Retro Review: King's Quest VII The Princeless Bride PC

Just about everyone interested in adventure games has played at least one game in the King's Quest series. The plights and perils of Daventry's royal families delighted gamers for about14 years, unfortunately like many venerable long running series, eventually quality declined, such is the case with Kings Quest VII.

Story:

The Story for this King's Quest entry is centered around Queen Valanice looking for her daughter, Princess Rosella (Star of King's Quest IV) after a not so well received talk about marriage ends up with  both of them going into a pond and getting sucked in the magical world of Eldritch. Now sometimes the premise is silly but the rest of the story manages to be engaging and interesting, that's not the case here. It evolves into a convoluted drama involving a Witch who's angry with you for reasons that are never entirely clear and Rosella's gaining true love. It starts silly and not particularly interesting and stays that way

Graphics:
Graphics in the cut scenes are done to look like cel shaded animation in the style cartoons from the time period. The cut scene graphics are not great by current standards, but not bad either, serviceable overall. The on-screen graphics use the same animation style for the most part, but it's hit and miss in terms of how good it looks. Most of the background characters and enemies are done about as well as the cut scenes, but Rosella  and Valanice often look terrible in motion and don't interact particularly well in their environments.


Controls:
This is the only King's Quest that is a pure point and click, no typing or keyboard necessary. You use your mouse to investigate, navigate and use your inventory. Additionally, making it simpler than earlier incarnations your pointer is a magic wand that sparkles whenever you're near something that you can interact with. Overall basically what you'd expect when playing a point and click adventure game.

Sound:

There's nothing to write home about in the sounds department, the ambient and action sounds go well with cartoony vibe of the game. The music is so-so, not bad, not good, very forgettable, but in keeping with the game. The only exception being the main theme/ending theme which is some and irritating pop song that sounds like it belongs in a barbie movie. It's fully voice acted game, something worth noting back in 1994, and the voice acting is surprisingly good given game voice acting was still in it's infancy. That being said by today's standards most of it isn't good, like most of the game though it ends up solidly mediocre.

Gameplay:

King's Quest VII's gameplay differs from the earlier entries in variety of ways. First as I briefly touched on in the controls section, there's no text interface at all, it's purely point and click. Second as I also touched on, the point and click cursor is a magic wand that twinkles whenever you're near something of note. Third you take controls of two different characters, in alternating "chapters".




There are six chapters where you take control of either Rosella or Valanice. At first each character is in different areas from one another,  that span the

breadth of Eldritch ranging from a volcanic cave, to fairytale town, to a knock off  Halloweentown. Eventually though they cross paths (though without actually meeting each other) so you get to see all these areas from the perspective of both of the royal ladies of Daventry. Aside from being cliched these environments are actually pretty well executed, they're bright, colorful and interesting. Sometimes the attention to detail can actually make it hard to find what you're supposed to interact with but the environments are a place where the game really does things well.



 Of course what's a good environment without a few interesting inhabitants.The NPCs in these areas

self-segregate because you pretty much only encounter characters who fit the aesthetic of their respective towns. This is not the only game that does this by a long shot, but it's boring and predictable. that being said, there still are a few interesting denziens of Eldritch: there's foppish dog Arch Duke Yip Yap who's governing style seems to hinge on making sweeping generalizations, throwing parties and wearing masks, a talking bolder who spends most of his time sleeping, a troll blacksmith who's clearly got a sexual harassment suit on his hands and a surprisingly pleasant and helpful headless horseman. Although naturally not all of these inhabitants are particularly nice, several of them are more than happy to bring your quest to a premature end.

In typical point and click fashion in order to traverse these areas and meet these colorful personalities

you're going to have to do some item collection and puzzle solving. The magic wand pointer makes the collection parts fairly easy. Making things a bit more interesting, once you've collected the items you will need to examine them, most of them time it's just seeing what it looks like from different angles but occasionally it's necessary to continue with the game. Unfortunately this feature wasn't implemented particularly well so it gets irritating more often than not,  because it's not always easy to spot where to interact with a given item. Still, most of the puzzles aren't particularly difficult. The biggest puzzle problems come from some poorly executed backgrounds which even with the help of the sparkly pointer can be difficult to navigate. That being said there were a few puzzles we had to look to walk-through for, mostly due to some pretty illogical conclusions, *almost a spoiler alert* that's just not how you use a rubber chicken.

Getting from world, to world, puzzle to puzzle is pretty linear. The swapping perspectives guarantees a lot of backtracking as the characters visit a lot of the same areas, though not at the same time, Valanice and Rosella don't actually meet up until the very end of the game. There isn't a whole heck of a lot of back tracking while you're the same character though, just a few minor instances of it. This has bad and good parts, you know that for the most part assuming you diligently picked up the items in a given area you're not going to have to wander back there 100 times seeing if there's a new item to be found, on the other hand you're it makes the game more linear and less interesting.

Your reward for traversing these diverse lands, clicking and puzzle solving your way to victory of the evil witch is either a good ending or a bad ending depending on how you handle the last scene. The bad ending isn't really all that bad, it just doesn't really answer any questions for you. The good ending is a little better, giving you an ending that really only makes sense if you've played King's Quest IV, and a full animated ending sequences of cliches set to some really uninspiring pop music. In short, regardless of which ending you get, it's not worth the time put into getting it.

