When I was a great deal younger and significantly less cynical, I used to while away many an hour at my friend Carl’s house, playing various brightly-coloured, low-resolution offerings on his monolith of a computer — an Amstrad CPC464, a behemoth of hardware compared to my own, with a massive 64Kb RAM and a beast of a 4MHz processor. While there were a number of games available on both cassette and the ill-fated, atrociously-designed 3″ floppy disks, one of the firm favourites at the time was Gauntlet II, a game that can only be described as a mash-up between dungeon crawler, top-view shoot-’em-up, and maze. Of the four characters available — Warrior, Valkyrie, Wizard, and Elf — I always used to favour the brutish warrior (to which I tended to apply the esoteric green colour scheme), while Carl would usually opt for the blue wizard.

Thus began our adventures through the maze-like dungeons of Gauntlet, a game which — originally designed for the arcade, though successfully ported to many home computers and consoles — literally lasted forever, the dungeons cycling around and rotating or flipping themselves to provide the illusion of many more. As well as the legions of bloodthirsty monsters and the sadistic whims of your fellow adventurer, the sands of time were constantly ticking away in the form of an ever-depleting health bar. This was not a game that one could “beat”, but rather a challenge to reach the furthest point, the deepest dungeon. Rumours circulated about a “Super Sorcerer” in the form of a fire-breathing red dragon on level 100, but neither of us ever managed to get that far.

In the years following, I’ve played many of the ports, re-makes, and sequels to the venerable Gauntlet, yet none have truly managed to capture the charm and personality of the original and its masterful sequel. Gauntlet IV for the Sega Megadrive (Genesis, to those in Americaland) was one of the many, and while it may have fascinated me as a kid with its proto-equipment system and distinct objectives in the form of the Quest Mode, sadly this is another attempt which tried to recreate the magic and simply missed the mark.

While there are a few game modes available, including Arcade Mode, a recreation of the original “infinite dungeons” style — now playable with up to four, rather than the original limitation of an adventuring duo — the centerpiece here is the “storyline” driven Quest Mode, where the player must conquer the four dragons hidden deep in four themed towers — fire, earth, air, and water, tediously enough — before tackling the castle in order to retrieve some ancient treasure.

Gameplay is exactly what one would expect of a Gauntlet game — legions of seemingly endless foes, ranging from the thuggish Grunts to the devious Lobbers, and the ever-feared yet unimaginatively-named Deaths. Aside from gaining experience to increase one’s stats and using treasure to purchase improved equipment, there’s also the standard plethora of items lining the floors — potion-shaped “bombs” and keys, primarily, though amulets that provide limited invisibility and a few other items also make an appearance. It’s a fairly typical affair, involving slashing or shooting your way through the throng, finding hidden “trap tiles” that unlock various parts of the maze, struggling with the headache that the teleporters are bound to induce, and generally trying to find your way to the end of the dungeon in order to dispatch the hapless dragon stationed therein.

Unfortunately, Gauntlet’s original strength — its charming, unassuming gameplay — now becomes its greatest weakness. No longer faced with a “play until you die” scenario, the player is now given solid goals and objectives, but given the nature of the dungeons, which tend to require the majority of the enemies to be cleared before all the puzzle elements can be solved, it now becomes tedium, slogging through yet more wizards, yet more ghosts, yet more demons as you try to reach the next level, only to discover that you took the wrong exit (or missed a hidden switch) and have to backtrack yet again. The ambition of Gauntlet IV is its own Achilles’ heel, as the formula that worked so well for an arcade-style slasher/shooter translates poorly to a more RPG-like format.

I wish I could say I loved this game, and perhaps at first I did — its catchy, well-themed music and familiar, retro gameplay certainly struck a chord with me to begin with, but eventually it descends into a tiresome slog of distinct sameness. Perhaps it may be more enjoyable to play in the Arcade Mode with a friend or two, but given that the crux of Gauntlet IV revolves around its Quest Mode, I’m afraid I can’t recommend this version — not when there are so many other, better Gauntlet ports available on other systems.

“Blind with panic, deaf with the roar of the caged traffic, heart stopped on the road to Damascus, Paul sat at the roadside hunched up like a gull, like a bloody gull! As useless and as doomed as a syphilitic cartographer, a dying goat-herd, an infected leg, a kidney stone, blocking the traffic bound for Sandford and Exeter. He was not drunk, Esther, he was not drunk at all! All his roads and his tunnels and his paths led inevitably to this moment of impact! This is not a recorded natural condition. He should not be sat there with his chemicals and his circuit diagrams. He should not be sat there at all!”

Dear Esther — a Half-Life 2 mod which eschews the first-person shooter standards of combat and action in lieu of telling a haunting tale, one which changes each time the game is played. I first mentioned this in Linkdump #1, but I don’t feel as though that gives enough credit to this masterwork, so allow me this further indulgence as I revisit the island and attempt to illustrate what makes this “first-person ghost story” so special.

