I've Never Played Fairlight

[Morkin]

I can't think of many classic, highly rated games that I didn't play at least briefly at some point. I suspect Fairlight is one of those that may not have aged as well if you play it for the first time today but what I liked about it at the time was the setting, the way the rooms were connected in a congruous way to form the various parts of the castle, including more open areas rather than a fairly bog-standard sized room/playing area in each screen.

One game I don't remember playing that seems to be rated highly is Myth - History in the Making. Just never got round to it.

Ha! Just booted up Fairlight II, seems to be quite a bit more playable..

EDIT - (final) - Yes, this does seem a lot better than the original. Now I'm stuck in the red dungeon with the rocks and barrels - help please? Have just snapshot it there.

Heheh... Good luck finishing Fairlight II...

[DouglasReynholm]

Heheh... Good luck finishing Fairlight II...

Oh, does it have it's own 'attic bug' then?

[WIWC]

As far as I remember I snapshotted Fairlight II until the end or almost, some years ago. The loopy maze was the worst.

I've never played/got reallly into the Gargoyle's graphic adventures. Tir Na Nog, Dun Darach, Marsport, Heavy On The Magick.

I can't play much the Wally series.

I've barely scraped the surface of the Magic Knight series, though it was interesting (except Finders Keepers, which I don't like).

I don't care about Elite.

[Morkin]

Oh, does it have it's own 'attic bug' then?

...Well from what I've heard, I believe it's sort of... err... missing an actual ending...

As far as I remember I snapshotted Fairlight II until the end or almost, some years ago. The loopy maze was the worst.

I've never played/got reallly into the Gargoyle's graphic adventures. Tir Na Nog, Dun Darach, Marsport, Heavy On The Magick.

I can't play much the Wally series.

I've barely scraped the surface of the Magic Knight series, though it was interesting (except Finders Keepers, which I don't like).

I don't care about Elite.

[Vampyre]

When it first came out I played Fairlight loads and thought it was marvellous. Fast forward a few years to when I get a PC capable of decent emulation and it's one of the first games I load up. Disappointment City. It's too slow, cumbersome and all-in-all quite boring. Definitely a game of it's time that didn't age well, even though it was only about 8 years later when I re-tried it.

There's quite a few games that I never got to try at time of release, glanced at through emulation before deciding they weren't for me. Classics like the Midnight games, Gargoyle's Cuchulain stuff, Julian Gollop's strategy games to name but a few.

Weirdly I always hated Elite on any platform - just couldn't get on with it. But I loved the sequel Frontier on the ST and later PC. Still got my original PC disk and the save games in a Dropbox account (dated 1996!).

[ZxSpence]

The finders keepers series were too hard.

[Ast A. Moore]

Speaking of Elite. As I mentioned earlier, it was never my cup of tea—far from it. However, for some reason, I really enjoyed Oolite. It had a good blend of space adventure, trading, and decent graphics.

[Joefish]

I got Fairlight when it came out and was pretty impressed. The scenic graphics were excellent and it was laid out like a real building, not a grid of square rooms. But it was hard to get far into it, or even to commit to trying, without a few cheats in there. But I agree it's aged badly - as has pretty much any game where the refresh rate stutters and slows right down.

I never understood exactly how to play Lords of Midnight. I guess there was more strategy to it than I appreciated but you were supposed to co-ordinate multiple characters and recruit armies, and I had no idea how to do it with all those single-keypress actions. I think part of the problem was I got it as part of a compilation, without proper instructions, map, or whatever else you needed.

The Wally games were just slow and had horrendous colour-clash. And the way the doors turned rooms end-on in some of them made it all too hard to follow.

Elite was one I liked and played quite a bit, getting my status up to 'Elite' and getting lots of weapons and cash. But ultimately it just got a bit boring.

Finders Keepers was good, once you'd read some hints about what to acquire, and I played the 48K version of Knight-Tyme quite a bit too. But I couldn't get into the other games. The menu system was just too messy.

