VideoGames

The Temple of Elemental Evil is an adventure module for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a location within the fictional world of Greyhawk and a computer game; today I will be discussing all three of them briefly.

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a vast undergroud catacomb located near the village of Hommlet in the Viscounty of Verbobonc in the world of Greyhawk. The Temple is dedicated to the dread god Tharzidun, although that is a secret that is largely kept even from the priests of temple. Most believe they are serving something called the Elder Elemental Eye or the fungi demon (goddess in 1st edition) Zuggtmoy.

The exterior of the temple is a soaring cathedral built in the gothic style and decorated with stained glass windows and obscene carvings. Normally this part of the temple is abandoned or empty, as the temple itself is usually presented as having been looted or destroyed in the past and just now beginning to rise to power again. There are normally four dungeons levels below the temple itself, with the third level being notable for containing portals to four different elemental nodes (demi-planes), with the final level being the home and prison of the demon goddess Zuggtmoy herself.

Within the temple there are normal four sects of competing priests, each serving one of the four classical elements, with a fifth set of priests who serve the greater temple as a whole. The priests themselves are served by bugbears, bandits and giants of all types.

To date this location has been presented three times (in the Temple of Elemental Evil module, in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and in the computer game) with a fourth presentation scheduled for the fourth edition of the Dungeons and Dragons rules.

T1-4 (TSR product number 9147) was released in 1985. It reprinted the module The Village of Hommlet that had come out several years earlier (T1) as its first section, but otherwise consisted of original material. Originally it was supposed to be four separate modules, but that idea was scrapped after the first one in the series came out, and thus it was just released as a supermodule (with 128 pages of action, and 16 pages of maps done in the text light style of 1st edition it is easily one of the largest adventure modules ever created). It was designed to take characters from 1st to 8th level under the 1st edition AD&D rules and thus was good for many months of gameplay.

In the module the characters come to the village of Hommlet and learn about a nearby abandoned moathouse filled with bandits. In the moathouse they encounter Lareth the Beautiful and his bandits who are servants of the temple. After that the action switches to the temple itself, where the characters fight their way through many hundreds of monsters and cultists, four demi-planes culminating in a battle with the demon goddess Zuggtmoy herself (who in an example of first edition style play could also be encountered as a wandering monster).

The computer game appears to be well described above, but I do have a few notes to add.

The original release is so buggy as to be almost unplayable. Not only were there various lockups and crashes there were hundred and hundreds of bugs with the D&D rules. This ranged from bugs of omission, like the fact that there was no place in the game to get sling ammunition, to spells and effects that didn't actually do anything, to serious problems with the internal plot. Enemy spellcasters were almost completely ineffective since they invariably began combats casting their lowest level spells first, while other monsters were accidentally given great power because their statistics were entered incorrectly into the game engine. This was particularly notable with gnolls who for some reason had a damage reduction rating of 10 (this means that they take 10 less damage than normal from attacks), when they weren't supposed to have damage reduction at all. There is one very early room full of gnolls in the game that often slaughtered low level parties who couldn't even hurt them at all.

The various official patches fix some bugs but many others still remain. Fortunately there are some unofficial patches that go way beyond the official patches and largely make the game playable. As of this writing there are still some serious game issues that will probably never be fixed (the last unofficial patch hasn't been updated in some time). The main issues I have encountered as a frequent player are as follows.

