Legend of the Sword
The chronicles of Anar have long told the legend of a mystical sword, and its accompanying shield whose magical aura protected the inhabitants of Anar for many centuries. The sword and shield were supposedly guarded by the ancient Corsarians, but their existence, and possible whereabouts are now purely part of folklore.
The evil wizard Suzar has assembled a fighting force of mutated humanoids and plunged the kingdom into a state of fear. An entire army of brave warriors has already perished at the hands of the wicked wizard, and only with the combined power of the legendary sword and shield is it possible to defeat the dark forces that are suffocating the land.
Having been summoned before King Darius and the High Council of Anar, you and five other loyal men volunteer to find the enchanted sword and shield, and destroy Suzar before he is able to amass an army large enough to enslave Anar, and the rest of the world…
…and so you come to team up with motley band of hardened adventurers on your quest to seek out the sword and shield, as the chronicles have foretold.
FEATURES
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Over 350 dynamic individual illustrations, which change as new and challenging situations confront the player.
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Pointer and icon driven mode for character movement and commonly used commands.
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Innovative scrolling map feature - the map expands as you explore the landscape.
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A highly flexible interpreter with an extensive vocabulary and advanced features such as FIND and GOTO commands.
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A multitude of intelligent characters to communicate with and give instructions to.
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OOPS/UNDO commands to backtrack your previous command.
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Flexible command line editor, for correcting typographical mistakes.
Read More: Best 1980s Fantasy Games.
ARCADE GAME SERIES: PAC-MAN
Pac-Man, the king of arcade games, seeing this game on Steam and on sale just made me insta buy the bundle that includes all of the other amazing arcade games, Galaga and Dig-Dug.
I will specifcally talk about the port :
I have played Namco Museum Essentials on the PlayStation 3 back in around 2011, and this port is slightly worse than Namco Museum Essentials, it includes more challenges and more game settings to mess around with.
The slightly bad thing about this game is that you can’t make the game fullscreen (from what I’ve seen so far), so you have to play with the backgrounds, don’t get me wrong, they are a very good backgrounds.
– Real player with 21.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best 1980s Arcade Games.
Classic game at it’s best. Simple yet difficult all at the same time. Navigate Pac-Man through each level to eat all the dots and stay clear from the ghosts. Different colored ghosts offer different levels of difficulty and if you want to get a high score you’ll have to get the special dots on the corners of the levels in order to make them temporarily vulnerable so you can eat them. Eat all four ghosts with each temporary vulnerabilities and you’ll get huge points.
The first levels are easy, but as you progress the speed of Pac-Man and the speed of the ghosts increase greatly to the point that they will catch up with you easily, forcing you to use the warp areas of the levels where it slows them down and they have to readjust for your new location.
– Real player with 8.5 hrs in game
Dragon’s Lair
The 1980s. Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, MTV, and in the arcades, games like Pac-Man, Centipede, Space Invaders, Defender and others are eating up the quarters of America. Jump ahead in time a little and a new technology, the laser disc player, is brought into the arcade in the form of a game/animated movie called ‘Dragon’s Lair’. In this game, the player ‘plays’ the movie, that is, at certain points in the game the player is given the option to choose how the character moves. Choose the right option and the story continues, choose wrong, and the character faces a gruesome demise.
– Real player with 19.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best 1980s Arcade Games.
Back in ‘83 when this game first came out, we had a single arcade in our small city (that’s not so small now) that had Dragon’s Lair. Many of us fell in love with the game and a new challenge was present in our community arcade… to beat the dragon and save the princess. I dumped way too many quarter’s into this game and came back late from lunch on more than one occassion. The owner of the arcade had installed a monitor above the machine so others could watch while you played. In time I had developed quite a few followers that I think figured I was most likely to complete the game. Some would even let me play ahead of them even though they had their quarters lined up. A couple of times other people even paid for me to play the game. One afternoon, it finally happened. Amidst a small crowd of people surrounding the machine I reached the Dragon’s Lair. Of course I didn’t beat it the first time, but I played again and much to the enjoyment of the crowd, I defeated the dragon and we all saw the end of the game. I was very proud to have been the first person in our city to have defeated the game.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
King’s Quest™ Collection
A Collection of 7 King’s Quest titles released from 1983-1994. It’s a great Inventory Adventure series that Sierra On-Line created back when MS-DOS & Windows 3.1/95/98 was still by popular demand. I grew up with King’s Quest 6-7 when I was a child.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-U9acpDcHo
In King’s Quest 1 - Quest for the Crown:
Enter the Kingdom of Daventry which was once a peaceful, rich and free of hardships land ruled by King Edward with 3 Magical Treasures; A Magic Shield which protects its bearer, A Magic Mirror which foretells the Future & finally, A Magic Treasure Chest which is filled with Gold. However, over the years, these 3 Treasures were lost thanks to those in power whos lies and deceit took advantage of King Edward’s Hardships. Now, King Edward is old and frail with no heir to the throne. So calls forth Sir Graham, one of his bravest, greatest and youngest Knights, to search the land and reclaim the 3 Magical Treasures. If successful, Sir Graham will become the new King of Daventry.
