Re: Best A2 RPG Nominee

[tturner@ecn.ab.ca ()]

Gottverlassen (piracy@microsoft.com) wrote:
: Opinion poll:

: 1. What's the best Apple 2 RPG (any platform, IIe, IIgs, et al.) ever
: developed?
: 2. Do you know where I can download it? :)

--> This comes around every once-in-a-while and always to the same
    result - too many choices to pin it down . . . 

    Since I never used the IIgs during its heyday; all my choices
    reflect the IIe RPG experiences we had.  One cannot ignore the
    pioneers, as without them - no `improved' games wouldv've been
    developed, but one cannot compare these early games with what
    came later - as the differences are a result of the evolution
    in RPG's - rather than merely being better.

    Wizardry - Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord gave us over a
    year of gaming enjoyment - if I were to sit-down today and fire
    it up, I'd be able to navigate my way down a few levels, before
    I got stuck and though we played it for that long, recalling the
    dungeon levels is due more to the game requirments (needing to
    exit to the town before being able to trade-up weapons, armour,
    potions, learn spells, gain levels and save etc; being so linear.

    The Bard's Tale series was a leap-forward and we enjoyed playing
    all of them, including Dragon Wars - which many acknowledge as
    being the unspoken Bard's Tale IV.

    Might & Magic, was an improvement, but was so unfocused that it
    was difficult to accomplish all the side-quests/challenges.

    The later Wizardry releases also improved - but Heart of the
    Maelstrom was too big - took forever to load into RAM and had
    serious bottlenecks - that damn pirate and him wanting the bottle
    of rum that we no longer had in our party (after all, he drank it)

    We never could relate to the Ultimas - didn't care for the top-
    down view of the characters - we preferred the first-person view;
    but many people have indicated they enjoyed them - it's all a
    matter of taste/perpective, I guess.

    The SSI/AD&D games were less than inspiring, to us; though quite
    true to the weekend gaming experiences my wife had with a DM and
    a group of friends (I never played - my take on it was that a
    computer, though much less imaginative - was, at least, totally
    impartial - which is not the case for a flesh & blood DM - they
    had bad days, just like the rest of us peons and I went for
    impartiality over imagination - t'was more fair, in my book).

    My _personal_ all-time favourite A2 game was Dark Heart of Uukrul
    I was so caught-up in it, that when it was over - t'was such a
    a let-down from the gaming-high.  That gaming-high, when one was
    in the thick of solving puzzles, amassing gold, scrolls, swords,
    rescuing, defeating monsters, finding potions, amulets, better
    armour - the cameraderie of a closely-knit team: one keyboarding,
    one mapping, one tracking stats, clues, goodies, etc - seeing that
    evaporate after the game was completed; is what made us keep
    trying the next one and all-in-all, we were rarely disappointed.

    Talk to someone else and you'll get the same number of different
    `best' choices, as people you talk to.  If you like gaming, try
    some.  You'll either like what you try, or not - there's plenty
    to choose from.  Try second-hand stores, the Bargain-Finder,
    GoodWill, Salvation Army stores, the for.sale newsgroups, swap
    meets, local garage sales, and I'm sure someone will inform you
    of any potential online resources - though most of the sites are
    morally ambiguous; do a search for "Willie Yeo" and you'll find
    his "Treasure Chest Project" - getting former commercial A2
    software released as freeware.  Take the trouble to look and
    you'll find plenty . . .  

--
E.A.G.L.E Librarian   A3 BBS:403/481-3133   email:tturner@ecn.ab.ca