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EDIT: Split from another thread because this is the important part.

And now, I too will share video games that created a sense of adventurous wonderment!

And I will also be deliberately picking games from a computer company that went under during the 90s and their peak years were during the 80s. As such, you probably will never play any of these games unless you get yourself an emulator though you can probably just watch a Let’s Play thing on Youtube. I’ll just provide links since I’m too lazy to fuck around with images. Most of these will be from the C64.

What’s the commodore 64? Well in short THAT was the “gaming computer” of its day. Basically if you wanted to be an elitist that looked down at the console peasants back then, you probably owned a Commodore 64 because there was a shitload of games for it. And I mean A LOT. Even today, hobbist STILL make games for the thing.

To be honestly there are SO many games that are on the Commodore 64 that it was actually very difficult to narrow it down to just 11. Also I was including the Amiga as well which made it even more difficult.

I also had to focus on games specific to the title, and not just games that were cool/weird/unique/etc. because if I did that, it would easily turn into a top 100 and it could be argued that it still wouldn’t cover everything under those categories.

This is mainly because back in the old days, computer game developers just designed shit based on whatever was running through their minds that day. (Probably massive amounts of cocaine) So as such, you got a lot of weird video game themes and concepts even if the gameplay was simple. Sometimes it sucked, sometimes it was really good, but there probably was a lot more creativity going on either way.

But that’s a tale for another day. Let’s get on with it.

1. Maxwell Manor - 1984

This was one of the first video games I ever got for my C64. (The other two being Mail Order Monsters and Congo Bongo)

The goal was to find the skull of Maxwell who was the former own of the manor. Apparently when he was killed he didn’t have his head, and because of this, the whole place was cursed.

You also had to go around collecting treasures since each one collected created a stepping stone to this raised platform with the skull surrounded by a large pit on either side.

The game was a weird mix of sideways platformer and overhead view. The two perspectives would change depending on where you were exploring. The game also had 1000 combinations. At the beginning you would select a 3 number combo (000-999) and the manor would change layout, along with where items were located. So you had quite a bit of replay value.

The manor itself is pretty large, the basement area especially. There is also a whole maze garden area along with a cave and a few other odd areas. Along with the weird creatures trying to kill you and some crazed assassin that periodically shot arrows at you from off screen, when you finally got the skull you had to get out of the manor too, so that was yet another obstacle to overcome.

Again I’d never played a game remotely like this before, so I definitely got immersed with the exploration. Due to the randomizer I was always wondering how the manor layout had changed. Some of the layouts were downright unfair, like walking up to the front door of the manor and the welcome mat turning into a pit trap and you fall into a bed of spikes. (You had to use the window to get inside instead)

I probably never did explore every single layout combination of the game, let alone beat them all.

Can’t find a C64 version, but this Atari version pretty close

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIqvvdqZluI

2. Seven Cities of Gold - 1984

Now a first glance this one might not create a sense of adventurous wonderment since its essentially a game about discovering the “new world” as a Spanish conquistador. Sure there was adventure and exploration, but you already know where everything is somewhat already since you presumably already know what the hell the americas geography looks like.

However the game had a cool feature that the game could create a new world for you that would be randomly generated, so you truly were exploring unknown territory.

The game itself was more or less pure exploration focused. You would take your ships/men/food/goods and head to the new world and from there you’d disembark and explore the land. You’d get points for finding certain areas such as rivers, large areas of rainforest, mountain ranges, etc.

The best part of course was dealing with the natives which did vary. Most of the time you came across hunter gatherer tribes or farming ones, but some more advanced ones were pueblo villages and the highest were the Aztec or Inca settlements which had the most gold.

Now you could trade goods with the natives peacefully for their gold. Sometimes you might even get them so friendly that they would let you turn their village into a fort or even a mission, but more often than not, it was just easier to just start attacking them and take all their shit back to your ships. (You could still turn their settlements into forts and missions this way as well)

The only bullshit part of the game was if you attacked the natives too much it would tell you that the “crown” didn’t approve of your mistreatment of the natives. (Never mind the fact that they’re still taking their cut of the gold, lazy fucking royals)

Still, it was one of those games where you could get away with mass genocide for profit and there weren’t a bunch of computer magazines bitching about how insensitive that was at the time.

Anyway, due to the ability to randomize a “new world” this one had quite a bit of reply value along with the whole exploring different worlds and always wondering what you were going to find next.

Some gameplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57qE1arvo3U

3. Alternate Reality: The Dungeon - 1987

So you know how more recent games like the newer Fallouts or Skyrim have expansions that add on new areas for you to go to and you can freely explore back and forth between them?

This game was one of the first ones to do that.

The Dungeon was actually the second game and unfortunately last game in the planned Alternate Reality series. The first one was “The City” and there were plans for the arena, the palace, the wilderness, revelations and destiny. The idea was you’d be able explore back and forth between all these place (And switch floppy disks as needed), but never panned out though.

In any case, while the city was rather dull and acting more like a “hub” to a bigger game that never was, the dungeon took place under the city and actually had its own goals so you still felt like you got a complete game. Though in true old school fashion, this wasn’t really spelled out for you and you sort of had to wander about to get an idea of what you wanted to do.

