was released on Flash websites just a few years later, this would have been a beloved classic. Of course, like all Flash classics, its not the best thing ever.

The story is that you're a pharaoh, now you're dead, and Set has captured your soul. This is no Fool's Errand. Its not even Pandora's Box. Its just your average puzzle game. Now the gameplay aspect is a simple use of arrow keys, jumping and shooting. Shooting enemies is fairly useless, but its used for other things. Its worth pointing out the default keyset is the numpad without numlock on. This is important, as you can't win without shooting diagonally. There are three types of blocks, completely destructible, slightly destructible, indestructible. You can only destroy the first ones with shots, the rest are moved...assuming you hit them correctly. The objective is to get a boulder into another boulder. One of them moves, the other does not.

This revolves around manipulating these blocks in order to get one boulder to a hole in the wall. Like every good puzzle game, this is simpler than it sounds.

The puzzles are usually simple enough in concept, and start off simple too. But after the first row of puzzles the difficulty sharply increases. One second you're boppin' along, the next, a brick wall. These levels can be divided into three categories, tedious bull, already solved it, and how the hell do I do that? The tedious bull being puzzles that the solution is forthcoming, but requires a annoying amount of effort.

Tedious bull, the level Death Spiral. It is, as can be surmised, a spiral. Like everything else, it is a block puzzle, one where a single wrong move is death. Except instead of one big puzzle, its a bunch of really tiny ones. You have to climb through everything. This is not very fun.

Here's more bull, look at that screenshot. Its not really a secret what you have to do on this level. Shoot the light blocks until they're gone, then they knock over the ankh block. Only, the tornado here cheats. Well, not really, they have no set pattern. They'll walk right up to the ledge, then say, nah, screw that bud. Tedium, random nature, fun.

Already solved it, levels where the solution can be pretty easily figured out, but how you actually get there isn't. These were the most fun, probably because I had something to work toward, rather than a solid brick wall that suddenly collapses. Well, that too, but it wasn't a problem.

How the hell do I do that, levels that defy understanding. Far too many of these were around, and they usually had too much tedium in them. These pushed the very limits of the physics in-game, and there was far too little balance between the two. There's also the levels that are more actiony, but the physics doesn't work very well.

Now this is only partially a problem, the game has a level skip function, but you have to wait so long, and not a do something else kind of waiting. Stay on the game and wait. Play it. For around fifteen minutes. That gives you the first half of the solution. Then play it another...I don't know how long. I never got that. You have to stay on it for a while and I rarely have the patience to stick on one level that long.
The music is some epic piece I don't remember the name of, something that doesn't have any volume for the levels, and sounds that didn't play. Just think early Windows stuff and you have hit gold. I just listened to metal music from the '90s. As long as it had a keyboard, same vibe basically.
Do I recommend this? Do you like puzzles? More specifically, do you like puzzles that make you think you're wasting your time, then discover that you're on the first group of puzzles?

Flames of Freedom: Agoraphobia

With E.S.S a bust and Galactic Empire continuing to confound me, its time to take another look at Midwinter. Flames of Freedom is the sequel, but you wouldn't know that by looking at the title. At first glance, this is less a strategy game and more a straight combat game. The introduction tells me that Midwinter found a kindred spirit in the nearby island of Verde and formed The Atlantic Federation. Midwinter disappeared beneath the sea and Verde changed their name into Agora. There are more islands, controlled by the Saharan Empire. The islands provide slaves, and the Empire is looking to expand its territory. My job, as the top agent of Cobra, AF's spy agency, is to incite revolt among the people of the other islands. They're not to happy to be part of the Empire. Naturally the Empire can't know I'm doing this, as that means they'll attack sooner, rather than later.
Dunno why they'd kill off the island from the last game, but what do I know?

As I start up the game, I am assaulted by screen after screen of gorgeous pixel art. Looks like Alone in the Dark. Ah, what a shame it isn't. Right, now unlike the original, I make my own character, and if I'm not mistaken, this is the first time I've done such a thing in a game I've played here. A surprisingly customizable character. A lot of facial features. Changing the head without changing the features results in someone who looks like they were putting on blackface, but forgot to finish the task.

Sunglasses and mustaches, how very '70s

I make someone that doesn't look like complete crap. It is scarily easy to make someone look weird with just one wrong piece. It seems like the pieces are divided into white pieces and black pieces, if you have a black piece on a white figure, it looks like they're coal miners, vice versa, the half-blackface thing. Now, its time to train. The game offers practice modes of every part of the game. And there's like six modes. This is quite impressive. Strategy, escape, land, sea, air, amphibious and firefight. The game's manual tells me that I can't just coast like in the first game. Not in words, but in the implication of the end-game...and the mid-game. Hopefully the fighting improves to compensate.

Strategy is just a theoretical look at what your actions will accomplish. The gist of it is go after the strongholds, which are dark green. Its really just a planner for the main game, unless they were clever and had it not give you the actual result. After all, such simulations are the first thing to go out the window when reality arrives.

