The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian - Quick Review (MS-DOS, Amiga, Atari-ST game)

‘The Adventures of Maddog Williams in the Dungeons of Duridian’ was slightly behind the times at its time of release but is now a fantastic example of a text parser adventure game with a sly sense of humour and some really challenging gameplay. 

Developer: Game Crafters
Genre: Graphic adventure
Release date: 1992
Platforms: MS-DOS, Amiga and Atari-ST
ESRB: E - Everyone.  

The game was released in 1992 though it looks to be from a much earlier time due to not embracing the movement into a point and click interface that Sierra had started using. The game has been re-released as freeware so the original copy protection at the start of the game is now just for show, anybody can play the game for free. If you want to play it, you can pick it up from the developers web site here.

 

The story of ‘Maddog Williams’ is fairly standard of an adventure game; Maddog is an inventor and an antique’s shop owner who goes on a quest to rid the land of an evil wizard called Serik after stumbling along a kidnapped princess and saving her. If you’ve ever played any of the old 'King’s Quest' games by Sierra then you will feel right at home with this one and there are also plenty of humorous references to these older Sierra graphic adventure games.

The controls of the game take a little to get used to, especially the controls during combat as sword fighting is in real-time rather than being turn based. Maddog himself is moved about using the arrow keys and combat is dealt with by Maddog continually swinging his sword whilst you advance, retreat, spin and swipe by moving him about. Aside from this ‘Maddog Williams’ plays very much like a text adventure but with VGA graphics and the game revolves around the use of its text parser to interact with the game world. For those unfamiliar with these a text parser means that the player must type in commands in order to interact with things such as typing in ‘Look at drawers’ or ‘open drawers’ to see what’s inside them. Items that you pick up in the game can be used and combined together to form new ones and this is what constitutes a lot of the in-game puzzles.

There’s an instant charm with ‘Maddog Williams’ due to its vibrant appearance and interesting surroundings, the storyline is very easy to pick up and your surroundings feel open, flexible and detailed. There’s so many opportunities to die that it’s a little ridiculous and I remember, upon stumbling into some kind of cavern with a girl tied up on the table surrounded by hooded figures, that it would be a good idea to march on over to them. Unsurprisingly I didn’t live through that experience and I was treated to, in graphic detail, what happened to Maddog in text descriptions. I later realized there was a hidden passage within the wall that I was supposed to climb through. The complete lack of hand-holding is actually a breath of fresh air compared to many modern games however and it’s fairly standard to do a lot of saving and reloading with these early 90s games. 'Maddog Williams' felt very much like a point and click but with keyboard support and the puzzles, storyline and overall gameplay experience are all very enjoyable. It’s a shame the same cannot be said for the combat which is clunky, difficult to control and extremely deadly when you’re actually trying to face down an opponent. A very convenient ‘training’ option is available for you at all times to hone your sword fighting skills but I would have preferred turn based combat rather than awkwardly walking around backwards, swinging my sword. 
 

Another problem is that usually, in games that utilize text parsers typing, the game would be paused when you type. Unfortunately, in 'Maddog Williams' this is not the case so often you must type commands very quickly in certain situations where time is about to run out. It’s not unusual to have to reload the game multiple times so you already know what you’re supposed to be typing in unless you are extremely good at thinking, and typing, on your feet. The difficulty level of the game is very much set by your own personal skill in not just typing but controlling Maddog and solving puzzles but, with enough practice, these are problems that you can adjust to. Whilst the game’s graphics were by no means top-end at the time I found them pleasant, fairly detailed and very reflective of the overall feel and atmosphere of the game. The audio can be a little rough in places but the music is really quite lovely and, whilst the sound effects are in no way realistic, effort has been taken to make the game world come alive with many sights and sounds. Overall, you’ll get several hours of play out of this game depending on how versed you are with item combination focused puzzles so for hard-core point and click or retro Sierra game players this should be just the right level of challenging. 

The Good:

• Fairly challenging but not too frustrating
• MIDI music nicely ties in with the theme of the game 
• Alternate endings makes for a little replay value 
• Great humour, very likeable characters 
• Some very good puzzles

The Bad:

• Combat far too clunky with weird logic
• Quite a short game with not a lot of depth 
• Save game function can stop working, multiple saves recommended
• Lack of pausing when typing causes problems

The Score: 6/10

Last thoughts: It's a shame they never brought out a sequel, as a free game this is a really fun way of spending an evening and the humour and style is very likeable.  

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Lion Simulator - Full Review (MS-DOS game)

'Lion' is a type of life simulation game where you take on the role of a lion that may be either a solitary lion or one that is part of a larger group. If you’ve ever wanted to know what it’s like trying to survive as a lion in the African landscape then you’ll enjoy the highly realistic and highly enjoyable game that is 'Lion'.
 
Developer: Sanctuary Woods
Genre: Simulator
Release date: 1995
Platforms: PC, MS-DOS
ESRB: E - Everyone.  
 
