Anne Summers

That's actually the article I remember, not the Digital Antiquarian one. The DA one only covers up to the launch of the first game in the series. It's a really good article but not an overview of the series. Unless he did a part 2 at some point, but if so, I can't find it. DA also goes a bit overboard, in my opinion, in his description of the combat system in these games words to the effect of "absolutely brilliant". Having played Pools quite extensively now, I'd say the combat is pretty good, and certainly a step up from Ultima in how it encourages chess-like gameplay by usin

I was always fascinated by Heroes of the Lance because it looked fantastic and when I read that you could control any of the characters my head basically exploded. But yeah it's not great. Dragons of Flame is the follow-up and is a bit better from a Dragonlance fan's perspective if you want to play a game that is fairly contemporaneous to the books. It's still arcade style like HOTL but it has some slightly deeper RPG elements, and an overworld map rather than being entirely set in featureless underground caverns.

Your collection is what I aspire to have in 2 -3 years time if I really put my mind to it. Will have a look at Gold Box Companion - will it work with my GoG versions? My version of Pool had a different box to yours, so I'm guessing that it's because it's the Amiga version. Weirdly though it has the manual and adventurers journal from your "proper" gold box version - I can tell because it doesn't fit into the box and is squashed in. (I've flattened it out and put it in the Dragons of Flame box now, where it fits perfectly).

Oh, that's interesting - because until now I thought I owned every single D&D game released on the MD (i.e one ... Warriors of the Eternal Sun). I guess this is new?

I'm torn between wanting to read it again right now and wanting to make some headway into my own exploration with fresh eyes on the games.

Thanks for that, I was thinking it may have been DA where I'd seen these covered in the past, but couldn't quite remember!

I think this is part of what appeals to me about them. I've got quite a lot of experience of very early RPGs, having played the early Ultimas and countless roguelikes. But these are a sort of middle step towards things that would come later like Baldur's Gate that pretty much set the mould for modern crpg games. They are still slow, turn-based and stat-heavy, but they mix in detailed graphics (compared to say Ultimas of the time)and much more emphasis on scripted storytelling. A good example is in the first dungeon of Pool of Radiance, where instead of just bumping into monsters randomly wande

Hmm not sure. There are a few on the Speccy too although mainly the arcade style ones as it couldn't cope with the RPGs I don't think ... I will definitely look into it!

I think I mentioned it at the time on here, but a couple of years ago I decided that if I wanted to have a go at building a gaming collection of some sort, then it would be D&D based game because I've always loved them, it's a niche enough field that the collection can remain focused, plenty of the games still around at reasonable prices and they potentially look great as a collection due to the styles of boxes that were used, lots of nice extras like maps and clue books in boxes, too. And of course the main reason - they were games I always wanted back in the day because I was a big

The first 3 or 4 seasons are still amazing TV. It does go downhill to the point that even though I watched it all the way through as it came out, I can't even remember what happened in the later seasons, but it very much ends up in "flogging a dead horse" territory. I'd say watch up to the first film then read Wikipedia synopsis if you want to find out how the story ends (as with Lost).

I haven't even got an Amiga that I could play my sealed game on. I just want to sniff the air coming out of the box when I open it. I'm going to open it in a bit and will of course capture the occasion on video.

Also, how does anyone know that anything they have is genuinely sealed? You could open it and find a scratched disc and dog eared manual. I'm sure it's pretty straightforward to cover old games with plastic in a way that looks like it's factory sealed, and if no one ever opens them no one with ever know!

I've only got one sealed game, Obliterator on the Amiga, and I'm desperate to open it and smell what a game that's been locked away in an airtight box for over 30 years smells like. I really wish I'd bought two. Oh and I've just remembered I've got some Spectrum Players budget game too, that's still on its cardboard backing thing for hanging it on shelves, just like how I used to buy them in Tesco when I was spending pocket money on them. This whole grading thing seems a bit silly.

These have both been on my to-do list for the last 2 months and I haven't managed either. At least with HMRC you expect it, but I just can't fathom why Sony is trying to make y life more difficult to this extent. So what's the drill for trying to get hold of these? People are talking about alerts and discord and stuff. Where should I be looking? (Currently just checking Amazon every few days on the off chance but I get the feeling there's a more strategic way to do things).

Never seen it. Really excited about doing so now you and @multihave mentioned it, as I love all their other films I've seen.