★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ COMPILATION: JEWELS OF DARKNESS (c) LEVEL 9/RAINBIRD ★ |
Popular Computing Weekly |
Jewels of Darkness shine brilliantly Long ago, in the second age, the three great adventure quests had been solved, and their power chained, like Prometheus, to a rock. Now they have been let loose again, which can only mean one thing - Rainbird, Sorcerer's Apprentice of the Dark Lord Tel-E-Com, had licensed the Colossal Cave trilogy from Level 9 and unleashed it on an unsuspecting world. The trio, Colossal Adventure. Adventure Quest and Dungeon Adventure, has been polished up somewhat and collected under the title Jewels of Darkness Graphics have been added, and the programs now sport an improved parser that can deal with multi command sentences, flash packaging in the Rainbird style and a 64 page novella. Seasoned adventure players will recognise the latter as one of those “the clouds of evil poured upon the lands of Aardvark at the behest of the Demon Lord of Wotsit” scenarios, either better or worse than the adventure depending on your point of view The saving grace of Jewels of Darkness is. however, that the three adventures are indeed classics, well designed and entertaining to play. The games are related in that they're all set in a complex of mysterious caves which, despite their baleful influence on the surrounding environs, have somehow escaped a radical development programme by the local council Colossal Adventure is greed-led, in that you are an adventurer bent on exploring the colossal cavern and returning dripping with untold wealth. Adventure Quest, the second part, is somewhat more altruistic. The Demon Lord Agaliarept has taken refuge in the cave complex and must be destroyed before he enslaves, etc. Dungeon Adventure reverts to type, as you*re involved in a desperate dash to grab Agaliarept's stores of ill-gotten gams (Demon Lord in question now being deceased) before the forces of light get there and spend it all on their social services budget. Nice simple plot skeletons, and while the addition of graphics may irritate some purists they're not obtrusive, and can in any event be switched off if you want to just sit back and imagine. If you're an adventure buff, and you don't already have the Level 9 versions of the games, you haven't really any choice. Go out and buy Jewels of Darkness immediately, then lock yourself up for the next three months while you play through them. John Lettice |
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Page créée en 879 millisecondes et consultée 2459 fois L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |