PC PC GAMES

The famed Gold Box Edition

Back in the days when text adventure and Basic ASCII designed games ruled the PC domain, it was a real treat when you could play a game utilizing 4-bit CGA graphics. Oh the joys of screens made up of 4 colors from a palette of 16 colors – usually being black, cyan, magenta and white. And if blinking graphics appeared, well all the better.

Then the dark ages gave way to the renaissance of EGA graphics. Long gone were the days of 4 bland colors at once. Now 16 colors out of a palette of 64 colors could be displayed at one time. Personal computers were finally cooking with gas. With the EGA GPU, better graphics could be displayed with more colorful sprites and simple animation.

Along with the new EGA technology, a whole breed of platform, strategy and rpg games were developed. One of these developers would become well known for their unique games. The name was Strategic Simulations, Inc. – or SSI for short.

You might remember SSI for their games such as the Panzer General series. The company developed games for most systems including the Apple II, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Tandy TRS-80. In 1987, SSI acquired the license from TSR for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and created 30 games over time. The very first of these rpgs was AD&D Forgotten Realms Pool of Radiance.

Pool of Radiance would go on to set a standard for future role-playing games in it’s time. Other games like the Ultima series and the Wizardry series owe credit in some ways to the format that SSI used.

Pool of Radiance was created for the Commodore 64/128, Atari ST and the IBM PC. There was even a lackluster version for the NES. The version I am going to cover is the MS-DOS version as that is the only version that I ever owned.

Even characters from Star Wars can play AD&D!

The game play is basic. You create a party of adventurers. You can choose your characters race and class. When the computer calculates the points for your abilities, you can either accept or modify the numbers. You can even create “super” characters if you want all the characters abilities as high as they can be. But this just creates a party that can obliterate monsters with one or two hits. It may be fun after a first couple of go-a-rounds, but you will soon tire of the lack of real strategy during combat. You can also customize the character icon sprites. Characters can be carried over from one game to another game title in the same series.

The game is your standard simulated 3D views along with a map view. You go around the city of Phlan and acquire proclamations from city hall to gain experience points and treasures. The missions send you into the slum sections of Phlan that are inhabited by monsters and need clearing in order for the city of Phlan to expand. You will also reference journal entries and tavern tales as the game gives you hints.

Check out Darth Vader with his lightsabre

Combat consists of a combination of commands, casting spells and moving your characters strategically while attacking. Nothing special in the way it operates.

Since this an early DOS game, there is no use of a mouse. Everything is based on choosing the first letter of the command you wish to use. It makes it rather tedious, but later versions of SSI AD&D games incorporate the use of a mouse or joystick.

Is that a Gamorrean guard?

My personal suggestions when playing these old rpg games are to keep character sheets written out on paper in order to have a quick glance of your characters just like in real pen and paper role playing games. I also recommend using graph paper to map where you have been. That way you can mark doors, traps, places of interest, etc. without guessing or trying to remember where you’ve been.

So here is how I rate this game:

Graphics: 3  Nothing fancy, but then it is an old-school game.

Audio: 1 Probably not a fair assessment as it uses simple PC speaker beeps and boops. Again old-school.

Control: 3 Being all DOS based, old keyboard controls run the mechanics here.

Fun Factor: 5 This game may be dated, but it’s still a hoot to play.

As archaic as these games are, they are still fun after 20 some-odd years. If you have access to these old SSI games and are still holding on to an old 386/486 computer, you should take a trip back and give it a go. Otherwise, you can use the DOSBOX emulator in order to play MS-DOS games within Windows. You can also search abandonware sights, but you do so at your own risk. I will not provide links to any such sites here. Anyways, I highly recommend you give any of the SSI AD&D games a try. Or any SSI game for that matter.

GAME OVER