The dungeon wasn’t just some run of the mill dungeon crawl either, there was actually a whole society aspect to the place. The first level for example had quite a bit of civilization going on, it being directly under a city and all. So there was a whole “well lit” area where you’d find an inn, tavern and even a shop. (Outer perimeter of the dungeon was surrounded by the city’s sewer system) In other areas you’d find some wizard guilds (good and evil) that you could join or even the vaults to the city banks to rob (Guards around though). The trolls and goblins were at war with one another so being okay with one side meant being enemies with the other (Or just kill them both)

The dungeon had all sorts of unique locations to explore such as places like the frozen caverns, the hall of mirrors, realm of the dead, etc. There were a few places where you would have the option to enter one of the non-existent AR places (like the Palace or Arena) or the city.

Along with these sorts of locations, there were more than a few unique magical weapons and armor you could find. Not all of it necessarily beneficial depending on your alignment. The game did keep track of your good and evil actions. Probably one of the first RPGs that bothered to do so.

There also was a minor survival element as well since you did need to eat, drink and sleep. Not enough to be annoying, but enough that you couldn’t go around not doing it (Unless you had specific magic item). Parts of the dungeon were very hot or cold as well, so appropriate clothing was also necessary at times.

So there was more than enough to explore in this game as well as there being a mystery assuming you stuck with it long enough. If you managed to open up the door to the fourth and last level of the dungeon, the dungeon walls became more like that of a futuristic spaceship. You also started getting attacked by robots. Eventually you’d get to one room where you’d find a alien controller who would kill you instantly if you didn’t have a specific item.

Yep, the whole Alternate Reality series had a scifi element to it that was supposed to be part of the greater mystery of the overall setting and now like a dick I’ve spoiled a 30 year old game!

Though actually it wasn’t THAT much of a mystery since you got an intro in the beginning showing an alien mothership zapping a city and presumably abducting humans to LARP in their dungeons and dragons fantasy world.

In any case, the game definitely had you motivated to explore every inch of the place.

Can’t really find a good C64 vid of it so here’s the Atari version which is almost as good and doesn’t have someone droning on in the background about the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YvYBlyzphs

4. The Magic Candle - 1989

Think about if Skyrim had a time aspect to it and while you were fucking around collecting 20 bear asses and saving khajiit from trees, the civil war continued to go on without you with cities changing ownership over time and if you spent even more time fucking around then Alduin finally came back proper with a whole legion of dragons and fucked everyone up?

Well that’s what would happen if Skyrim was more like The Magic Candle.

There was a super powerful demon that had been imprisoned in this big ass burning magic candle and somehow the magic failed so now it was melting so someone had to go reset the code. Unfortunately since this was done so long ago, nobody fucking remembered how to do it, so you have to gather a fellowsh…er band of volunteers to go find out what the magic enchantments are and then travel to the candle to go reset the code so pure evil isn’t unleashed on the world.

Also there were two large sets of volunteers you could choose from (One group at the starting castle, and another at a castle that was more on the “frontline” of the war against evil), so if someone died, you could always replace them with another poor sap.

Naturally this noble quest meant going from one side of the map to the other across hostile terrain, hordes of monsters and delving into various dungeons, towers, caverns and holes in the ground along the way trying to locate the magical words to seal evil back in the can.

AND if you don’t do this within 1000 days (or less depending on the difficulty setting) the demon gets unleashed and its game over man. (No, you don’t even get to fight him, he’s bigger than you)

The Magic Candle was obviously Tolkien inspired, but it had more than enough uniqueness that it was its own setting. The game was incredibly complex for its time. Along with the usual food/water/sleep needs for your characters you also had to worry about shit like keeping your weapons/armor in good condition, making sure your wizard kept studying his spell book so he’d be ready to cast shit in the next combat.

This usually meant wizards didn’t sleep much at all since they stayed up studying all the time, fortunately there were magical mushrooms that you could eat that would replenish energy without needing to sleep. (The game in general had a fascination with all sorts of magic mushrooms that provided various benefits)

Also you could separate your party so they could do other things. Need some extra gold, go send the dwarf to go work for the blacksmith for awhile, send the halfling to go talk to someone at a certain time a day/night because he had the highest charisma, and the rest of the party can go get some rest at the inn (Except for the wizard who was pepped up on goofballs)

This came in handy mainly because you had limited time to complete your quest and this allowed you to multi-task your people. Also the game was fucking huge, with countless places to explore. There was simply no way you were going to explore everything or talk to everyone either. Focus on what was important and get to the candle. Go explore the Cave of Perpetual Darkness next game because you don’t have time.

Sometimes I wish there were more RPGs nowadays that took the concept of time of the main quest into consideration. I’m not even saying “Game over” if you don’t complete it within a certain time, but at least some sort of consequences.

I mean sure in Oblivion the gates opened up, but it would have been better if the longer you messed around, then entire cities got destroyed. I mean if I was a monster from some hellish dimension, I’m not going to wait around for the hero to come close up the portal, I’m going to start fucking up some shit as soon as possible.