Conclusion:

Overall this is a mediocre title, it's playable if you like adventure games. It started off fun but it got repetitive and boring pretty quickly. Frankly it was a bit of a struggle to even finish it. Honestly while it's not bad I couldn't really recommend it unless you're a die hard King's Quest fan. I give it 2.5 cephalapoints.

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Retro Review: King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella

Introduction

Back in the hey day of point and click games Sierra was king. They brought notable series such as Police Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and King’s Quest to gamers everywhere. I, sadly, was not able to play the series from the beginning due to a lack of a computer with good enough specs to run it and I was a bit too young. I started with the fourth installment in the King Quest series, The Perils of Rosella, which quickly became one of my favorite PC games of all time.

Story

The basic story is that King Graham, the protagonist of the previous three King's Quest games, lies dying. Princess Rosella, his daughter  feels incredibly sad and gets sucked into a mirror which pulls her into another world. In this strange world you can find a fruit that will save your father, good thing you go sucked through that mirror huh?  However the fairy that brought you here through the mirror is ALSO dying. So you're going to have try and save her too, otherwise you will never get back to your world.  Stupid fairy. 

Retro Review: Daria's Inferno PC

 I loved Daria when I was in high school and watched it religiously. When I got the DVD sets a few years back for my birthday, I was thrilled and commenced to do some hardcore Daria watching. This totally rekindled my love for the series and I found myself googling Daria in the vain hopes there might be something more I could be finding, watching or otherwise being entertained with. In my searches I found that there was a PC game that came out in 2000, and as a gamer and fangirl I knew I needed to get it asap. It took me awhile to track it down, but here are the fruits of my fangirling.

Introduction

Oh Joy, Oh Rapture a completely unimportant and self indulgent review of a game no one will care about.

The Concept of Daria's Inferno is a  retelling of Dante's Inferno taking place in Daria's twisted nightmare version of  Lawndale.

Oh Joy there's more to read after the jump, I'm so happy I could cry.

Retro Review: Syberia PC

Syberia is 20 years old now but pretty much as soon as it was released it was considered an instead classic.


Introduction

American lawyer, Kate Walker goes to France to sign some paperwork giving a large client control of an old toy factory. When she arrives she discovers a town full of strange but beautifully intricate automatons and a half century old secret. Suddenly a one day trip to take care of a few formalities becomes a life changing adventure aboard a clockwork train  heading for the fabled island of Syberia.

Overview

Controls aren't bad, it's a point and click so there's not a whole lot of guessing or wondering how something is done. However Kate can be kind of sluggish sometimes, watching her take the stairs was particularly annoying for me but did make me nostalgic for those old PS1 adventures games that suffered the same issue. Additionally looking for the right sweet spot to make something work or pick up a necessary item got tiresome sometimes, but nothing any adventure game player shouldn't be very familiar with.

Graphically it's nice overall. The character designs are pretty consistent with the time period though their movements themselves are bit stiff. The environments are imaginative and beautifully rendered with gorgeous art-nouveau and steampunk styling throughout, even the menu is pretty. My small issue is while they're lovely, the environments are pretty flat there's usually not a lot of background activity happening and you usually only see everything from one angle.

Soundwise it's good, but not phenomenal. It's got full voice-overs which normally in a game of this type I could take or leave, but other than a few
botched accents the voice actors were very believable.The only issue there was that it was the voices were often delayed, making many conversations awkward sounding especially when one character broke into another's speech or was supposed to be startling.

The music, was well written and appropriate, but I had a problem with it's usage. Every single time you accomplished a task like turning something on or putting something together, you got a big swell of music. Which was ok the first time and maybe even the 10th time, but after that I was completely over it. It drowned out any background noise or conversation for those couple of minutes you were stuck listening to it. It at least had the decency change depending on your area, but it still got old quickly, which honestly is kind of a shame because the music was otherwise a high point.

Gameplay

As a point and click style adventure, your primary means of going through the game is talking to NPCs, finding important documents, finding random objects, using said random object with information obtained from NPCs and documents to complete a task and move on with your game. Simple classic stuff here, not too much different from the sort of things we were playing back in the eighties (King's Quest anyone?) it just looks nicer.

The exploration leaves a bit to be desired. The locations are lovely and pretty well realized, but as I noted above they're a bit flat. Most places you can only see from one angle and there isn't really a lot of room to wander around. You're always on a main path that will take you to a puzzle or objective, sightseeing off the beaten path isn't an option. Additionally, Kate often wouldn't speak to NPCs that weren't absolutely necessary, or examine and comment on her environment unless it was relevant to the story right then. This sort of thing is a huge pet peeve of mine in any adventure game, as I feel extraneous environmental details, while unimportant to storyline, add to the depth and overall feel of a game. I will say however, that in some ways this detraction is also a blessing in some ways. As I mentioned briefly above, Kate walks painfully slowly even when running. I often found myself dreading any backtracking I had to do, so having full run of the land might not be so great. On the other hand, I'm playing an adventure game because I want an adventure I can feel connected to and immersed in, not a carnival haunted house style experience on rails.

