Contributions > Descriptions by Trixter (8952)

Hack is the precursor to NetHack, both members of the family of text-based Rogue-like games. Like other roguelikes, Hack is the quintessential computer role-playing game (RPG): Choose a character class and venture forth into the dungeon to fight monsters and gain treasure.

Like all descendants of Rogue, Hack is displayed from a top-down view, painted with text characters. The player ventures throughout the dungeon, visiting rooms connected by thin corridors. Gameplay is turn-based, with the turn beginning with the player's action (move, attack, eat, cast spell, etc.). Commands are mapped to various letters of the keyboard, including "i" for inventory, "e" for eat food, etc. with one exception: Attacking a monster involves running into it, so the "attack" function shares the same keys as movement.

Hack is one of the first significant deviations from Rogue, notable by the rich interaction possible in the game world: Simple actions result in complex (yet logical) reactions. For example, it is not uncommon to throw a boomerang only to miss the target and have it return to hit the player; or kill a monster that has the ability to turn you to stone as an attack, then accidentally step on its carcass on the way out and turn to stone; or having a bolt of fire from a magic wand ricochet around the room, hit the player, and cause his magic scrolls to catch on fire; etc. In addition, monsters and objects have secondary, hidden properties; for example, killing and eating a leprechaun will result in the player randomly teleporting to different locations.

In Highway Patrol II, players assume the role of a police officer trying to capture runaway felons before they reach the county border. Players begin by choosing a target villain, with tougher ones earning a bigger bonus, and making it easier to achieve promotions. Gameplay is from the officer's viewpoint, looking through the windshield of his cruiser.

Players chase the criminals and must get them to pull over by using intimidation (siren) or force (shotgun). Players navigate to the criminal's whereabouts by use of the compass and map. Chasing the villain often means venturing off the road and driving through the desert. Traffic is the most obvious hazard in the game, contact with innocents cost promotion points. Other difficulties include: a flat tire, gangsters shooting back, running out of gas, or engine failure due to heat.

Crystal Mines II is an update of the gameplay in its predecessor; in a nutshell, overhead puzzle-solving best described as Chip's Challenge meets Boulder Dash, with a touch of real-time elements thrown in.

In Crystal Mines II, you operate a robot going through the abandoned crystal mines, picking up crystals and avoiding the underground demons that inhabit the mine. Mine levels are completed when a crystal quota is reached, however the quota is usually not the entire level so bonus points can be obtained by finding additional crystals. Like Boulder Dash, gravity is a factor and affects any boulders, crystals, etc. so they can be used as weapons against demons. There are also deceptive elements, such as "Dormant" demons that look like boulders, that add to the challenge. Finally, the robot has weapons that can be used to eliminate certain obstacles.

Super Skweek is a game inspired by the wide success of Chip's Challenge, and shares some elements of that puzzler while combining other elements from games such as Pengo.

In Super Skweek, you play the title character who must walk around and either paint all the tiles of the game board pink, complete a specific mission, or both. Some tiles react in various ways when you walk on them, like exploding.

Unlike Chip's Challenge, the game plays in realtime and you can pick up and use weapons to keep away certain monsters as you paint the tiles. There is also a shop you can enter to purchase items. Finally, levels have a time limit for completion.

Pinball Jam is a Lynx conversion of two pinball tables: "Elvira and the Party Monsters" (Midway, 1989), and "Police Force" (Williams, 1989). Both feature authentic table layouts, targets, and bonuses; the conversion of Elvira and the Party Monsters also features digitized sound effects, including the voice of Cassandra Peterson (Elvira).

Each table scrolls up and down during gameplay (as opposed to just "snapping" to a new area as the ball reaches it).

The year is 2019, and the world is bored with conventional entertainment. Enter the world of BattleWheels, where contestants fight in post-apocalyptic deserts and dead cities in the most violent destruction derby ever. At your disposal are machine guns, flame throwers, missiles, mines, and even paint (to obstruct someone's view). And if you survive your car getting destroyed, you can hoof it and try to wreak as much carnage as possible before becoming roadkill. You can buy a pre-made car, or customize your own car with different levels of engine power, suspension, and armor.

