Wasteland 2, Baby!

I'm not going to have any info on Wasteland 2 that you won't find (or have found) anywhere else, but in case you don't know a thing about it, read on. (All are invited to read nonetheless!)

Rewind back to 1988. A game called Wasteland is released to an unsuspecting public. (How trite, blog author!) Interplay developed the game, while Electronic Arts published it. Set in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic (ahem) wasteland, the game found success in the PC gaming market in which it spawned. It's been seen as a classic ever since.

A sequel of sorts was released, titled Fountain of Dreams. It was not advertised as a sequel, and Interplay did not develop it. It was poorly received. Onward.

Fast forward to 1997. Fallout was released, developed and also published by Interplay, who stated that it was a spiritual successor to Wasteland. Interplay could not use the Wasteland name since it was owned by Electronic Arts. Needless to say, Fallout met with huge success, spawning several sequels and spin-offs.

Now fast forward to 2003. Brian Fargo is no longer the head of Interplay (he resigned after Titus Interactive bought the company and shifted its focus to console games), and recently founded InXile Entertainment. He bought the rights to the Wasteland name, which had been acquired at some point by Konami.

After several years, Brian tried to find a publisher for Wasteland 2. None of them were interested in funding a sequel to such an old game. In February of 2012, Brian announced that he had assembled all the key team members of the original Wasteland game, and was going to try to gather funds for the project, using a crowd-funding website called Kickstarter.

On March 13th, 2012, the Wasteland 2 page on Kickstarter went live. The goal for funding was $900,000. The project met its goal in 42 hours. At the time of this writing, over $1.5 million has been donated. What does this mean? More stories and quests, more maps, more music, and a more complex story. Plus, the game will be available for Mac and Linux!

$1.5 million... and 24 days of funding to go! I wonder how high this will go? I knew that Wasteland had a sizable cult following, but this? Wow!

Personally, I'm going to try to donate $75 to this project. It's not completely altruistic, especially given the fact that I'd really be scraping the barrel for this - if I can do it at all. For $75, you'd get:

• A mysterious "unique and quirky" skill for your party in the game. Hmmm.
• A DRM-free digital copy of the game.
• A digital soundtrack.
• A Wasteland 2 art book.
• A Big boxed copy of Wasteland 2, with cloth map and old-style game manual! Oh, drooool...
• Parts 1 and 2 of an early release novella with hints and such on the game world and story. Yay!!!
• You'd get signed up for an early-release beta of the game, playable on Steam. Exciting!

Oddly enough, I've never played the original Wasteland game. However, I have experienced the game in a way, first by watching the excellent Let's Play by mynameisnotlilly. (Click here for that.) Secondly, through the bloggy musings of The CRPG Addict. (Click here for the first post.) I highly recommend both!

Click here to go to the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter page.

Click here to read the Wasteland 2 blog.

My iBuyPower Gaming Rig Experience - Part 2

In my last post, I was wondering when iBuyPower was planning on at least starting to collect the materials for my custom-built computer system. Less than 24 hours after I posted that entry, I received an email from iBP. It reads:

Parts Gathering (Beginning)

Your order is now with our inventory department and they have begun gathering the parts needed for your build. Please note that those orders with a rush option selected will receive expedited processing, but it is not uncommon for regular orders to take some days before this parts gathering process is completed. Your status will be updated online and you will receive an email update when the parts process is completed.

---

The Next Step: Parts Gathering Completion.
The next email you will receive will be notification that we've gathered your system parts. 

Just to be thorough (and to include it on this blog), I went to their website to check if they had updated their order status there.

Status Date	Status	Notes/Tracking#
3/7/2012 4:50:45 PM	Processing	Materials are now being gathered to complete the order.
3/1/2012 4:00:49 PM	Processing	Payment has been successfully received/approved.
2/29/2012 4:46:00 PM	Processing	The order has been received and will be reviewed/processed by a sales rep.
2/29/2012 2:39:02 PM	Submitted	Order Submitted by Customer

They took my money, yet decided to wait six days (okay, four business days) to start looking for the parts. Like I said before, the main complaint that people have about iBuyPower is that they are slow in getting the systems together and shipped out. Anyway, I'm excited, yet I feel that I'm being rather patient thus far. I have a bunch of other things to attend to in the meantime. Such as this desk, or workstation:

I tried to keep the desk at a low price (hence, WalMart), since I'd already paid so much for the system. This desk doesn't appear to be made out of pressed woodchips, or whatever their cheaper desks are made out of. I want the tower up off the floor, to help avoid cat hair and kids' feet, and improve ventilation. And besides, that case is made for showing off. With that shade of pink, I'm sure it'll catch the eye of anyone walking in the room, and I don't mind that. Anyway, this desk seems a bit stronger. I'm hoping it will easily support the weight of the tower, but I am going to be putting that on the left-hand side of the desk, so the legs should help support the weight. The tower is 24 pounds when empty! 