And I loved Treasure Island Dizzy on the ST, but having played through that, I just couldn't get into any of the others. I get pretty bored with games that just re-tread the same ideas over and over - kind of like Traveller's Tales LEGO games on modern consoles - they're a brilliant idea, and the Star Wars ones were hilarious, but there's just nothing new in the endless rehashes they make whenever a new license comes up.

[WIWC]

Strawberry Zythums Forever.

[DouglasReynholm]

...Well from what I've heard, I believe it's sort of... err... missing an actual ending...

Now you mention it - I do remember there being something about it way back when - perhaps I subconsciously avoided playing it ever since for that reason..

Interestingly, I just looked at the ~25min RZX 'playthrough' on this site, and it does appear to end with a lock that cannot be unlocked, then the protagonist wanders off to another room, then.... a THE END? screen.. Though no final action seems to have been taken. So how does it/can it have an end screen? I'm confused..

Anyway, I have to agree with the Dizzy game thing, certainly never played one title more than once. I was just wondering to myself if it was too cutesy for me in my then ('manly') teenage years, but then I remembered my love of Bubble Bobble and the like so... not for that reason.

Edit: In fact, I was never a fan of the whole Darling/Oliver bros output at all. Maybe Micro Machines in a pinch, but all the early 'super fab turbo simulator' stuff went over my head.

[ZxSpence]

Can't argue with that, found Dizzy a total snore fest but some people love it.

[wizbob]

Lords of Midnight and Doomdark's Revenge are on the list for me - I did love Midwinter 1 and 2 though. I have also played a level or two of Laser Squad recently and enjoyed it enough to try Rebelstar and Space Crusade.

Other games that require some time investment are Marsport, Movie and The Land That Time Forgot. I only just read about hitting the shields in Skool Daze last week, so that might warrant a revisit too.

[Morkin]

Can't argue with that, found Dizzy a total snore fest but some people love it.

+1 here.

OK for a budget game and nice graphics, but I remember even at the time thinking it was mainly over-hyped because of it's price - it was released in 1987 so not exactly groundbreaking.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I even hated Dizzy before I first played it!

[Vampyre]

Dizzy games - another set to add to the list of never-played.

[Pegaz]

I have never played Starquake seriously, though this type of game is among my favorites.
Same thing with Quazatron, dont liked at all.
Never goes deeply into Tau Ceti and Academy, just preferred Elite.
However, both games look interesting, maybe it's time to give them a chance.

[djnzx48]

I'm not much of a Dizzy fan either, but some of the modern games are pretty good - Log Cabin Dizzy, Mushrooms Pie and Crystal Kingdom Dizzy. Worth playing IMO. I still find the jumping physics kind of annoying, as you can't stop yourself from rolling to your doom if you land in the wrong place.

Chaos, The Great Escape and Lords of Midnight are some of the games I never really got into. Mostly because I never knew what you were supposed to do. And with Lords of Midnight, you also needed that keyboard overlay thing or there were too many different actions to remember.

[Joefish]

With Midwinter (I know, it's a 16-bit game) I never played it, but then I could never figure out from all that was written about it, how it actually played. It had a real-time simulation look to it, with driving and flying looking like a flight sim or Carrier Command, but then it was supposed to be some sort of turn-based strategy game? I don't get how that works.

[Ast A. Moore]

Carrier Command was pretty awesome. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, until a friend came over and showed me how to play it properly. I then spent weeks playing it. Tomahawk, though . . . I honestly tried to like it. Even figured out all the controls, but . . . It was never meant to be. And I like helicopters.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Chaos, The Great Escape and Lords of Midnight are some of the games I never really got into. Mostly because I never knew what you were supposed to do.

As to The Great Escape, I learned how to play easily, and I was not given any instructions... you know...

Just a question of having enough time to explore, use objects, easy to play and easy to finish.

[ZxSpence]

Carrier command on the Speccy was brilliant