But one particular port is quite… useful. It’s a Java port, and can be played using just your browser.

There’s nothing like working, but having a small LoM window to look at, and make a couple of moves, from time to time.

Link: LOMJAR: Lords of Midnight Java port

In the same year (!!!), Mike surpassed himself, with a game that was even bigger, better, more complex and detailed, more varied… and still used only 49152 bytes of RAM. It wasn’t very well named, though. The game was Doomdark’s Revenge.

Why wasn’t that a good name? Because Doomdark, the villain from the first game, was, indeed, dead, after his defeat in LoM. Really dead, not “undead”. The “revenge” was from his daughter, Shareth the Heartstealer, who was even more powerful and evil (aren’t they always?), and who wanted Luxor the Moonprince to pay… because she had wanted the pleasure of killing her father for herself. Nice daughter, isn’t she?

But the game was amazing. Instead of the “us versus them” of LoM, this game had several different races, with hierarchies of command (lieges and vassals, and their vassals, and so on), who moved around by themselves, waged war, and all that was mostly unpredictable. Every lord had characteristics, like being good, or evil, or reckless, or brave, or cowardly, or slow, or treacherous… The villainess, Shareth, also had her own goals, recruiting lords and their armies to her cause.

How unpredictable was the game? So much that, sometimes, Shareth herself was killed in battle, far away from you. (no, that didn’t end the game – you also had a mission, to rescue Luxor’s son, Morkin, who was kidnapped in the very well-written short novel that game with the game.)

A far cry from today’s largely scripted games, isn’t it? And, unfortunaly, an idea that was never seen again, as far as I know. The villain is either stopped by the hero, or isn’t stopped at all. I know it makes things more epic, but… Doomdark’s Revenge, with its unpredictability, made me feel that, while I could affect the world, it didn’t revolve around me. (the other extreme of that equation, by the way, is an MMORPG – where, sure, the world doesn’t revolve around you, but you also can’t affect it in any lasting way, because the world is more like a “playground”, and it must remain mostly the same for other players. “Look, but don’t touch.” But I digress.)

As with every Spectrum game, you can get it at World of Spectrum.

Ocean’s Robocop, released during the company’s greatest years, when it specialized itself in arcade and movie conversions, is one of their best ever. A multi-level action game, with a couple of mini-games between levels, and including great graphics, sound (including actually understandable digitized speech – something almost unseen at the time) and music (the title tune was one of those “load up the game just to listen to it” ones).

But the best thing about the game was how great it was to play. It really felt like the movie – unlike other games of its kind, your character was slow moving, didn’t jump (except on the C64 ), and most enemies, indeed (the ones that moved, that is) were faster than you (unlike most games where you’re quicker than everything else). However, you were tough. And had a great gun. And were able to shoot it in several directions.

The idea was not to dodge bullets, but to kill every enemy before they shot at you. If they did… well, you’re Robocop, you can handle a few bullets.

And who can forget the level where (SPOILER!) you try to arrest Dick Jones, but Directive 4 comes into action, you drop your gun, and then have to fight ED-209 with just your fists?

The 3-way gun was a bit weird, though. If it existed in real life, it would kill enemies… by making them laugh to death.

Spectrum action games didn’t come much better than this.

As usual, the game is available at World of Spectrum. And Speccy emulators are perfect, these days – even on Series 60 phones, or Palms, or Pocket PCs, or almost anything.

What made LS so popular, even with action game fans? Among other things, it was polished, easy to learn, and had arcade-style graphics, instead of the common symbolic representations in strategy games. In other words, the player was able to see things as if he was actually there (only, of course, looking from above). This may seem normal these days (e.g. Jagged Alliance, Pathway to Glory, Gollop’s own later X-Com), but Laser Squad was the first game which showed everything so well. And all was controllable with a mere one-button joystick, or with 5 keys (4 directions plus fire). The graphics were good and realistic, and the explosions were a pleasure to watch – especially if it was an enemy caught in them.

To this day, I know people who only like action games and have never, ever played a turn-based strategy game… except this one.

