Posted by pparrish on May 1, 2010 22:58 (May 1, 2010 22:58)
Dun Darach had one of the best anti-piracy protection methods of all time. Anyone who'd sneakily copied the game to a C60 tape but ignored the instructions (members of F.A.S.T. who happen to be reading; this is not a confession) would find themselves utterly baffled. To the untrained eye, it looks like some sort of Bronze Age High Street simulator.
Of course even WITH the inlay card, Dun Darach was pretty mystifying. Here's a brief segment of the plot: "following a battle against the Conachta, Cuchulainn the Great was returning home to Muirmethne in company of his faithful charioteer, Loeg." Yes, it's fantasy names galore. It transpires that luckless Loeg was whisked away to the eponymous city by a naughty sorceress, so you (playing as Cuchulainn) must rescue him. Not too confusing, on the whole.
Baffled helplessness only sets in after the game dumps you in a street with a compass and some cash. Where to go, what to do - it's up to you. Entirely up to you, because the manual certainly isn't going to offer any handy hints. The freedom to tramp around the huge network of neatly rendered (and helpfully signposted) streets, and enter a wide assortment of shops, is absolute. Sometimes other lost souls will cross your path, and these characters may offer aid in return for incentives. But many will not.
You can go anywhere: north, south, east or west.
Much like Lords of Midnight, Dun Darach abandons the player in its world and hopes they become suitably hooked. Although there are bewildering, semi-linear tasks to accomplish (apparently), finding what they are is another matter entirely. As soon as a task is accidentally stumbled upon, interest increases, but there's a nagging feeling that a few helpful pointers could have turned this intriguingly open experience into an exceptional one.
Yep, this was a game I was desperate to love but it was just so blinkin' hard! Having no idea what I was supposed to be doing certainly didn't stop me hopelessly wandering around the map for hours on end!
I did the same thing with Marsport although I seem to remember making a little more progress than usual...!
Gargolye games may not have released many games but all were quality (waits for a crap example to be mentioned). I completed Tir Na Nog, a fair way into Marsport but hardly anywhere with this. Probably due to other things I was playing at the time and for some reason this was the last one I played, even after Heavy on the magic!!?
Dark Sceptre is an interesting comparison (by WhizzBang), a very underrated game by the programming God Mike Singleton.
Spot on review. It can pretty much be applied to Tir Na Nog, Marsport and Dark Sceptre too. I loved the look of these games but never managed to get anywhere in any of them. Heavy On The Magick was a bit more playable but still quite hard.
I was hooked on Lords Of Midnight though, since the review brings it up, but I played it from more of a Pokemon 'got to recruit 'em all' type of approach to the Lords rather than ever managing to figure out a decent strategy.
May 2, 2010 21:37:12 (
May 2, 2010 21:37
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