I can't discuss the puzzles in any detail without ruining things, but they're pretty easy for a veteran gamer, not so easy they insult your intelligence though. Even if you're not an experienced game adventurer, they're not so hard you find yourself wanting to send the programmers some less than complementary emails. Most solutions are either discussed somewhere or by someone or are pretty logical once you have all the required items. I only found a few places where I got stuck because the next course of action wasn't exactly logical or ever discussed, but not really anything out of the ordinary for this type of game.

The storyline is interesting and compelling, Kate spends most of the game trying to track down the mysterious heir, master automaton maker and mammoth obsessee, Hans Voralburg. Tracking Hans is no easy task as by all accounts no one has seen him for years, and some think him long dead. Her only clues are his now dead sister's notes and some of Hans' creations including a clockwork train, and Oscar the amazing automaton train conductor who's AI tends toward the neurotic with special attention paid to needless bureaucracy. The two of them encounter a large cast of colorful NPCs ranging from a hotel clerks and barge captains to a drunken astronaut and a world famous opera singer. Most of the NPC are pretty fleshed out as well with refreshingly non-archetypal personalities. Even the locations themselves have interesting and complex histories for Katie to learn about.

Kate Walker's own personality comes through surprisingly natural character development. You learn about Kate's life via a series of cell phone conversations with her mother, best friend, fiancee, and boss. A nice change from the normal "my name is ___ and here's my life story" randomly blurted out in a cutscene found in many lesser quality games. By the end of the game I found myself thinking of Kate not quite as friend, but still fondly and familiarly, like an old high school acquaintance I would like to catch up with over coffee.

They only issue with the storyline is the ending. Without ruining any details, it's abrupt, anti-climatic and clearly a lead-in to a sequel. Personally I can't stand it when game publishers (or movie makers, or novel writers) do that instead of giving you a real ending, there are ways of both giving your story and end that won't make your players feel like they wasted hours for nothing and still leave your options open for a sequel. I didn't necessarily feel like I wasted my time at the end of Syberia, but I did feel a bit cheated.

Conclusion

Syberia is a good game, it's got a nice classic feel and a unique, compelling storyline. Visually it's treat, every single object, environment and menu has been carefully and artfully designed and well rendered especially for the time period. The game isn't without it's flaws, as discussed above, but the positives outweigh them. So, if you've got a few hours to spare and are looking for a unique adventure Syberia won't disappoint.

~Stephanie

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Retro Review: Legends of Murder 2: Greyhaven

Greyhaven was one of my favorite games as a child, I was so happy to find that my old 3rd or 4th generation floppy of it still functions after 20 years, especially as for years it was not available for download anywhere on the Internet (though last we checked a few sites had it).

Introduction

Greyhaven is a fantasy murder mystery RPG published to Big Blue Disk magazine in 1991 (though the game itself was apparently made in 1990) which was a computing magazine solely for DOS games. It wasn't one of the most notable games to ever by published in Big Blue Disk (Like Apogees Kroz series, or ID Software's Catacomb series) But it is the one I remember most fondly from my childhood.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Opening Screen

Overview

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven OKeys

Controls are pretty simple keyboard controls arrows and simple keyboard controls (IE G brings up the game menus, S searches/looks etc.). They're pretty standard for a dos game of this type. However, the controls are clunky it's easy to get stuck on things and you sometimes have to search around a stationary object 10 times before you find an item you KNOW is there.

Graphics are fine. Graphics while you're moving around the map and interacting with things are quite sparse, graphics on the closeups are better, but really nothing amazing. Honestly though the graphics are a bonus this game easily could have been a text only.

Sounds are nonexistent. I suggest listening to something like Midnight Syndicate to set your own mysterious murder fantasy mood.


Gameplay

You start the game with text explaining why you've come to the sleepy little town of Greyhaven which you've apparently been to before. You are the inspector, a crime solving mage, who's continuing mission is to seek out new life and new civilizations, to investigate the murder of a wizardry School apprentice. You make your way to the local tavern to meet with the headmaster of the school. On the way there you can investigate the town or run straight to the Tavern.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Tavern

Honestly though if you just want to dash through and not read and/or explore this probably isn't the game for you, as it's pretty much the entire game play. When you do investigate you'll notice that things in the town are...a little off. Boarded up businesses, abandoned homes, deserted streets and naturally some unhappy creatures bent on killing you. Eerie! After you've gotten all of your exploring out of the way and hopefully not gotten yourself killed in the process you met up with Baswik the Wizard headmaster for more detailed info on the situation. You adopt the guise of a new apprentice so as not to arouse the suspicions of the other students (and likely murders) and start your investigation.

The entire game is basically you wandering around the map searching for clues, fighting in encounters, leveling up, and reading a lot of text. Without actually going into to everything you do in the game and how you solve the crime, there's not too much to discuss here. Though there are some things for better or worse that set Greyhaven apart from other games from this period.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Telescope

First you can examine just about everything. Personally this is a big bonus for me. If there's painting on the wall (in this case a couple of blue pixels) I want to know what it looks like, if there's a shelf I want to know whats on it even if it's not useful. However this can get you in to trouble because you figure out the crime pretty organically, you don't take special note of the things that are important (or take notes at all) so actual clues can get a little muddled with random information.