BattleWheels can be comlynxed up to 6 simultaneous players.

Archipelagos 2000 is a remake of the 1989 original. The official storyline is identical to the European story of the original Archipelagos: You explore various lands where everyone has been killed and the land has been poisoned, and it is your job to cleanse the land and bring peace to the people buried there.

The gameplay is identical in every way; only the game environment has changed. Everything is rendered in true 3D, from the poisonous trees to the waves in the water. The sole improvement on gameplay is that the player can now look up and down instead of just left and right as in the original.

After the Awakening, magic has been re-discovered, and human beings have accepted the existence of those they thought to be fantasy creatures. Mega-corporations and cyberworlds had to give space to elves and Native American shamans. Jake Armitage was a seemingly ordinary data courier, assassinated by a hit squad in the year 2050 in Seattle, Washington. Miraculously, his true story began after his death. A mysterious figure approached Jake and cast a spell on him; after that, he woke up in the morgue.

Jake doesn't know what happened to him, he doesn't even remember his own name. He is contacted by a shamanistic Dog totem with a cryptic message about his mission. Wandering through the large city where monorails, computers, and street gangs armed with automatic weapons co-exist with orcs, dwarves, and vampires, he begins to unravel the mystery, gradually learning about dangers awaiting him around every corner, and his own past.

Shadowrun is based on the pen-and-paper role-playing game of the same name, more specifically on the novel Never Deal with a Dragon by Robert Charrette. It is entirely different from the Genesis adaptation of the same license. The game is a skill-based RPG with action-oriented combat. Most of the time Jake uses firearms; he can also learn magic spells, primarily with defensive and support capabilities. The player can hire "deckers", temporary party members who can aid Jake in battles, and to whom the player can assign basic commands or let them be controlled by the AI.

Karma points are awarded to the player for successfully eliminating enemies. These act like experience points in other RPGs and can be manually distributed by the player. The player can increase the character's basic parameters (such as hit points or charisma), as well as have him master various skills. These include firearms, computers, negotiation, leadership, and others.

Jake can also use his cyberdeck to access cyberspace known as the Matrix, for plot-related purposes or in order to obtain money. Represented by an icon, Jake moves through the cyberspace, fighting programs that protect data from intruders. Jake's success in these endeavours largely depends on his computer skill.

Dialogue with non-playable characters plays an important role. Most quests involve Jake exploring various locations in Seattle and gathering information from people. Conversations are topic-based; often it is necessary to learn about a particular topic from a specific character and then choose it in a conversation with another one to obtain the necessary information.

Xenos. The very name strikes fear into every colonist's heart. A distress call is received from space stations orbiting your homeworld, then silence. A single ship escapes, piloted by a battered man who tells the tale of pods that hatch into acid-spitting Xenos. A small band of engineers has been dispatched to combat the Xeno threat before it takes over all the space stations and, eventually, your homeworld.

Xenophobe is a side-scrolling shooter with platform elements. Assemble your band of engineers and fight the Xenos on each station, striving to either clear it or abandon it. You start out with a standard issue laser, but can pick up additional weapons as you find them, including Phasers, Lightning Rifles, Poofer guns, and bombs.

If being the best speedboat racer in the world were all there was to life, you'd live on easy street. But when the government of Hydra has asked for your help in defeating Hydra's enemies by couriering parts to a secret weapon, and those enemies know you're coming... well then, life gets interesting.

Race down narrow swamp lanes to deliver parts of a secret weapon to bases at the finish of each section. Enemies will be shooting at you, but you can shoot back with Uzi Cannons and Nukes. Collect crystals along the way to boost your speed or shields.

As Hiro, you must once again defeat the ninja lord Havok. Using ninja throwing stars and other weapons, you must defeat the minions of Havok to reach him.

Switchblade II is a side-scrolling platform action game. One key aspect of the game is obtaining coins from defeated enemies, which can be traded at shops for extra lives, energy, and weapons.

The evil spider Zendocon has trapped you in its web of universes. Your mission is to defeat Zendocon's droids and brave the 51 universes to fight Zendocon itself to the death!

