Rogue

The Good
Ahh, Rogue. The name alone brings forth memories of sitting in front of my 8088 PS/2 and wildly tapping the keys battling Aquators, Phantoms and Kestrals.

This game is great. One of the first real "graphic" adventures, it was a giant step forward from Infocom Interactive fiction. This game was also the granddaddy of "randomly generated" games, such as Nethack, that very few current games have yet to match.

The gameplay is very very simple. You start out entering the "Dungeons of Doom", and need to progress down through the dungeon to the 26th level to retrieve the Orb. Along the way you'll pick up magical blades, strange scrolls, wands, rings, staves, and food. You're character is portrayed by good ol SMILEY FACE. All the Monsters are represented by the letters A-Z (although you can't see "P", because P stands for Phantom and Phantoms are invisible :) You fight and move using the keypad, and you can pick up and drop items that you find during your adventure.

Being that Rogue: The Adventure Game randomly creates the dungeon as you progress through the game, it also randomly names spells. So if an enchant armore spell is "vof wifan que" in one game, you can be ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE it won't be the same the next time you play. Same goes with wands and potions. Wand types (i.e. silver, molybdenum, gold) and Potion types (green, turquiose, plaid) will also be different each time you play. So note-taking will have NO effect except if you take notes on the different ITEMS found in the game, not the descriptions.

The graphics are ANSI style graphics. Therefore, the best you would get is 16 colors and the entire ASCII extended character base to work from. Fortunately, the extended ASCII set has characters that look like walls, and the Monsters are provided by the Alphabet. The game will run on any PC, even PC's running Windows 98 (a miracle in itself)

The only sound available in 1983 was the good old PC speaker, and It just bleeped.

Control is very easy. The numeric keypad moves your character, and also attacks in the direction you press. Can't get any simpler than that. :)

The Bad
The game, although deceptively easy, is tough. I mean TOUGH. I have never reached the 26th level (so for me it is mere rumor... I believe that it goes as far down as the game want you to get :) so I have never recovered the orb.

Because of the game randomness, I've been killed on level 2 due to a lucky hit from a Hobgoblin, but I've also ventured to the 10th level only to be killed of by starvation.

Starvation sucks. Pure and simple. It's a matter of randomness if you get a lot of food or if you are continually fainting.

The Bottom Line
So to sum up the above review... It's random. It all depends on what the program gives you, that will determine how far you get in the game.

It's a fantastic game, don't get me wrong. You just have to catch the right time to play it. It all depends on the randomness :)

The Good
...and they are probably right. The game's graphics and colours are absolutely basic and so is the concept, but somehow it manages to capture the essence of dungeon crawling. Exploring the dark hallways and underground chambers, one step at a time, dreading the next monster that waits around the corner, discovering treasure and valuable items, navigating traps and pitfalls and finally seeing that precious staircase that leads even deeper into darkness...

The Bad
What is there not to like? If one is really a slave to visuals and surround sound, this game hasn't much to offer. The only thing that's probably truly lacking is some kind of story and dialogue, but this is not the focus of the game and it would probably just dilute the experience.

The Bottom Line
This is the very first CRPG I played back in 1989, on my brand-new PC-XT machine which was running at the incredible speed of 8 Mhz. But this was the game that truly introduced me to the concept of RPGs in general and I was instantly taken by it. Even if you can't stand the ancient graphics, force yourself to sit down for a couple of levels and there is a good chance you will have finished half a dozen before you know what happened.

The Good
Well, as I played this game 2 decades after this game was released, it seems that I can objectively review this game without my usual subjective opinion...hahaha.

Anyway, this is one very cute game. Simple if not prehistoric in the graphics department which is very nice considering. To my surprise, the game is still playable, this is one of those 'rare games' that don't seem to be affected to much by the course of technology. Unless you're on of those 'graphic oriented' people (sigh).

A very simple concept. Your stuck in a dungeon - Fight your way out. During your journeys you will be assisted by random items and pursued by random monsters. The more monsters you whack, the higher your experience and level, the better prepared you are for lower levels filled with more powerful monsters.

The graphics in this game is very similar to games like Star Fleet, of which I don't know if there is a specific terminology used to describe graphics based on letters and numbers. But the developers portrayed the game very well to get that 'dungeon' kind of feel.

The game is completely playable. Each time you play, its a new game. Like a game of chess or cards. Every time its a new game. The random setting of this game is both refreshing (not likely to get bored) and irritating (if you end up with a lousy map and lousy random items).

A strange thing in this game, is that mostly everything is random. From the map to the items. Only the monsters don't seem be random. The items spesifically have random uses. So the first time you come across a Blue Potion for instance, it may be a healing potion. The next time around (a new game) it may be a Sleeping Potion. So not much use in writing item descriptions down.

The Bad
I always like a game that used the keyboard to the maximum length. Meaning that most of the keyboard keys were used. This game introduced a similar concept, however it's quite confusing if you press a key and not sure if it works or not. For example, the search key (S) is used to search for hidden doors, etc. But there is no description if it doesn't work (if there happens to be a secret door). Basically some simple text to tell you what's going on would be nice.

Speaking of some simple text, this game lacks description. Its a fun simple game. But to simple in my opinion. For example, you found this longsword and you find this two-handed sword. Let's say you don't know anything about swords. How do you know which one is better? In this game, you don't. You could (for example) go around using that straw staff, thinking its better than the Magical Platinum Sword with Flame Thrower special attack :p

There are only 2 ways to know what (spesifically) a magic item is for. One, use with a possibility of still not knowing what it does (usually scrolls). Two, use an Identity Scroll. But you don't find many of those either. Basically, you probably wouldn't know what half of the stuff your carrying is for. (Hmmm...carrot...what's a carrot? Nevermind).

I often wonder what code is used for combat. Sometimes I just don't get the fact that after reaching level 7, I can still miss that !@#!@# level 1 Bat 5 times. Irritating really.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game to my opinion stood the test of time. And more refreshing than playing Solitaire. Hahaha. This game is all about pure luck.