1. Druid and ranger animal companions are largely worthless. They tend to follow along at the end of the party and you can't control them directly, so they often just stand there not doing anything because they are too far back to "see" the opponents. When they do go into action they move without paying any attention to attacks of opportunity or area effect spells, and thus end up killing themselves as often as they kill baddies. This is particularly annoying since some of the best druid spells are the same ones that the animal companions hurl themselves into.
2. Paladin mounts are not implemented, as horses are not implemented. Nothing else has been added to the class, so the paladin class has been significantly depowered.
3. Archery is basically worthless as none of the bows in the game add strength damage.
4. The game is very inconsistent about attacks of opportunity, sometimes movements that should provoke them simply don't do so, while other times attempting to do an impossible action that would provoke attacks of opportunity will result in the attacks followed by the game telling you "invalid action". Monsters can drink potions without provoking attacks of opportunity while players cannot. Tripped characters automatically attempt to stand up at the beginning of their turn and are given no choice in the matter, meaning that monster trip attacks are far more deadly than they should be. Meanwhile prone characters do not threaten other squares, even though they are supposed to under the D&D rules. However the game still implemented the penalties for making an attack while prone even though the removed the ability to do so (only reason I even know it is implemented is that you can see them show up if you are using an item or effect that automatically attacks back when you are attacked).
5. Misclicks while assigning a full attack action can cause you to simply not get some of your attacks.
6. If the green button (which indicates that you want to end target selection) is on a part of the screen that is covered with the fog of war then all targets may be deselected when you try to click it.
7. The game does the math wrong when adding multiple extra effects to a magic weapon (flaming, ice, etc), and you can upgrade magic armor to +3 for free, making it far cheaper than normal to make the weapons and armor. Everyone seems to like that though.
8. Wands have 20 charges and not 50.
9. Masterwork (and thus magical) versions of most weapons don't exist in the game, unless you add a special separate patch that also adds extra game content.
10. One of the hostages you free inside the temple attacks you after you bring her back to her husband (run away from this).
11. Sometimes a party will simply stop being able to find secret passages, making the game almost impossible to complete, this usually happens pretty early on, and once it happens that individual group will never be able to locate one ever again.
12. The magic swords Scather and Fragarach will often result in the game getting eternally stuck in the turn based system with no way to get out without killing the application from the windows task manager. This makes both swords essentially unusable, or really, really frustrating to use. If you do use them remember to always switch them out as soon as you see a fire creature (it ALWAYS happens with fire creatures), and to consider doing the same against bugbears (it often happens with creatures that trip you and bugbears trip like it is going out of style). Unfortunately there are a lot of bugbears and fire creatures in the game, which makes it pretty hard to even try the conservative approach to using these weapons.
13. It is impossible to advance past 12th level as a rogue, because rogues are supposed to get a rogue bonus feat type thing at 13th level, but the game doesn't recognize anything on the list as a valid choice for a 13th level rogue, however it does recognize them as valid at 10th level the first time they are supposed to get one.
14. Ray of Enfeeblement does temporary ability damage in this game, rather than assessing a temporary penalty like it does in the real game. The minor difference means that they stack and you make most creatures worthless by hitting them with a few of them.
15. Reach weapons (like glaives) threaten at both 10' and 5' meaning that they basically rule the game. The spiked chain also acts that way (it is supposed to) but has such a slow animation that it will drive you crazy if you try to use it.
16. The game does weapon sizes and such like 3.0 D&D did and doesn't correctly interact with size changes. This leads to enlarged glaive wielders holding a giant glaive in one hand rather than 2. This also allows you to slap a shield on an enlarged character who is wielding a two handed weapon, and it will stay there after they return to normal size, this further pushes the game in the direction of glaive wielders being the best choice.
17. Sorcerors if played to high levels will often get stuck being unable to gain a level because they cannot select their new spells due to their being no new spells for them to select (the new content patches mostly fix this).
18. Bad guys can "see" invisible creatures just fine, although they still suffer a 50 percent miss chance against them. Invisibility is still good for sneaking around past monsters who are not in combat. Parties resting with while invisible will still attract groups of wandering monsters who surround them completely and just stand there doing nothing.
19. You can apply the extend spell feat to a spell multiple times and it redoubles the duration each time. This means you can make normally short duration spells like haste last for an entire temple raid with only one or two casting by using a high level slot to cast the spell. Needless to say you aren't supposed to be able to apply the same feat to a spell more than once, and even if you could in D&D math doubling something twice triples it, while doubling something three times gives four times the norm and so on.
20. Finally the boots of speed are glitched and tend to crash the game if you try to activate them.

Space Invaders was an old arcade game released by Taito way back in 1978. Midway licensed this title for release in the United States.

Space Invaders is the single most popular black and white arcade game ever made. Taito was officially the maker of this title, but it was so widely bootlegged, cloned, and ripped off, that you can find it under nearly 100 different titles on dozens of distinct platforms. I am not even going to attempt to list all of them here, but a few of the more common alternate titles are Jatre Specter, Cosmic Monsters, and Space King. Some of the alternates were exactly the same game as the original, while others were clones that were basically the exact same game implemented slightly differently. A few of the clones added new features like two player simultaneous action, while others (like Yosaku), were so different that you might not even realize that they are just another Space Invaders rip off.

This game has had six official sequels to date. They are, Space Invaders Part II, Space Invaders II, Return Of The Invaders, Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders '95. Americans also got Space Invaders Deluxe, which was simply Space Invaders Part II with a different title screen and a slightly different dedicated cabinet.

