Over the last year or so, I was picking up various old video game strategy guides at some local second handed book stores for around 4 or 5 bucks a pop (or less).  Some occasionally showed up in the "free books" boxes at nearby libraries.  (Video game books older than 5 years old or so, don't seem to have much resale value).

I mainly picked up these strategy guides for pleasure reading, regardless of whether I ever played the particular video games or not.  For the few video games I've played, what I found odd was that the strategy guide books were more interesting to read than actually playing the video game itself.

It sort of reminds of old Atari 2600 or Intellivision games which had more interesting box artwork and instruction books, than the actual gameplay itself (which was frequently lackluster).

I think Bethesda games ilke Morrowind are the most vulnerable to that. I find reading the strategy guide gives me a better idea of the story than reading a page or two in-game, in between bouts of smacking monsters and looting ruins.

It's remotely related to D&D based computer RPGs but I enjoyed  playing Dungeon Keeper 2 lately (like every few years). It's a game where you shape dungeons and try to satisfy your monsters (goblins, dark elves, vampires etc..) needs so they will fight the good fight against the goody two shoes heroes who try to kick your ass in waves. The game allegedly is abandonware and you can find iso files on the web. I promise at least 20 hours of fun if you enjoy the gameplay.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;435245I think my favorite dungeon crawl type game was Ultima Underworld. That battle music is seared into my brain.

You can wake me up in the middle of the night and I can immediatelly rattle off the runes for the two big spells that weren't in the manual. You know, the special one you got from the Will-o-the-wisp, and the one you got out of a certain door...

I loved the Bard's Tale on my C64.  When Wizardry was finally released for the C64 I was in heaven.  Then I discovered it was nearly a direct port from the 1981 apple II release (and was thus just wireframe graphics and some sprites that popped up for the encounters) I was a little less happy.  I loved the (earlier edition) Temple of Apshai.  I got Pool of Radiance but late in my C= 8-bit ownership, didn't complete it unfortunately.

I skipped most CRPGs on my Amiga (although I wish I'd waited until I had it before trying The Bard's Tale - that game really made the Amiga) except for Faery Tale Adventure (which I don't think I ever properly won).  I played some Roguelike on the Amiga for about five minutes: ASCII graphics on a machine that was touted as the graphic wonder of the 90s didn't really do it for me.

I was so enamored of FPS's on the PC I didn't really touch cRPGs until Diablo, but man I loved Baldur's Gate when it hit.  Especially once I figured out the invisibility+AI off+item 'sploit  Hm, then Diablo 2, made a few stabs at Morrowind before getting serious and beating the pants off of it, then I must've played an enormous amount of GTA:SA (which is an RPG, it's just a violent, modern, crime-themed sandbox RPG), Oblivion and right now I'm having fun with the (relative) openness of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Shadow of Chernobyl which, for at least the first run through the finale underneath the titular reactor, has some good tense scare parts.

Quote from: Insufficient Metal;435231

:cool:

TOTAL WIN.  This broke my gaming cherry at the tender age of 9.

I remember when people thought this was Satan worship.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;443903I skipped most CRPGs on my Amiga

Besides some early CRPG type games like:  Adventure on the Atari 2600, Temple of Apshai + Sword of Fargoal on a Commodore Vic20, etc ... in the 1980's and some internet muds + nethack in the early 1990's, I pretty much dropped CRPG type games altogether for 10-15+ years (until recently, as mentioned in the OP).

After dropping muds and CRPG type games altogether, I was wasting a lot of time on stuff like usenet, listservs, IRC and other non-mud type chat rooms over the rest of the 1990's.

By the time it was 2001 or so, usenet, listservs, non-mud chat rooms, muds, etc ... were falling out of favor and/or largely abandoned en masse.  By then, I started wasting a lot of time playing Grand Theft Auto 3, and later Vice City.  (I never really got into GTA San Andreas or GTA4.  Imho, GTA:SA and GTA4 seemed like it was "complexity for the sake of complexity").

Quote from: thedungeondelver;443903I was so enamored of FPS's on the PC I didn't really touch cRPGs until Diablo,

Same here.  Though I was only really playing Doom and the first Quake in single player mode.  (Never really got into multiplayer games of Doom and Quake).   Didn't really get into other FPS type games, other than Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City.

Hey, Dungeon Master (hope that's the name) on the Amiga was plenty fun, first first person dungeon game.

Fairy Tale Adventure was charming enough, and I played way too much Rogue--talk about a waste of Amiga's graphics capability.