The game — if one can call it a game; Dear Esther is more an experiment in interactive storytelling — begins on a pier of an enigmatic and seemingly-abandoned island, a place both peaceful and chilling, oozing with atmosphere, coupled with an ever-changing story which differs from one play-through to the next. Indeed, if only one thing could be praised about this game, it would have to be the stunningly exquisite writing, realized fully by equally talented voice acting which easily puts many commercial efforts to shame. The story — presumably told by the protagonist, though the details are intentionally vague — recounts glimpses of details about characters both past and present, living and dead, with an ever-present edge of sorrow and despair, coupled perhaps with a hint of lucid madness. The island is a mystery in itself, strange messages and symbols scratched into the rock, an increasing sense of familiarity by the narrator, who could just as easily be alive or dead — is this real, the product of insanity, or perhaps a cold, desolate afterlife?

Completing the effect is a truly masterful musical score, which can also be downloaded from the website; my personal favourite is track 4, “Jakobson”, though the entire collection is frankly superb and aids supremely in building the powerful atmosphere of the game. If you hadn’t guessed by this point, atmosphere is precisely what Dear Esther is all about — there are no puzzles to overcome, enemies to defeat, or mazes to traverse, only an island rich with story and personality, one which cannot be adequately described and must instead be experienced.

There is little else I can say about the game without revealing elements of the unfolding plot; if a cerebral, moving experience is something that you crave, I strongly recommend a play-through — or three! — of this magnificent offering.

The combat is pretty much the same as in the original, with a few minor improvements.

It’s 2007, and gripped in my sweaty palms is a rare treasure indeed: Assassin’s Creed, a game that promised so much and — despite its flaws and the abysmal press it received from some of its more staunch critics — I felt delivered superbly, if one is willing to be a tad lenient and forgive some of its bumbling flaws. From the stunning visuals to the thrill of the hunt through dark alleyways and across sprawling rooftops, to the re-imagining of the fast, silent and deadly ninja archetype into Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad, an eminently likable character if only because his disposition reminded me, in a way, of myself. He was brash, arrogant, over-confident, and could climb up the side of a building in seconds. In short, I was enthralled. Garrett has nothing on this guy.

Cut forward to 2009 and, late on the ball as always, I finally pick up a copy of the long-awaited sequel. It turns out to be somewhat of a mixed bag: On the one hand, Altaïr is lamentably gone and replaced by Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a noble/assassin/asshole exploring the beautifully-detailed world of Renaissance-era Italy. On the other hand, he now sports two of the iconic hidden blade weapons that redefined neck-stabbing as an entertaining and rewarding pastime, and I think this fact alone redeems any viable complaint one could have about the game. While any could enjoy the gorgeously-rendered vistas and cityscapes, the refined and highly enjoyable gameplay, and the surprisingly decent storyline which both carries on from and expands the original game’s universe, the most joy is gained from the fact that you can stab two people at the same time.

What of the rest of the game? Well, I wish I could say all of the original’s flaws have been fixed, but unfortunately that’s not the case — and the sequel comes with a host of new issues of its own. Allow me to pause and mention that, overall, I adore both games and consider them both superb pieces of work, but one would be a fool to not accept their shortcomings. The issue of repetitiveness that plagued the original — something that did not trouble me greatly, but vexed many a gamer — as well as the obnoxious hunt for flags have both been fixed, in a way. The flag-hunting is replaced by equally abhorrent feathers hidden about the world (one would be forgiven for wondering how they don’t simply blow away), and while there are dozens of treasure chests hidden in each area, they become almost tediously easy to track down after buying a treasure map from a local merchant, which costs about the same as the contents of a single box.

Unlike his predecessor, Ezio can actually swim. This adds little to the gameplay, but avoids frustration from unfair deaths.

Moreover, the fluid agility of the free-running element that so defines the series has been pushed a little too far; there are many cases where it’s starkly obvious that the designers created certain buildings (usually view-point areas, used to gain a view of the surrounding land) as agility puzzles of a sort, requiring a fair amount of tedium while one figures out the exact route intended to scale said building, with usually almost no variant allowed in the ascent. Worse, the assassins’ tombs dotted about the world, which are necessary for reasons I will refrain from spoiling, are simply large, highly annoying Prince of Persia wannabes which involve — again — a fixed route through a series of increasingly difficult jumping and agility puzzles, while Ezio ascends towards his goal. A far cry from the free-form nature of its predecessor, these sequences feel stiff, forced, and largely unfulfilling.
With that said, the rest of the game is fairly polished and highly enjoyable; the world is painted beautifully in a much-improved graphics engine, the gameplay is (mostly) as slick and fluid as one would expect, and what Ezio lacks in the iconic nature of his forerunner, he makes up for with style — which is further flexible, as his appearance changes depending on the weapons and armour purchased and equipped, as well as a fairly wide variety of clothing dyes which provide further customization. There are dozens of other things I could mention, but alas, would take too much space: The ‘upgradeable’ stronghold town, the variety of weapons and ability to even use a foe’s dropped blade against his allies, the much-improved notoriety system (merely running down the street will no longer necessarily attract cries of, “Assassin! Keel heem!”), and so many more.

Overall, I’d say Assassin’s Creed II is a worthy successor to the original, though likely something I’d only recommend for fans. If you liked the first game, then despite its flaws, you’ll enjoy stalking and murdering through the streets of Venice, but given that it carries on where the original left off and barely explains the events of the former game, I’d suggest first-time players look in the bargain bin for a copy of the original before considering this sequel.