[Operation Game Collection] Call it Might Call it Magic, But When 3D0 Buys Them it Will End Tragic.

  Yes.  Today I am talking about a massively long running RPG and SRPG series known as Might and Magic.  It has never been the most popular or talked about yet in some form the IP has repeatedly been going on since the mid 80s on nearly any game platform possible.

  Its a quirky little series so let's see what I have and even some actual screenshots of games to show you all what it looks like and how it evolved.  (Well the core series anyhow.)

(As always click for larger if you want.)

Shall we start at the start?  Sure!  The original Might and Magic which I sadly only own digitally outside of the nice manual and Macintosh addenda was the first.  Its really primitive but it is a mid 80s Apple II RPG of the Wizardry style "Blobber" genre that took the basics of Wizardry and its DnD roots and made its own thing with a massive overworld (see the printed out megamap there!) and multiple towns and dungeons to explore.  Where many RPGs of this style kept to DnD conventions Might and Magic balanced the more powerful spells with a material component, food to be eaten if your party rested, and massive massive attribute increases which would become a hallmark of the series.  

Back then it was kind of nice only needing 2 key presses to choose a spell as opposed to a code.  And like many old games I get, this one has some writing in it.  Bad for collector value good for emotional value.  The game was played.

Back in the day you had to map.  A good game showed you how to do it.  Might and Magic wanted to be a GOOD GAME.  They even mapped the full first town to show you what yours should look like.

If I am gonna party like its 1986 I am gonna use an automapper program.  And Where Are We? is one made primarily for playing the old Might and Magics via Dosbox.  (It covers a few games now and there are a few similar ones for various games that are free before you get fancy with paid ones like Campaign Cartographer.)

Combat and magic in the first game is very much a text screen and practically memorizing the spell list.  This program negates that little issue while adding a number of other Quality of Life features such as seeing various character status infos and the like that even the later NES port failed to have.  (Its prettier but it is showing even less information on screen at once.  And sadly the PC Engine CDROM version is Japanese only.  And the translation crowd has to redo Final Fantasy 4-6 for the dozenth time instead.)

Oh you do get to see a pre combat encounter picture but.. its not exactly good.  (The NES monsters are ADORABLE though.  I still want a copy but I am cheap and this little thing we are dealing with in early 2020 kind of makes money tight.)

The Macintosh version at least improves with mouse control and giving you more on screen party information and a little sound.  Sadly you won't be using the above automapper with it.  

It does look a lot nicer overall in spite of just being high resolution (for the time) black and white.

Again I do a little internet printing to make my life easier but now I have a legitimate physical copy of Might and Magic 2 with its nearly 160 page manual and clue book.

While Might and Magic 2 on PC does improve the graphics a lot its still not really up to late 80s 8 bit snuff.

The Where Are We program doesn't seem to show as much.  And this sequel has a built in automap as your crew can learn skills that allow for an automap or a smaller on screen minimap.

(No images at the moment but the Mac port is in color and its a bit nicer looking.)

The Genesis port is clearly the way to go.  It looks a lot better and again shows you the info you need.

Even the enemies look nicer more or less.  

 The next 3 (ish) games in the series all use the same basic engine.  And I am lucky enough to have one of them in a super rare and expensive Turbografx 16 SUPER CDROM edition.  And a really big cluebook for these 3 titles.

 A nice CD size manual to help you along plus another of the lovely maps that come with these games.  Sadly no cloth radness of Ultima but it still is nice.

 Sadly the 4-5 (Known as World of Xeen because they are effectively 2 games later combined onto one CDROM and are meant to be played together to get the complete game.) box back just avoids showing you the game in action and it just shows some monsters.

 The series is still not quite showing the correct amount of info for gear in game so if nothing else the clue book is fantastic for that.  The maps in here are more or less just ones from the in game mapper with maybe a little extra annotations.

The game doesn't exactly take itself all too seriously but 3 and especially Xeen get pretty goofy and jokey.  Your party members will do funny faces at various status effects and now it is virtually hiding info from the players on a numerical basis.  Monster name colors change as they take damage just like your party.