Due to the large scope of the game, map size, sheer number of people you could talk to and locations you could visit, you just couldn’t do it all even if you wanted to so you were always wondering about certain areas on each play through.

Think this one is a conversion with no sound, but here it is anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EnJOb55rXI

5. Project Firestart - 1989

This game is one of the smaller ones in terms of exploration scope, but what little there is kept me pretty immersed. This game was probably one of the earliest examples of survivor horror. (Yes, even before Alone in the Dark)

The plot is pretty simple, you get sent to a science vessel (The Prometheus) that’s gone dark and you have to figure out what happened, gather the info, set the self destruct and then leave. Naturally, its not as simple as all that.

About three rooms in and you’re already finding bloody bodies on the floor. The game does a nice job of trying to keep you immerse by suddenly showing close ups of said bodies at times. The whole game tries its best to give a “cinematic” feel and I know at the time I certain got that impression since there hadn’t been anything quite like it yet.

The ship itself is pretty big and for the first part you feel rather isolated. Just you wandering around alone with the occasional dead bodies as company. Enough time eventually passes and you will bump into one of the horrible monsters because once again someone thought it was a good idea to genetically engineer super soldiers.

One of the things you’ll discover is that your laser rifle is pretty much shit against the monsters. Takes forever to kill just one of the things with it and to top it off your laser rifle only has limited energy so you’ll need to find more elsewhere.

If it was just you and the monsters then the game might be a little more limited, however there are a few other twists along the way such as one of the surviving scientists behind the experiments making life harder for you by doing things like blowing up your ship, forcing you to go find an escape pod instead or shutting down all the power so the elevators don’t work. A SUPER creature eventually pops up that continues to chase you everywhere until you kill it and its completely immune to your puny laser rifles so you have to figure out another way to kill it.

Also a scifi B-movie wouldn’t really be a proper one without some girl to save as well. You have to get to her before monsters rip her apart (You get a cool gore scene if you fail though).

The game also had multiple endings. Not just a couple either and definitely more than most AAA games have today. Hell, they even had an ending if you got back on your own ship without exploring the Prometheus at all. (You got a court marshal ending. Lol)

I can honestly this one really did make me feel like I was “playing” a movie and even after I beat it, I was still going back to uncover bits that I had missed before.

Here’s an entire longplay (with the best ending)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8UJamK45o4

6. Wasteland - 1989

Hey gang, name a post apocalyptic RPG!

Naturally everyone says Fallout and it makes sense most do because it’s virtually the only game in town when it comes to that setting. Oh sure there are a few others, but they all vary in quality and most of them lack in various ways. (Some even more than Fallout 4)

Now of course if you aren’t a complete filthy casual, you’ll probably know about Wasteland (And it helps there was a sequel recently) which was the ancestor to Fallout. If post apocalyptic RPGs are lacking nowadays they were practically non-existent before Wasteland rolled around.

When Wasteland came out it was a breath of fresh radioactive air due to the fact that you finally had an RPG that wasn’t some fantasy setting. Though I remember at the time when I got it, I was having trouble making copies of the disks (2 double sided disks that took forever and a fucking day to copy and you had to do it because you couldn’t play from the original disks) so I actually went months without playing the game because I was so frustrated with it.

However when I sat down and put time aside to go through the entire process and finally got into the game, I couldn’t believe I waited so long to play it. The game had a lot more freedom than most at the time and changes were permanent. If someone died, there were no raise dead spells to save your party. You just buried them. Also if you recruited people to help, they didn’t always follow your direct orders. (Just like in real life!)

This was probably one of the first games where you actively could kill kids/teens. I remember one section in particular, you could gun down an entire settlement of the little bastards if they mouthed off to you about something. (Little did I realize this act would later prepare me for admin duties on CYS) I do remember one bit where you could actually shoot a baby, though to be fair, the entire family attacks you for entering their home, so it was okay.

While the map by today’s standards might have been on the smaller side, for its time it was a decent size (And probably had as many locations as the original Fallout did) The locations you did get to visit were varied and full of stuff as well. You didn’t really get a clear set of objectives from the beginning, you just sort of got a vague statement from the instruction book about what you were supposed to be doing, which was investigating strange things going on in the wasteland. Yeah, that’s really helpful, what exactly is a strange thing in the wasteland? A mutant that doesn’t have four arms and two heads?

But this was still the good old days where they still didn’t bother holding your hand and giving you arrows to point you in the right direction. So you didn’t care about things like that, you just went about your business until you stumbled onto something.

In any case Wasteland had a lot to uncover. So much so that for its time they had to shove most of the flavor text in a book of paragraphs due to storage limitations of the floppy disks. Usually if something was important enough (Like a NPC giving you info about something) You were told to read a certain paragraph in the book. This sort of acted like old school copy protection as well, because if you didn’t have this book, you didn’t get the various passwords for certain locations. One fun bit was the book also had fake paragraphs that were unrelated to the game. Sometimes giving wrong information, other times scolding you for reading paragraphs you weren’t supposed to.

