Kikoskia

Waterdeep has need for heroes to rid the city of a looming evil that threatens to overwhelm it in an indescribably vague and unmentioned manner. In times like this there's one group of people you can call on to save the day and that's the nearest group of promising adventurers who happen to be in one of the numerous taverns the city has. Considering the place has the entrance to Undermoutain there's no fact no shortage of adventurers in Waterdeep who could answer the summons but I imagine most of them are too high level to concern themselves with the plot of this game.

So it falls to Valendra the paladin, her half-elf sister Lilanva and their long-time friend and journeyman wizard Rune to step up and be the heroes of the hour. Oh, there's Sandstar too but you could hardly call him heroic in the traditional sense. Together they'll either overcome the challenges below street level and emerge victorious or die forgotten and alone, bodies left to rot or be picked at by scavenging animals of the deep dark.

Eye of the Beholder was made by Westwood Associates (who would later rename themselves Westwood Studios) and published by SSI in 1990 who made many of the AD&D games in the early 90's. More primitive then Lands of Lore which came three years later the early building blocks for the roleplaying game that would be one of my favourites are visible if you know where to look, more-so in the sequel. It's a bare-bones dungeon crawler with party generation, sparse on block and other things that I take for granted in Lands of Lore; with only one save slot, no in-game music and sparse animation it's a game that shows it's venerable age but also has a few things in it that few games now have, for instance the ability to import your party from this game to the sequel so you can keep playing with your original team through all three in the series. It's a series I've been keen to play for a while and now's as good a time as any to start.

Without further ado, let us delve below into many levels below Waterdeep. With spell, sword and a little luck on our side the party may yet survive the terrible perils they've yet to meet.

Behind the normality of everyday life a conflict is raging between two diametrically opposing forces. For millennia the sides have battled and now the war enters it's final phase. Which side wins will determine the future of humanity, for good or ill.

The one thing that would throw the struggle into disarray would be a wild card from out nowhere, a person not affiliated with either side suddenly stumbling into the middle of it all and throwing their weight around, influencing the outcome or even being the deterministic force behind it's conclusion. That person would have to be extremely skilled, knowledgeable and competent in a wide variety of disciplines, quick to learn and fast on his feet as well as very lucky indeed.

Or they could just be very lucky. Or unlucky, it depends on how you look at it. Such is the predicament of Adam Randall, a man seeking answers who instead finds something else altogether horrifying and wondrous. He also finds a magic stick that fires blue energy so that's something I guess.

My original Let's Play of Realms of the Haunting began on December 2nd 2008, roughly 11 months after I started Let's Playing. It is a game that's still near and dear to my heart, one that I love for it's gameplay, story and the atmosphere it builds around itself, one of a person dabbling in affairs that are far beyond that which a normal person should delve into. It's time to take a look at this game with fresh eyes and see what I missed the last time, let the game world pull me once more. Who knows, maybe I might even be better at it then last time.

Let's not get too carried away here, it is me we're talking about after all.

To become a wizard, you need dedication, talent and no small amount of bravery. To join the wizard council however requires something altogether more heroic. And so it falls to the young and promising wizard Hocus Pocus to prove to the other wizards that he deserves a place by their side as a respected, powerful caster of the arcane.

Plus there wouldn't be much of a game if they just let him in without any fuss, would there?

Not to be confused with the movie of the same name, Hocus Pocus was one of a number of Apogee published platformers that had with them a certain style. Mainly released in the 90's, they were often solid titles that were fun to play. A few of the games from that era spawned franchises that lasted a long time after their initial incarnation although some of them have since fallen to the wayside while others have risen again from obscurity in modern day. While Hocus Pocus had no sequel as far as I know, it's still a game I'm very fond of and hopefully with this Let's Play I'll go some way to explaining why.

Hocus Pocus and many games of that era embraced the shareware model by consisting of multiple episodes. This allowed the first chapter to be released for free to be shared and played as much as you liked with details on how to order the game contained within the menus and certain screens advertising it. Shareware had many strengths over what most people class these days as demos which were what eventually killed the shareware model. With the change to early access, open betas and showing footage of the game in trailers and reveals, even demos themselves have fallen by the wayside. Still, with games like Hocus Pocus you can get an idea of what Shareware was like.

Myst was originally released in 1993 for the Macintosh, a graphic adventure puzzle game that also has point and click elements, all played in a first person perspective. It was a huge success, spawning ports across many of the popular gaming platforms of the time as well as some of the less popular ones as well as more modern ports to handheld consoles and tablets. It's success played a factor in the take up of the CD-ROM in video gaming as at the time it hadn't yet been widely accepted as the future of digital media storage compared to floppy disks. So much a success was Myst on the PC that it's sales weren't beat until the Sims in 2002.

The only downsides of Myst is that in 2015 is recording it; the resolution isn't great, it uses a very old version of quicktime that can mess with many things on modern computers and it isn't picked up by some recording software. That's where realMyst Masterpiece Edition steps in.

realMyst was a more modern remake that follows the original game faithfully. It also renders the locations in true 3D, allows for freelook and movement (or the classic controls if you wish) and extra effects to enchance the atmosphere of the lands you visit. It also has an entirely extra area that links this game more directly to it's sequel. The realMyst Materpiece Edition is a visually enchanced version of the original realMyst created in Unity with the addition of allowing you to see screenshots of the original areas you visit at the push of a button.

Myst presents many questions and no direct ways to answer them. This in turn prompts the player to explore the beautiful and strange land they've found themselves in to solve the mysteries set before them. The worlds are vibrant and unique, strange and oddly homely all at once. All the while you're searching for the solutions to problems in the hopes that maybe you'll find a way home.

Myst is a game I played briefly in my youth along with it's sequel Riven (I own both of them still on CD as well as the Myst Screensaver that to this day I still can't get working on my current PC) and I have to admit back then I never gave the games the chance they deserved, mostly because I got stuck in them. Older now and perhaps wiser I shall once again face the challenge of Myst. Hopefully this time I will solve it's puzzles once and for all and find out the secrets it's hiding from me. There's only one way to find out if that'll happen.

So join me folks, one and all, as now time to open a book on the first page and do a spot of reading... Reading unlike anything you've ever seen before.