I also wanted to make sure that the keyboard tray is high enough to slide over my legs. I like to sit in a cross-legged style when sitting at the computer, and the tray we have on this desk now (as I'm typing this) is just too low to slide over my legs when sitting that way. I don't want to sit too far away from the computer, so I end up sliding the tray just partly out, and placing the keyboard diagonally. I'd like to type like I used to. The desk is 30 inches high, and the tray is pretty close to the top, so I should make it. We'll see. If not, I'll just have to get an office chair with a pneumatic lift and no arms.

I had the tower shipped to a nearby store (free shipping, gotta love that!), but we're waiting on the repair of our truck. It's a Ford Bronco, and it needs a bit of work to pass emissions. Once it's fixed and registered, we can easily pick up that sucker (a 50" long box) and bring it home. Then we get to put it together, and hopefully correctly. I can't wait. /sarcasm off

Here's a link to that desk on walmart.com if anyone is really that interested: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mixed-Media-Workstation-Black-w-Silver-Frame/10927258

In my last post, I failed to mention all the games I got. These are games that I'm unable to even play on our older computer, much less record. The first three games listed here will really show off the graphics capability of this system.

• S K Y R I M (`Nuff said.)

• Crysis 2 (Yes, I do like FPS games. The jury is still out on whether I'm any good at them, though.)

• Battlefield 3 (Ditto. I want to see how it runs at max settings across the board. I'm sure the FPS will drop drastically when recording, though.)

• Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Cheesy title, and you'd think it would be bad, but look at this video review here! There's an original story, though somewhat a rehashing of the first movie, and the original actors came back to do voice acting! Bill Murray is the man!)

• Planescape: Torment (Yes, I'm finally going to be playing this!)

• Orange Box (Containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 (all of which I'll get around to playing at some point), Team Fortress 2 (which I probably won't play at all), and Portal (which is my main reason for getting this))

• Portal 2 (I'm going to be playing Portal 1 and 2 with my daughters, as Let's Plays. I got a desk mic just for this little experiment. This should be interesting.)

• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Yes! I love this game. I played it quite a bit on my friend/roommate's PlayStation 2. I never owned the game or the system, and I never really followed the main quest/story. I would just fulfill a task to open up more of the city, so that I could run over more people, and drive cars off of more rooftops. Mwah ha ha ha! In the PC version, you can drop MP3 files into a certain folder, and they'll play when you turn on the car radio. That'll be so much fun for a Let's Play, to subject viewers to some of my crazy tastes in music. I just so happen to love 80's songs, which are featured in the game, but there's so much more I could throw in there, hehe!)

So I think those should keep me busy for awhile.

Speaking of games and Let's Plays... since I can now play more modern games, I'm going to be changing the format/schedule of my channel a bit. I'm going to be focusing on RPG games more extensively than before, while also playing Adventure Games, and adding in First-Person Shooters. My schedule right now is:

• 1 RPG upload a day.
• 1 Adventure Game upload a day.

Now `twill be:

• 2 RPG uploads a day, one a classic/older game, and one a newer game (Example: Skyrim and Planescape: Torment).
• 1 Adventure Game upload, or FPS upload, or Horror/Survival, or possibly another genre, 3 to 4 times a week. This could be an older or newer game.

The RPGs are usually lengthy games, and Adventures and FPSs usually are not, so they should break up any tedium, and allow me to keep adding games to my list. As for other genres, they'll show up from time to time. I'm very selective, though, as far as anything not fitting into RPG, Adventure, Horror, or FPS. The only one I can think of right now is Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. I love that game. "Hello!" "Hello." "Follow me." "Okay."

More to come as things develop!