Second the encounters are completely set. You can walk up and down the same patch of empty street 500 times and you're never going to encounter an enemy. But if you walk into the same trigger corner of a house and you haven't killed the enemy there it will pop up with the same text every single time. This is kind of convenient in that when you're week or simply don't feel like fighting anything you can avoid the encounters until you're ready for them. But annoying because later in the game you'll find that you're too weak to take on the enemies that are left to trigger, but you've already killed the ones you were capable of killing.  Very frustrating.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven Skeleton Demon

Third you can only carry a 9 items, this seems like it ought to be enough but it's really not. You find way more stuff than you can carry and have no real way of knowing what you're going to need to hold on to and what you won't and when you drop something it's gone forever. Not being able to pick-up stuff you've dropped is probably the biggest issue with the game play.

Legends Of Murder 2 Greyhaven 

Third as I said earlier you figure out the crime in an organic manner, the game doesn't hand you anything. This is both awesome and annoying. The clues aren't obvious and unless you have a completely photographic memory of everything you read, examine, say when you walk in a room and/or hear from someone, you're going to have to write some stuff down and sift through it. Even then though it's tough, when I got to the final showdown it was some trial and error for me to guess the name of the killer (which is a necessity). On the other hand, it's nice not to be treated like you're stupid and makes things more of a surprise at the end. Which is way better than other games where blatant clues often tell you the whole story from the beginning.

Once you've gotten all your information and drawn successful conclusions you'll have your necessary items, and can find the killer. Assuming you're strong enough take them out and not only solve a murder, but save a town in the process. 

Conclusion
I love Greyhaven, I really do but it does have a few flaws. It's short, I'll say generously an hour of gameplay if you know what you're doing. It's got very limited replay value, encounters only happen in specific areas under specific circumstances and there isn't a lot you can do to alter or change your conversations in any way. Pretty much the only time it's worth playing again is once you've totally forgotten everything that happens. That being said it's really a shame more people haven't played this game. It's really a great game considering the time period and that it was a 1 man effort. If you're a fan of the genre, Greyhaven is definitely a game worth seeking out.

~Stephanie

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Retro Review: Princess Maker 2

Unlike the majority of game reviews we do, I don't actually own Princess Maker 2. It was briefly licensed in English, but was never actually brought to the market. It's largely considered to be abandonware, though the English translation/conversion company says that it's not, though they no longer retain any rights. We don't generally condone anything that remotes resembles piracy, but given that there is not a way to own the English translation, no one is profiting (or not profiting) off having it, and  I can't go out and buy it, we've made peace with the download..  When I wrote this review Princss Maker 2 occupied nebulous legal status and I was playing the abandonware version. Now Princess Maker 2 (as well as the original) are now available legally download from Steam.We bought it right away and highly recommend it for time wasting fun!

Introduction

The Princess Maker series of games, shuns convenient categorizations. It is many things: a life sim, a strategy game,  a dating sim, an RPG,  and a dress up game. It all depends on how you play it.

Look up there in the sky it's a LOGO! It's an ill omen!

Overview

The premise is simple if not a little crazy. You play the part of a famous swordsman who is granted a child from the heavens.It's your duty to raise her until the age of 18. You choose her activities, her lessons, her jobs, her clothes and just about everything else she'll do with her days. Your choices will determine how her life will go. Will she be a famous warrior, a magician, a homemaker, the princess of darkness or a loveless spinster? It all depends on your skills as a father.

Hopefully she'll spend her days painting happy trees

Controls are simple, it's a classic point and click. The only time it's different is in the Adventure Mode, where you can either use the mouse or the arrow keys. She moves a bit stiffly and awkwardly in this mode, but for the most part it doesn't cause problems as it's turned based fighting and random encounters. You might get hung up on rock or something and waste a bit of time, but that's the extent of the control issues.

Graphics are surprisingly good for a game that first came out in 1993. They're very lovely high quality manga style images that still stand up very well. They still have that early 90's VGA look to them, but they're quite detailed and look better than plenty of modern anime style games I've seen.

We would have killed for tappa tappa tappa!

Sound is what you'd expect from a sim game from 1993, repetitive midi songs which eventually just fade into the background. They're not great and they're not terrible. There isn't a whole lot else going on sound wise, just a few noises during special events but that's about it. So, if uninspired repetitive music bothers you, it's probably just best to turn all the game sounds off and listen to your own playlist.

Sexism

I can't talk about this game and not talk about sexism. This game is flagrant in your face stereotypical "girl game". Your best ending means you marry the prince, even if you don't marry the prince, you need to marry someone. In endings where you don't get married at all even if she's otherwise successful are often viewed as failures.

I didn't put her in this outfit until she was 18 but it's not a requirement..ugh

 You've also got your required girl game dress-up features.  Your daughter can wear a variety of different outfits, several of which are quite questionable for a young girl, putting it mildly. Even if the skimpiness doesn't bother you, unless you spend a lot of time making her diet, she'll often be "too fat" to fit into many of the outfits.  Not exactly a positive message for women and girls everywhere. On that note in her stats screen you see her, height weight, bust size, waist size and hip size, because I mean that's exactly what I'd want to know about my 12 year old. It wouldn't make me a creepy freak of a father at all. Perfectly on the level, no questions here at all.