Not having to remember spell names helps a bit in the wizard department.

Xeen looks a little nicer but not to any serious degree.  

 Then we get to the Win 9x era of Might and Magics where 3D0 more or less owned the original company (New World Computing) and pushed them to shove a game out every year or so which lead to 6-8 being the same game engine but tweaked a little (sometimes even copy pasting elements between games!) and 9 being a fully 3d engine but largely considered to be in an Alpha Build state.  

 Sadly I don't have 7's manual in a physical form.  But as some of the prices show I got these clue books or manuals super cheap.

 And an anthology release buy on Ebay got me all 4 maps but sadly manuals are PDFs.  The physical copy of 9 above is where some of these things not from a retro shop came from.  I like what I have played of a patched 9 but I can see why others might not.

6 in action.  Sadly the party have to be all humans in this one.  This is where the weird real time or turn based combat thing the series would have until 10 started.  3d world with 2d monsters and such.

A stock version of 8 which obviously did some tweaking but is more or less the same engine as 6 and 7.  In 8 you start by making one character (including Vampires and Minotaurs!) and hire various folks as you explore.  It helps one not spend an hour or so rolling up a full party and ease into it.

The Celestial Heavens forums have lots of links to various fan made mods and patches which sometimes are all but required to get the Win 9x titles rocking on a modern PC.  And even in the starting area my Minotaur character is already finding nice attribute buffs to be a more powerful moocow.

9 could have been great with another 6 months or so.  The graphics are fully 3d and can be pretty great for the time.  

That time was about 20 years ago but I care more about interface and core gameplay than I do graphics, audio, or story.  (Not that I mind some nice looking or sounding games but I care more about a good playing title more than if its got bloom lighting or something.)

10 was mostly a digital purchase by the next owner of the IP (Ubisoft) and went back to fully turn based step movement gameplay and its the only one I have completed of the main series. 

Unfortunately I only have these two screenshots as I haven't had the game installed or am willing to go through that much effort just to show you how it looks.  But I really like it.  The Might and Magic fanbase isn't as keen on it however.  

Yet maybe you want more proper turn based Blobber play and the more real time nature of the more modern titles doesn't appeal to you nor dealing with Ubisoft nonsense to play X?  Well Sword and Sorcery on Steam might be for you.

Old school play heavily inspired by the first two Might and Magics but now with modern Quality of Life features!

Some pretty decent in game art!

It is an indie game yes but it looks good enough for me.  The guy behind it has done a lot of modding and tweaking over the years.  It didn't remotely look like this when I first played it.  Same basic game but the interface and such was way different.

Proper turn based combat the way I like it.

How it used to look.  Somehow like the 10 images I had this uploaded to Facebook.  I am kind of surprised some of the thirstier images the artist drew for monsters I didn't have saved to mock but I guess I like skeleton pirates?  

And now the spinoffs!

 These are all various forms of action games.  I have not played any of them but I do want to play Dark Messiah because its mostly about killing things using PHYSICS.  Stress relief via kicking Orcs off high ledges and dropping chandeliers on people!  Plus look at the prices.  Didn't cost me much.

 And their backs.

But the longer and possibly more popular than the main line game is the Heroes series, many of which take place in the various game worlds of that series.  (And its predecessor Kings Bounty.  Which itself got a series from a different company that had some assistance from the original creator!)

 I don't have the 2 newest Heroes installments nor most of the King's Bounty series.  But I have plenty of Strategy RPG fun.  (More strategy than RPG in the Heroes, more a balanced mix in Kings Bounty.)

 Get heroes (usually multiples in Heroes, single in Kings), fight hordes, build armies, crush your foes.  Or in my case get owned heavily because I put in a fan mod to 5 here.

 So all of these skelliemans die.  And once in a while I have a giant skeleton dragon.

  Well that is what I have for this long running series.  It isn't my favorite franchise but I have some fondness for it since it does go back to my Commodore 64 days.  Lots of them are available pretty cheap on ebay or Steam so maybe check it out and see if either the RPGs or the strategy games are your thing.  Lots of us have little else to do besides feel sorry for ourselves so why not find a new favorite?