Prison. It appears that the in-game characters use the customization system. Interesting. I quickly discover that my character can't beat his way out, but can romance his way out. Okay, workable. I could try bribing, but I don't plan on wasting money on such rabble.

Land, wonder how...oh...good. Six modes. A jeep sounds good...and as soon as the game starts up every goes south fast. The opening midi was pretty sweet, now it is a horrible high-pitch whine I believe is engine noise. The driving controls don't make much sense and my camera angle seems to not follow my vehicle at all. With a curious speed that didn't seem to make much sense. Checking the manual, and sneaking past the part where they tell me what I need to do to capture an island, I eventually make it to the controls section. Its like the base game at first. Speed up/down and turning are controlled with the obvious mouse axis, but looking up and down? Left and right mouse buttons. Esc is get out of vehicle, space is shoot, and F1 is the actions menu. I didn't find those last keys in the manual, it only tells you movement. The reference card lets me know all the important stuff, weapon selection, that every freaking F key up to F10 is used.

So, continuing, the shrieking sound continues, but if you go in and out of the 3D mode, it seems to get better...although I'm pretty sure now my speaker is just putting out a pitch my ears can't hear. Changing sound to pc speaker solves this, although now I have to contend with a bad rendition of the theme. I still don't understand driving yet. Changing weapons doesn't seem to work. However, as I wander around, I come across another person. You'd think there'd be something to explain this kind of stuff, but oh well. Rowana agrees to help me and gives me the blimp in her pocket. No joke, she has a blimp in her pocket. This is going to be a bit weird, but oh, well.

Air is like A-10 Tank Killer, the original version, if the controls were difficult to operate. I'm pretty sure there's some difference between modern mice speed and DOS mice speed. Plus after a certain height you stop seeing the ground. Which makes things a bit more terrifying, to say the least. I'm sure I'm going to have as much fun as I did with the original flying vehicles. I say that, and as soon as I start operating the helicopter, the pain disappears. There's also the jetpack, which is even more terrifying.

Water...well, I don't seem to be able to properly do water. When I do the speedboat, the logical starting choice, it automatically crashes. When I get out, I end up swimming...on land. With all the twisting turns you'd expect. When I swim on the ocean proper...well, that's just terrible and I doubt I'd be able to get far. I feel like this is a pretty good way to get someone seasick...or confront their fears about being seasick. I question the usefulness of sea vehicles at this point, but I'm sure I'll come around later.
The amphibious vehicles are fine. As fine as they can be considering the hours of terror that are about to arrive.

Fighting. As mentioned previously, I can't just scoop up some explosives and drive over to the Saharan Empire's HQ. I have to fight. When the fighting starts, the game makes it clear this isn't going to be fun. It might be, if the game didn't stick me in a flying sub and force me to use that. Did nobody think during testing that a new player might want to drive a tank, walk around, or heaven forbid, use a vehicle that I can probably find? I feel like this game's going to have a bit of quality issues. That's not getting into minor things, like how everything feels like vaguely European islands, with trains, buses, and green grass.

This Session: 2 hours

E.S.S: Thoth Patrol

Two Coktel Vision games at the same time, you might ask, assuming you know that European Space Station* was made by Coktel Vision. The enlightened among you can figure that Galactic Empire is going to take a while. More out of a curious roadblock than any real problem. The manual does a great deal at trying to set the tone, but suffers continuous errors in capitalization that I assume make sense to the French. Which is curious, since French is basically English anyway. Why the hell do the French keep popping up in shooting games. First we have Coktel Vision, adventure makers extraordinary, then we have Infogrames, who may be Atari now, and finally we have Ubisoft, destroyer of worlds.
Where was I? Ah, making fun of the manual. "[...] and remain in waiting orbit for a month (eight days for Americans)." Is this that dreaded metric week I keep hearing about? "[...]THOT orbiter (an egyptian god with an ibis-like head[...]" Joking aside, the game takes place between 2010 and 2013, which is now the past. It predicts that low-earth orbit would become very crowded. It also predicts that space-tourism isn't a thing yet.
To summarize, the translator sucks, its 2010, and I'm in charge of the International Space Corporation.
Further, the reason why I'm playing this game is that it seems to have been completely forgotten. Some crappy space race strategy game seems to be the only space sim anybody remembers.

After some loading and my token taking of the title screen, I am greeted by some flashing lights. Gonna have some fun managing the cycles on this bad boy. Oh, the mouse is as sloth as a 1989 DOS game, how fitting for a 1989 DOS game. I have no idea what the buttons between the game and the shuttle are, and nothing I do seems to do anything. I sense a sign that this isn't ending well for me.

Done fiddling around, I launch the shuttle. The majestic machine rushes up amidst a cloud of smoke, the boosters separate...the shuttle explodes, the game crashes. It wouldn't be a Coktel Vision shooter if something didn't screw up. I ponder for a moment. I don't know if I screwed up or if this wasn't cracked properly. I know I'd do something like that if I were trying to defeat pirates. Mind you, I also wouldn't be anticipating some dumbass playing my games 30 years down the line with no code wheel. Doesn't help my dumb ass isn't reading the manual. Then I'd see they keep misspelling Thoth. Can't the French do anything right? Besides copyright protection?
So I try again, the manual says that failures are very rare in the year 2010, but failing to enter the right code in the launching of the software will result in an explosion. Ah, good, smells like there's a lot of failure coming up. Right, Amiga version coming up.