Gates of Zendocon is a side-scrolling shooter very similar to the original arcade shooter of this type, Scramble. Unlike Scramble, however, there are 51 game areas in total, but the player fights through a subset of them through branches, choosing the next area to visit.

Some aliens will join you when shot (power-ups). Alien bases in each area allow you to repair your weapons and shield, but landing at the wrong time will cause your ship to explode and lose all power-ups.

The sequel to Cruis'n World both in the arcades and on Nintendo 64, Cruis'n Exotica lets you race against the computer or up to three other opponents in a variety of cars and locales. Game mechanics follow arcade rules, with turbos to accelerate to (and raise) maximum speed, and any deviation off of the track bumping you right back on it.

Cars range from sportcars to more esoteric vehicles such as trucks, minis, and police vehicles. Tracks model real localities (Alaska, India, Korea, etc.) and eventually branch out into fantasy worlds (Atlantis, Amazon, Mars).

Archipelagos is a real-time puzzle and strategy game with an unconventional premise and equally unconventional gameplay.

In the future, man carelessly poisons the earth with nuclear waste. The polar ice caps have melted, turning the surface of the earth into many islands of decaying land masses, known as Archipelagos. Man then built systems to try to clean up the pollution, but these failed. The only life left were genetically-altered plants made in an effort to clean up the waste -- these also turned hostile. It is up to you to clean up the earth, island by island.

Controlling a hoversphere, it is up to you to make Earth's many islands of land habitable. To do this, you need to knock out the radiation generators on each island, which can be done by knocking out each generator's power sources (there are several per island). Once these are knocked out, you have 90 seconds to get back to the generator and disable it before it melts down, taking you with it.

Obstacles, unfortunately for you, are plentiful: You can't knock out a power source unless it is connected by a "land bridge" to the generator. You have the ability to create land where needed, but this takes up energy, and you have a limited supply. Also a hindrance are the many genetically-altered entities left behind on the islands: Viral trees that poison the ground; necromancers (former hoverspheres) that now erode land instead of creating it; eco eggs that explode on touch; and aircleaners, who are ruthlessly efficient in cleaning up the air -- and everything else, including you.

The entire game plays from a 3D first-person viewpoint. A movable cursor selects where to move or what to manipulate.

There are 10,000 islands on Earth to purify. If you can make it past Archipelago #100, you are then free to select any of them.

Psycho Pinball is another pinball game in the style first introduced in Pinball Dreams and later popularized in Pinball Fantasies. Standard features of these types of pinball simulations include an animated backglass display, multiple bonuses including a multi-ball, extra ball, etc., and background music that changes based on active specials.

There are three main tables:* The Abyss (Aquatic theme)

• Trick or Treat (Horror theme)
• Wild West (Western theme)

An additional gimmick is a fourth Psycho Pinball table (circus theme) that has bonuses that can launch you to the other three tables, leading to massively high scores (and very long gameplay times).

eGames' Pinball is a 3D pinball simulation with three tables. 3D acceleration is used for all sorts of realistic effects like table glass, light halos, shadows, reflections of the ball on the table, and more.

Standard pinball gameplay applies; knock down targets to light up bonuses, which can be further increased by multipliers.

Five camera angles with 4 variations each help you choose the exact viewing angle you want.

Return to the Black Mesa complex in this additional Half-Life storyline. In this module, you play Barney Calhoun, a security officer working Blue Shift who is present at Black Mesa at the same time as Gordon Freeman. Your goal is to try to get out of Black Mesa alive as all hell breaks loose and reality is altered around you.

This version can be played stand-alone and also includes the Half-Life High Definition Pack that replaces most of the Half-Life/Opposing Force/Blue Shift player and weapon models and textures with updated high-res models and textures.

Solitare (sic) is a simulation of Klondike Solitaire with some variations in gameplay. Up to 5 players can play, and the computer can be one of those players. Since a "score" is kept, you can also pit each player against each other by forcing all players to start with the same cards/deck/shuffle.

Klondike Solitaire, of course, is a game of moving cards of alternate suits onto each other in an effort to move them off the tableau. This particular version allows you to play by standard or casino rules.