Stay safe out there folks!  If not for yourself for other people!

[Operation Game Collection/Let's Play] Computer Games on Consoles, Construction Sets, and Themed Malarkey PT 2.

ITS TIME TO CHOOSE MY FATE DEAR READERS!

Yes last post was but the start of a silly idea.  You the reader get to first choose what theme I am going to play, then we will have another vote of what game(s) to do.

Last time I showed you three of the themes.

Computer Games on Consoles, Construction Sets, Some Barely Talked About Niche Games.

That is but three choices.  I have a few more for your consideration!

Rufus' Computer Games on Systems He Doesn't Own or the Machine Doesn't Work
This one will make me go through some C64, Tandy Color Computer, TI 99 4A, MSX, Amiga, and Atari ST games.  I don't have working machines for any of them except an Amiga 500 that may have a faulty disk drive or just every disk is faulty.  (Ignore non computer titles in the photos.)

Atari 8 Bit Computers Experience  That is a LOT of Atari!
I have a ton of Atari 8 bit software.  Like gobs of it.

  Ok I have given y'all five fine options of a retro computing bent to torment or tickle me.  Reasons for me to not only idiotically add more to these collections (I uhh.. just got a C64 game in today I have wanted since 1988-9.), but to put some proper time and effort into the bastards.

  Let's face it: when your collection gets large enough and your time gets more limited you both become picky at what to play and paralyzed at what to play.  You become a lazy snob griping about every little game interface issue or you get the electronic games version of Analysis Paralysis where you have so many choices you just can't decide AT ALL.  As kids unless a game was a completely unplayable war crime (LJN NES X MEN) you were gonna spend a lot of time at a game and would even give the most obnoxious games plenty of your attention as it might be your only game for a weekend rental or a gift or a borrowed game.  Or even your own allowance.  You made do with what you had.  Sometimes you would get stuck but a magazine or a book or a friend would give you the little push you needed to GET DOWN WIT YO BAD SELF and then the bad game became a personal favorite.

  So you folks now get to kick me in the ass and force me to play stuff and not just be a big whiny emo baby who stops playing a game that dares not have WASD for a first person title, or who won't bother to read the manual and figure out idiotic ass 80s game interfaces.

  This is what you vote on.  To start you get a vote.  For those reading this blog or a select forum or Discord group online you are the special ones who get to help me pick a theme.  The Let's Plays themselves will also be voted on in a Something Awful thread devoted to Casual Let's Plays as this is going to be depending on what actual theme is selected.  But those nitty gritty details can wait until sometime Sunday the 6th 2019.  Provided I get enough votes to show there is any interest in even continuing this little experiment.  (In case of a tie I get to break it.  Otherwise it is all on YOU fine folks as to what I am gonna be playing.)

  My game time in 2019 is now partially in the hands of the Internet.  Let's see what happens!

[Operation Game Collection/Let's Play] Computer Games on Consoles, Construction Sets, and Themed Malarkey PT 1.

  Happy 2019 everyone!  We are one year away from Neo Geo arcade classic Super Baseball 2020 becoming reality except Baseball is still boring and doesn't have landmines or robots in it.  But as always I have silly collection themes and a really silly idea to force me to actually spend some proper TIME with my stupidly huge collection of games I don't need or really have the proper amount of time or space for.

  But before my idea let us see yet another of my theme collections that just sort of popped out at me one year and I have sometimes added to intentionally but not really.

  Computer Games on a Console.  It is a sad fact that most people game on consoles and not their computers, or at least people won't admit to it or give computers of any sort any real respect.  (Outside of our European and United Kingdom friends.  Which apparently enrages the console fanboys of North America something fierce.)

  So many games got ported once consoles got big again because it was both an easy way to make a fast buck off a back catalog with little real effort needed and a way to get some older titles in front of a new audience.  To the point many games like Skate or Die and Tetris are more known for their NES versions than the computer originals.  Sometimes these games ended up better than their originals thanks to sometimes superior core hardware or the game effectively becoming a Director's Cut of the computer version, in other cases they are screwed up in numerous ways to become a complete embarassment.