Playing against the computer was great, but the best part of the game was playing it against a friend (hot-seat only – it was the 80s, remember). Games could be quick, or take up entire nights. And strategies that worked perfectly against the AI would fail miserably against a clever human – forcing one to adapt, to predict what the other was doing. Again, this is normal for this kind of games this days, but at the time there was nothing like it.

Oddly, to this day I still prefer the 1st scenario in the original game, called “The Assassins”. In it, one player controlled a squad of 5 troopers, who had to assassinate a weapons merchant in his private home – protected by several security droids. There were so many ways to do it – I loved demolishing part of the house with rocket launchers, although that meant sacrificing other weapons, armor and so on – if the rocket launchers didn’t do the trick, you’d find yourself completely outgunned. Of course, you could do it in the “proper” way, by sneaking into the house – which had several different accesses. Playing as the defenders was great too – a normal tactic was to hide the guy somewhere (such as in the bathroom!) and use the droids to mount a defence, or possibly to “lead” the attackers far away from their main target.

Another brilliant scenario came only in the first expansion pack, but was already included in the C64 port. In it, you had to defend a base from attacking robots – most of which were relatively weak, but one of them was a large battle droid which was so heavily armored that it was invulnerable from the front – even to rockets and grenades! The only way to destroy it was to attack from another angle (*)- which, if the other player was any good, was anything but easy. I still remember that the first half a dozen times or so I played that scenario, even against the computer on the easiest level, I was completely demolished…

… until I found a way. Which is still one of the things I like the most about computer and video games: the pleasure thay comes from finding a way, from solving a problem. But I digress.

(*) OK, that wasn’t the only way. But I don’t want to spoil it here.

Oddly enough, I played the Spectrum version first, and one tends to get attached to the version he plays first. But the C64 version blew me away. One screen of this game has more atmosphere than many entire games. The music is hauntingly beautiful (all 13 tunes). There’s a sense of almost tangible despair, of being in a world where everyone tries to kill you, yet, everything is familiar – a park, city streets, sewers, an office building, and so on. And the environment is at least as dangerous an enemy as your human enemies. The whole game is hard and unforgiving – no “tutorials where you can’t do wrong”, or any kind of hand-holding here. But the feeling of finally passing a level (after hours or even days), and getting a beautifully drawn loading screen for the next one, complete with a new tune, and the suspense of not knowing what’s next…

Oh, and there’s an alligator in the sewers. I knew it all along.

If you’re not a graphics junkie (or even if you are, but can see games in the context of when they were released), get an emulator and the game, and try it for yourself. You’ll truly appreciate how sad it is that these days there are only first person shooters, sports games and MMORPGs.

Hint: even if you, at the time, finished the Spectrum version (or even another one, such as the Amiga or the PC ports), try the original C64 version. It’s the only one that really “got” it.

T:R isn’t a very complex game – in fact, it’s a sequel to Imagine’s previous “Renegade”, which was a port of the Taito arcade game (but the Spectrum version was much better than the original, which had one of the worst control schemes in history. Don’t believe me? Try the arcade version in MAME, and weep.) The sequel, however, is a completely original game for 8-bit computers, although, as I said, derivative of Double Dragon and others.

So, why is it so special? First, it had awesome playability. It was fast, fluid, easy to learn but hard to master. Although the premise was simple (go through a bunch of levels, fighting everyone in your way, until you get to the boss, then defeat him), the enemies themselves were varied, and each one was a surprise, often requiring you to change tactics. For instance, the flying kick was one of the most efficient moves early in the game, but later on most enemies simply ducked when you tried it on them. The second level, with the women, also had a surprise: the gunman. I bet everyone was surprised at first, and died. Later, of course, you would use it to your advantage… And what about the dog?

The best part of the game, however, was the 2 player mode. Later games used and abused it, but, on 8-bit computers, T:R was probably the first game with it (the Double Dragon port came later, and was a much worse game.) Unlike other games of this kind, however, the 2 players could actually work as a team. There were many ways to do so – one of the best was for one of the players to be the “bait”, while the other actually killed the enemies. And the final boss? You made a mistake and he killed you in seconds – unless the other player intervened.

