SSI AD&D Gold Box Games

[Deleted472477User]

Am I the only one who has played these, and liked them? They used AD&D 1st Edition rules, a simple but enjoyable turn-based engine, and for me, were a hell of a lot of fun. I played Pool of Radiance for the first time in over 20 years (1998) and it's a blast. So much I didn't remember from before, it's almost like discovering it all over again.

 

Many people would be put off by the graphics these games had. They're definitely not for console folks, twitchers, people who want their graphics looking like photos, or for those who don't want to think. You could save anywhere, but there was little or no fast travel and in more dangerous areas, you had to plan ahead to get through it safely.

 

These games weren't perfect. Combat could--and did--get long and boring, especially when your party of six people were facing 40 orcs, and ten of them move before you even get a turn. the biggest flaw these games had IMO was too many random encounters, disregarding established lore of the Forgotten Realms setting (for example, Bane is a Lawful Evil god of hate, tyranny and domination, yet in Pools of Darkness, he has Chaotic Evil demons as minions. The Devs didn't do the research) and in the higher level games it became standard to throw hordes of high level monsters (I'm pretty sure red, blue and green dragons aren't going to chum around with each other all that often, much less also with black and white ones too, and maybe some ettins or ogres) but whatever.

 

Because of the technical limitations of late 80s early 90s computers, extra information acquired in game required the player to turn their manual to read journal entries. These would have clues, quest information, or sometimes descriptions of what the party was seeing. False entries would be mixed in to fool players who decided to skip ahead.

 

The games had their own sort of DRM. The early games required deciphering words with a code wheel, later games had you look up word three of line one on page 43 or whatever. (people griped about this just as much in the old days as they do modern DRMs).

 

Tthere was a slight lack of continuity between games, (NPCs encountered in later games of a series often didn't recognize your party even if they had previously worked together--I suspect this was because the games were designed to be played either with a new party or as continuing saga, and they erred on the side of 'new party' due to limitations) but other than feeling mildly annoyed at my efforts being unrecognized, this didn't bother me much.

 

 

If you haven't played these, and enjoy retro gaming gems, give them a shot.

[Ogramirad]

I have played those for sure, the first one I got of those was Curse Of The Azure Bonds, Great Game.

 

The last one I got of that type is Pools Of Radiance: Ruins Of Myth Drannor, which is an Awesome game.

 

It got a bad rap though for crashes, which It Did Not Deserves, there were many games that came out when this one did that crashed far more, and not much was said about it at all.

 

I still play that game from time to time and on todays systems, you can play it with fully maxed graphics no problem, and they look really good considering the time.

 

Good old, dungeon crawling and great looking magic, and a Really Good Story Line.

 

And you can still buy it on Amazon.

 

I got my name I use here, "Ogramirad" from this game.. lol

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2vYEhYU6XQ

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87ZpqWkD4vc&NR=1