My iBuyPower Gaming Rig Experience - Part 1

Guess what? CHICKENBUTT!

Guess why? iBuy... Power!

i... Ahem. I have purchased an almost-top-of-the-line gaming computer from iBuyPower. Tax returns rule. Gone will be the glitches, the slow-downs when trying to record even rudimentary full-motion video. Gone will be the inability to play games like S K Y R I M , much less record them.  ;)

I can hear Damon Wayans from the Homeboy Shopping Network now: "Lookit all the stuff we got, lookit all the stuff!"

Yes, it's PINK, inside and out! Not only that, but it's actually functional. This is the Pink Phantom case from NZXT. It's a full tower, and just over 21 inches tall, and 24 1/2 inches long. It has space for five fans, with four included (more on that in a bit). The black mesh works well for ventilation, and hey... pink and black have always gone well together. There are handy clip mounts for putting in more optical drives or what-have-you, and bay slots for adding more hard drives.

Here's a close-up shot of the fan controller on the top of the rig. The LED lights are blue, but can be turned off if one so desires.

And here's a pic of the swinging door open, showing the optical bays inside. The door attaches magnetically.

If you want more info on the case itself, click here to read the review on Overclockers Club... written by a girl, of course.

Enough on the case, because it's what's inside that matters the most!

I have two graphics cards in this thing. They are both nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards, and will be running in SLI mode. What the hell is SLI mode? It stands for Scalable Link Interface, and it allows two graphics card to run together. The result is better performance, and stability as well. Two 560 Ti's will create a gaming experience that is smoother and faster than even the GTX 580. (Ref: http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/battlefield-3-beta-performance-guide)

Below is a benchmark of Battlefield 2: Bad Company, from Hardware Canucks (original article), in which you can see the two 560 Ti's coming real close to the framerate of nVidia's most powerful GPU yet, the GTX 590!

My CPU is a neural net processor, a learning computer. Ummm, wait.

*turns off Terminator movie running in background* 

Okay. My CPU is an Intel Core i5-2550K Processor. They had a free upgrade deal, from 2500K to the 2550K. The 'K' at the end means that I can overclock it easily. I declined on having my CPU overclocked by iBuyPower, just for this reason. I can do it myself, and for free.  ;)

Memory? 16 GB (4 GB sticks; quantity 4.) These are the standard DDR3-1600.

Hard drives? Two, please. Well, one is a small (yet very speedy) 120 GB SSD drive from AData. This is where the operating system, and often used programs and games go. SSDs (Solid-State Drives) are basically huge flash drives. With no platter to spin around, the data on a SSD is read or written much quicker. The other is a 2 TB drive, standard 7200 RPMs and all that. 

My motherboard is an Asus P8 Z68-V. These also come in Pro and Deluxe models, but the only differences are more SATA ports for hard drives (there are six already, so no, I won't be needing more), firewire (I don't use that), and a higher version of Bluetooth (I don't use that either).

My power supply is a 1050 Watt unit from Corsair. I'm not sure I need that high of a power supply, but with the two graphics cards added into iBuyPowers configuration menus, they recommended an 800 Watt power supply at minimum. Given the options listed, I could've gone for an 800 Watt (pushing it), an 850 Watt (maybe a bit too close to the minimum for my tastes), or a 1050 Watt. Sold.

I also got a 12X Blu-Ray re-writer drive... in purple. Yes, purple. It'll be covered up by the door on the front of the case, but oh well.

Now, remember where I said that one of the fans weren't included in the Pink Phantom case? I did purchase a liquid cooling system, with push-pull airflow. I'm not sure if that will go in the empty fan slot or not. Maybe they would just replace one of the other fans. The size of those top fans are not a standard size (probably so that you'd have to buy the missing fan from NZXT as well), but we'll see.

As for the monitor. I got a 27", namely the Sceptre X270W. It's a 1080P monitor, which of course, means you can achieve a maximum resolution of 1920x1080. I've heard mixed things about Sceptre's monitors, mostly having to do with color wash. I've read some good reviews on this one though, and if you don't have 700 bucks or more to spend on a monitor, this is a good way to go.

Now, if anyone is still reading, on to the accessories and other miscellaneous crap.

