Recent reviews by jkrame2

I love this game, but it has bugs. Most I can live with. However, after playing for 90 hours and on mission 3, after using renown for a new sub, and had sunk over 22,000 tons and was on my way back home with two torpedoes left. I saw a ship and decided to save before engaging. THE GAME CRASHED and I had to restart it. My last 2 saves were gone. So, I started over and replayed the entire last day. I then saw another ship and decided to save before engaging. IT CRASHED AGAIN, and this time it took ALL MY SAVES with it. So, after 90 hours of play, I was left with nothing but to start over as a rookie.
UPDATE: It turned out that the problem with the crash was due to the program not having installed correctly. I reinstalled the game from Steam and have now been playing for several months. While it still has some issues, I can now say that I strongly recommend this game. I am now on mission 4, which took me to the Atlantic, west of Spain. I traveled through the English channel. This game often involves not much happening, but then there will be a flurry of several merchant ships or warships to contend with. I have yet to find a convoy.

Okay

Played this game with my son via hotseat when it first came out. We spent hours taking turns and playing as a team to beat the computer players. What fun!! The game is just as fun now and the graphics are still pretty good. I spent ALL NIGHT playing one of the episodes in Mission 1, as I knew I was going to win and just wanted to uncover everything I could before the final battle. Some of the episodes are very challenging, even on easy mode. Unfortunately, there is at least one known bug (Biara) that has caused a lot of grief. during mission 4 episode 1. In this episode a demon called Biara is supposed to attack after a couple months of development. It appears it is due to loading a save after being defeated at some point during the episode.
That is exactly what happened to me. Unfortunately, despite help from several people in the community here, I was unable to get her to show up. I restarted the episode at least 6 times trying different suggestions with no show. You can't proceed to the next episode and the last mission until you beat this episode, so it is a problem. However, there is a cheat available that will assign the mission a win if you get stuck. Since this is the only bug in the game and there is a solution (2 if you avoid loading a save after a loss), I highly recommend this game.

I played Eye of the Beholder in the 80's on my Commadore 64 and loved it. This version is still fun to play and brings back a lot of memories. The graphics are obviously outdated, but not as blocky and bad as some other older games. I do not care for the one save (although I suppose you could keep renaming the save to end up with more). Also, combat is a little trouble, as you need to first click on the spell book or holy symbol to bring up the list of spells then click the spell you want - all while being attacked by enemy creatures and trying to alternate attacks between your players. To make matters worse, the list of spells disappears once you cast a spell, which means you have to reopen the spell lists each time. But the puzzles, exploration, and sound of monsters you hear on the levels that gets louder as you get closer offsets the combat issues. I am currently on level 7-9 (there is some backtracking between levels to enter secret areas on these levels) trying to figure out how to get into these secret areas. The package comes with EOTB 1, 2 and 3, as well as the manuals and cluebooks. Well worth the small cost.

I played the Amiga versions of Bard's Tale 1 and 2 before this and loved them, despite the outdated graphics. I purchased this version hoping that it would be at least as good and it is much better than the originals. I am playing BT3 in enhanced mode and the graphics are great. How about smoke blowing through the destroyed Skara Brae? The negative so far is that the starting characters seem to be developing much too fast compared to the older games. I believe this will end once I get them up to the minimum starting level for this game. Also, I have accidently hit the run butten instead of the fight button a number of times with the mouse since they are so close together. Definitely worth a try.

I miss the ability to tactically plan to shoot down enemy craft with multiple fighters and to sell off old equipment no longer needed. However, the better graphics more than offsets this. I wish the game manual at least explained how to play the game, including the restricted number of save games that, if exceeded, result in no new saves. However, over all, a very good version of the original game.