  But either way as a computer retro type these ports have some upsides.  Being on consoles generally makes these games MUCH cheaper than their microcomputer counterparts as consoles being bigger platforms means more copies were made.  Add in that the classic era that my LP is gonna cover primarily has cartridges or CDs towards the end of it and the games are more reliable and easier to get running than temperamental floppy disk drives and the computers that tended to have single button joysticks and we at least have a recipe for interesting if not always GOOD ports of classic or niche titles that might have otherwise been forgotten and lost.

  Now what am I considering a port?  Its more or less FEELINGS.  Do I feel the game more or less started on a home computer of some kind and the console version was a later port and not just a window of time that was always intended to be a multiplatform release as so many games are these days?  Well that is what I am going by.  I could do things like look up release dates and whatnot but who really cares anyhow?  It is what I choose to consider.  Some of these could possibly be considered sequels and in fact might be so!  Anyhow, let us show what I have to my knowledge.  Note that as a fellow from the USA I am not counting MSX or NEC PC 88/98 type machines as computers for porting purposes as in general most of those titles stayed in Japan or had very limited releases in PAL territories.  Plus it would make things insane.  

We start off with 2 failed systems and the Game Boy which was more like one of the biggest consoles ever if you take the original pea soup unit up through the Color model.  That platform had a ton of sequels and ports of classic games when it wasn't becoming a dumping ground for terrible licensed dross designed to rip off children('s parents).  The Atari 7800 was a casualty of the US 1983-4 game console crash and was more or less brought out due to legal rules, full warehouses, and a notoriously cheap boss looking to make some fast ME TOO money.  So of course it would be easy to just port stuff over as the 7800 shared the same basic 6502 CPU as many big platforms of the day.  And of course the Turbografx 16 which was sold in the US hamstrung by both the hardball Nintendo was pulling at the time and how inept and clueless NEC was.  Oddly enough most of these ports are from the system's dying days in the US and are all quite good and sought after.  

I have already stated the basics of the Nintendo era.  It was also the biggest platform for two entire game console generations roughly owning the roost from 1983 to 1995 worldwide outside of a few notable regions.  So early on in Japan it was a quick way to get some software out the gate to a hungry audience once the JPN version of the NES was known to be a hit, and later on much of what I said above.  The SNES had a fair share of ports as well though not quite as many given how it didn't use the 68000 CPU most of the big home gaming machines had.  But in some cases Nintendo themselves handled a port giving us the best version of the original Sim City.  

Now Sega Master System using the 2nd most popular old system CPU (Z80) and it's follow up having the 68000 meant they both got a whole lot of ports, some of which are even BETTER at being definitive than Sim City above is.  (And far fewer disaster level ports compared to the NES.)  SMS era Sega needed software and a lot of it so it was easy to do ports and also get around Nintendo douchebaggery.  In the CD era it was easy to also take advantage of all that CD space to put those big massive multiple disk titles on a single CD.  

In fact I would say in many cases the Genesis is the cheaper alternative for retro gamers who would like to sample some of the bigger games from the Amiga and Atari ST.  While a few have issues thanks to PAL/NTSC speeds not being accounted for, by and large the Genesis could easily handle Amiga stuff of the time and normally a little bit better when enough cartridge space was alloted.

 And of course as an Ultima dork I have a lot of the better Ultima ports.  In some ways they are easier and more fun to play than their computer originals.  Although the Ultima 7 and Wing Commander SNES ports I merely have thanks to the PSP EA Replay collection are.. not definitive.  Perhaps the opposite in U7's case.

  Now let us get into the other part, Construction Sets.  (And a few things for the LP.  Hold on we are getting to that.)

  See for whatever reason I really haven't been able to have programming click in my head.  While I do still want to learn and think older computers might be a good way with all their novice level self teaching books and all, in general my brain hates programming.  But I have the urge to create.  And a Construction Set done right is a fantastic tool to at least dabble in making a game.  Done well a CSet gives you a relative amount of flexibility and freedom to create without having to code.  Done poorly they are either little more than scenario editors or so limited or so complex to use they are insults to the very idea of a CSet.  Like off brand Legos that are just giant pieces you really can't make anything but whatever was on the box cover.