Chances are good that you already know how to play this game. But here it is anyway, just in case your local arcade never had a Space Invaders, and none of your friends ever had the best selling Atari 2600 version.

You control a little gun platform that can move left and right at the bottom of the screen. Your enemies are aliens who are aligned in 5 rows of 11 invaders each. The invaders move back and forth while dropping shots at you. They descend one rank each time they hit the side of the screen. You have to shoot them all, it is game over if they reach the bottom. There are 4 shields that you can hide behind, but they can be damaged by shots from you or the invaders, so you can't count on them for very long. Every once in a while you will see a UFO fly across the top of the screen, shoot it for a nice bonus to your score. A few of these details vary among clones, specifically the exact number of invaders and the shape and positions of the shields.

The last few invaders noticably speed up, and are rather difficult to hit. The game is endless, shooting the last invader simply brings on another screen full of them, with each screen starting closer to the ground than the last one. Well, they start closer up until a certain point, after that the game stops getting harder. Many people can actually play this game continually. Getting a truly remarkable Space Invaders score involves playing for hours and hours on end.

The various versions of Space Invaders came in a lot of different cabinets. I couldn't even begin to describe all of them, but I will at least talk about a few of them.

The upright version was blue and white and had painted sideart of several "werewolf" looking aliens, the "Deluxe" version had similar art, but in red and blue instead of blue and white. The control panel used a metal overlay and had buttons for movement and firing. Most non-US versions of the game had a 2-Way joystick instead of movement buttons. The monitor bezel and marquee were a single piece of glass with a nice detailed planetary scene. The monitors were supposed to have a set color overlays, but I haven't actually seen one that had them in many years.

The cabaret (or mini), version had woodgrain sides, and was almost completely unadorned.

There were many different cocktail versions made. I have seen Space Invaders in almost every type of cocktail table imaginable. Most of them used small 2-Way joysticks, and did not have a lot of decoration.

Clones and bootlegs were usually cocktails. Most 1970s era cocktails were simple rectangles with small control panels that were almost straight up and down. The exact designs varied a bit from manufacturer to manufacturer, but they all looked very similar. Upright clones and bootlegs were often conversions of earlier monochrome games such as Boot Hill and Shark JAWS.

Some versions of this game were actually in color, but most used plastic overlays to simulate color. These overlays were often misaligned on the machines, if not missing altogether.

You can play Space Invaders almost anywhere. It has been widely ported, cloned, and emulated. There are many computer versions available, and the Atari 2600 port comes highly recommended. You may still see one of these out in the real world from time to time, but only at places that have "classic" games in addition to all their fighting games and redemption machines.

Space Invaders is a decent title to add to your arcade game collection. Prices seem to vary wildly on this one. My personal suggestion is to either get an original Taito/Midway one, or get one of the clones that used a color monitor. Getting one of the B&W clones will only make for future repair headaches, as you will be dealing with a strange boardset and a strange monitor. While getting an original only gives you the strange monitor to worry about, and getting a color one only leaves you with strange gameboards.

Namco Classic Collection Volume 2 is quite simply one of the best arcade games ever made. This is a multigame that contains seven different titles. Including the original Pac-Man, Rally-X, Dig Dug, and New Rally-X. This was the better of the two Namco Classic Collections, and thus commands a premium price.

This game was sold as a universal conversion kit to convert any JAMMA compatible cabinet. It requires a pair of 4-Way joysticks, which is odd for a JAMMA title. This might have been a universal kit, but every one I have ever seen was in a Galaga '88 or Pac-Mania cabinet (same cabinet), might just be coincidence, or maybe Namco had a trade in deal going.

There are many reasons this game is so awesome, but the main one is the fact that it is the only way to get a fairly new (1996) Pac-Man game without resorting to doing ROM swaps on shoddy Asian Ms. Pac-Man bootlegs. Then in addition to Pac-Man you also get Rally-X, New Rally-X, Dig Dug and new updated "Arrangement" versions of Pac-Man, Rally-X, and Dig Dug. That makes seven great games in total, all on one machine. The "Arrangement" versions are basically the same old games done with new graphics, more gameplay options, and two player simultaneous play. Add all that together, and that makes this one of the best possible titles to get for your game room.

This title is fairly scarce in the US, and is most common in the form of an imported Japanese JAMMA PCB. The Japanese version is identical to the US version except that some of the text is in Japanese. Several people sell inexpensive language change kits in case the oriental text gets on your nerves. For installation you will need a JAMMA wired arcade cabinet and a pair of 4-Way joysticks. I recommend the Happ Controls Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga replacement stick, as it has a great feel.