Gameplay and game modes

Lion has two primary modes of play; a scenario mode and a simulation mode. There’s an additional mode that’s called ‘Safari’ which is actually just an educational resource about lions, presumably to make this game more attractive to parents who feared their children were just frivolously pretending to be big cats. The Safari mode is extremely extensive with voice overs, information and pictures in what is basically an interactive encyclopaedia. The scenario mode has objectives that you must complete and has a very strong roleplaying element as it also comes with background information on what has recently happened. Sometimes you are trying to find food for your three cubs who trail around behind you whilst you yourself struggle to keep going, other times you’ve been cornered by a group of hunters and must quietly slip away without being shot. The gameplay is varied due to these objectives and also pretty challenging. When you’re starving hungry, unable to find water anywhere and desperately need to sleep it’s extremely difficult to keep going and the sense of urgency that comes with it is highly immersive. 

The scenario mode and the simulation mode are both played from a birds eye view of the area which I prefer over ‘over the shoulder’ type cameras as this way you can see what’s happening around you at all times. The scenario mode’s use of objectives is really the only difference between that and the simulation mode as they require you to complete the objective before time runs out or the game ends. Simulation mode strips away these time constraints and you can just go about your business which generally means resting, drinking, eating, not being killed and living a prosperous lion life. Whilst simulation mode is generally where you’ll be advancing your social status or increasing the size of your pride you won’t have to do these things for the scenario mode, unless it’s the specific objective you have been set. 

Staying alive isn’t necessarily easy however as you live somewhere between the Masai tribes and the wilderness of the savannah. You could always try stealing the Masai cattle but it’s not recommended as they have spears and they want to keep their cows. Since the Masai don’t want to share their food with lions you need to either scavenge off of already dead carcasses or hunt down your own meals, though that requires a great deal of energy. Thankfully you don’t just have to rely on what you can immediately see on the screen; you have access to a plethora of lion senses to help you survive in this harsh wilderness of a landscape. These senses can be used via either keyboard hotkeys or by using the bar at the bottom of the screen that also includes your stats and a mini-map. By using the bar the game is automatically paused so you can click around and freely use your mouse without moving your lion who is usually controlled by the mouse, not the keyboard. Hearing and scent are extremely important as they will point you in the direction of valuable resources like food and water. Some animals are far too large for you to catch on your own and are more likely to crush you than nourish you. When you’re just a single, solitary, hungry lion you need to be a little selective about which animals are worth wasting your energy on. The easiest way to catch prey by far is to sneak up on them. By using your mouse you control how fast your lion is moving and you can also make them crouch so that rather than walking up to a giraffe you’re sneaking up to them, making use of the environment’s natural cover like trees and bushes. If your prey notices you then you’ll have to sprint, full pelt, and try to slash them as soon as you’re on top of them, this is no easy task as lions have fairly low stamina. The game also employs a tally for each lion, which is basically how many animals they’ve killed that’s broken down into individual species, meaning you can see which member of your pride isn’t pulling their weight. 

Of course, all that running to catch a zebra is going to tire you out and make you thirsty. Sleeping is easy, you can sit or lay down whenever you want to though you should make sure you’re in a safe area first or else have to groggily escape from a group of tribesmen or poachers. Water on the other hand is rare, we are in the savannah after all, and you can quite literally spend days trying to find a watering hole or river. It’s an incredibly realistic representation of the struggle that African animals have to go through and, when you finally find the water, the sight of dozens of other species of animal also quenching their thirst there is not only surprising but really quite lovely. Keeping yourself fed and watered as you try and complete your mission objectives sounds easy, but it’s not and it does require a bit of practice to realize just how far you can push yourself before you become too weak to survive. To make matters worse there’s also mankind to contend with. From time to time you will encounter hunters who, if they spot you, will most certainly shoot you. They’re incredibly dangerous but fairly slow moving so as long as you’re aware of where they are at all times you should be ok. 

The simulation mode has the exact same form of gameplay only without objectives or time restrictions. At the beginning of a simulation mode you can adjust the settings for each new game such as the weather, the density of prey, the number of poachers on the map and how long the game will run for which can be anywhere between six months to infinity. You then select which lions you’d like in your pride by looking through a number of female and male lions each with their own strengths and weaknesses in the fields of endurance, hunger and strength. These lions are all named and have backstories to make things a little more immersive. In simulation mode you have greater freedom and can try and improve your own social status if you like. That means for male lions starting your own pride or taking over a pre-existing one. You can find and then try and overthrow the leader of another pack before mating with others and having some cubs. You can then raise those cubs; keeping them safe, fed and watered so that they may grow up to be lions themselves and to keep your pride going strong. There are not many games that require you to take on the role of a hungry lion who is desperately trying to impress a lioness in order to mate with her, but then again there are not many games like Lion.