Now this might be bias talking, but personally I still like the C64 version over the PC version. Gameplay wise they’re exactly the same, graphics wise they’re different with the PC version (Which I played later on a windows machine) having cleaner graphics. However due to the setting, I always felt like the grittier looking graphics of C64 version fit the game a whole lot better. The PC version in general is too colorful. It’s not even that it’s too colorful, its too BRIGHTLY colorful on top of it.

Plus some of the enemy pics are different on the C64 version and generally cooler looking.

As for Wasteland 2, it was okay. I was certainly glad there was another alternative post apocalyptic RPG and it certainly felt more like one than Fallout 4 did. However, it still just didn’t capture the same feeling as the original. Part of that could be due to nostalgia, but the “wonder” just wasn’t there despite it being a game that kept my attention.

Most stuff about Wasteland is the PC version, I did find a C64 Let’s Play, but since I’m trying to avoid vids where someone is droning on about things in the background, I just got this one of the intro instead. The intro alone is another reason why I like C64 version better. The PC version just shoves an mushroom cloud on screen that looks more like a vomit rainbow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5lmL7yNC9Y

7. Prison - 1989

Okay, we’re moving on to the Amiga games. What’s the Amiga? Well in short, it was the next step in computer evolution from the C64 and was a hell of a lot more popular in Europe. It actually was more powerful than PCs (Let alone Apple/macs) at the time, but just never caught on.

Anyway like most Amiga games, this one is of the more obscure ones. The concept is you get sent to a prison planet and from there you need to escape. In order to do that you need to access the only apparent city in the area so you can find parts to build yourself a ship. The city of course isn’t a normal one. It’s just a ruined city with no law where survival of the fittest in full force.

In other words it’s basically an alien version of Detroit.

You wander about the ruins looking for items to aid in your survival and escape. Along the way you run into various alien gang members that you have to fight with. There are some friendly aliens as well, but you have to have something to trade if you want them to help you. The game is partially driven by “find this object to pass this obstacle” so it isn't like the puzzles are tough, you're just doing a lot of searching for the most part.

While the genre is scifi, due to the whole “bombed out city” setting and scrounging for items to survive, it feels like a post apocalyptic. You can wander around and feel pretty isolated at times never really knowing if you’re suddenly going to get attacked by hostile alien crips and bloods. You’ll definitely be exploring everywhere and everything. I thought it did good job on immersion at least. Not much else to say about it.

When I finally beat it, it was a little disappointing since you sort of just get that “You’re a winner!” type text. It did hint that you were now on your way to get revenge on those that imprisoned you, but that seemed to be a sequel that never materialized.

Here’s some gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOpLIsqcEg8

8. Drakkhen - 1990

To be honest I never did know what the hell I was supposed to be doing in this one. I mean there was some story about dragon kind rising up, but I never did pay much attention.

One thing I do remember is that it subverted the whole thing of the noble paladin slaying a dragon to save the world. Instead THAT’S exactly what causes the problem in the first place. Apparently the dumb ass killed some ancient dragon that was acting as a “gate” or something and as a result the paladin unleashed the rise of dragonkin (The king executed him after it was discovered. Lol)

So you sort of just get dropped in on dragon island with no real direction at all. This often meant you sort of just went wandering around getting into fights. This usually resulted in quick deaths as well since most creatures were pretty powerful and if you went into the arctic or desert areas they were really impossible to kill unless you were leveled up and properly armed/armored.

Dragon influenced enemies were the least of your concerns as some of these monsters wouldn’t be out of place in a horror setting. Such as gigantic shades that would suddenly appear out of the ground or this weird fucking “red woman” that would constantly say “I love you” in changing sound pitch which she tried to kill your characters. There was even one creature that all you heard was a loud screech and suddenly SOMETHING flies really fast towards you and grabs one of your characters. Then a couple seconds later your character would fall back down to the ground either dead or with severally less hit points. You couldn’t even fight the damn thing.

And walking around at night was a real roll of the dice. Sometimes the constellations in the sky would come to life and you’d suddenly get attacked by some extra dimensional horror. You never ran into anyone human. There were little bastions of “civilization” in the form on an inn and a couple houses (The inhabitants were peaceful but not human).

The landscape looked more like something from a flight sim (Angular and featureless) rather than an RPG.  You usually felt pretty damn isolated and alone. The whole place in general felt like you were in some Cthulhuesque realm.

Still, that’s what kept me coming back to play. I didn’t even care about what I supposed to be doing, I just wanted to see how long I could survive.

If you bumbled around enough, you’d sort of learn that you were supposed to be working for the dragon kin overlords or some of them at least. They all lived in these various fortresses that usually required you to do something special to get in. (Such as entering at a certain time or even timing the drawbridge crossing so the shark didn’t instant kill you) Once inside these places, the setting looked more like a traditional RPG since the interiors were detailed and no longer looking like a flight sim.

Still never got too far though, I guess at some point you start killing them. I remember I actually did get powerful enough to kill one of them, but since I couldn’t figure out how to get in some of the other fortresses, I never got to kill them all.

Looks like it was on the Super NES at some point, where they finally cleared up a few things, but anyway here’s some Amiga gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-aTGIPIbbA

9. Elvira Mistress of the Dark - 1990

Nothing says 80s like campy horror hostess Elvira (Yes it came out in 1990, shut up).

