Pool of Radiance was an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game released for PCs in 1988. It was a prosperous time for D&D, and I was certainly into the game as a kid, collecting all the books, and even managing to play sometimes with my friends. Accordingly, I was excited for this game.
The game was the first licensed D&D title for home computers, and was met with generally positive reviews. But, as much as I tried, I couldn't get into it. Maybe I wasn't old enough to appreciate it, or I just didn't get it, but I never got far in the game, and I would always end up getting killed. It was great creating characters though.
My little brother played it too, but I think he didn't get far either.
These were the high times of loaning your friends a copy of your game so they could install the game on their computer too, so Pool of Radiance came with a "Code Wheel", and starting the game, you were asked to look up some code on the code wheel to play.
Anyways, the glory days of D&D games were ahead with Baldur's Gate and the like, but this was a good start.
The battle system is still pretty good. For PC gamers, the SSI games were the gold standard for tactical RPG combat for a while.
yeah, I think if I had been a little bit older, and had a longer attention span I would have enjoyed this game. I love tactical rpgs now.
I was just looking at early 90s NES/SNES/Genesis games and I found a lot of AD&D titles ported to them. I always write them all down and then never get them.
yeah, AD&D was pretty popular back then.
When I was a kid I really liked a LucasFilm point and click adventure called Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. It had a similar anti-piracy measure. The game came with a passport book with codes for you to enter every time you would fly on a plane. If you entered the code wrong too many times, you'd get sent to jail and the game would end. But the game also came with a mock tabloid newspaper (the main character was a tabloid reporter), and the newspaper articles contained hints on what to do in the game.
I played a little Maniac Mansion on the C64 back in the day. I wish I had played more of the LucasArts game back in the day, but I just didn't pay attention to them. I was more into Sierra Quest games. I'd still like to play Monkey Island and those Indiana Jones games.
I used to see the Gold Box games, but I never had the opportunity to play them. I guess now you can play them online on DOS emulators. At that time I associated that kind of combat with Ultima 3, which I was familiar with through the NES version.
There was also a 1994 D&D game called Ravenloft that I always wanted to try. I bought it on Good Old Games. It's a first person RPG, and unfortunately the mouse-based combat moves way too fast. :( Let's just say Final Fantasy VI is in no danger of being dethroned as my favorite RPG of 1994.