Overall

If you’ve ever fancied trying out what it’s like to be a lion for a bit then you may as well give this game a go. The graphics are reasonably attractive with highly detailed animals and some nice little features like vultures above carcasses and scrubby bushes. Whilst they are just normal VGA and nothing spectacular the game still looks fairly appealing, nicely coloured and detailed enough to do the job. The transition between day and night is brilliant with sunrises and sunsets whilst the change in weather adds a much need variation to the otherwise dry and yellowed landscape. Though I find the simulation mode a little boring due to the repetitiveness of gameplay I found the scenario mode interesting and varied enough to play through a couple of times. Since I kept dying I can only assume I’m either a terrible lion or the game is actually pretty challenging but it’s still a great game that you can get a few hours play out of before it loses its initial edge. Overall though this game is such an old gem that it’s instantly appealing for those who like a good simulation game or who just really like animals. 

The Good:

• An actual lion game! Where you're a lion!
• Varied objectives and levels
• Very customizable sandbox level
• Lovely, quaint graphics
• Suprisingly challenging
• Responsive, intelligent AI
• Scoring system adds in competetive play
• Very detailed use of lion senses

The Bad:

• A little difficult to control your lion
• Could do with a greater variety of sounds
• Sandbox mode becomes boring after a while

The Score: 7/10 

Last thoughts: "I never knew animal simulation games could be this well made, I wonder if Wolf is just as good..."

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Theme Hospital - Full Review (PC and PS1 game)

Theme Hospital is a comical and witty game that is quite arguably one of the best simulation games of all time and most certainly the best hospital simulator ever created. A successor to the deeply enjoyable ‘Theme Park’, Theme Hospital takes the boring job of hospital management and turns it into something incredibly addictive and with bucket loads of playability.

Developer: Bullfrog Productions (PC) and Krisalis Software (PS)
Genre: Hospital management
Release date: February 4, 1997 (PC), February 1998 (PS1)
Platforms: PS1 and PC (MS-DOS and Windows)
ESRB: E - Everyone

The game was released for the PC and PlayStation 1 though aside from some minor differences like graphical quality and no background music for the PS1 version they are exactly the same game. You’ll play across twelve different hospitals with the task of designing and managing them to success whilst fending off patients with all sorts of strange illnesses and complaints. Theme Hospital is by no means a serious game and in fact it’s a highly original game that doesn’t take itself too seriously. To get you started, here’s the intro to the game.

 

Gameplay and game content

There are twelve hospitals that you will take charge of where you are given nothing but an empty floor plan and the money to start building rooms and hiring staff. You’re given a short amount of time to build the basics of your hospital such as a reception desk and diagnosis rooms like a GPs office and a hospital ward before the time runs out, the hospital opens and patients start visiting. The staff you need to hire consist of doctors, nurses, caretakers and one or two receptionists all of whom will have a short bio such as ‘heckles poor comedians, smells faintly of cabbage, possible liability’ along with their level of skill represented by a green bar. Doctors can have specializations and as you progress through the game you’ll need additional rooms and the doctors with the skill to work in those rooms such as surgeons, researchers and psychiatrists. Consultant doctors can also train their junior counterparts to have their specializations as well as increasing their overall level of skill. Depending on how good they are, their personality and the quality of their room including its size and contents staff may move faster or slower and perform worse and better than their colleagues. 

The game starts out simple and you won’t need many different clinics or rooms as the patients that will be visiting you will only have one of a handful of illnesses though it’s when the patients start showing up that you notice the humour of the game. ‘King Complex’ patients dressed as Elvis are in desperate need of a psychiatrist, patients ailing from ‘The Squits’ from eating pizza found under the oven are sent hurrying over to the pharmacy whilst patients with elongated tongues drooping comically from their mouths are pointed in the direction of a Slack Tongue Clinic; a glorified guillotine crossed with a clothes press. Each new condition or illness you encounter will pop up at the bottom of the screen, along with any other alerts, containing a description of the cause of the illness, the symptoms and the cure and these fact sheets always make me genuinely laugh. The conditions get more and more ludicrous and obscure as time goes by and soon you’ll have patients suffering from hair all over their bodies, radiating a garish and toxic looking green glow and aliens who were once humans and who need a trip to the ‘DNA converter’. 