I got the standard Logitech Internet Mouse, but for the keyboard, I chose Thermaltake's eSports Challenger Pro. I've heard a lot of good things about this keyboard, and it has red backlighting, which will go nicely with the Pink Phantom. There are also multimedia keys, 2 USB ports, and 10 macro keys, which can be used in conjunction with four profiles to create up to 40 macro keys. More than I'll ever use. There is also this cute little fan attached to the upper left-hand corner. It's pretty neat, but I don't suppose I'd be using that very much.

I've got case lighting! It was only 15 bucks, so why not? It's called a Meteor Light, and it has eight settings, I suppose to make the light strobe at different speeds and such. I got it in blue. It also comes in red and green. I felt that the red would be washed out somewhat by the pink of the case interior, and I like blue better than green, so... this is going to one colorful system.

I signed up for iBuyPower's noise reduction system. I've heard that these gaming rigs can sound like a jet engine. I kind of doubt that, as many households would become completely deaf, but I get the idea that it's loud. LOL.

I got an AeroCool Touch1000 fan controller system. Handy for keeping an eye on temps and such when overclocking, or just in general.

I chose iBuyPower's default network card and sound card. I was originally going for their in-house brand speaker system as well, but after hearing some bad things about it, I spent an extra $37 for Logitech's Z313 2.1 speakers. 5.1 is nice, but I was spending enough already, and I'll be gaming with a headset a lot of the time anyway.

Speaking of headsets, I splurged and got Logitech's G330. I knew this is a good one, since this is one that is used by a Let's Player that I knew before there even were Let's Plays, Tord a.k.a. mynameisnotlilly. (He was in my Dungeons and Dragons 3rd Edition group back in 2003.) Listen to his narration here, speaking through the Logitech G330. I think my days of audio hiss are going to be gone as well (jumps for joy).

I chose Windows 7 Professional. It was only $31 more than the Home version, and the selling point for me is the ability to run programs in "XP Mode." I'm not sure how well this really works, but I'm sure to find out at some point, since some of the games I want to play are old Windows games. They won't run in DOSBox since they don't run in DOS, and they won't run in Vista or 7, especially the 64-bit versions. It's nice that Microsoft is finally making a real attempt towards backwards compatibility. I look forward to trying out XP Mode.

I also sprung for iBuyPower's "pro wiring," so that the cables and wires inside won't look like a total mess. I also rung up their "advanced packaging system." It's just added padding that they put around, and I believe to some extent, inside of the case, but hey, better safe than sorry.

Something interesting: I managed to get free shipping on the tower ($50 for the monitor). iBuyPower has custom configuration menus that let you choose what components you want to add, delete, or change to a more expensive (or inexpensive) part. What you do is choose a processor family (Intel i5, i7, AMD whatever (I have no idea about anything AMD)), and go from there. What I did is click a link near the top of the page, "Weekly Special." I chose "Intel System," then "Special-A." I configured my system from there. The weekly specials come with FREE shipping. My rig came out to be the same exact price that I got from going the more obvious ways, by selecting one of the configurators (is that a word?) proudly displayed in the middle of the web page. In short, I saved $75.

So now that we're talking money, how much did this all cost, you ask? $2,692.00 + $50.00 shipping (for the monitor, can't avoid that one, lol) = $2,742.00. Now I know I could've saved up to $1,000 by buying the parts from Newegg or somewhere similar, but while I am pretty computer savvy, I'm just not confident that I could assemble a system like this without messing something up. I actually just learned about several things while doing research on this system, like liquid cooling and SSD drives. I want this thing to work well, and last a long time. Replacing or upgrading a part is one thing (and seems easy with the case set-up), but from scratch? No thanks.

I bought this system on February 29th. I'm guessing that I have two to three weeks until it arrives. Firstly, it takes a week and a half for iBuyPower to assemble the system. Most of their business comes from custom computer sales, so they must be working furiously, like little builder ants, putting all this stuff together, and testing the configuration for stability, etc., etc. Secondly, to get the free shipping, I chose the US Postal Service, ground shipping. Ground takes around 5 to 7 business days to ship. So I figure another week and a half, at most, once the system is shipped.