Now one would think that a game with her in it would probably suck since most games that tend to have ties to celebrities (of any kind) usually suck. However, this one most definitely did not suck. Hell even Elvira was placed in the storyline reasonably well.

The basic premise of this game is you have to help Elvira lift a curse on the castle she inherited from one of her dead evil relatives. Naturally this means running around searching the castle up and down for shit to ultimately face the unnatural horror.

Along with fighting evil guards, undead guards, evil monks, garden gremlins, crypt monsters and the like, there are also some puzzles to solve. Some enemies require a certain way to beat them and it’s not a simple matter of just chopping them up.

Elvira can help you out in this task by mixing you up some spells with the right ingredients you can find around the castle. She stays in the kitchen since its the safest place in the castle. The only time she doesn’t is at a certain point in the game where the old demon cook takes it over and you have to figure out how to get rid of her. In the meantime Elvira runs to her bedroom and stays there until the kitchen is safe again.

Yes, that’s right. She’s either in the kitchen OR the bedroom. (And that’s why I love this game)

Along with the castle exploration (Which even includes exploring the moat) the creepy setting and everything else, one of the biggest draws for me is the gruesome death sequences. Seriously, they were some of the best ones for the time period.

Now there was a direct sequel and a couple of other games that were loosely connected. I’ll just mention these as well since it’s all a rich tapestry.

Elvira 2: Jaws of Cerberus took place at a movie studio and again there was some curse that caused the horror movies being worked on to become real.

Three different movie sets, but the horror house was the only real puzzle based one. The undead crypt and insect hive were more combat focused mazes and quite frankly a lot more boring. Elvira 2 had more of everything and it wasn’t a bad game (Still had a lot of gruesome deaths) but it wasn’t as good as the first.

Waxworks was the last of the games. That one wasn’t connected at all to Elvira, but played very similar to the other two games. That one had a time travel plot where you had to go back in time using various waxwork exhibits to stop your evil ancestors from doing evil shit. That game was even more combat focused though it had its share of puzzles as well, but again, it still wasn’t as good as the first game.

Finally there was Personal Nightmare was technically the first game in the series. Elvira wasn’t directly involved, she was just on the cover for some reason (Guess the reason).

This one was a graphic adventure/text based combo and if anything this one nailed the horror setting the best out of all of the games. Took place in a small town and you had to uncover and destroy the evil presence that was going on in it. This one was purely puzzle based and there was no combat, but it was timed (There was a day and night cycle). You only had five days to solve the game and if didn’t then the devil completely took over the town.

While there were more people to interact with in this one, you still never felt like you were safe. There was a vampire stalking the streets at night and even the inn you stay at has a couple of dangers that have to be dealt with. Hell, even when you figure out how to get rid of the vampire, some maniac starts trying to run you over with a car whenever you walk around at night. Lol.

There was plenty to explore and discover and it probably would have been up there with the other Elvira game except for the fact that it was frustrating to keep getting fucking ARRESTED by the overzealous small town cop who somehow knew I was stealing shit from the inn and other locations. Yeah, turns out my biggest foe wasn’t vampires, ghosts or even the devil.

I’m trying to save these yokels from the fucking devil and psychic Barney Fife is hauling my ass in for petty theft. I needed that bugle to scare off the toy soldiers trying to kill me for fuck’s sake.

Anyway enjoy some death scenes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-uJqHR5tt0

10. Four Crystals of Trazere (AKA Legend) - 1992

I only knew it as Four Crystals of Trazere, but apparently it went under the name Legend in other countries.

I always thought this one was pretty cool since it combined the traditional RPG party of adventurers along with some minor strategy elements of directly facing the evil hordes.

You had the typical party of four and you were to set off delving into dungeons, crypts, mazes, etc to find whatever it was to destroy the ultimate evil and save the land. But as usual, it wasn’t that simple.

This was one of those rare games where shit didn’t just exist in a vacuum. Sure you went out to adventure and all that, but the hordes of darkness weren’t just twiddling their talons waiting around for you to come destroy their evil overlord. They were proactive and armies of them would roam the landscape.

Besides being a potential threat to you, they primarily attacked the cities and towns around the land. And if the defenses of a settlement weren’t strong enough yes they COULD get occupied by the bad guys which meant you couldn’t use them any longer until they were liberated which meant another good army from another city had to do that.

There two ways to combat the hordes, one was indirectly by donating your gold to support/supply the troops. By doing this you kept the armies strong, but naturally it was an ongoing process and it wasn’t a universal donation. Donating to one settlement just strengthened the army in that place, not all of them.

The second way was the more direct route where you just took your group of four to fight the armies personally. Though you’d better be prepared for a big fight and like with anything armies did vary in strength. Pick an army with a goblin head for a banner and it was pretty easy. Pick one that had a skull or chaos warrior helm and you were in for a tough fight.

This part of the game really added a lot to it since you felt a lot more invested in saving the land. If you didn’t protect the people, then you couldn’t trade with them later. You had to make a choice of what to spend your gold on, since it wasn’t JUST for yourself. You had to donate some of your loot to support the forces of good. There aren’t many games that do that.