Your success in this game largely depends a lot on how well you can design your hospital and micro-manage your staff as in later levels you will be absolutely flooded with patients who all require immediate attention. At first the game is quite simplistic and to win the level you simply need to meet certain criteria including number of patients cured, the overall worth of the hospital, a certain bank balance, reputation of the hospital and having to treat a variable percentage of the number of visitors to your hospital. You’ll frequently encounter ‘emergencies’ where a lot of patients with the same condition will all be flown via a helicopter to your hospital and if you don’t cure them by the time the time limit runs out, they all die. This can be fairly simple to manage if it’s something like a quick visit to a pharmacy but when you’ve got eight or nine patients all requiring major surgery you’re going to have a tough time squeezing them all in before their time runs out. Then there’s epidemics to contend with where you can either admit your hospital is infected, pay a fine and take a reputation hit or try to cover it up and cure them all before anybody discovers what’s happened. If you manage to cure them all and cover up the epidemic you’ll get a comfortable compensation bonus for the ‘wrongful’ accusations. There’s always this underlying sense that the hospitals you’re running aren’t exactly trustworthy as there are many unusual methods at dealing with patients and, even more disturbing, an ‘auto-autopsy’ machine in the research department where you can send patients whose condition you don’t understand due to lack of research. The thing is, once the patient is slid into the machine, CAT scan style, don’t ever seem to come back out again, hmm… 

For every new level there’s new challenges and new problems to deal with from earthquakes to vomit waves and the constant changing up of what’s going on in the hospital adds for some really interesting gameplay. A problem with the game is the unpredictable AI of your staff who sometimes struggle to go where they’re supposed to be going, leaving handymen ignoring overflowing bins and puddles of vomit and doctors wandering the corridors whilst a queue of sick patients stacks up outside the GPs office. You really do need to keep an eye on everybody at all times by dragging your doctors, nurses and handymen to where they need to be. Fail to keep on top of things and alongside a dirty hospital you’ll have your patients deteriorating health to worry about. A face above each patient’s head as they get more and more unhappy gradually deteriorates into a ghastly skull which means they’re about to drop dead on the hospital floor only to then float to heaven or be ushered into Hell by Mr Death himself. Thankfully the AI is not always frustrating and usually staff will be on their way to where they’re needed before the announcement woman calls out that a doctor or nurse is required in whichever room. 

Your ability to manage your hospital is fine-tuned to the smallest details and you can place everything where you want to be including radiators, plants, drinks machines and benches in the corridors as well as items and machinary in the hospital rooms themselves such as the desks, bookcases and bins. You can manage your bank account by taking out a loan, paying interest of course, and even decide how much to spend on the heating of your hospital and whether or not to give your staff a raise or a monetary bonus. Not only this, you can decide how much patients pay for each treatment or diagnosis attempt such as a stay in the hospital ward or a visit to the ‘Hair Restoration’ clinic. Despite this fine-tuned managing of the books everything is very simple to use and easy to understand and it won’t take much clicking around and reading of the in-game material to figure out how to do everything. As one of those people who doesn’t like reading a whole load of facts, figures and percentages I tend to bypass the many charts in the game and still can get through it quite happily. 

Graphics and audio

Graphically the PC edition of this game is superior to the PlayStation 1 port but that’s not to say either game looks bad. The screenshots used here are from the PC version but below you can see a screenshot of the PS1 edition, just for comparison's sake. Overall the graphics are really quite decent and very clear cut. Everything is colourful, very well detailed and a bit quirky with its own sense of identity in the whole design of the game. It’s a huge step up from the slightly blurry, fuzzy graphical appearance of ‘Theme Park’ and for a 90s game it really is impressive. The voice acting mostly consisting of a female announcement voice which is both funny and good quality as she apologizes to the patients about the amount of litter and chides ‘mad patients’ for being too loud in the corridors. Staff and patients don’t ever talk and tend to communicate with you through alerts at the bottom of the screen and symbols above their head, for example if they’re confused or if they’ve just discovered a new illness or researched/improved a new piece of equipment. Everything is very clearly communicated to you via the graphics however and the camera is very flexible and not at all awkward to use.

For the PC version the music is fantastic; nostalgic and catchy it has upbeat tunes that change track as you play the game so it doesn’t become irritating after a long period of time. Whenever a patient is cured you’ll hear a cheer from an unseen crowd and boo’ing when a patient dies, leaves the hospital or is sent home which adds to the light-hearted and interactive feel of the whole game. 

Overall

This is one of my childhood games that is still so addictive, challenging and fun to play now and, even after completing it, there’s still great satisfaction in starting all over again and pouring hours upon hours of my time into it. It’s just the right level of challenging and even if you find it too easy there’s three levels of difficulty so you can always crank it up a notch and struggle with the demands of the hardest ‘Consultant’ difficulty level. I love the humour in this game and it’s not an overpowering attempt to be funny, it’s just witty here and there from the diseases, to the announcements to the weird things you find becoming commonplace like excessively decorated staff rooms and questionable healthcare practices. The customization options are brilliant, it looks and sounds fantastic and overall it’s just so playable and so memorable that I can’t help but rank this as one of my favourite PC games.

The Good:

• Witty, intelligent humour that also borders on the silly
• Hours upon hours of gameplay
• Addictive, almost worryingly fun
• Nice level of difficulty and can be very challenging
• Lots of different rooms and illnesses keeps things interesting
• Very defined appearance makes it instantly recognizeable
• Memorable music that's really upbeat and not at all annoying

The Bad:

• Patients are always freezing.
• Staff AI can be a little dodgy
• More hospitals would have been good, but only because I want to continue playing

The Score: 9/10 

Last thoughts: "So addictive, even now in 2014 this is so much fun to play and is one of the few micro-management games I play religiously."
Note: If you’re interested I have a list of cheats and codes that will allow you to do extra things like play whichever level you want to play, for both PS1 and PC editions, and some extra bits for the PC edition such as unlocking all research and getting extra money. You can find my cheat guide here.

