Rogue

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
I didn't purchase this game until 1988 but I have played it ever since! This game has almost unlimited replay value in that each new game is just that...a new game. Your quest is the same -- find the Amulet of Yendor. But because the dungeon is created randomly, the levels are always new and what you find or creatures you fight are different. The game is very difficult to beat as you are not able to "keep" saved game files (when you load a saved game, it is removed and when you save a game, the game terminates).

Forget about sound and graphics. The graphics are ASCII graphics (in color though) with the monsters represented by letters (R=rattlesnake, O=Orc, T=Troll, etc.). The sounds (what few there are) come through the internal PC speaker and not through a sound card. However, this just adds to the charm of the game which was originally designed for mainframe computers.

The AI on this game is very simple but effective! For example, Orcs will always look for gold to defend before attacking you. Nymphs stay "asleep" unless bothered. So monsters almost have a personality even though they are nothing but letters!

The Bad
The game is almost to hard. By "cheating" (meaning keeping a copy of my save files and playing a saved level over and over until I beat it before proceeding), I was able to beat the game once. But to go through until the end without keeping old save files, I have not been able to win and I've been playing until 1988. While your character (a smiley face) advances in levels as he gets more experience from defeating monsters, the monsters you face become more powerful than you.

This starts at level 4 with the rattlesnake. Not only does the rattlesnake take hitpoints, it also can take away strength. The weaker you are, the weaker your attack. At level 8, the Aquator appears. This monster doesn't take hit points but only attacks armor. So unless you have leather armor, the "A" will make your armor almost worthless. This goes on and on.

Normally one might "hang around" to build up experience points and to go up in levels, right? Well Rogue defeats this strategy by requiring you to eat or die. Since the only way to get food is to find it, you are forced to new dungeon levels in order to find more food (and whether or not food will be found is based on the random generator). So the game forces you deeper and deeper whether you are ready or not!

The Bottom Line
Bottom line, this is the forerunner of games like Diablo. It's jus a simple, ASCII-graphic, RPG-type game which is highly annoying but highly addictive! If you can find the Epyx version online (and it does exist for downloading), it's a great game to play at work because it only opens a tiny window which is easily hidden. And since the game comes with the "boss" key (which displays the "C" prompt) you can mostly play in peace!

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
Well it's no BS, ASCII graphics and one can get the hang of the game pretty quickly I reckon. So it's top-down view, treasure hunting. Upgrading weapons and armour and making use of magic doesn't take too long. The game is arcade enough that you can do things on the run. I'd say that most games are enjoyable, though you can get unlucky sometimes and die early.

The Bad
Well frankly I don't see why you should have to start over when you die except that because the game designers want to be bastards. Basically if you're serious about completing this game you have to waste a lot of time replaying levels.

The Bottom Line
Well if you can put this game alongside Ultima and Wizardry as a classic RPG, then I think it's better because you can have a quick game of it and feel like you've done well and made progress.

The Good
This game is great! as Free arcade puts it: living proof that graphics are NOT what makes a good game. the object is to retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, which has been stolen by a large group of Rogues and hidden in the 26th level of the dungeon of doom. along the way you will find and quaff potions, Wear rings and armor, and battle the Rogues. While you do all this, you must keep from starving. sounds hard, right? Right. plus, you can't just get the amulet and win, you must also leave the dungeon with at LEAST the amulet... and the hardest to keep item in the game, your life.

The Bad
This game is HARD! The deepest I ever went is level 8, only to get killed by a glitch!(?) however, it's got that addictive fun you can't resist! if you play it once, you can't help but play it more!

The Bottom Line
Get this game. period. it can be downloaded from DOSgames.com if you want it. and don't worry if you don't have DOS, it works on almost every operating system. In fact, I'm using windows XP!

The Good
Rogue was created around 1980, so it is more than 30 years old. And still it is one of the most playable and re-playable games that I ever played.

It's not a coincidence that Rogue started a whole sub-genre of "Rogue-likes", just like the original Colossal Cave ADVENT started the adventure genre. Similarly, not only the idea is great and innovative (for its time!), but also the execution of that idea is flawless.

So what's the idea here? The idea is to maximize replayability -- with any means necessary. First of all, the map is randomized. Every time you start a game, every level is created anew. (Don't even bother drawing maps!)

But not only the maps are randomly generated, also the potions, scrolls, rings and staffs you can find are random. The only thing you'll now is their outer appearance (blue potion etc.), but to know what it does, you'll have to drink it -- pardon: Quaff it!

Sounds masochistic? Well, read on. Because one more thing this game has, it has perma-death. Which means that you only have one save game, which is deleted each time you load it. Which, in practice, means that if you die, you're DEAD. Your game is gone, and you have to start anew.

So why do I think this is great? Shouldn't this be just incredibly frustrating? Well, it depends on your frame of mind. If you play for WINNING, forget it. I have played this game for twenty years, and I have NEVER won. But if you play it just for the fun of it, just playing for the sake of playing, this game will make you hooked.

As so many in this game is luck, you'll slowly develop complicated strategies. In fact, Rogue is not so much a role-playing game as it is a strategy game, like chess. I won't spoil the fun of discovering your own strategy, but even after 20 years of playing this game, I still find minor ways of improving my strategy. That's real DEPTH, folks, try to do that for any game of today.

Then, all these restrictions don't give you the freedom of actually playing, but they also create an incredible immersive feel. Yes, even though you're just staring at ASCII characters, on the lower levels, I often start thinking for several minutes on a single move, -- just like in chess. One wrong move, and the game may be over, and you'll need hundreds of games before getting a two-handed sword +3 again. (Speaking of which, I will always remember one day when I was on level 16 and accidentally THREW such a killer sword at some G (griffin) instead of attacking it, which left me without any weapon.) Or I actually jump if I walk around, wounded badly, and suddenly stand beside to some T (troll) in a dark room. This really sucks you into the game.

I love the way this game works. It gets incredibly hard on the lower levels, you shouldn't even try to fight, so you'll have to develop complex strategies to flee from dragons and whatnot while trying to discover that bloody amulet... and still, the best strategy can be blown if you just have bad luck... But this is just part of this game.

I can understand that for many gamers of today, a game like this has not too much appeal. However, if you start getting into it, you'll realize that this game is much more than a simple randomized RPG. It is a quite complex strategy game.

I keep thinking of Nolan Bushnell's law: "A great game has to be easy to learn, but hard to master." Rogue is exactly that. A great game, nay: A perfect game.

In fact, it is the only one I rated 5 on every aspect.

The Bad
Frankly, you know what? I don't think this game has any weak spots. I even like non-existing graphics and sound -- this way I'm free to imagine the D's and T's just as I want them to be. And as I said, as this is much more like chess than like a standard RPG, the abstract presentation helps you to concentrate on the important things, like gameplay, y'know.

The Bottom Line
I find it really hard to describe thinks that I find perfect. I guess most people will feel frustrated when playing this. You have to be in a certain frame of mind; you should not be playing to win, but you should just play to play. It's some kind of Zen, you know.

If, after this review, you still think this game is interesting, give it a try, but you've been warned! You'll first find it completely frustrating, but after a while (which may be too long for today's standards), I can assure you that you will be completely hooked.

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.