Swords and Software

Game Info

"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching magic pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
-- "Top 50 Funny Computer Quotes" by Jun Auza

General Game Articles

Games

For information on the Ultima series, please visit Dino's Ultima Page.

Maniac Mansion (1987)

The Secret of Monkey Island (1990, 2009)

Eye of the Beholder 2: The Legend of Darkmoon (1991)

Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (1992)

Dune 2 is a 1992 real-time strategy (RTS) game that popularised the genre, inspiring franchises such as Warcraft, and Command & Conquer.

As a very early entry in the genre, Dune 2 was not yet as mature as later games in terms of interface and balance. It is not possible to select more than one unit at a time, air units can't be controlled, and the computer has certain unfair advantages such as being able to transport units directly to your base, rebuild buildings unconnected to others in their base, or destroy your units by rebuilding over them. The game also has very limited cappings on overall units and buildings, which make themselves felt during the final missions.

However, it was also ahead of its time in other areas, such as having three distinct races with some differences between them, the ability to repair mechanical units, automatic air transportation (within certain limits), and the ability for tracked vehicles to run over infantry.

As the game is pretty tough, the following strategy tips will help make it a little more reasonable to beat:

For more information on the game from external sources, see:

King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (1992)

Spear of Destiny (1992)

Day of the Tentacle (1993)

Dungeon Hack (1993)

Dungeon Hack is a first-person role-playing game (RPG) that blends roguelike elements with AD&D 2nd edition rules. It plays very much like Eye of the Beholder 3 (sharing its underlying engine) but with only a single character. This makes it a little awkward since it's much harder to make use of various abilities that a full party would normally have available.

Notwithstanding that, Dungeon Hack shines in a few areas, such as its excellent automap, and its randomly-generated dungeons offering infinite replayability.

The CRPG Addict played through Dungeon Hack (several times) in 2024, and wrote about it in the following posts:

Spectre VR (1993)

Dark Sun: Shattered Lands (1993)

Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession (1994)

Menzoberranzan (1994)

Warcraft: Orcs and Humans (1994)

Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse (1994)

Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager (1994)

Ravenloft: Stone Prophet (1995)

Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness (1995) and Beyond the Dark Portal (1996) expansion

Duke Nukem 3D (1996)

Sensible World of Soccer 96/97

Diablo and Diablo: Hellfire (1997)

Starcraft (1998) and Brood War expansion

Planescape: Torment (1999)

Diablo 2 (2000) and Lord of Destruction expansion (2001)

Deus Ex (2000)

Serious Sam: The First Encounter

Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos (2002) and The Frozen Throne (2004) expansion

Knytt (2006)

Painkiller: Black Edition (2007)

Portal (2007)

Passage (2007)

Braid (2008)

Don't Look Back (2009)

Every day the same dream (2009)

Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter (2010)

Heaven's Vault (2019)

History of the Video Game Industry

Old Game Emulation

High-Quality Retro Gaming Blogs

Game Parodies