Besides this extra feature the dungeons had their share of puzzles along with combat. Usually the puzzles were spell based and you had to cast them on certain spaces in order to open up certain areas or something similar. The spell system was actually a more complex one since you didn’t have traditional sets of them. You had to create your own spells which allowed for all sorts of cool combinations as long as you had the runes and ingredients to make them.

Even the traditional “Fighter, Cleric, Thief, Wizard” was changed up slightly with Berserker, Troubadour, Ninja, Runemaster

Couldn’t really find straight Amiga gameplay of the game, the best was a Let’s Play MS-DOS version. The voice of the ones playing the game didn’t annoy me, so I figured it was good enough to link to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzIIdM5apVU

11. Robinson’s Requiem - 1994

This was probably one of the last games I bought for the Amiga which was (along with the C64) was steadily becoming a dead computer since its company was in its death throes at this point. By 1996 I finally broke down and bought a PC mainly because it was the only way I was ever going to get to play Civilization 2.

But PC games that inspire adventurous wonder is a tale for another time.

Anyway the premise of RR was you were dropped on a planet along with several others and you had to survive it. This was probably one of the first survival sim type games and boy they were not fucking around. This one even makes some of today’s attempts at survival sims look easy.

There are so many ways to die ranging from catching the flu, food poisoning, infection, hypothermia and of course getting ripped apart from a dino alien. Hell, you can even cut off all your limbs with a knife and die from blood loss if you want. (Don’t ask how you manage to cut off your last good arm with it) Your starting survival kit even comes with a cyanide pill.

The limb thing is pretty amusing, cut off one leg and you can’t run. Cut off your arm and you can’t use a bow. You can actually even lose your eyesight, though that’s usually due to getting attacked by one of the flying creatures. Lose one eye and half of the visual screen goes black. Lose both eyes, it goes completely black and you might as well just reload, because you’re not winning the game as a blind man (or as a limbless cripple for that matter)

Despite the lethality of the game (Or more likely because of it) I kept coming back to this one since there was a lot to explore assuming you could survive for longer than a day. Just remember to save a lot.

Eventually you’ll manage to find stuff that will help you survive and from these items you can make yourself better clothing for protection or weapons.

It doesn’t take long before you do encounter the other survivors of the crashed ship. Most of them are immediately hostile, others give you a warning first, and a few don’t attack you at all and are peaceful until you attack them.

Doesn’t matter, you have to kill them ALL. Each one of these survivors carries an important piece of equipment that you need to build the thing to help get you off the planet or something. They usually carry something else that’s useful as well.

You can’t ally with any of them either, you have to kill them, with one exception. The female survivor is psychically linked to you somehow and you’ll escape with her assuming you manage to get to the end of the game.

So while I had the Amiga version apparently some other versions had that shitty FMV that was all the rage in video games during the 90s. So when you met other survivors you got cheesy actors speaking to you briefly.

The game did have a sequel called Deus and I even owned it, but I didn’t get as far in that game. Just didn’t capture my attention for some reason.

Here’s some gameplay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDU1Fp5SUnI

Anyway that’s just some of the games that qualified for the thread. Like I said, I could probably rattle off dozens more, but this is long enough. (For now)

Everyone else is free to add more of course.

Some of the gameplay from these games are interesting.

Thanks for the rather intriguing list, End.

Arise!

I probably add to that list The maniac Mansion And both Dark seed games Still my 80s I was a baby so I don't remember anything older than Monkey Island really. I love monkey Island.

List of Monkey Islands in order of bestness:

2, 3, 5, 1, 4

How could you put 5 before of first one?! For me is? 2,1,3,5 and 4. But Everything with Guybrush is amazing.

Because I love Morgan LeFlay.

It is a great character I agree with you, but the rest of the game just is flat in comparison.One is a more detailed balanced game.

Never played the 5th one, I remember it being in episodes for the Wii like over a decade ago.

Rise from the grave!

Albion (1995)

This one is a pretty obscure RPG. I don’t remember it ever getting any sort of attention in any computer magazines at the time. I remember picking it up in some now extinct toy store (Toyworks) in a bargain bin rack of PC games. Honestly I didn’t know shit about the game and just sort of bought it due to having money burning a hole in my pocket and being starved for RPGs at the time.

The game was made by a German company, which might explain why it didn’t get much attention in the states. Also was towards the end of the MS-DOS reign, though it played perfectly fine on Windows 95/98. In fact, the game looks like a game made for the Amiga, and it sort of was, but the Commodore company went bankrupt before it was completed so it just came out for DOS.

Now the layout of this game was a combo of a 1st person dungeon crawler AND something like all those old JRPGs where you’d get a semi-overhead view of your party would move around in a conga line.

Typically when you were in a dungeon or someplace similar, you got the 1st person view, while for just normal traveling about it used the other. Though this wasn’t always true.

Combat took place in a grid layout with all your characters in the bottom row and the enemies at the top so it was a bit of a tactical affair as far as positioning your characters, moving them forward and such. (Turn based obviously)

Dialog is done though a menu type feature of picking what to talk about with a character.

