Tag: Puzzle Games

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From the archive: this review first ran on the Mac Gaming Alliance (MGA), the Mac games site that lived here on DimensionZ in the late 1990s. It was published around 1999 and is reproduced as originally written, with the original screenshots (click to enlarge). More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

I really wanted to like this game, because I loved its 2 million unit selling predecessor, one of the best games ever for Apple II. The problem is, as is typical with this sort of really late in game sequel , it has so much flash that it loses the spirit of the original game. They even brought Doug Smith, the original creator of Lode Runner, to advise. Obviously he was ignored. In this game you get to play a male or female Lode Runner, decked out in your choice of colors armed with a drilling weapon cleverly disguised a neat looking SMG. Don’t be fooled by the cover, it is the best part of the game.

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Gameplay

LR2 has some of the worst gameplay I have encountered in a long time. The game is suppose to be a challenging, instead it is merely annoying. I spent a great deal of time giving LR2 a chance, but I was not moved.

Graphics and Sound/Interface/Difficulty

Graphically the game looks extremely good, if hard to see. The 160 levels, over 5 worlds (Industrial, Jungle, Gear, Mona and Wacky) are amazingly done, if too detailed. It is an impressive game to look at, if not play. The screen is so small that it is hard to tell what is going on at times. For some reason there is no way to adjust the screen size, if you use a large monitor at a fair distance from your eyes, you will find yourself staring at the screen trying to figure out where you are. Another big problem is the fact that the game is in 3D, so the perspectives are all messed up. It would have been nice if there were a rotation option allowing one to look at the screen from a different perspective. The sounds are nothing special and the music gets annoying quickly, so you will find yourself turning it off very soon after you get the game.

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The controls are fairly poor and unresponsive, one has to fiddle with keys on the keypad. It takes a while to realize where your character goes when you hit the key (he/she moves NW,SW,SE,NE and up & down.) It might have been better if there were a mouse and joystick option. It takes a great deal of time to master the movement and the reward is by no means sufficient. The game is extremely hard for reasons other than the gameplay. The reason it is so hard because the interface is rubbish and it is hard to see on the screen. Your character is tiny, so much so that it gets lost in the other things on the screen.

Bugs

There are no bugs that I can find, which is nice. Another good thing is its low requirements: PowerPC, 16 RAM and Thousands of colors.

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Conclusion

LR2 is short is a very badly executed game. You are able to do play multiplayer (up to 8), which will make a crowded screen even more so. There is also a level editor, which is a nice touch, but the time spent coding it would have better used making the game more enjoyable. LR2 is not a worthy successor to Lode Runner. Presace has managed to take a simple, enjoyable game that was well loved, and turn it into a bloated graphics demonstration. Sad really. Yet another case of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

Find a copy

Lode Runner 2 has been out of print for years, but used copies of the original Mac release still turn up, and some classics have been re-released for modern systems. Search for Lode Runner 2 on Amazon.

Ratings use the MGA’s original 1–5 apple scale. Prices, system requirements and web links in this review are from the time it was written.

This post has affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more.

From the archive: this review first ran on the Mac Gaming Alliance (MGA), the Mac games site that lived here on DimensionZ in the late 1990s. It was published October 1997 and is reproduced as originally written. More in the Mac Gaming Alliance archive.

Riven in case you haven’t heard, is the sequel to the best-seller Myst. Myst is a game that created a genre, a hard thing to do. But, the question on everyone’s mind is Does Riven stand up to Myst? That’s a very hard question for me to answer. Technologically Riven is far superior but, what about the other elements that make up a great game you ask, read on.

Gameplay

Technologically speaking, not much has changed in the gameplay since Myst, it’s still the simple point and click interface. You point where you want to go and, click you’re there. This time around I found a few problems with this sort of interface, because you aren’t always sure of where to click to, say look a a certain piece of wall, where you click could send you packing way past what you where interested in, this could be a cause for a lot of the back tracking you will have to do in this game. But I supposed if it worked once, why mess with it.

Gameplay in terms of plot and storyline is a different story. I found the plot/storyline of Riven rather weak or almost non-existent, in Myst I felt I knew what I had to do to move on in the game, in Riven I found the gameplay was almost non-linear. With no real plot or storyline to follow, Riven becomes a non-linear puzzle game, albeit a good one.

Graphics & Sound

The graphics and sound in Riven have far surpassed my expectations. I had expected graphics better than Myst but not this great, Riven is without a doubt the most visually appealing game I have EVER played. The graphics in Riven will be hard to surpass in any other game this year. I have one complaint though, when a moving door or some other moving object stopped the whole scene seemed to have a slight color change…

After the somewhat mediocre sound in Myst, Riven’s sounds were quite literally music to my ears. Riven’s ambient sound is wonderful, changing with every change of scenery almost. The sound effects in Riven very well done and very professonal, the sounds of moving doors, gears, levers, etc…

Interface

Riven being made on a Mac means that you won’t find any of interface problems you might find in a PC port. Riven has all the Mac menus and command key shortcuts for save and open. One complaint, I thought that the Setup options screen was a bit confusing to be useful.

Difficulty

The puzzles in Riven are very difficult, I found them more difficult than Myst’s puzzles. I thought that there were fewer hints for the puzzles than in Myst.

Conclusion

I had trouble reviewing this game, I mean it was the most anticipated game of 1997. I felt that the expectations for it were way too high, no game in the world could live up to expectations that high. I believe that Riven did not live up to the expectations set by the months of anticapation, it is a great game still.

Find a copy

Riven has been out of print for years, but used copies of the original Mac release still turn up, and some classics have been re-released for modern systems. Search for Riven on Amazon.

Ratings use the MGA’s original 1–5 apple scale. Prices, system requirements and web links in this review are from the time it was written.