Playing Theme Hospital on new OS systems:

The PlayStation 1 version of the game is very easily obtained on sites such as Ebay and Amazon but the PC version will give you more trouble on newer systems, that said, it’s not impossible. By using an emulator such as DOSbox you can happily play the game as intended or, alternatively, you can use an open source ‘clone of the game called CorsixTH. This clone still requires you to purchase the original disk but it allows you to play the game on OS’s such as Vista and Windows 7. You can download CorsixTH here. 

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The Bard's Tale - Guest review on Indie Retro News (MS-DOS, PC game)

‘The Bard’s Tale’ is a critically successful dungeon crawler trilogy with its first instalment; Tales of the Unknown: Version I having been released in 1985. This game is your classic RPG that also bares an extremely close resemblance to ‘Wizardry’ though with upgraded graphics and some additional, innovative gameplay elements. The game features your standard turn based combat, first person dungeon crawling that will leave you painstakingly mapping out the maze-like dungeons and also riddle based puzzles that will have you trekking back to another dungeon just to find the answer. The Bard’s Tale is a classic case of what 1985 contributed to the world of RPG gaming; lots of hard work, punishingly difficult battles, and a great sense of accomplishment when you finally kill the bad guy.   If you enjoy a good old RPG that’s not so much focused on the story but rather on the gameplay then you should definitely try out this game.

Read the rest of my review on Indie Retro News, you can find it here. Enjoy! :)  

To discover more of my old PC game reviews, check out this page here.

‘The Bard’s Tale’ is a critically successful dungeon crawler trilogy with its first installment; Tales of the Unknown: Version 1 having been released in 1985. This game is your classic RPG that also bares an extremely close resemblance to ‘Wizardry’ though with upgraded graphics and some additional, innovative game play elements. The game features your standard turn based combat, first person dungeon crawling that will leave you painstakingly mapping out the maze-like dungeons and also riddle based puzzles that will have you trekking back to another dungeon just to find the answer. 'The Bard’s Tale'is a classic case of what 1985 contributed to the world of RPG gaming; lots of hard work, punishingly difficult battles, and a great sense of accomplishment when you finally kill the bad guy.   If you enjoy a good old RPG that’s not so much focused on the story but rather on the game play then you should definitely try out this game. - See more at: http://www.indieretronews.com/2014/05/the-bards-tale-tale-worth-telling-if.html#sthash.6nE9Fw20.M50maQB1.dpuf

‘The Bard’s Tale’ is a critically successful dungeon crawler trilogy with its first installment; Tales of the Unknown: Version 1 having been released in 1985. This game is your classic RPG that also bares an extremely close resemblance to ‘Wizardry’ though with upgraded graphics and some additional, innovative game play elements. The game features your standard turn based combat, first person dungeon crawling that will leave you painstakingly mapping out the maze-like dungeons and also riddle based puzzles that will have you trekking back to another dungeon just to find the answer. 'The Bard’s Tale'is a classic case of what 1985 contributed to the world of RPG gaming; lots of hard work, punishingly difficult battles, and a great sense of accomplishment when you finally kill the bad guy.   If you enjoy a good old RPG that’s not so much focused on the story but rather on the game play then you should definitely try out this game. - See more at: http://www.indieretronews.com/2014/05/the-bards-tale-tale-worth-telling-if.html#sthash.6nE9Fw20.M50maQB1.dpuf

‘The Bard’s Tale’ is a critically successful dungeon crawler trilogy with its first installment; Tales of the Unknown: Version 1 having been released in 1985. This game is your classic RPG that also bares an extremely close resemblance to ‘Wizardry’ though with upgraded graphics and some additional, innovative game play elements. The game features your standard turn based combat, first person dungeon crawling that will leave you painstakingly mapping out the maze-like dungeons and also riddle based puzzles that will have you trekking back to another dungeon just to find the answer. 'The Bard’s Tale'is a classic case of what 1985 contributed to the world of RPG gaming; lots of hard work, punishingly difficult battles, and a great sense of accomplishment when you finally kill the bad guy.   If you enjoy a good old RPG that’s not so much focused on the story but rather on the game play then you should definitely try out this game. - See more at: http://www.indieretronews.com/2014/05/the-bards-tale-tale-worth-telling-if.html#sthash.6nE9Fw20.M50maQB1.dpuf