What I do notice though, is that they have not in any way indicated that they've started putting my system together. They have a "status check" page on their site, and here's the info:

Status Date	Status	Notes/Tracking#
3/1/2012 4:00:49 PM	Processing	Payment has been successfully received/approved.
2/29/2012 4:46:00 PM	Processing	The order has been received and will be reviewed/processed by a sales rep.
2/29/2012 2:39:02 PM	Submitted	Order Submitted by Customer

I should be seeing the next phase by now, namely: "The materials needed for the order have been gathered." I get that it takes awhile to get the parts assembled and tested, but why haven't they started? Perhaps one (or more) of the parts are on backorder? If not, why not a simple message on the website, or to my email address, to let me know? Methinks I will be making a call to them if I don't see a change soon. Actually, meknows.

The main qualm that most people have with iBuyPower (if they have a qualm at all), is time. The secondary qualm is damaged parts, which could likely happen during shipping. I have been told that their customer service is excellent, and if something is damaged, they will replace the part. It just delays things. I can be patient though. I'd rather wait and get a good product. Yes, I want the thing (want want want!!!), but I'm surely not suffering without it.

Questions and comments are welcome. More to come...

My New Intro! Also: Wanna Win Stuff?

Hey hey, people! First of all, I made a new intro for my YouTube channel and/or Let's Play videos. It's all of a mere 25 seconds, but geez, did I work for those seconds.

The one thing I can't claim is the music. The track, "Past the Chase," is by Peter Hajba, perhaps better known as Skaven. He received some kind of "pre-internet fame," composing music with a program called ScreamTracker, for a group known as Future Crew.These music and animation tracks and demos would be distributed on BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems... yes, a mode of computer communication before the Internets! Amazing, huh?) all over the world. Skaven is still around, coming out with music (most not to my liking, unfortunately), and he has a Facebook page now. Networking is a bit easier now than it was in the early `90s. Just a wee bit.

I did edit the bits out of the track that I wanted to keep, and duplicated and reversed the ending. The voice at the beginning and end of the clip is mine, whispering. I amplified and robotified (is that a word?) the sample with a handy old program called CoolEdit 96. Yes, 96. It won't work on Windows Vista, so I had to hop on over to our XP machine from 2001, to edit all those audio clips. (They've since resorted to insisting on money for their audio editing software, and their latest iteration is known as Adobe Audition.) Someday I'll get around to using material that's from this century!

As for the video segments, the beginning and ending logos were made by using an online logo creator called CoolText. ("Cool" seems to be the theme here...) I also found some cool 8-bit alien pics on CoolText, and decided to enact some crude "animation," if you could call it that. I arranged the logos and alien pics in MicroSoft Paint, of all things. I synced them with the audio (more or less) by viewing the pics one by one in Windows Photo Gallery, pressing the arrow button as the sound clip would roll by, kind of like a flipbook.

Figuring out how many seconds I had of pure song, I threw in four short sequences from previous Let's Plays. These are from the following games (in order, natch): Dungeon Master, King's Quest II remake, Eye of the Beholder II, and Dragonsphere.

Below is the intro vid. Please let me know what you think! Or... if you like or hate it, and don't want to verbalize that, click on the YouTube logo at the bottom right-hand corner to go to the video page, and click Like or Dislike. But hey, constructive criticism is best.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

And yes, as the title suggests, there is an opportunity (or two) to win stuff! Not from this blog (though I would love to do so eventually). Here's the scoop:

iBuyPower, a company and website specializing in gaming desktops and laptops, is doing a Battlefield 3 bundle giveaway. They're giving away a signed copy of Battlefield 3 Limited Edition (signed by who, I have no idea), and a whole crapload of things that have the BF3 logo and burning soldier pic on them... such as a mousepad, an Imperator mouse, an XBox 360 controller, an iPhone cover, a Black Widow keyboard, and a messenger bag. 5 runner ups get the BF3 Limited Edition game. No, I do not work for iBuyPower in any fashion. I just find myself over there quite a bit, making up custom configurations and droooooling. I've never even played BF3. I just saw this cool deal, and figured I'd let you guys know about it. You can't even find it on their homepage (believe me, I just tried to look it up again), so make sure you use my special link to get to the contest page. The deadline for the contest is set for the end of February 14th, i.e. 23:59 PST, on that day. PLEASE NOTE: You have to have a Facebook account to enter.

Yes, I am "That RPG Chick," but I do enjoy FPS games as well (and I'm sure you've notiiced the Adventure Games posted here also). I have only played a handful of shooters, and no modern games at all (nothing past 2004!), but I'm working on that. `Nuff said.

