I've Never Played Fairlight

[Nick]

While the above statement may attract comments along the lines of "It's a classic and you've never played it?" let me explain.

It looks really interesting, involving and, being a bit of a fan of fantasy themed games, just the sort of game that would engross me for a good hour or two but, with everyday life getting in the way, I don't have time at the moment to read the instructions and play it. I tend to stick to games that I already know and play them instead.

So which games that look good have any of you out there just not got round to trying yet?

[PeteProdge]

So which games that look good have any of you out there just not got round to trying yet?

I echo your thoughts, as I've not properly played Fairlight. I've played it for a few minutes, wasn't quite sure what was going on, but it looked good.

And I also want to add - Elite. Sorry everyone, but never really delved into it.

[Woodster]

And I also want to add - Elite. Sorry everyone, but never really delved into it.

Same, never been into Elite at all. Nor Fairlight.

[Juan F. Ramirez]

Really tempted to post the Donald Sutherland meme...

Talking seriously, I must confess Lords of Midnight is the kind of game that I'm sure that I'll love but with those keys it's hard to start, I need time to read the instructions properly.

Another case is Hijack by Electric Dreams. It seems a really good game to play.

[Ast A. Moore]

Yup, neither Fairlight nor Elite ever caught my eye. Elite is a brilliant concept—ahead of its time perhaps—but too monotonous. Academy was a whole different ballgame. I could play that for days on end. Fairlight? Well, too confusing and too many cumbersome controls.

[PeteProdge]

And I also want to add - Elite. Sorry everyone, but never really delved into it.

Same, never been into Elite at all. Nor Fairlight.

For me, it's not a case of 'not being into it'. I suspect I would like Elite and Fairlight. I just need some quickstart guide. Those games aren't exactly Pac Man or Space Invaders when it comes to intuitive play.

My favourite game of all time is Chaos. I know ZX Spectrum users who haven't really tried it, because they find it complicated. Yep, I'll concede it is tricky to start at first, and it'll take a few games at around 20-40 mins each, to get the feel of it.

[stupidget]

With regards to elite, I never got to play it, but I did have the gross misfortune to spend several hours in the 80’s watching a spoiled Bas**rd play it on his BBC Model B.

Picture the scene. Your dad is a Senior Sales exec and he’s just got his first Silver Vauxhall Cavalier sri and your mother works at the local register office ( yes it’s register office and not registry office!!!). To make it even more quintessentially 80’s your dads boss has invited you all round to a dinner party. After our dinner of prawn cocktail, beef wellington and lemon meringue pie the hostess with the mostess said these immortal words;

‘Edward why don’t you show Stuart your new computer’

Begrudgingly Edward ushers me upstairs to his room and says:

‘I’m playing Elite, but, you can’t touch my computer so you’ll just have to sit there and watch me.’

Suffice to say I have ever since has zero, zilch, nada, nowt, nothing, bugger all interest in Elite.

However I loves me some Fairlight

I never played football manager, match day or any strategy games.

[ZxSpence]

Played fairlight once. Impressive but dull, like the freescape series

[Ralf]

And I have never properly played Fairlight too

Actually there's a lot of famous games that I never played properly - Knight Lore, School Daze, Lords of Midnight, Tir Na Nog...
I made some aimless walking here and there, picked some object, droppped some object but that's all.

I suppose these games were just too tough for a 10 years old kid that I was in the 80s. They required quite a lot of planning,
quite a lot of mapping and quite a lot of patience which I all missed. Lacking the instructions (ahem, ahem ) didn't help too.

Theoreticaly I could play them in the 2000s when I came back to Spectrum, I could play them even now. But somehow I don't care.
They all have video recordings now which I watched to know the ending and that was enough for me. In many cases I was actually
happy that someone did the hard job of completing these games for me

[DouglasReynholm]

I don't remember exactly which thread it was, but I said pretty much the same thing myself about Fairlight not so long ago. Saw all the reviews and screenshots back in the day and it looked great, but time hasn't been kind to it. Very clunky gameplay to me. So I'll go along with you and say : Fairlight. Haven't tried the second yet...

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.

[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.