‘The Bard’s Tale’ is a critically successful dungeon crawler trilogy with its first installment; Tales of the Unknown: Version 1 having been released in 1985. This game is your classic RPG that also bares an extremely close resemblance to ‘Wizardry’ though with upgraded graphics and some additional, innovative game play elements. The game features your standard turn based combat, first person dungeon crawling that will leave you painstakingly mapping out the maze-like dungeons and also riddle based puzzles that will have you trekking back to another dungeon just to find the answer. 'The Bard’s Tale'is a classic case of what 1985 contributed to the world of RPG gaming; lots of hard work, punishingly difficult battles, and a great sense of accomplishment when you finally kill the bad guy.   If you enjoy a good old RPG that’s not so much focused on the story but rather on the game play then you should definitely try out this game. - See more at: http://www.indieretronews.com/2014/05/the-bards-tale-tale-worth-telling-if.html#sthash.6nE9Fw20.M50maQB1.dpuf

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Rayman 1 - Full Review (MS-DOS and PS1 game)

The original Rayman game is a devilishly tricky but wonderfully clever little game with bucket loads of likability factor in its colourful and comical world that will have you engaged for hours. This side scrolling platformer was released in 1995 and was also one of the first games to be released for the PlayStation though it also came out on the PC and Atari Jaguar too. The game was an instant hit, becoming the most sold game on the PS1 of all time, and it’s easy to see why; gloriously detailed levels, hours upon hours of content all set an idyllic fantasy land that is both memorable and imaginative. Challenging, quirky and deeply immersive you’ll soon appreciate why this is the game that set off an incredibly successful series enjoyed by generations of gamers.

Gameplay and plot

The game follows Rayman, our lazy and limbless hero, as he tries to restore balance and harmony to the land after a certain ‘Mr Dark’ has stolen the Great Protoon. Without it, chaos has beset the usually peaceful land causing Electoons to be scattered and nasty, unnatural creatures to appear everywhere.  Rayman must rescue the Electoons and defeat Mr Dark to restore order and tranquillity to the land. If you’re familiar with ‘Rayman Origins’ and ‘Rayman Legends’ you’ll instantly recognize certain features like the style of the map, the inclusion of Electoons and of course Rayman but you’ll likely be surprised at how much slower and how much more difficult it is. 

Gameplay consists of navigating through the side scrolling levels to reach a signpost with an “!” on it which completes that level.  The levels tend to consist of lots of platforms and parts of the environment that you can interact with to gain access to otherwise out of reach areas such as bouncing purple fruit that can be used as a makeshift boat. Depending on the level they’ll be different obstacles and environments so it’s not all walking and jumping and quite often you’ll be sliding at top speed, hovering precariously or bouncing off and between objects. Each level is littered with enemies and also the poor, crying caged Electoons which you must release by smashing open their cages open with your fists. There are six caged Electoons on each level and you have to free all of them if you wish to complete the game as only then will you be able to reach and confront Mr Dark in the epic finale. This sounds easy enough, after all you can revisit the levels from the world map, but the Electoons tend to be tricky to find and even more tricky to access. With limited lives, you’re going to have your work cut out for you.

To help you through the game you gain additional abilities from Betilla the Fairy as you progress. The very first abilities you learn allow you to hang from ledges and to throw your fists which is your primary means of killing enemies. The other abilities are all generally very standard and nothing particularly unusual, except one, the helicopter ability. This power utilizes Rayman’s hair as a means of flying and this allows you to travel short distances or to save yourself from what would be otherwise fatal falls. Without the bolstered speed and agility from the more recent Rayman instalments like 'Rayman Origins' and 'Rayman Legends' you’re going to find yourself having to rely on your own accuracy and luck to get through this classic, making these abilities are utterly crucial to your success. 

Beneath its cute and colourful exterior lies a game that is punishingly difficult and infinitely frustrating. It really does make me wonder who this game is aimed at; children or adults as though on the surface it clearly looks like a children’s game it is just too incredibly challenging for that to be so. You’re probably wondering what could be so damn hard about this game that I keep mentioning how challenging it is, well, lots of things make it difficult. To begin with, you have a very limited amount of lives and acquiring additional lives is a huge challenge as it requires you to collect 100 blue orbs called Tings. When you die, you lose all your Tings collected so far which can leave you in a never ending loop of dying, being unable to get another life, and dying again. To make matters worse the chances to save the game are few and far between. Once you’ve started a level you have to complete it to be able to save again, there is no saving from the menu and there is no auto save feature. I can genuinely guarantee that, even with the one checkpoint they kindly throw in your general direction, you’ll be replaying certain parts of this game over and over until you want to crush the controller between your palms. 