There's another giveaway going on at Gary Hawkins' Gamesoup blog. A random t-shirt from Insert Coin Clothing will be given away (tailored to your size specifications) to the lucky winna! Insert Coin makes shirts and hoodies featuring fictional companies and places from popular videogames. (Too bad the Fallout 3-inspired shirt just says "Quantum," and not "Nuka Cola." That would've been killer!) Click here for more info on his contest. Gary's deadline seems to be February 16th (since he merely said he would announce the winner on the 17th's blog post). Thanks, Gary!

`Nuff said.

Let's Play King's Quest III Redux: To Heir is Human

Platform: PC/Windows

Released: 1986 (original), 2011 (remake)

Genre: Adventure

Setting: Fantasy

Developer: Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (original), AGD Interactive (remake)

Publisher: Same as above

Version: King's Quest III remake: 1.0

Playlist (Begins with King's Quest I):

Or click here to view the playlist on YouTube.

First Video in the Series:

Or click here to view the video on YouTube.

I have a personal vendetta against this game. This was the first computer game I had ever played, and I can't tell you how many times I found myself turned into something by that verdammt wizard! Anyway, we don't play the part of King Graham in this game. Not in the least. We play a boy named Gywdion, who is slave to an evil wizard. This is the trickiest King's Quest yet, since Manannan is always keeping tabs on us. The remake has been made a bit easier, by giving us a color-coded timer and a glow around "contraband" items. But it's still tricky. Tag along as I try to get this poor boy out of that hellhole!

[Total Game Time - 12:10:50]

Selected Comments From YouTube:

• KQIII, whether original Sierra, remake or redux, is everybody's arch nemesis game :-)

• don't disturb me. i'm resting. what part of don't disturb me do you not understand. lol.

• I bought all of these King's Quest games on steam long time ago but my computer wasnt too happy about the games being so old so I never got to really play them, but now I can enjoy watching you play them!:) 

• :D keep it up "retro queen":P

• LOVE yoir various movie and TV references

• Hi! Just a quick, THANKS! I love these vids. I played ALL the original KQ and am enjoying these remakes also. I like watching your vids, making notes, then whipping through the games. This is maybe better than watching a movie! If you would, please, in case I missed it, tell us what you used to record your games? Another oldey but goody is Outpost 2, there's a fan site for it also and new scenarios too. I'm fairly regular in playing that mid to late winter yearly. Good work!

 

Links of Interest:

Download the game for free, For PC or Mac, at AGD Interactive's Website

Matt Chat Video Retrospective on King's Quest I - III and Remakes

Short G4 Video Clip on King's Quest and King's Quest Remakes

Pawdugan's Video Retrospective on the Original King's Quest III

King's Quest Series Retrospective on 1UP.com

King's Quest III (Original) on Wikipedia

King's Quest III (Original) on MobyGames

King's Quest III (Remake) on MobyGames

Review (Original) on Adventure Classic Gaming

Review (Original) on Adventure Gamers

Review (Remake) on Adventure Gamers

Holiday Delays and Other Creatures

Wow. The holidays really got me caught behind in game playing and recording. I like to record during the day, when the kids are at school. I like to be about two weeks ahead, in case of flu, toothache, or traitorous headset microphones. I was in good shape around the Thanksgiving holiday, but I fell somewhat behind in December. First, I was sick, then one of my kids were home sick. The fight with Dran Draggore in Eye of the Beholder II didn't help either. It took me almost all day to kill that suminumbatch. Anyway, I could record at night when everyone goes to sleep, but I find that I'm not as into the game when I do that. I always have this feeling in the back of my head that someone is listening to me, or someone's going to ask me to get a drink for them while I'm trying to kill some boss character. My Let's Plays seem a bit more bland to me when it's a night recording.

So I'm taking a week off. I hope that it will only be a week, but that should be sufficient. I don't like fly-by-LPs, where I record, edit, and upload all in one day. With the editing and the YouTube viewing afterwards (for glitch spotting and annotating when necessary), I just wasn't getting ahead at all.