Always a great day at the Sleazy Bar

In addition to questionable outfits, there are also some questionable job choices, including gems such as sleazy bar and cabaret. Though other than the moral objections involved, when your other options include doing masonry or working in a graveyard, cabaret might not be so bad.

The worst offender in terms of sexist content though, (other than the nude patch, but that's not unlocked in the game through any normal means) is that, if you're an especially sleazy kind of parent you can pick up the buxomize pill from a wandering merchant. Which, as you could guess from the name, increases her chest size. Which (as far as I know) does nothing other than alter the sprite of an underaged girl.

However, as I'll say a number of times in this review, this game is almost completely changed by how you personally decide to play it.  You can avoid focusing on having her cook, clean and be pretty. You can have a scholarly lumberjack daughter or an artistic warrior daughter and you won't have to worry too much about a lot of the more offensive content. However, that's not without it's pratfalls too. I specifically tried to go down the warrior path with one incarnation of my daughter, but when she lost the annual combat festival the family butler, Cube, couldn't resist pointing out that "Girls are cuter if they aren't incredibly tough."

Who asked for your opinion anyway?

On the whole, I think the positives of the game outweigh the negative sexist overtones, but maybe I'm just repressed enough by the patriarchy into not being bothered.

Gameplay

You start off the game by setting your family name, your daughters name, your name, her birthday, your birthday and you daughter's blood type. This information does affect the game. Your daughter's birth-date determines her guardian deity, who in turn effects her stats, and her blood type determines her personality type.

For example my daughter Lily, had a birthday of June 20th and blood type O. Which meant her deity was mercury, she got an intelligence stat boost and she didn't gain or lose extra stress at the end of the month. There are loads of informative guides on the internet about choosing the optimum combination depending on the ending you're trying for but I think part of the fun of Princess Maker is the experimentation. With the initial stuff out of the way you get some very brief and barely coherent storyline before you're ready to start raising a little girl.

No pressure though...

When you start the game she's 10 and has whatever stats are determined by her birthday. The individual deity stat boosts aren't particularly generous, so it's possible to lead your daughter into any path you want. You decide what she eats, what she wears, where she goes, who she talks to and and most importantly her weekly schedule. Her schedule consists of work, school, adventure or free time. You choose the subjects you want her to study and/or the part time job you want her to take and charge the family's butler with making your daughter carrying out your plans. Why you can't do it out yourself since all you seem to do is sit at home, I do not know. Perhaps it's because dictating all that down to the letter and then pushing it on her too would be just be crossing the line. Using the butler as a buffer naturally means you're not a crazy control freak, just a dedicated father.

Your laziness and control problems aside, for the most part all you do is watch a small animation of her days spent on the schedule and see how well she did, how much her stats changed and how much money she's made. You're not in direct control over any of it, it's all ruled by your daughters stats. They only time you're active in her scheduled time is when you send her out adventuring. The adventuring interface works like a very basic RPG, and can get surprisingly addictive. I often felt sad when my 9 days were at an end and she had to go home.

Random encounters HO!

Whatever you choose to schedule for her, should be thought out carefully. Just about everything you do in this game will effect your daughter's destiny in one way or another. Again there are several guides online which will tell you detailed information if you're really dying to get a certain ending, but experimentation is more fun. This game has over 50 endings (I've seen conflicting reports on what exactly the number is ranging from 56 to 70+) I've played it through multiple times and have never gotten the same ending twice. One other thing to be aware of while scheduling, is that school is very expensive. When you start the game you can pay for one period of class and that's it, you can schedule her for more, but the instructors will just complain about her not having enough money and won't teach her anything, and having spent all your money, you won't be able to afford to feed her for the following months. So while it seems like pretty bad parenting to send your 10 year old off to work, it's a necessity here.

 Regardless of what you choose for her, even though you have almost complete control over every aspect of her life, there are some limits. If you don't give her any time off and she ends the month with stress she's likely to become delinquent, refusing to work or do schoolwork and potentially sneaking off to do unsavory things during free time. If you make her do too many things she doesn't like, she'll run away from home for a month wasting precious skill building time and not bringing in any family income. Similarly being too lenient with her and giving her too much free time nets similar results. Every girl is different so you'll have to experiment before you find just the right balance with your particular daughter.

It's OK Lily we all have loaf days

After you've hit your groove with successfully scheduling your daughter, she will eventually be visited by deities that give her stat boosts depending on what she's been excelling in. Additionally if she does particularly well at the harvest festival held at the end of every year she can gain a rival. These have different effects depending on your daughters stats. Additionally there are a few other random events as the result of adventuring, winning a contest or buying a special item that will give you random effects.

After 8 game years of working, adventuring, networking, festivals and education your daughter will turn 18 and you'll see what your choices have lead to. Will you have been a good father and pleased the deity with their decision to grant you a child? You'll have to find that out for yourself.

Thank goodness making kids work at 10 is smiled on by the heavens.

Conclusion 

Princess Maker 2 one of the most sexist stereotype driven games I've ever played that's still PG. That being said it's also a lot of fun. This game is what you make of it and has tons of little surprises (like all the different paintings your daughter can make and hang in your home) to keep you interested and make playing through it again and again worth your while. If you don't like sim games or games with very little action, this isn't a game for you. But just about anyone else could have a lot of fun with this.