One major note for purists. The "original" versions of Rally-X and New Rally-X have been slightly altered. Those games originally used a horizontal monitor. They have been altered to use a vertical one. What they did is moved the map and scoring section from the side to the bottom, leaving the actual gameplay area basically unchanged.

This title is commonly available on eBay and through many arcade vendors. Be aware that it is pretty darn expensive, $300 USD seems to be the price for the PCB alone as of Jan 2003. Don't let the cost turn you away though, that is only a few dollars more than an original Pac-Man boardset, and it gives you six more games to boot.

Aztarac was a beautiful and extremely low production arcade game made by Centuri back in 1983. The legend says that only 500 of these things were made. This game ran on 16 bit hardware and was designed by the late Tim Stryker. This game used vector graphics, instead of the usual raster (or bitmap), graphics that most games used.

Aztarac had some really impressive graphics. The title screen in particular was a stunning rendition of a pulsing planetoid with an "Aztarac" logo superimposed over it. The actual game has you piloting a little space tank. The tank and its turret are controlled independently, which allows you to move in one direction while shooting in another. In this game you aim with a spinner. I personally prefer the dual joystick method that Robotron 2084 uses, but the spinner does allow for finer control.

Your mission is to guard various space outposts from hordes of incoming enemy ships. Each level will have several outposts all clustered together in the center. If an enemy ship touches an outpost, then the outpost is destroyed, Outposts can also be destroyed if they are shot too many times (by you or the enemies), or if you simply run into them too much. You can activate a long range scanner by using your second button. This allows you to locate enemies before they get close, that way you can fly off and get them before they even have a shot at the outposts. The only problem with this however is that sometimes more than one wave of enemies will be approaching from different directions. So you might fly off and take out one group, only to have another group sneak up and ram one of your bases.

Aztarac was only available in an upright dedicated cabinet. You might remember this title as the game that had a round plastic bubble over the monitor. Basically the monitor bezel stuck out towards the player. This provided a nice "warp" effect on the center area of the game. The marquee simply had a yellow "Aztarac" logo floating over a blue grid. The control panel had similar grid graphics and featured an analog joystick that had two buttons, along with an optical spinner. The joystick is a particularly hard to replace item. No one makes the exact stick anymore, but you can cobble together a suitable replacement that looks original by using two different replacement sticks available from Happ Controls. Use the handle and buttons from a 50-9975-00, which is an 8-Way flight stick that looks nearly identical to the original, combine that with the base from any available analog stick.

The sideart on this title was a painted Aztarac logo, along with a geometric spaceship, and a whole bunch of stripes. This sideart is easily repaintable due to the simple design.

Internally the game used a Wells Gardner 19K6401 color X-Y monitor. This monitor was prone to early failure, as were all X-Y monitors. The game code itself ran on an 8 Mhz 68000 processor, and had some really good vector hardware that was capable of drawing solid vectors.

You can play this title on the MAME emulator. But controls are going to be sort of a problem. What works rather well is a flight stick that has a few extra buttons on the base, or a directional hat. Or if you prefer gamepads, then you will need one that has shoulder buttons, so you can control the little turret on your ship. The actual arcade setup of spinner and analog stick cannot be properly used, because MAME currently has the spinner implemented incorrectly.

There are very few real Aztarac machines around. A low production run, combined with the high failure rate of vector hardware has made this a fairly uncommon game. A real machine is going to probably run you around $2000. This is one of the more enjoyable "rare" vector titles, it is certainly a lot better than Sundance or Barrier. But for that same $2000 you could have Dig Dug, Pac-Man, Turbo, Kangaroo, Arkanoid, and Street Fighter 2 all lined up in a row. So basically, this game just isn't worth the cost of admission.

Introduction

Following the success of Insomniac's Playstation 2 debut, Ratchet and Clank, a sequel was inevitable. Arriving only one year later, Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando improved upon its predecessor in virtually all areas, often being considered the pinnacle of the series on the PS2. The first game's addictive mix of 3D platform elements and third-person shooting was left untouched while the depth and difficulty level were both raised to new heights. The sequel finds Ratchet and Clank, who have become celebrities for their actions during the first game, being recruited by the dominating business of a neighbouring galaxy, Megacorp, for a commando mission to retrieve a stolen experiment from the Megacorp labs.