Bard's Tale I, II, and III on my C-64 I remember well. The first was the only one that was good.

Anyone else remember Wizard's Crown? That was an awesome game, the first one wtih real tactical combat (even a goblin could crush your veteran fighter if you let him get behind you), with wandering monsters, secret doors, alchemy, all sorts of 'old school' stuff that they don't put in games any more.

How about Sword of Aragon? It was semi-rpg, semi wargame, and all fun, trying to assemble armies (which also gained levels) to fight things. I can hardly remember what the game was  about, but I have a warm fuzzy memory it was a good thing.

I don't reckon Defender of the Crown, Rocket Ranger, and Sinbad were really RPGs, but Cinemaware made some awesome and unique games.

Car Wars was plenty fun, too...more fun than the tabletop game, IMO.

I'm sure a few more will bubble up out of my memory.

I do remember always being called a spendthrift in Apshai...can't spend the gold in the dungeon, after all.

Were there any computer wargames which replicated the old Avalon Hill and SPI hex-n-chit style wargames from the 1970's?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;443903I skipped most CRPGs on my Amiga (although I wish I'd waited until I had it before trying The Bard's Tale - that game really made the Amiga) except for Faery Tale Adventure (which I don't think I ever properly won).

If you missed FATE: The Gates of Dawn, you missed out. One of the most ambitious CRPGs out there. Granted, it was probably never sold in the States. (And since I didn't have an Amiga, I could only play it much later on an emulator)

Quote from: Doom;444149Anyone else remember Wizard's Crown? That was an awesome game, the first one wtih real tactical combat (even a goblin could crush your veteran fighter if you let him get behind you), with wandering monsters, secret doors, alchemy, all sorts of 'old school' stuff that they don't put in games any more.

Wizard's Crown was awesome. I'm still trying to crack a copy I have to make think it is the original disk so I can use the utilities to reset the dungeons.

Quote from: ggroy;444159Were there any computer wargames which replicated the old Avalon Hill and SPI hex-n-chit style wargames from the 1970's?

Really seems like there were, but I'm hard pressed to name any.

Gary Grigsby made a few (and he's still making games over at Matrixgames).

Kampfgruppe is the only thing that comes to mind. There was a "cold war turns into hot war" game that definitely used a hex map and all that stuff, can't recall the name, sorry.

I'll think about it, maybe one or two more will come to mind.

Quote from: two_fishes;435246We had a TRS-80. It was all about the Dungeons of Daggorath

I had a Color Computer 3 myself.  Probably my all time favorite computer. Only my LC II comes close.  

I didn't play many RPGs on it though, it was kind of an underrepresented genre on the system sadly.  Most of the ones I've played I didn't discover until years later.  

There are some good one's though.  Jeff's Caladuril and 7th Link games are the biggest standouts.  He's even got instructions on how to get them going in MESS, though it's probably easier to use Vcc.

Quote from: Cole;436567It's a digression, yes, but it would be a cool feature to have a sublevel of a mega-dungeon that was contained in an extradimensional space inside a wandering monster. That sublevel would, of course, have its own wandering monsters. Maybe each round of combat with the original wandering monster, you would make a wandering monster check to see if any monsters wandered out of its mouth to encounter the party.

Someone just put a game like that out very recently, in fact.  Check it out: http://insideastarfilledsky.net/

Quote from: ggroy;444159Were there any computer wargames which replicated the old Avalon Hill and SPI hex-n-chit style wargames from the 1970's?

The square grid was used perhaps more often than the hexagonal, and certainly more often than in board games. Also, new designs were more common than direct conversions. The general 'feel' of many games nonetheless seemed to me very similar to that of classic AH/ SPI games.

Wargames were a specialty of Strategic Simulations Incorporated (which also did several RPGs and got the license for the first official Advanced D&D games and Dungeon Master's Assistant).

Strategic Studies Group was another, and of course Avalon Hill's Microcomputer Games division published wargames, including adaptations of such AH titles as Wooden Ships & Iron Men.

Wargames were not big sellers, though. An article published in early 1988 estimated that there were only 15,000 to 20,000 dedicated computer wargamers in the United States, and that it was difficult to reach a broader market. Thus, as companies got bigger they tended to make fewer wargames. Only MicroProse had gotten sales into the 'gold' and 'platinum' levels (100.000 and 250,000 units respectively).

screenshot from SSG's Halls of Montezuma

FYI, it looks like Stardock is having a sale on a lot of these old games...

Seanchai