~Stephanie


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Retro Review Tuesday: Wolfenstein 3D

We've been expanding our horizons reviewwise last week I finally did an import game and this week Richard has tackled our first PC title, Wolfenstein 3d. Most people think of the Wolfenstein series as "the game where you kill Hitler" and well it is, but there's a lot more to it than that. It was one of those titles that changed the world of gaming forever.


-Introduction-

With all of our past reviews in mind, this time around we now look back at arguably the most influential game we have done, to date. Back in the early 90s this MS-DOS game would prove to be beginning of the popularity synonymous with the First-Person Shooter genre. In time, it would lead to the immensely popular battle through hell itself known as DOOM. Without this game, the entire genre might have been buried until the only well known ones in existence would be the far sub-par shameless war games we've got now. Its difficulty made it, in any significant gamer's opinion, the most "hardcore" FPS ever to have hit the gaming world. So without further ado, Id's brainchild, Wolfenstein 3D.

-Overview-

Before discussing the graphics and sound, it's important to remember the date of this game, which predates Windows 95 by three years. Graphically, the game ranges from could be better to really quite nice. The sprites tend to look very pixelated, especially your weapons, but the environments aren't too bad and are sometimes rather interesting. You may notice there are no stairs or other changes in floor or ceiling height in this game, another indication of how ID managed to make it run and render as well as it did at the time. There are some pretty nice wall decorations in this game, considering its pixel-heavy nature. You can easily distinguish images of Adolf Hitler, Swastika-displaying banners, and signs that say things like VERBOTEN and ACHTUNG. While the walls are nicely textured, the floors and ceilings are notably simplistic. They do change color, but they are always colored solidly, with no texture or graphics at all. For reasons probably related to a limited color palette, a few objects that should be metallic colored are colored blue such as doors and guns or parts of guns.

Movement is very smooth and if on the right system, creates no graphical complications. Normal enemies are actually drawn from eight angles, allowing their sprites to physically change directions when they were to move sideways, backwards, or even diagonally in those directions, something that was quite impressive for the time. This allows the player to sneak up on enemies and pick them off, easier. One thing that was also quite different at the time was that enemies would sometimes even be walking around on their own while not actually alerted of the player's presence. The player's interaction with items and other non-active sprites is not as impressive, as these objects are only drawn from one angle, likewise with an enemy's corpse. Bosses are also only drawn from a single angle, so you can not sneak up on them.

The sounds are pretty crisp and clean, assuming you're using Sound Blaster to hear them. The metal doors indeed make metallic sounds when opening and a heavy thud when closing. Gunshot sounds range in quality but as a whole sound fine. This game also has speaking in it. It is hard to judge the clarity of it as almost all of it is in German, but it seems to sound alright. The music sounds very MIDI but it's not too repetitive and is different depending on the level or screen. One particular track * even features some subtle Morse code being tapped in the background.

The controls are responsive and simple enough. They are customizable so there's no need to specify what they are on the keyboard/mouse/whatever else. Their functions are shooting, of course, opening/activating, running, and strafing. If unedited, you'll find them similar to the controls of DOOM (you DID play that, right...?). By default, in relation to each other the controls shouldn't be too hard to master.

The characters range from being forgettable to a-defining-moment. B.J., the protagonist, is obviously always in mind, and is certainly a classic video game hero by this point. You don't hear much if his personality, as he says only one word in two instances throughout the game. Boss characters are the only other named characters. While the bosses seen in episodes 4-6 don't exactly leave an impression (The final episode's boss's level is a lot more significant than the boss himself), the original three bosses are classic and can easily become favorite boss characters of yours. Hans Grosse, the first boss, is one of the most classic boss battles video games have to offer, as he and his level are very distinctive in appearance. Dr. Schabbs, the second boss, is also pretty memorable in his own way, what with his unique way of battle and his look. And of course, we cannot forget Hitler. Nothing else needs to be said, there.

 -The Story-

Story wise, it seems pretty average for what you need in an FPS. It's not laughably ridiculous though certainly not what you'd call plausable at times. Not counting the fact that they've sent in one man to bring down the entire Third Reich. In episode 1, B.J. Blazkowics (Pronounced Blazz-Ka-Vitch) must escape from the Nazi prison castle, Wolfenstein, to continue with his main mission of putting a stop to Operation: Eisenfaust. Using a knife and pistol he aquires from a guard he's overpowered, B.J. escapes his cell and fights his way out of the castle, acquiring stronger weapons and keys on his way to freedom. By episode 2, B.J. has escaped castle Wolfenstein and heads to Castle Hollehammer to stop Operation: Eisenfaust and assassinate its head scientist, Dr. Schabbs from plaguing the world with his undead, mutant soldiers. Come episode 3, it is time to put a stop to the entire Nazi madness once and for all. B.J. heads to Hitler's titanic bunker for a final showdown with the evil Fuhrer, himself.

(Episodes 4-6 are prequels to the first three episodes.)

In Episode 4, B.J. has been sent to put a stop to the Nazi's plans of waging Chemical War in the form of the Giftkrieg (Poison War). He must kill the head scientist, Otto Giftmacher. But his mission isn't over,yet. B.J. must then travel to the fortress of Erlangen to secure the Nazi's secret plans for the Giftkrieg. Once he has retrieved them, he can locate the
military installation at Offenbach, assassinate General Fettgesicht, and put a stop to the upcoming pain and suffering before it begins.