Anyway, let’s get to the meat of the game and what was it all about. I’m going to be skimming over a lot because it’s been awhile since I played it and like most RPGs, it’s large enough that I can’t go over everything.

Well, it starts out simple enough. You’re on a large space ship owned by a mega corporation that you work for as a pilot. (Your name is Tom) The mega corporation just found a planet with lots of natural resources so it’s time to go rape the hell out of it. Your first job is to take a shuttle to the planet with one of the scientists to get a better idea of what the place is all about.

Of course like any RPG, you probably aren’t going to immediately go do your job, you’re going to fuck about on the ship first. You can go around talking to folks like your girlfriend, your black best friend, the corporate android and others. You can also pick up a lot of mundane pointless shit like cups and stuff, but most of it is pretty useless and not needed except one VERY important thing, which is the pistol. It’s a pretty powerful weapon that can make combat easier in the beginnings of the game and the tough battles.

Seriously, the pistol is only available at this stage of the game and you won’t get anything as powerful until much later. You even need to solve a small puzzle to get it past security (Otherwise they’ll just take it away as evidence since someone just recently got murdered on the ship)

Anyway, eventually you and the scientist head to the planet and of course it malfunctions resulting in a crash landing.

And when you wake up, you find yourself in an alien bed with alien tits in your face. No seriously, you get a female alien hovering over you in a cut scene with her small tits exposed. Funny enough the females actually have four breasts, but they cover up two of them because they’re shy.

Now at this point I should mention that unless you’re a furry, none of this is going to be remotely arousing since the aliens in question look like really tall (and thin) cat folks. They’re called the Iskai. (Isn’t that some anime?) They pretty much live in harmony with the planet and their city is basically a bunch of giant plant based buildings.

Anyway, the scientist dude has been up for hours interacting with alien pussies and learning about their culture and finding it all very fascinating. Meanwhile what remains of your shuttle is being kept in some dark hole in the city filled with a bunch of monsters.

It’s pretty much the first dungeon and you’ll probably want to go do it since there’s a bunch of shit you’ll want to salvage. Most importantly bullets if you were wise enough to get the pistol from the beginning of the game. Make sure to loot the place thoroughly for bullets since obviously if you run out of bullets, the pistol is useless and you won’t be able to get anymore any time soon.

You’ll also get a battle pussy for your party since the Iskai have some shit going on in their city and want you to help them before they help you figure out how to get into contact with your ship. The Iskai have prehensile tails so you can equip them with another weapon giving them another attack.

This is also where I’m going to mention that while this all sounds like a science fiction setting (And it definitely is) there is a fantasy element involved. It’s not as immediate at first, but some of the items start seeming like magic items (Like healing potions) of course this could just be chalked up to alien mixtures from their plants, but soon even the scientist dude is like “Yeah I can’t explain this shit, it’s fucking magic.” (Hell, some items/weapons even cursed and you can’t unequip them without help)

Eventually you get a cat girl in your party who outright has magic spells. Hers are mostly offensive area effect as I remember.

After resolving all the shit going on with the cat folk city, chopping up some of the local flora and fauna in the nearby caves and equipping your people as best you can, you’ll be on your way to the next step of the journey that the cat people direct you to go.

And that’s when you also learn there are humans also living on this planet. True, they’re living like a bunch of ancient Celts, but that’s mainly because they ARE a bunch of ancient Celts. Or at least the decedents of them.

Turns out the Celts realized their way of life was being slowly eliminated due to the Romans and civilization (and later Christianity) so they got all their powerful druids to open up a portal and they all went here. (Well some of them anyway, I’m sure a lot still stayed on earth)

The Celts though aren’t all unified, there’s a couple sects of them. (More on the other group later) However the Celts don’t like the idea of this planet also being horse fucked by industry so they agree to help so you can contact your ship to warn them of all the sentient species living here. (Yes, you really are that naive still)

At this point you get not one, but TWO more magic users for your party. One of them is mainly a healer/protector, though later on if she levels up high enough, she’s got a pretty powerful offensive spell.

The second druid has more offensive spells, but they’re more for single creatures as opposed to area affect like the catgirl, but the unusual thing about him is he’s deaf and mute. If you ever have him try to talk to anyone it will just say he’s mute and can’t talk.

For more lols and degeneracy, the deaf druid and the cat girl start spending a lot of time together as the game goes on and they develop some psychic bond with each other. (You even get a cut scene of this) Basically he’s a furry and fucks the cat girl. After they fall in love, you can’t just dismiss or recruit one of them anymore. They always leave or join together.

Also the scientist at this point leaves your party since he goes native (With the Celts though since he’s not a furry). However, he gives you everything you had him carrying, so you don’t lose anything. He’s pretty terrible in combat, so it’s not a big loss on that front either.

Okay, so now you’ve got a party of cat aliens, ancient druids and you’re armed with a mixture of high tech, low tech and magic shit. Your next stage of the journey leads you to the “Big City” on the planet which a bit more cosmopolitan than the rest of the places you’ve been to since there are cat aliens and humans living together here and the tech level is slightly higher.