One last note: although the ZX Spectrum version was, in my opinion, the best game of its kind for 8-bit computers, the Commodore 64 is quite a different beast. The graphics and music are better; however… the lesser processing power of the C64, and the game’s dependence on sprites, caused it to have three huge flaws:

1. it was a 1-player game (there goes the best feature…)
2. there were never more than 2 enemies on screen at the same time
3. the sprites seemed… weird – in other word, if you punched or kicked, your arm or leg had to “stay” in the sprite, instead of really moving forward and, you know, actually touching your enemy.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not “fanboyism” (I had both computers): many games were masterpieces on the C64 but not on the Speccy (Myth, Last Ninja 2, Mega Apocalypse, Tusker, IK+, The Great Gianna Sisters, Wizball, Turrican, etc.). But this game was really a joke on the Commodore, while the Spectrum version is still fun to play today.

If you want to re-live the movies, the best choice is Electronic Arts’ two games, “The Two Towers”, and, especially, “Return of the King”. They’re fantastic, whether on a console or on the PC. But they’re movie adaptations – basically, you “play” the movies’ main battles. Those two are great action games, I’m not trying to diminish them in any way.

But if you want to re-live the books…

… there’s not a better choice than Mike Singleton’s 1984 classic, Lords of Midnight.

Nope, it’s not “Tolkien-licensed”. It’s not an official LotR adaptation in any way. And Mike actually wrote a short novella, which was included with the game, and was a joy to read.

But the game, a mix of adventure and strategy, was, 21 years ago, and is, right now, the best way to re-live Lord of the Rings – not an exploration of Middle Earth, not a meeting with Tolkien’s characters, but, instead, what Gandalf – who orchestrated the entire strategy – must have felt, and the challenges he had to meet.

Lords of Midnight is the perfect, still unequaled blend of grand strategy – defeating, or stopping, or at least delaying the Dark Lord’s might by force of arms – with high adventure – a heroic quest of a brave hero who attempts, without an army behind him, using only stealth and courage, to destroy the Dark Lord’s main source of power – which, obviously, can only be done deep inside the Dark Lord’s territory. Sound familiar?

Really, play this game. There’s a reason it still has an active community, with enhancements, remakes, multi-player versions and so on… after 21 years.

This game… well, it has a story. A personal one. I guess I could say that this game changed my life – as much as anything can change one’s life.

So you’ll have to bear with me – or, of course, skip this post. Because this one is as much about “why I’m the way I am” as it is about the game – perhaps more. And it’s a long one.

The Hobbit is a text adventure, with some graphics, but quite limited ones – the computer it was originally written on, the Spectrum, had existed only for months, and, besides, Melbourne House (the software house) would never be known for good graphics. The only good one is the loading screen. But, at the time, they were impressive – most text adventures, for “bigger” computers, were really text-only. Also, the parser was quite advanced for the time: while other games only supported 2-word commands in the form “verb noun” (e.g. “get sword” or “kill troll”), The Hobbit supported commands such “take the short sword then viciously attack the troll with it”. You could also give instructions to NPCs, and they also had personalities of their own, they would get into fights, move around independently of you, and so on. That made the game much more unpredictable than most “standard” adventures, which could have solutions printed in magazines – not in The Hobbit, as one never knew what would really happen – “solutions” could, at most, tell you how to solve some specific puzzles.

And now, for the personal part. You see, that game was one of the half dozen or so my father got with the Spectrum, in 1983, and the only one that wasn’t a simple action game. Now, as a 9 year old Portuguese kid, I knew virtually no English at the time. Not enough to read a book in English, not enough even to read a kids’ book, and certainly not enough to play a text adventure game in English.

Nor did I have the slightest idea of who Tolkien was, what Middle Earth was… I had never read a fantasy book in my life.

So, naturally, I put the game away – “boring text stuff”, I thought. And I played the other ones to death. But, soon, I got bored with them… yet I was still fascinated with the Spectrum, and that “strange text game” continued to intrigue me. So, I tried to find something more about it. I found some translated instructions, which at least told me how I was supposed to play the game – but that didn’t teach me English, of course. I read newspaper reviews (it wouldn’t be until 3 years later that I bought my first Speccy magazine, the 3rd issue of “Your Sinclair”), which said great things about the game, and, from them, I discovered some small things. Namely, that it was based upon a book, also called “The Hobbit”.