-Gameplay-

The gameplay is, like states, A First Person Shooter. You run around a 3D interactive environment and shoot hostiles while gathering the supplies you need to make it to the end. It's the standard formula and there's nothing wrong with it. Upon starting the game, you'll be taken to a few interesting little screens. Past the title screen, you'll see the options menu. From here you can start a new game, load an old one (saving is only available once you're actually playing), change the screen size, change the controls, change your sound settings, read some game directions and other things, view the high scores, go back to the demo, or quit. If you start a new game, you must first choose your episode from one of the following:

1. Escape from Castle Wolfenstein

2. Operation: Eisenfaust

3. Die, Furher, Die!

4. A Dark Secret

5. Trail of the Madman

6. Confrontation

After that, the game will ask - how tough are you? And you will answer:

Can I play, Daddy?

Don't Hurt Me.

Bring 'em on!

I am Death incarnate!


Choose your difficulty, and you are now playing Wolfenstein 3D.

Upon beginning, you start with just a knife and a pistol with 8 bullets inside. Your basic goal in every level is to shoot down your enemies while maintaining your health and ammo and find an elevator to take you to the next floor (why you can't use the same elevator, who knows, guess then there would be little game involved). You will encounter locked doors so you will also need to find one or two keys hidden somewhere in the level. If you die during a level then you will be taken back to its beginning and stripped of all items except for the default. Upon reaching the end of the level, you are told your time spent in the level and are shown the percentage of enemies you've killed, secrets you've found, and treasure items you've picked up. In all episodes you will meet a boss character at floor 9 and must eliminate them to finish the episode.

You are also scored based on the enemies you kill, the items you pick up, and how well you do in each level. Scoring high enough awards you extra lives, though generally speaking it's best to just save frequently and load from there if you die. To be honest, score was mostly important during the days when Id planned on holding contests based on score but now you'll probably just be interested in completing levels, fighting bosses, and finishing the game.

Your display is located at the bottom of your screen, and gives you your vital information such as remaining health, ammo, lives, your score, the keys you've found, the level you are currently in, and the gun you are using. And one of the signatures of Id's FPS games, your face, which changes depending on how much punishment you're taking. Aside from your numeric health status, it's a fun alternate to gauge how you're doing.

You might find the gameplay of Wolfenstein 3D annoyingly difficult at times (it's difficult at all times, whether or not it's annoying you), as a single shot can ruin all of your momentum. This game was before the time of all game characters being super-human, and closer to the time of single shots to the toe killing you, so as little as two shots can kill you even at full health. 50% remaining health is well within the mortal range.

Enemies: You will encounter several types of enemies during your mission, all quite dangerous and generally needing to be put down as soon as you see them, as you do not want any of them to surprise you. The variety of enemies isn't immense, though it's easy not to notice as the ones that are present tend to be quite a problem. Frankly, you won't care if you only see one kind of enemy until the end of the game so long as you don't have to deal with any more of the mutants in episode 2. They also speak German phrases which is quite amusing, especially so if you know what they're saying.

Guards - The most basic enemy, they have pistols and shoot rather slowly, pausing before doing so. Still, when up close they can shoot a huge chunk of your life away. They are pretty weak and can be taken down in as little as one shot.

Speech: Sees you - Achtung! (Attention!/Warning!)

Dies - (Series of screams)

Schutzstaffel - Also called the S.S., these large, armored soldiers carry machine guns and prove quite dangerous in groups or even on their own. They take many shots before falling, and drop their machine gun for you when they do.


Speech: Sees you - Schutzstaffel!

Dies - Mein Leben! (My life!)

Officers: Officers are very quick both on their feet and with their trigger finger. They are especially dangerous when hiding behind corners as you often have no time to react before getting shot. Shoot them without hesitation, as they only need a fraction OF a fraction of a second to fire.

Speech: Sees you - Spion! (Spy!)

Dies - Nein, so was! (Well, I never!)

 Mutants: Undead soldiers with guns surgically attached to their chests and blades (for show) in their hands. They are arguably the deadliest enemy in the game, as they can somewhat rapid fire and are totally silent as far as when they "activate." When you know they are around, it's important not to take corners too quickly as they could be waiting for you and you won't know it until, frankly, you're dead.

Speech: Sees you - (Silence)

Dies- Aagghhrrr...

Dogs: Seeming to be German Shepherds, they are quick, and run up to you to bite you right in the face. Despite this, it is quite harsh to have to kill them but a necessity. They are the weakest enemy in the game, and can be killed with one hit from anything.

Speech: Sees you - Bark!
Dies: (Whimper)

Bosses: Once you've made it to the ninth floor or level of an episode, you will battle a Boss character. Boss characters are always very large individuals compared to normal enemies and carry vicious firepower, able to put you down in a single second. They can sustain nearly all of your ammo before finally falling. Once they do, either the episode will end, or you will be given a key to find the end of the level.