A mouse-only game for DOS, Klondike Solitaire is a simulation of its namesake. Using the mouse to click cards, you move cards of alternate suits onto each other in an effort to move them off the tableau. Cheating is technically allowed, but doing so will get you "yelled at" by the program.

A fighting game to end all fighting games. A sequel to Soul Blade, Soul Calibur takes place in a time inspired by a mixture of 16th-century ancient China and oriental medieval fantasies and legends.

All characters have weapons and distinct fighting styles with over 100 individual moves per character. In addition to high, mid, and low attacks, characters can hold/throw, block, and perform special attacks -- one or more of which is deemed "un-blockable" and must be avoided by ducking, jumping, or rotating around your attacker.

In addition to several locales in which to fight and alternate models/costumes per character, the Dreamcast conversion of Soul Calibur contains many additional features over the arcade coin-op, including hidden characters and locales, a campaign mode, and tournament mode. There is also a "museum" where you can view character profiles and view motion-captured martial arts demonstrations.

Relive Tolkien's The Hobbit as Bilbo Baggins. A piece of Interactive fiction (with graphics to illustrate locations), you follow the plot of Tolkien's book (before the Lord of the Rings trilogy), starting with an encounter with Gandalf and Thorin. The other characters can make their own moves independently of the player and their actions can sometimes result in a situation where it is not possible to complete the game. Every character and object in the game has a calculated mass which affects how they can be manipulated by the player.

The implementation is rich enough that you can play entirely without pictures if you wish. Also, gameplay happens in realtime, uncommon for interactive fiction. The game's parser, called Inglish took as long to develop as the rest of the game. In contrast to other text-based games of the period which were based on simple verb-noun parsers, Inglish allowed for complete sentences to be entered.

In this adaptation of Tom Clancy's popular novel, you play the part of Captain Marko Ramius attempting to defect to the US. Once into the Atlantic, you must rendezvous with the US Navy and fake the destruction of the Red October. Your crew is not aware of the defection -- but the Soviet Navy is, and will try to stop you at any cost.

Alter Ego is a game which tries to simulate life itself. The player creates a character with different personality statistics, either by assigning them randomly or by answering a few introductory questions. They then guide this character through seven life phases, from infancy to old age.

The gameplay consists of a series of situations where a decision has to be made. This is done by choosing one of multiple answer possibilities, sometimes accompanied with a mood. Then the player gets presented with the outcome and goes on to the next situation. Every decision has long-time consequences and influences the personality, health and which situations await further down the road. Some decisions may even result in an early death or instant game over.

Every life phase is represented by a life tree where the situations are lined up; the motif of the situation card shows the general theme of the situation. After reaching a certain age, additional life options can be undergone at any time. Here the player can change his lifestyle and manage his love and professional life.

The game exists in two variations which depict a male or female life.

Compete in a 10-race motocross season with some of the world's best riders. Trick out your bike by adjusting the fork angle, tire pressure, engine dynamics, suspension, and gear ratio to get the best possible performace. (Different bike configurations are needed to be successful on different tracks.)

Racing dynamics are also valid: your bike can stall, get its wheel or fork bent out of shape, etc. You also have complete control over squaring off (negotiating a corner), the mastery of which is required to do well in the game.

Bruno Vasto, a madman, has stolen the experimental SF-2 stealth fighter and threatens to blow up Washington D.C.! It's up to you to infiltrate Vasto's organization and retrieve the fighter to save the world. It's all in a day's work for David Wolf, the secret agent.

David Wolf: Secret Agent merges digitized cinematic cutscenes with bitmap and 3D animation to create an action-based interactive movie. Four 3D action simulations are the heart of the game: HangGliding (with a machine gun mounted to the front), Sportscar driving (with a machine gun mounted to the front), Fighter Simulation (with a machine gun and a missile launcher mounted to the front), and Skydiving (no machine gun). The player follows along with the story for a few minutes, then is attacked and must outwit his opponents to live.

Extend your oil-mining robotic arm deep below the earth's crust to mine oil and line your pockets. But watch out for the monstrous bugs that lie in wait for you -- one touch of them to the robotic arm and you lose a life!