Total Eclipse

Moby ID: 6712
DOS Specs
Special Edition See Also

Description official descriptions

Uses 3D system called Freescape developed by Incentive Software Ltd.

A pyramid has been built to destroy anything that blocks the sun and now a total eclipse is about to occur. Collect ankhs to open doors, shoot mummies, drink water and maybe then you solve the puzzle of pyramid. Controlling yourself in 3D world, you may change angle of your rotation and width of your steps to avoid some obstacles. Also you can use your gun to shoot some doors or to eliminate some foes.

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Credits (DOS version)

5 People

Programmed by
Designed by
Instruction Manual Written and Illustrated by

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 80% (based on 17 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.5 out of 5 (based on 24 ratings with 1 reviews)

3d-Rendered first person mystery/thriller

The Good
It was real-time. Not necessarily gameplay-wise, but there was a real world time limit to the game that reflected the the amount of time the plot of the game allowed.

I loved that it was first person rendered 3-D. As I recall, this was the first fully 3-D rendered first-person shooter I ever played and one of the very few 3-D rendered games on the old 8-bit computers that actually filled the polygons!

The Bad
Slow! At the time, I was used to very fast-paced arcade style games. Even the role-playing and turn-based strategy games I played on my C64 were much faster. This is the trade off for having a 3-D rendered environment on a 1MHz 8-bit computer. Every step you take requires the screen to be re-rendered and you can sit back and watch as the screen renders each item in each room and fills the polygons. I was 13 at the time and it was years before I developed the patience to actually play this game.

Controls. The controls for this game were pretty rough. Because of the slow rendering of the display, your ability to control your point of view and do things like aim and shoot or even examine an object were difficult at best. It takes some definite effort to get used to the controls.

The Bottom Line
This game is a very nice game with the good quality you would expect of a true Cinemaware product. The story is very good and the action isn't over the top at all like you might expect from an ancient-Egypt-curse-of-the-pharaoh style game. It's got a good balance of mystery and action combined with a decent plot. It might be fair to describe it as a toned-down version of a Tomb-Raider game. While the slowness of the rendering might be bearable for an adult, it is probably not for a teenager or younger. If you are not a patient person, this game is not for you.

I think the graphics were a little too much for the C64. I never got to play the Amiga version, but it's possible that on a machine as powerful as the Amiga, the game could have played well. This opinion is coupled with my experience running this game on my C64 with a SuperCPU. The SuperCPU is essentially a 20x accelerator for the C64. When played with this add-on, the graphics render as quickly as if it were being played on one of today's (2005) game consoles or PCs with a graphics card. Unfortunately, running on the SuperCPU makes this game last about 1 to 2 minutes before your time expires. An interesting project for this game would be to see a patch for it that could make use of the SuperCPU (or other CPU accelerator for the C64) while using a timing mechanism that could still give you a decent period of time to play. If a patch like this were to come out, I would play this game again even today.

Commodore 64 · by Eric Pratt (2) · 2005

Trivia

Awards

  • Amiga Power
    • May 1991 (issue #00) - #81 in the "All Time Top 100 Amiga Games"

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Related Games

Total Eclipse: Special Edition
Released 1989 on Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC
Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse
Released 2013 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Solar Eclipse
Released 1995 on SEGA Saturn, PlayStation
Extinction Eclipse
Released 2022 on Linux, Windows, Macintosh
Red Eclipse
Released 2011 on Windows, Macintosh, Linux
Gatekeeper: Eclipse
Released 2023 on Windows
Deep Eclipse
Released 2014 on Windows
Pokémon Eclipse
Released 2008 on Browser

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 6712
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by POMAH.

Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum added by Martin Smith.

Additional contributors: Jo ST.

Game added June 13, 2002. Last modified January 21, 2024.