You can tell how crap I am at taking Amiga screenshots compared to DOS

Still flashing, no ability to adjust the speed here, oh, well. Time to launch...its going...its actually going. And time for the game to load again. Its what I get for not buying a floppy drive and a copy of the original release. Several minutes pass. Might as well do something else. So I get distracted elsewhere. You know what happens? Nothing. I restart, nothing again. Several more times, some different copies. Nothing. Oh, this isn't going to be easy, is it? All this text written, all this time spent, and nothing to say.
One final attempt, got the code book and everything. Its going, its going. Haha. A budgetary screen flashes past me, and I understand nothing as of yet.

Ah, space...oh, that's going fast. This must be that metric time I hear so much about, that was designed specifically to create misery in human subjects. The combination of rapidly-moving time and me not knowing what to do is a very effective panicking tactic. Its just like the launch screen, except I'm in space. The ! button shows some kind of movement screen. Except every time I use it I screw up and nothing happens. Pretty sure that's not how space travel works, but it also doesn't have DRM.

Eventually, one of the buttons gives me a first person mode...and it doesn't show me Earth, I can't seem to move, and nothing really happens. When you get down to it, isn't that what this session has been all about? Bitter disappointment. If there's one thing to take away from this first attempt, its that Thot is a legitimate spelling of Thoth. Really, isn't that what this blog is all about? Learning interesting mythology?

Post-Script: When I began a second session it became clear that the game was not going to go the way I wanted. Its not an easy game nor is it one that lends itself very well to my writing. More to the point, this game is obtuse. I eventually figured out the movement scheme, holding down the key until a certain point, releasing. I also seem to have figured out how to move in space, modes and that kind of stuff. But I can't figure out what I'm actually supposed to do. It's not really fair for me to screw around for a bit then rate it. Eventually, I'll see if E.S.S. Mega is any better, but probably not.

This Session: 1 hour

*Or E.S.S, no final period, no nothing.

Game 34: The Catacomb Apocalypse

Name:Catacomb Apocalypse
Number:34
Year:1993
Publisher:Softdisk
Developer:Softdisk
Genre:FPS
Difficulty:4/5
Time:4.5 hours

The fourth and final Catacomb FPS is a bit trickier to talk about than the proceeding entries. Apocalypse tries its darnedest to ramp up the difficulty. The thing is, that's not entirely good. After around the half-way point, every enemy takes multiple zappers to take down. So you either use them, or spam the control key. Or if you're smart, you'd plug in a controller with a turbo button. You use items because you just want to get things done. Which is not good considering there are seven Nemesi on the last level. Sure, if you've reached this game in the franchise, you know what you're doing, however, that doesn't make the last half fun.

New improvements in the game don't really add up to much. The manual makes much of the screen flashing to show you something important on the text bar. I didn't notice it. Either something is wrong, or its a very short flash. Not much point to it either, someone too foolish to pay attention to their text bar isn't going to read the manual to find out they should read the text bar. Let them suffer, they don't stand a chance back in DOS-land anyway. The hub system? Also feeling pointless. I could have just spammed it twice and gotten enough keys to really speedrun the later half. Walkable walls? Eh...eh...

To put all of that aside, this game really feels like they've run out of ideas. Eh, robot enemies. Orc wizards. Machinegun skeletons. Time travel. Cyber Egypt dystopia. Does any of this sound like the attempts of men doing anything other than panning a river, hoping to find gold? Its amusing the first time, but I don't see myself giving this game another go. In the future, I could see myself giving Armageddon one more shot, but not this.

Weapons:
Same as Abyss. 2/10

Enemies:
Every enemy shoots you and takes a ton of damage. Only the rare exceptions don't shoot. They look nice, but that's about it. 3/10

Non-Enemies:
Same as Abyss. 0/10

Levels:
Apocalypse's level design is designed to wear you down for the final confrontation with Nemesis. And mazes. Its just the same thing over and over again. Some of it isn't as bad as I'm saying, but its hard to tell. 4/10

Player Agency:
Same as Abyss. 5/10

Interactivity:
Same as Abyss. 1/10

Atmosphere:
The weird schizotech feel just doesn't work as well as Abyss and Armageddon's settings. 3/10

Graphics:
The color scheme is quite garish at times and several wall graphics don't match. Down a bit from the proceeding games. 4/10

Story:
The manual says this is basically the same plot as Abyss. Which I wrote as 0/10

Sound/Music:
Same as Abyss. 3/10

That is 25, two points above Catacomb 3D. Call it 24, putting it a point above 3D. I don't have anything clever to say, I'm just glad this is done. This isn't the last we'll see of the series, I haven't done the proceeding two or so top-down games. But for now, I think I'm done on hammer ctrl key games. Next time, E.S.S., or European Space Station. Why? I need a break from the more shooty stuff. Hey, I said space sims, and that is a space sim.