Here we see a fair number of the sets I have although we may discover they aren't unlimited at all.  Or are ridiculously limited in use and scope.  Or are more or less just a scenario editor with illusions of grandeur. (Or are meant to be in an above image but were misplaced for a moment.  Yet somehow STILL FITS.)

Psychic War, War of the Lance, Roadwar 2000, Thunderscape, and Power Dolls are all options for the Let's Play.

  Ok cool huh?  I got a LOT of silly stuff.   Now it is the time for you the reader to rise up to my fate and help me not just have a hoard of games but to PLAY SOME OF THEM.  Join me swiftly along in Part 2 which will also have fun links to older posts of mine with other options to peruse!  

[Operation Game Collection] Star Wars the Video/Computer Games!

  It has been a bit but my Star Wars gaming collection continues!  Where it was intended to be the X Wing Miniatures game given the utter insult of 2nd edition and their blatant money grab hose job removed all desire I have to play that game or anything else FFG makes.

  So instead I will cover the electronic games of the Warsing and the Starsing!

 Most of the Nintendo and really older console/microcomputer titles.  Sadly I couldn't find my silly fun little Amiga sound chip that came in the Star Wars box.  It played a tiny snippet of the Star Wars theme.  I actually preordered Rebel Strike just for the bonus disk even though it and the other two Atari arcade SW games are on the main title disk.  Sadly they don't control the best as getting the old arcade flight yoke controls working in any form of home system has been really iffy.    Lots of these games do have a theme.  BEING TOO DAMNED HARD.  Rogue Leader, the 32x SW Arcade (there are like multiple SW arcade games.  Atari and two Sega at least.), and most of the Super NES titles are all brutally tough.

 The first of the Atari 800 SW Atari Arcade ports that was done fully sprite type based where the later Domark ones ala the Amiga title above attempted vector styled looks.  But had numerous inaccuracies in them.  The Starfighter game is why I bought a Playstation 2.  Both of them are great and that PSP Battlefront game had a good solo campaign for what it was.  

 The non SW Disney Infinity figures I have.  Hidden completely there are Nick Fury, Elsa from Frozen, and Donald Duck.  Plus Judy Hopps.  I have never actually played Infinity outside a little bit on the PC port without the nifty base to bring your dudes into the game easily.

 The Xbox/360 titles I own and the actual SW Infinity figures.  Most of my Infinity stuff was bought at a super cheap price and mostly just because I wanted little cool statues that looked neat.  The two KOTOR games are amazing and possibly my favorite RPGs of that era.  Jedi Outcast might be the weakest of the SW FPS games though.

 Where the real magic begins, the computer games including the beloved but stupidly unfairly difficult X Wing combat sim series.  The bottom two things are kinda just multimedia bits nobody would really need these days thanks to Wookiepedia and Youtube.  At the time it was lots of cool info and even the cut scenes from the original Star Wars involving Biggs and stuff.

 More Lego Star Wars because I seemingly have most of that series.  And the infamous mistake that was the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG.  I did play some recently on a fan server and it was a good bit of fun honestly.  But the people I was playing with more or less left super quick again even though it was free.

And the FPS and RTS section.  If you want to laugh I bought that Empire at War expansion thinking I owned the main game but apparently I do not and merely had Force Commander.  Searching for the main title I could swear I had caused me to clean the hell out of my kitchen/dining/computer room and still not find it.  A search of my upload images on new game pickups also failed to show the original so either I am losing my mind or I just misplaced it in a hell of a silly spot.  Some of these games do require fan patches to work on modern systems.  Is it worth it?  Well for Republic Commando it kind of is.  And Galactic Battlegrounds is more or less Age of Empires II which is a fantastic game.

Yeah not the most exciting of collection posts but its Star Wars games I can play which is good because I can't get people to play Star Wars RPGs, especially not the good one.  (D6)