Nightshade
Just look at that loading screen, you already know this is an Ultimate game don't you? They really understood the use of borders and colour on a loading screen. That green dragon had me hooked straight away. I knew it was going to be the dreaded Isometric 3D game engine, but how could I resist it with a dragon on the loading screen?
Part of me was heart broken when I came in to contact with KnightLore for the first time. The Isometric controls were beyond my skill set and also my beloved Sabreman was under going some pretty funky contortions. But time had moved on, I had played lots more games, it was time to do battle again with the 3D world of the Isometric.
So the card that comes with the game insists this is an Adventurer , I immediately decided this was quite clearly Sabreman. He may have lost his safari suit and gained a suit of armour ( sort of ish). His job is to rid this cursed town of the ghouls shown on the screen, by collecting antibodies and magical items that have been left lying around. You can't fire at things unless you have collected things to fire, but at least (unlike Knightlore) you can fire at the baddies.
This game is still an exploration game at heart though. The graphics , although beautiful, are designed to pop up once they no longer block your view of the character. It's helpful but also a little confusing until you get used to it. The detailing on the houses is beautiful though, but if I'm honest, brutally honest, it is a little repetitive in the graphics department. You can never really criticise Ultimate on graphics though due to the amount of detail and love that always seems to be in these games.
But what did I feel about this game as a teenager playing it? I tried to play it as a Sabreman game and for a few years that is how I viewed it. I never enjoyed it as much as the earlier Ultimate games, but as I've said previously gaming technology had to move on. It was a game I loaded up and blundered around for a bit before loading up Atic Atac or Sabre Wulf. Part of me wanted to really like this game, the buildings reminded me of Stratford On Avon ( where we spent many a family holiday) and it always felt like an achievement when you bumped into one of the main ghouls. But...I just couldn't engage with it on the level I did with Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf or even Underwurlde. Although , let's be honest I did prefer this to Knightlore.
And there the story might have ended, perhaps in several universes an author called Terry Pratchett never wrote a series of books about Discworld and in a another universe perhaps Julie never started reading these books. But when I came back to this game in 1991 I suddenly realised I was placing a whole new story line over the top of this game. Of course this wasn't Sabreman, how could I have even thought it (he was clearly still in wizard school preparing for Pentagram to be released!) By 1991 I had read 'Guards Guards' part of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books, this little computer character in my mind immediately became Sam Vimes of the City Watch.
Suddenly I felt more connected with the game, I found I was playing it more ( I was still useless, but I actually had an urge to play it ).To this day I still think of this character as Vimes, even though this game was written a few years before the novels featuring The Watch were written. .
When we look at retrogames we often think how the eyes of a child would have looked at these games, what their young minds would have brought to the games with their imagination. But I was discovering even the not so young could put their own spin on these games. Never judge a game series by it's previous titles , sometimes the imagination can overcome even the most awkward of control mechanisms.
When we look at retrogames we often think how the eyes of a child would have looked at these games, what their young minds would have brought to the games with their imagination. But I was discovering even the not so young could put their own spin on these games. Never judge a game series by it's previous titles , sometimes the imagination can overcome even the most awkward of control mechanisms.