Speaking of Eye of the Beholder, I had a great time playing those two games, but I'm also thrilled to be done with them, and get on to Dungeon Master. I won't be playing the third Eye of the Beholder game anytime soon. There isn't a remake of this game, which means no automap. Doing a Let's Play while mapping on graph paper is... ummm, stupid. I've played Dungeon Master before, and I remember most of it. It's a lot easier to lay waste to Lord Chaos than Dran Draggore.  ;)

As a new Let's Player, I'm trying to get a bunch of games under my belt. Adventure games are good for this, since they usually take under 10 hours to finish, even while playing blind. RPGs, however, tend to be a bit longer. Okay, a whole lot longer! If I was to start playing Baldur's Gate I and II now, I wouldn't be done for over a year and a half. Having three RPGs done (and twice that many adventure games)... well, it brings some satisfaction to me. It can also result in more subscribers. The more games you play, the more searches will come to your videos.

That said, to be a Let's Player, you really have to do it for your own reasons, and have fun with it. There's plenty who have done it for some kind of fame or something. Many of them quit doing LPs. As for me, the fringe benefits of comments and subscriptions are really nice, but they're just the icing on the cake. I'm playing games, gabbing while playing games, editing me gabbing while playing games, uploading my edits of me gabbing while playing games... and I'm having a blast. `Nuff said.

Let's Play Dungeon Master

Platform: Amiga

Released: 1987

Genre: RPG

Setting: Fantasy/Dungeon Crawler

Developer: FTL Games

Publisher: FTL Games
Version: 3.6

 Playlist:

Or click here to view the playlist on YouTube.

First Video in the Series:

Or click here to view the video on YouTube.

This is the grandaddy of them all! Dungeon Master is the first real-time 3D RPG. It became the highest-selling game for the Atari ST, and was rapidly ported to many other systems soon after. I'm playing the Amiga version, which I greatly prefer. This game scared the hell out of me when I was little. After being battle-hardened (horror-hardened?) by games like Silent Hill and Undying, I was able to handle the shrieking mummies a bit better. I later finished the game, ergo this is not a blind run like many of my other Let's Plays. I'll try to be informative and such, but there's no way I can fly around the dungeons like Elanarae can. ;)

[Total Game Time - 13:20:03]

Selected Comments From YouTube:

• Yay! Finally an interesting LP of this game! :D

Keep up the good work!

• karate trousers!! this game was so weird in some ways for a fantasy game. but the wizardry and M&M games were very strange at times too i reckon. o.0

• it's amazing after all these years DM still has great gameplay mechanics - better than most of its rivals in a lot of ways. its only true gameplay weakness is the lack of a map IMO. =)

• don't you know it's against dungeon regulations to go around dropping doors on peoples' heads willy-nilly. management will have to be informed! 

• I'm so glad I found Your channel. I was watching Your playthrough of Dungeon Master for 2 days straight now... Thank You for bringing tears of nostalgia to my eyes. I remember I used to play this game when I was like 10. Only I had Amiga 1200 so my friends used to come to my home and try to figure out the riddles and puzzles with me. So much fun... And it scared the shit out of us too! 

• I saw your name. I checked your channel. I picked a possibly interesting LP. And I was not disappointed. You have gained a new subscriber this day!

• DM Is still good game. Played it fully with that Java remake, and i'm on my way in Chaos Strikes back.. now that's a challenge, And i like the idea of no map, you can teach your memory a lot that way :) On Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness on the other hand, now that needs some mapping at some places. I really like the old RPG games. 

• You have a good taste in games...this is my favourite game of all time...I'll be watching this...

Links of Interest:

Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia (A Massive Website With Info on All Dungeon Master Games!)

Download the Amiga Version From Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia

Download the PC Version From Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia

Video Retrospective by Matt Barton on Matt Chat (This is an MP4. Right-Click to Save)

Review by Matt Barton on Armchair Arcade  

Dungeon Master on The CRPG Addict's Blog:  Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5   Part 6   Part 7   Part 8   Part 9   Part 10

Review in Dragon Magazine # 136 (August 1988) (Pages 76 - 79) Large File!

Review in Computer Gaming World, By Scorpia # 100 (Nov 1992) (Pages 94 - 96)

Dungeon Master & Chaos Strikes Back Review in Amiga Action # 38 (Nov 1992)

Super Nintendo Dungeon Master Intro (none of the other versions had an intro)

Hilarious Video Review by In Retro  

Dungeon Master on Wikipedia

Dungeon Master on MobyGames