– Real player with 111.4 hrs in game
Games of my childhood always have a sweet spot with me, and this whole collection has been one of my favorites. My father introduced me to King’s Quest when I was young and he bought the first 4. I remember the rather unique official cheat books which required a special marker to make the invisivle ink to appear.
But to talk of this collection, the first four were originally text driven games. meaning that you have to type in commands like “Look at woman,” or “rub lamp.” The first three were then later re-worked with updated graphics (but still rather dated compared to today’s games). Starting with 5, gameplay shifted a little, instead of being text driven, they became what is now called “point and click.”
– Real player with 40.6 hrs in game
Police Quest™ Collection
Just as a preface, so people don’t think I’m some unappreciative punk. Back in the 80s and 90s I adored Sierra On-Line and all their games. The Space Quest and especially the Quest for Glory series are still some of my favorite adventure games of all time. But the Police Quest series just can’t hang with any of their other games.
So far, I’ve only played VGA version of Police Quest I. But it’s pretty awful. The VGA era for Sierra On-Line was like an awkward stage in puberty. Gone were the colorful graphics of the first two generations of EGA, and in their place was an absolutely hideous attempt at “realism” rather than stylization and attractive appearance. Additionally, the first generation of point-and-click interface is clunky and difficult to use, mainly because this is a remake of the EGA version, and they’ve attempted to shoehorn in a lot of the original parser actions into the very limited set of icon actions. So in some places, you can click with the hand icon to use things, like a door, but in others, you have to use the walking icon to use things, like the shower. Because, you see, in the original, you couldn’t type “use shower”, you had to walk to it. Dur. And the modified driving interface for the VGA version is an utter pain in the ass to use.
– Real player with 60.4 hrs in game
Gamer’s Discression is Advised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEnibPvgfZo
A Collection of 4 Police Quest titles released from 1987-1993. It’s Another great Inventory Adventure series that Sierra On-Line created back when MS-DOS & Windows 3.1/95/98 was still by popular demand. The first three games were produced by former police officer Jim Walls and follow the adventures of Sonny Bonds, a character whose name and appearance was loosely based off his own son, Sonny Walls while the remainder Police Quest games were produced by former L.A. Chief Daryl Gates, in a different style in both atmosphere, and later even in genre.
– Real player with 30.1 hrs in game
Leisure Suit Larry 2 - Looking For Love (In Several Wrong Places)
[0.1] Controls & Training & Help
[0.1] Menu & Settings
[0.2] Sound & Music
[0.1] Graphics
[0.2] Game Design
[0.2] Game Story
[0.1] Game Content
[0] Completion time (level/game)?
[0] is it Enjoyable & Fun?
[0] Could it hold a spot in Favorites? (& if the Game can be repeatedly played again)
[0] BONUS point: Multi-Player related
[0] BONUS point: Review for VR
Stars received: 1.0/10 ___ Note: v.4 [0.0 to 1] = personal impressions
too old to play this in 2021, Thanks for service.
– Real player with 13.1 hrs in game
One thing I will say first is that for people looking to see if you need to play the original before this… you don’t necessarily. It has some references here and there, but you by no means need to play the first game in the series.
With that being said, however, just like the first game, it is recommended to use some sort of guide or hints to finish this game, otherwise I can’t really guarantee you’ll enjoy this game very much unless you grew up in the era in which it released. It has very old-fashioned adventure gameplay mechanics that haven’t aged well such as dead ends that make the game unwinnable based on pretty ludicrous things you may have missed… even the official hint guide taunts you with these.