For those of us who don’t mind a bit of gaming masochism, or employing cheat codes, there’s a staggering 70 levels to shoulder through that are either beautifully designed or, in the very least, pretty to play through. There are six different worlds that are divided into two categories, ‘natural’ and ‘imaginary’. The natural worlds take place in a forest, mountains and caves whereas the imaginary levels are set in worlds that are significantly more dreamlike and unusual. There’s a fair bit of freedom regarding which order you play through the levels in but, since the difficulty scales across the worlds, it’s a lot easier to play the game in the intended way.  At the end of each level you’ll have to defeat a boss enemy and the bosses are pretty interesting creatures, which is much appreciated since up until that point you’ve only been fighting one or two variations of enemy. Fighting enemies is purely to get them out the way so you don’t die and there’s no reward for killing them. To make things harder not all enemies are immediately visible. Instead, enemies tend to pop into existence once you’ve stepped foot in their little ‘area’ of the map such as some narrow platforms above dangerous water. What this usually results in is you being knocked back and taking away some life, knocked into some form of trap such as the water or surviving and still being unable to kill them due to the tiny platform you’re teetering on. Rayman can only take three hits before he dies so you need to be extremely careful when traversing the levels as danger can quite literally appear out of nowhere.

Graphics and audio

This game truly does push the PS1 console to its full capabilities as environmentally the game looks fantastic and it has genuinely aged extremely well, even if everything is 2D. I remember playing through Rayman 3 which was in full on 3D graphics and quite frankly, it looked absolutely dire. I probably enjoyed the game because I was extremely young and very forgiving when it came to games but Rayman feels very much like Oddworld in that, despite being 2D, that’s the best thing for it as it allows much more detail and much better graphics. The music of the game is quite lovely, very satisfying and exists as a great background addition that draws you fully into Rayman’s adventure. The soundtrack is a bit quirky but has a strong retro feel that manages to bring you right back to the 90s in an instant. For me, it was an instant reminder of all the times I’d played this game when I was a kid and I absolutely loved it. 

Although everything is quite cartoony ‘Rayman’ has a very clear identity that sets it apart from typical animated games so, rather than it coming across as childlike, it instead manages to portray itself as a mature, yet fun, platforming game. The levels are incredibly varied and though the distinct worlds mean that some levels have the same theme there is a clear difference in the way you get through the level. Rayman is incredibly animated as well and the humour really does make itself quite pronounced through his animation and his own audio. Sit away from the controller for five goddamn seconds and he’s coughing, trying to get your attention to make him move. I genuinely miss that in games and it was quite a common feature to have your character get a little pissed off if you ignored them for a bit, but Rayman does do it so politely. Apart from his impatience he has a wide range of facial expressions, utter terror being the most hilarious of course. Rayman will quite physically chew on his knuckles at the sight of a monstrous enemy and will appear, genuinely, to have his life flashing before his eyes as he teeters over a ledge. All in all, he’s designed and animated very well and he’s incredibly likable whilst his idle animations and emotions really do bring him to life.

Overall

Rayman is an incredibly memorable experience for me and really is the best 2D game that is on the PS1. As a platformer it’s of incredibly good standard whilst the levels are fun and inventive with plenty in them to maintain your interest. It’s very difficult to get back into due to how punishing it is but, and I’m ashamed to admit it, an infinite lives cheat really does ease the way into the game if you just want to play the thing without murdering everybody around you. The controls are so easy and simple to get used to though the lack of analog sticks is a bit of a pain. Though the game does feel much slower and clunkier than the latest instalments it’s still great fun and a whole different game to the Mario inspired 'Rayman Origins' and 'Rayman Legends' you’ll see today, though they are fantastic too.

Score: 9/10

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I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Full Review (PC, MS-DOS game)

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is a point and click adventure game from 1995. It’s based on a short story by Harlan Ellison published in 1967 though differs in plotline to the original book. The game is set in the, hopefully distant, future where the Earth has been taken over by supercomputers that have enslaved/eliminated the human race. It’s a very conventional backstory for a very unconventional game. In this story our murderous supercomputer is called AM; short for Allied Mastercomputer and is voiced by Ellison who flawlessly pulls off the disturbed persona as only somebody who truly understood AM could. AM was one of three super-computers tasked with the running of a violent world war to minimize human causalities. Unfortunately, this plan backfired as much as a plan can backfire and, upon becoming self-aware, AM conducted a mass genocide of the human race. Only five people were left alive by the machine who, if we can call it a who, by now has subsequently lost his mind shortly after discovering it. AM is a calm, collected and cruel being with bouts of manic but twisted teasing. He taunts, jibes and mocks with abandon and his discourse often slips into the grotesque. AM’s five captives have been made practically immortal and AM tortures and torments them endlessly for 109 years. This is where our story picks up as AM, inventive as he is, has come up with a new way to aggravate his disgruntled prisoners. 

The pillar of love, courtesy of AM, just one of many affectionate displays.

