From My all time favourite video games
Hello SNES – As usual Europeans were the last to receive a major console release – in this case the 16-bit Nintendo. It arrived in the UK in April and in June for the rest of Europe.
1991 took a long time to get through, mainly due to real life getting in way and not having enough time to dedicate to playing games. 1992 looks like it will be a long year too as a house move is on the cards before the end of 2016. There are also a lot of RPGs on my shortlist.
One RPG we won’t see is Ultima VII: The Black Gate. I took a sneak peak at it and despite the amazing graphics and the start of a good storyline, it just didn‘t grab me. I remember things that annoyed me such as the AI controlling NPCs in combat, the difficulty in mapping, and Iolo being constantly hungry. What I didn’t remember is how bloody long it takes to do anything. Just exploring a single town and speaking all the citizens seemed to take forever as does traversing the map. I didn’t get on with the new ‘improved’ interface either. Not a bad game but not a favourite.
Other RPGs include the last of the Gold Box games. The series started off very well but seemed to get weaker as the years have gone by – I didn’t even bother to finish Pools of Darkness. I‘m hoping we see another glimpse of what made Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds such classics.
Out of the other games for 1992, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is the only one that really caught my eye. It got rave reviews on release, but how will it fare nearly a quarter of a century later? And will it make me nauseous like nearly all early (and a lot of later) first person games did? Only time will tell.
Original URL: http://bestretrogames.blogspot.com/2016/08/goodbye-1991-hello-1992.html