– Real player with 9.2 hrs in game
Atari Vault
This review is going to be an unusual one as I’m actually going to write about a game that’s ate up a lot of my ingame time so far. I speak of Atari’s 1982 Gravitar.
I picked up Gravitar in passing whilst trying the Atari Vault and my first reaction likely followed many people’s, “This… is really hard. I think I’d rather play something I’m familiar with like Centipede or Missile Command instead.” This stayed true until I crossed paths with the Atari 2600 version of Gravitar. “I remember Gravitar was hard, I’ll see how the 2600 version is.” It was actually easier in the sense the gravity was not as quick to drag you under…but difficult in that many tunnels and small gaps were introduced in the absence of sharp vector graphics. With persistence I became good at it and with preserverance I looped through the game’s four universes. I was impressed with the game and quickly returned to arcade Gravitar to see if I had misunderstood a challenging but skill rewarding game.
– Real player with 48.7 hrs in game
Update
Edit: Since an update came out to issue black screen/control issues present on release for some, I have to mention that here. So if you read a review writing about control issues, be aware that most of them are patched already.
Ping
Ever wondered if could you play Pong against one of your friends online? Loved watching Sega Fanboy Mark of Classic Game Room playing Centipede and Missile Command and eagered to do the same? Well, now you can. And it would be a huge mistake not to do that.
– Real player with 14.8 hrs in game
Shadowgate: MacVenture Series
I jumped into this without knowing anything about it. Yeah I played the Mac games on an emulator and have seen them here and there and finished some on Nintendo, i’m kind of familiar with the games, I was just expecting this Steam release to be a handful of roms and some kind of emulator.
Surprisingly it isn’t though.. it’s a set of games built from the ground up to resemble the old versions, and it does a remarkable job at it. You’ve got the old Mac note windows (albeit with new fonts) and all the methods of interaction are the same, including the item management where you can just lose stuff if you don’t organize it well. That’s refreshing. Everything works the way you’d expect it to and it even comes with a mono and color version for picky types.
– Real player with 26.2 hrs in game
Shadowgate is just plain bullshit and I’ll tell you why. I rank this title as the least forgiving out of the whole bunch and for a couple reasons. It’s picky as hell inventory and those damn torches. Shadowgate is basically MacVenture’s take on a point and click fantasy title. Your goal is to defeat a rogue wizard who’s abusing his powers for evil, to put it simply.
I didn’t find this title as fun as I remotely did with the others. The torches are the timer in this game and there’s barely a hint as to when you’ll know when one of them will go out. If you’re caught up solving a few puzzles at a time, it’s easy to miss the message that one of your torches is flickering. You’ll see the screen begin to pixelate, yes, but for all you know it could be a reaction from solving a puzzle or what have you.
– Real player with 5.3 hrs in game
Solstice
In terms of nostalgia alone, this game wins at life. Even at this early stage, and after only 3 turns I am dead upon the field of battle, brought low by a band of goblins and I absolutely love it.
To follow the development of this title through early access to completion is well worth the price of admission, which is very reasonably priced!
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Way back, when I should’ve been studying hard for O levels, I played Lords of Midnight and its sequel, Doomdark’s Revenge. I played them lots. I’ve often ached to play them again and Solstice seems a faithful and loving homage to the worlds that Mike Singleton created. Really takes me back. God bless you Jim Jams. I feel a sniffle coming on.
– Real player with 0.5 hrs in game
Anniversary Collection Arcade Classics
When Konami announced their three anniversary collections I was most excited about the Contra Anniversary Collection and the Arcade Collection. Classic shmups handled by Arcade Archives/Hamster at a reasonable price? Sign me up! Unfortunately when more information came out about the collection I was less enthusiastic. It turned out Konami had decided to only offer “region appropriate” games. In other words, if you were outside of Japan you were stuck with the international versions of the games instead of the Japanese ones. This was a deal breaker for me.
– Real player with 28.4 hrs in game
Anniversary Collection Arcade Classics, despite its questionable marketing name, is a mostly excellent compilation of games released by Konami during the 1980’s with only a single dud in the mix. I won’t be wearing any nostalgia glasses as I never played any of these games as Arcade releases. I did play Gradius and Lifeforce on NES, but those versions are not part of this collection. All games are side-scrolling or over-head shoot-‘em-ups except Haunted Castle being a side-scrolling action game. Respectively, all games are great except for Haunted Castle.
– Real player with 21.0 hrs in game