Gameplay and characters

The game essentially has five separate episodes as you take control of each individual prisoner then a final, sixth scene at the end that wraps it all together and determines the ending. The ending of the game is open-ended and may result in four conclusions, three of which aren't exactly optimal and the last being rather positive.The stories of each of the five characters are varying in length and quality with some good puzzles but other quite easy, simplistic ones. The gameplay itself is nothing particularly special and it’s fairly typical but the plot is enough reason to stick around and play it. Some may find the game too dark and depressing due to the seriousness of the topic, after all we’re in post-cold-war apocalyptic times so you can expect things to get a little gloomy. The narrative of AM is consistently good quality though the five prisoners are fairly unbothered by their eternal torment. There’s a dash of fear and disturbed reactions from the characters but mostly they’re just kind of irritated and bit fed up of their taunting host. If they’re not disturbed though, you certainly will be, as the game manages to strike deep into places that games rarely venture. There are plenty of sensitive topics that aren’t exactly tip-toed around though luckily the game reins it in visually on some of those particular issues.
 

Ted may look a little skinny back there but the detail of the room is beautiful.

The controls are your very standard point and click style in which you have several actions at the bottom such as ‘pick up’, ‘open’ ‘look at’ and so on reminiscent of LucasArts SCUMM gameplay like my beloved Monkey Island games. You’ll generally need to click and use on things in your inventory or on the environment to advance through puzzles. Some things like can be a little frustrating at first. For instance, you must manually pick ‘open’ to get through a door else you’ll bump around it until you realize what you’re doing wrong. There are no hotkeys for the different actions so it’s all mouse guided. Cutscenes are very easy to accidentally skip as if you press any button or click the mouse then it will automatically go to the end of it, this is very noticeably in the first, long opening scene which is essential for storyline.

Gorrister hanging in the public restroom of Little Chef, the poor guy.

Each character has a defined personality and it’s not simply a measure of sticking a new face on and going in a new area. You’ll instantly notice the shift in tone and temperament as you move from one character to the next and it’s a refreshing aspect that helps to keep things interesting. All of the characters have their own, secret past that you’ll learn about from their stories though each share’s something in common. They all need to face their past and learn to move on with it. Your role will be to help them come to terms with what they have each been through. There’s an unusual mechanism in the game called a ‘Karma meter’ that surrounds the character’s face; this will lighten or darken depending on their mood. Certain actions will cheer them up and others will bring them down into deep depression or anxiety. Part of the gameplay is to not do what AM expects you to do; the options generally bounce between doing something positive or honourable and doing something cowardly or destructive. With this in mind, it’s usually fairly obvious to work out what to do in each moral scenario.

Graphics and environment

Despite the fact that this game was released in 90s it's still greatly detailed and quite gory when the story calls for it. Generally the environments are dark, gloom y and macabre but that doesn't mean the game is limited to dull browns and greys. Some areas are lush and green with vibrant and almost scenic settings and the transition from the murky depths of a concentration camp to a lush, though somwhat dingy, tropical island is fantastic. The variation in environments is very apparant as each character has an entirely different setting than the last which makes it feel as though you're getting 5 very short games in one.
 

There are plenty of subtle little bits; like how that tree looks almost mechanical in nature.

The expression on characters faces are vivid and detailed especially due to the close up shot at the bottom of the screen. Objects that you're meant to pick up are blended well into the surroudning scenery and, as is common with point and clicks, it's not always apparent what you're supposed to be grabbing.There’s nothing plain or bare about the graphics and each area is rich in detail; pots and pans in the kitchen, twisted vines around headstones, colourful cave paintings and finely carved patterns at the end of a bed are just a few of the environmental additions that are to be enjoyed in the settings of this game. Admittedly, there are a few slight graphicsl issues like the colour goes a little manic or the screen fuzzes during a cutscene but that's more likely due to trying to play a 90s game on Windows 7.

Another completely different and finely detailed environment, Ellen looks tired though.

Audio

The audio is fairly well done and, if nothing else, is atmospheric.  The music is jarring and disturbing in parts but not loud enough to distract you or interfere with what you’re doing and contributes nicely to the overall feel of the game. As I’ve mentioned the voice of AM is particularly well acted but the five main characters are also satisfactory with their own strengths and weaknesses. Ellen is particularly annoying due to her sarcastic, off the cuff comment when apparently she suffers from anxiety. Ellen tends to come across more as a disgruntled housewife than a victim of torture which is rather mood-breaking. Everything has a sound, there’s nothing left untouched, so you can pick and prod at everything that can be interacted with without being disappointed. 

Overall

I Have No Mouth and I MustScream is definitely worth a play through if you enjoy point and click games, and even if you don’t, then you should play it for the storyline. If you’re squeamish of psychological horrors however then you should definitely give this game a miss as once you’re in there, you won’t be getting back out again. The game explores recesses that few games dare to enter; this isn’t a murder mystery game, you won’t find soldiers full of bullet holes or serial killers dragging entrails across the walls. When you finish the game you’ll have journeyed through an environment of unsettling madness of apocalyptic proportions. Whilst this may not sound like a barrel of laughs and fun for all this game entertains in a way that’s almost forgotten in modern games. If you’re looking for something a little different, then you should definitely give this a go.

Score: 9/10 

To discover more of my old PC game reviews, check out this page here.

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