Gameplay

Going Commando's most important improvement to the core gameplay is the addition of an RPG-style experience system to the core Ratchet and Clank gameplay. For each enemy destroyed, both Ratchet's hit points and the weapon used for the kill gain experience points. Each weapon has a fixed amount of experience needed before it transforms into a more powerful form, while each time Ratchet's experience bar fills his hit points (or 'Nanotech') increase by one. This changes the core gameplay considerably, as Ratchet's health increases continuously during the game from an initial four Nanotech to a maximum of 80. For comparison, in the first game Ratchet's health can be increased (at great expense) from four Nanotech to eight. This dramatic increase in the main character's toughness allowed Insomniac to create levels that are more challenging, more hectic, and more tactical than anything in the original Ratchet and Clank. However, despite the positive effects of this advancement system, some circumstances reward or even require RPG-style grinding through enemies on previously-completed worlds.

This increase in power level extends to the weapons, as well. With an original Ratchet and Clank save game a selection of weapons from the first game can be unlocked early on, and while some of them are useful in the early levels they are rapidly outclassed by Going Commando's new weapons. Insomniac continues to live up to their reputation for creative weaponry, with such guns as the Chopper, which fires razor blades with an uncanny ability to bounce off walls and hit again on the way back, and the Sheepinator, which can rapidly transform a horde of small enemies into entirely innocuous sheep, coexisting with the more conventional blaster, rocket launcher, and sniper rifle. Including retro weapons, there are twenty-four different weapons each with their own use and (except for the retro weapons) their own powered-up form.

Going Commando also increases the focus on minigames begun in the original game. In addition to the racing sequences and Giant Clank robot battles, the sequel adds space combat and arena battles. These minigames are generally well-implemented, with the spaceship battles being the most highly-developed, having several different areas to complete missions and their own set of upgrades available at the Ship Shack. The racing engine unfortunately continues to require somewhat perfectionistic play with Ratchet's opponents having an inherent speed advantage. The Giant Clank battles and a couple platform challenges have been transplanted to small spherical moons with their own special challenges. In general, the minigames provide both a fun diversion and a good way to earn the vast quantities of Bolts needed for Ratchet's more powerful weapons and armour.

Presentation

Insomniac continues the series' offbeat humour here, with the dull-witted but opportunistic Thugs-4-Less leader and the absurd malapropisms of the Megacorp CEO Abercrombie Fizzwidget providing comic relief as well as plot development. Ratchet's personality was revamped to good effect, excising the 'whiny' aspect that made the original game's hero rather unlikable. The interplay between Ratchet and Clank is much more enjoyable following this change, and provides an entertaing counterpart to the core gameplay.

The Ratchet and Clank series continues to use the capabilities of the PlayStation 2 well, with the original's fluid graphics and detailed worlds returning in full force. No slowdown is evident even with hordes of enemies onscreen at once. Overall, the game isn't a major graphical departure from the original, but this is by no means a bad thing. The game also does not disappoint in the sound department, with solid voice acting, good sound effects, and a half-rousing/half-silly soundtrack fitting the Ratchet and Clank setting.

Control continues to be fluid and responsive. New in Going Commando is a strafe command, which combined with the optional lock-on mods for the weapons makes navigating some of the game's firefights considerably more comfortable. The 3D nature of the space battles can make the controls there a little bewildering, but the dogfighting engine is still good given the limitations of a console controller for aiming. The fast pace of combat in Ratchet and Clank makes good control very important, and the control does not disappoint, rarely requiring the player to fight with the controls rather than fight with Ratchet's enemies.

Summary

Going Commando is a good example of what a video game sequel should be, building on the strengths of its predecessor while becoming deeper and more challenging. The addition of an advancement system for Ratchet and his weapons allows a wider variety of challenges while providing an incentive to use more of the game's excellent set of weapons. Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando joins Sly 2: Band of Thieves as a platformer sequel that rises to the top of the Playstation 2's vast game library through an impressive combination of smooth control and dead-on style.

Pros:

• Ratchet and Clank's fun platform-shooter gameplay returns for a second outing
• RPG-style advancement system enables deeper gameplay than the original
• Series' humour and style are intact with a few positive tweaks
  

Cons:

• Weapon experience grinding is sometimes necessary and tedious.
• Racing sequences can require perfectionism to complete

(CC)
This writeup is copyright 2008 by me and is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial licence. Details can be found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/2.5/ .