There’s a really powerful female fighter character you can recruit here. She’s almost a bit out of place in the setting since she doesn’t really have a connection to the story like the rest of the characters. In fact she just says she wants to practice her skills hence the reason she wants to join you. She almost seems lonely and just wants friends to hang out with because nobody else will play with her.

I recruited her since I had way too many fucking magic users in the party and wanted some people that could actually fight their way out of a paper bag. She’s also sensibly dressed like a fighter and wears full plate armor from neck to toe! (Again, she almost seemed more like she would have fit right at home in a traditional fantasy setting)

Other than buying better equipment and a few other things, the main reason to come here is to recruit ANOTHER druid who is an exile from the sect of hardcore Celts.

Honestly I can’t remember why you have to go fuck around with them, but I’m sure it’s because they got some sort of info or object you need. However, before you can even get into their lair, you have to have someone to vouch for you or something. Why an exile is able to do this, well I guess they just plum forgot they exiled him or at least the low ranking ones did. (More on that later)

Of course now I have too many fuckers in the party, well I ditched the battle pussy since I had the warrior girl to replace him. Honestly, I would have rather ditched one of the other spell casters, but druid girl cast the healing spells and the interspecies degenerates were a set pair and I needed at least one of them to cast offensive spells.

The exile druid party member is a douchebag, but like I said, you sort of need him to advance the plot, so its off to the hardcore Celt community

So the hardcore druids are a mixture of being based and mega turbo homos as Malk would say.

While it doesn’t really come out and say it, these particular druids seem to be VERY into the close friendships of men and use examples like the “friendships” of Achillies and Patrolocus and Alexander the Great and whatever his boyfriend’s name was (Can’t be bothered to look it up at the moment) Yeah, they’re strangely into all this ancient Greek shit for a bunch of Celts.

They also go on rants about the alien cat folks being vile savages and women being second class citizens AT BEST! Yeah, they’re a bunch of homo misogynists.

Meanwhile your progressive multi-cultural party is amusingly walking around their place. Seriously, I had a female druid, a female warrior AND a hetero interspecies couple (One of which is deaf) in the party. That must have gotten a lot of looks by this bunch. Eventually the leader KNOWS the exile and the party gets thrown into some sort of death trap dungeon filled with tough fights if you aren’t ready (And it’s sudden so you might very well not be ready)

After going through a bunch of levels of the place, eventually you have to face the avatar of their god or something. After beating the chicken soup out of it, turns out their “god” is all a lie or some shit like that. The exile then reveals that he wanted revenge all along and something about loving some dude but being misunderstood. I dunno, basically this was the equivalent of a jealous ex-lover slashing all four tires and bashing out the windows of their car.

So anyway you get what you need and you get thrown out of the hard gay druid place since you fucked everything up with your cultural marxism and now they have to cover everything up. You can keep the exile druid and he has some powerful offensive spells, but if you dismiss him, he even says you’ll never see him again. He also doesn’t apologize for using you lot to get back at his old flame either.

I threw his ass out of the party and recruited the battle pussy again. Too many fucking magic users in the party and the gay exile was an unlikable asshole.

At this point, you’ll have to cross a desert area and you’ll eventually get to the company ship! Unfortunately everything you tell them falls on deaf ears, this planet is getting raped whether it wants to be or not. About this time Tom is by himself and gets arrested, but his black best friend helps him escape and now you can have him in the party too.

Black best friend isn’t all that great of a fighter, but he can use guns and high tech shit like Tom can. Also you have to go back to the ship to override the ship’s computer of its programming and BBF can hack some short cuts in the ship that makes things way easier so you aren’t fighting a bunch of robots.

However, you’re going to be fighting some anyway, or one specific one in the form of the ship’s android who now has a few models of himself running around trying to stop you since the AI has completely taken over.

The final fight is more of an endurance contest of having enough of your party members wethering the AI’s final attack a few turns before the end plot line kicks in. A bit anti-climatic, but there you go.

Basically the planet melds into the corporate ship, destroying the AI and creating a hybrid building of sorts. Now Tom (you) has to go explain to his girlfriend and the rest of the survivors that they're all stranded now on this planet because he decided to play white savior. I assume they kicked his ass after the end screen.

Anyway that’s the game.

It’s definitely on the odder side of things as far as RPG setting go. I’ve never minded sci-fi and fantasy being mixed together though. You certainly feel like you’re on an alien world since everything is so much different than any of the traditional types of fantasy or even scifi stuff that comes out in games. The cat alien culture is pretty fleshed out, as are the Celt sects on the planet. The dungeons and monsters you have to fight can even be fairly creepy looking.

About the only down side is the ending feels a bit rushed and as I mentioned anti-climatic. Also the game is more on the linear side rather than "open world" but this RPG was going more for the story based approach rather than sandbox. There's still a few places to explore though that aren't story related though.

There definitely was a sense of wonder and adventure in the game.

Oh and if you noticed that this game seems share a few things with the Avatar movie, you wouldn’t be the first one to notice it. It has even been wondered if Cameron played the game at some point and had been inspired. (Well one of his inspirations for it anyway)

An example of the game without any annoying voice over:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyTN1_hryFA