Which, being a curious kid, I asked my father to buy. A couple of weeks later, I had a nice Portuguese edition of the book. Which I read. At nine. (I only read Lord of the Rings at 11, but that’s not a children’s book at all.)

Next year, I got English for the first time at school, and I began to learn. And I always came back to the game, and a couple other text adventure games I later got. I also became more and more curious about fantasy, Middle Earth, and Tolkien.

So, this single game made the following changes in my life:

• it got me interested in reading “bigger” books (I had only read kids’ books until then)
• it make me discover that I really loved reading
• it got me interested in fantasy (which is still my favorite genre today)
• it got me interested in Tolkien and Middle Earth (LotR is still my favorite book, along with The Silmarillion)
• it inspired me to learn English
• it got me interested in more “complex” computer games (when everyone else only enjoyed the simpler, reflex-based ones – even today, many people still think of computer / video games as “dumb, basic kids’ stuff”)
• by “making” me change my mind from my initial impression of the game, it made me shake off some common prejudices, such as “if I don’t understand it instantly, then it can’t be good” – something most people continue to believe, even as adults
• related to the above, it made me discover that there are some fascinating things out there that most people don’t know about, because of pre-conceptions and intellectual laziness – but which, with a bit of initial effort and thought, can be wonderful experiences
• it made me discover the exhilarating feeling of solving a problem, or a puzzle, by thinking – a discovery which, incidentally, would be quite useful to me, decades later, as a sysadmin

I could shorten most of the above in one way: I’m a geek mainly because of that game. It was the turning point in my life – maybe if it wasn’t for it, I would have ended up being “normal”, “average” – enjoying radio music, being obsessed with soccer (watching, not playing, of course ), TV, cars and dumb women… and not caring about fantasy, thinking, or even simply reading.

I would be just like everyone else. What a terrible, horrifying thought. Thanks, Melbourne House.

By looking at screenshots, it appears stupidly basic; by watching someone play without explaining to you what he or she is doing, it seems insanely complex. The reality?

The premise is simple: 2-8 wizards trying to kill each other, using a variety of spells, including summoned creatures independently controllable, in a relatively small map (one screen) (sounds almost like Magic: the Gathering, only without the cards…).

The options, however, are many. Should I cast this Giant when the spell has a 20% chance of working? Should I cast it as an illusion, which works 100% of the time, but can easily be dispelled? Should I try to create easier, weaker Law creatures so that the Giant (a Law spell) is easier to cast later? Or should I go towards Chaos instead so I can eventually cast a Red Dragon? Is that guy going to attack me, or can I stay concentrated on killing that other guy? Can a Magic Bolt kill him, or should I save it for when I’m threatened? He’s attacking with undead creatures, and I have none… should I cast a Magic Sword and fight them physically? Trap them with Fire or a Gooey Blob? Create a Horse or a Pegasus, mount it, and get out of here? Create Magic Trees so I can get new spells? Is that Ogre he just cast an illusion?

And all of that in 48 K. Yes, 49152 bytes.

Oh, and the snake on the loading screen looked great.

Incidentally, Jullian Gollop, the author, would later create Laser Squad, UFO – Enemy Unknown (a.k.a. X-Com), Laser Squad Nemesis, and the new Rebelstar: Tactical Command for the GBA.

By the way, you can get Chaos here.

And this – Penetrator, from Melbourne House, was the first game I played on the Speccy. At the time, the name didn’t sound “suspicious”, like it would today.

It’s basically a Scramble (an even older arcade game) clone – you fly a ship, which can shoot forwards, and drop bombs beneath you, in an apparently physics-reallistic sort of way. The first level is on open air, with just mountains to dodge, and missiles which try to hit you, but from the second level onwards, the game is inside increasingly complex caverns, so the ceiling is also a danger. And new enemies, of course.

Of course, the graphics seem laughable now, but reviews at the time said great things about them – they were impressive, for the time.

It would take years before I was able to beat the game without cheating, but I did so. My first Spectrum game…

If you want to try the game yourself, it’s perfectly emulated.

Of course, soon I would have a much harder challenge ahead of me: The Hobbit. My first text adventure game, at a time when I didn’t know any English. But that’s for another post…