Weapons: Of course, you'll need firepower to get the job done. Wolfenstein does not offer the amount of weaponry that we're used to these days and at first it can, admittedly, be a little disappointing. But to be fair, this was before First Person Shooter was an established genre. In time, you should learn to appreciate the arsenal that you are given. Here is a list of the weapons you can find and use in Wolfenstein 3D.

Knife - This is there for you should you run out of ammo or possibly just have a death wish. You have to go right up to an enemy to use it so it's not really ideal for any situation. But if it's all you've got then it's all you've got. Repeatedly tap the attack button to keep stabbing, and hope for the best.

Pistol - You start off with this as well as eight bullets. This is not meant to get you through the entire mission, what with its slow rate of fire and what not so try to find a better weapon as soon as possible.

Machine Gun - These can be found laying around a level or can be taken from a killed S.S. They allow you to just hold down the attack button for rapid fire. It's still not the best weapon but compared to the pistol it makes a galaxy of difference.

Chaingun - Large and Loud, this weapon is the strongest in the game, often hidden in secret areas. It shoots a minimum of two bullets at a time (unless shooting your last), and quickly takes care of any normal enemy, and is certainly ideal for boss battles (seeing as how many bosses carry this same weapon, and often in pairs.) Needless to say it eats up ammo pretty quickly so don't get too "happy" with it unless you have to.

Once you've gotten a handle on all the enemy types and building up your arsenal, you may think you're well on the road to mastering the game, but you'd be wrong. You'll start to really hate your life as a one-man attack team for the allies in the several Wolfenstein 3D levels that are designed, at least in part, like a labyrinth. Beyond every corner could be another hostile or even worse, you could be in the maze with an unknown amount of active enemies that may either ambush you from the front or sneak up on you from behind. Without patience you will not make it far. Many players with over-active testosterone will think that all problems can be solved by non-stop chaingun fire. But with so little ammo that can be held at once, they will find themselves only with a knife and seconds later, dead. Just because it's an FPS does not mean you don't have to be strategic.


Items: Along with firepower, you will need ammo for that firepower, as well as keys to locked doors, health, and treasure if score means that much to you.

Ammo Clip - These are how you renew your ammo supply. How you get them dictates how much one holds. If taken from an enemy they hold 4 bullets. If found new, 8.  You can only hold 99 bullets at one time which is rather annoying since you'd think with the rapid-fire guns you carry they could have at least given you a 199 bullet capacity, but you'll just have to deal.

Keys - Some levels hide a Gold Key, a Silver Key, or both. While keys and locked doors come in two different colors, they are in no way color coded, and you don't know which key opens which door until you try.

Chicken - A plate of chicken here and there is just what you need to keep going. They are worth 10 percent health.

Medkit - A slightly more legitimate source of health and will replenish it by 25 percent.

Dog Food - Usually located, you guessed it, where you find dogs. You can munch on that and gain 4 percent health back.

Blood and Bones - Drastic times call for drastic measures. If your health drops to 10 percent or lower, B.J. will drink the blood and chew on the bones of the deceased just to survive. It will replenish 1 percent of your health.

Treasure - There only for points, these come in various forms such as chests or chalices. You are rated after each level on how much out of 100 percent you've collected.

Extra Life - Usually found in a secret area, these award you an extra life, but more importantly, replenish all of your health and give you a cool addition of 25 bullets.


Item-wise, what you need isn't generally covered in the normal part of the levels and often you will find yourself seeking out the secret rooms.A big part of Wolfenstein is would be the many secret rooms that it holds. Secret rooms are discovered by pushing on certain walls. If you push on the right one, you will hear a "crunching" noise and the wall will audibly slide backwards, usually revealing a secret room. Secret rooms are often filled with weapons, ammo, health, treasure, or even more.Still, don't be surprised if the inside is disappointing. Sometimes secrets are entirely pointless.

Starting the game from any episode will at first make it quite difficult to get on your feet. You have just a pistol and a very small amount of ammo to get started with. How you start pretty much sets the tone for how the rest is going to go, and if you start off poorly, you may consider just retrying it until you do better. Assuming you're playing it chronologically, the first few levels of episode one have a very introductory feel. You just cruise around shooting some weak, helmeted Nazi guards while trying to get a feel for the game. So far, you don't need keys or all that much firepower. But soon enough, around the time the S.S. start to appear in large groups, you need to get better weapons and a better sense of survival. The game starts to get more challenging and aggravating when you start to encounter locked doors. Keys are often hidden in the worst places. Most notably, more than one level puts a key in a large room with a "patsy" guard in there to kill. Of course, doing this will alert about a dozen other enemies to your presence, just outside the large room. It becomes a bloody fight to the death, all for that one little key. Situations like this explain a lot of what you're in for during your play through of Wolfenstein 3D.

-Conclusion-

Wolfenstein 3D is an extremely important piece of work in the history of video games. It popularized First-Person Shooters in ways that would eventually lead to other greats such as Id's own DOOM or 3D Realms' Duke Nukem. Playing it is a very special feeling if you are a person that can appreciate this. With its many levels, hundreds of secrets, and prestigious difficulty, this classic shows that even almost twenty years later it can still entertain if you're lucky enough to have the means to play it. We are very excited to be able to review it and would certainly recommend that you find a way to try out this truly great game.

~Richard M.


*Music from the video game music preservation foundation.



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