I played AD&D: Eye of the Beholder

Now, I play Dungeons and Dragons regularly and this is actually the game that got me interested in the table top game. The “A” in AD&D stands for Advanced. Which translates into 2nd edition because of all the editions out now. But there were a few things that made no sense (I'm looking at you THAC0!) But that's the system I started on so it's not that bad for me.

Okay, so the basic story is that there are monsters attacking the city of Waterdeep from the sewers and your adventuring group has been called on to save the city. Build your group and get to the sewer/dungeon crawl.

You get four characters to build, and cheating during this part is easy. Just max out all your character stats. This actually doesn't make the game easier, I guess they anticipated everyone doing this. (Along those lines, why is Strength 18/00 and not just 18?! I know the 00 stands for 100, but WHY?! Come on 2nd edition!)

I'd suggest a general group setup. A tank up front to soak up damage, maybe both front slots should be tanks, perhaps a fighter and a paladin. In back I'd say a cleric as a dedicated healer, and a sorcerer+rogue for the 4th slot. But that's my recommendation, I've never beaten this game (after a while I just get hopelessly lost.)

There are six slots available, but you only bring 4 characters with you. And there are more than 2 other characters you can collect while dungeon crawling. So keep that in mind.

You find a couple things right away, a couple rocks and a skeleton. Take all of these. I think the skeleton is a halfling rogue who you can resurrect later when you either find the dwarf encampment or your cleric/paladin gets to a high enough level.

Game play, you mostly use mouse clicks to control things. It's a little slower paced to make up for this, but you still need to be on top of things while you're in combat. And it's active combat so you don't have time to sit there and make your decisions. Even using characters who's stats are maxed out any enemy can still kill your tanks.

You attack by right clicking, I need to emphasize this: You attack by right clicking! This isn't a flaw, it's just more than once I left clicked and basically unequipped my character in combat. Putting the weapon back means it has to cool down before it can be used. This cost me heavily a few times.

And when you rest, find somewhere with a door you can close. Enemies will attack while you sleep. And kill the smart ones if you can, some enemies can open doors too. But there's also a finite number of enemies on any given level, so if you kill them all, it's safe to rest as even the smart enemies won't go upstairs. One of the reasons I suggest a paladin in the group is because an auxiliary healer isn't a bad thing.

There's upkeep you have to do too. You need to make sure your team is fed. Now I'll joke about Castlevania's wall turkey any time, but just eating food you find in the sewer has got to be a new level of desperation. But until you have a cleric or paladin that can cast create food, it's what you've got. And you'll need the inventory space that clears up. That's usually all my 6th slot is for “Come Patsy!” Too bad he doesn't have coconuts.

There's some old copy protection that mandates you have the manual to get to level two of the sewers, but if you own the game you should at least have a digital copy (or just google the manual.)

Level two of the sewers things start getting complicated with teleportaion runes, illusory walls, drop traps, and enemies that attack at range. So don't expect the game to hold your hand at any point now. Also, check everything. The first time you check something it gives you exp, and you can level up by showing your arm into a bunch of slimy sewer pipes.

After a few levels of sewer things change quite abruptly. Apparently these sewers are connected to some very nice stone brick tunnels. Connected by stairs too, so it was intentional. This is also the point where I inevitably get hopelessly lost.

Among other things there's portals to other realms down here that are activated with magical stone items you find various places. These can lead you to all kinds of other dungeons, one mossy green one where you fight Thri-Kreen (Clearly not the Kreen native to Athas as somewhere damp enough to grow moss in the amounts you see would actually be very bad for them. Also, Athas is cut off from the other realms anyway.)

Another being the Underdark where you fight Drider and supposedly there's a drow city you can get to. I don't remember if they're automatically hostile or if you can walk among them for a bit. I only accidentally stumbled on it by accident once and I don't even remember what it looks like.

There's other places, but I really don't know them I just got hopelessly lost. (It would be great if Sigil were in there somewhere) The last being a place that takes you to the last leg of the game where you fight the Beholder. Again, I've personally never gotten there, but my brother has beaten this game a few times, so I've thankfully seen it.

The graphics are pretty good, especially for the era of games this is from. Kind of like Doom graphics, but a little better. The pictures are cleaner, though I'd not call them animated. There's two frames for any action (neutral, completed action, back to neutral) so it's up to your mind to fill in the action. So, while you get a sense of motion, there is none. So there's a negative on graphics for that.

I still like this one, despite my inevitable death due to enemies eventually killing my cleric and either the rest of the party along with them, or the slow death from starvation. All because I can't find the dwarven encampment again so their cleric can resurrect my cleric to save the day. WHY IS THERE NO IN-GAME MAP?!

This game has a couple sequels, I've played around in those a bit, not enough to even try a review, but they play like the first one. And they seem to have a bit more intrigue. You can also import your team from each earlier one. A feature games of that time didn't seem to have, at least not any one I know of. I could always be wrong.

For an old game, it's still pretty fun and probably one of the better Dungeons and Dragons video games I've played. My dad had the best one years ago, but he forgot all about it and I can't remember what it was called. It was a top down view and I remember him fighting a dragon and sneaking around. It's not the Baldur's Gate series, this one was much older than that.

I have played Baldur's Gate, but unfortunately my potato can't handle the games. So until I can afford to upgrade I'm not playing those anytime soon.