Maybe it is just me, but Ancients seems like a failed experiment. The game looks like it was thrown together in a matter of minutes. That cannot be literally true, but by video game standards, Ancients must have taken very little time to program.
My biggest complaint about Ancients is that it is very hard to tell what is going on. The opening instructions talk about the simple mouse interface that the game sports and how it should be easy enough to figure out by trial and error. Gee, thanks. You pay for a game and the best explanation you get on how to play is to use "trial and error." Still, you can get the hang of the game if you try, but it does take a lot of trying.
The graphics are very weak, even for a game developed in 1993. The developers must have thought they were breaking some ground, but there were games on the market in 1993 that put Ancients to shame. The characters are not rendered well, the backgrounds are deceiving (one second there's not a wall, the next second there is), and every door and every building above ground looks the same. It is hard to get a feel for where you have already been and where you have yet to go.
Sound is minimal, but that's not so bad.
Game play is frustrating. Any time there is any good action, it takes about a dozen mouse clicks to get anything accomplished. It is difficult to figure out how to make one player attack an enemy instead of another player. In fact, attacking is troublesome in itself. You have to click on "ATTACK" and then click on the enemy. One wrong click screws up any excitement there might be in the game.
Finally, the game appears to be buggy. Perhaps the 486 the game was played on is too fast for Ancients - which recommends a 286 or higher. Every time an attack on an enemy occured, the screen would lock up. Sometimes, it would work itself out. Other times, it was time to reboot.
Overall, Ancients is a game most gamers will want to take a pass on. Nothing positive can be said about this game.
Graphics: Poor.
Sound: Minimal.
Enjoyment: Awful.
Replay Value: Little or none.
Ancients 1: Deathwatch is a mystical fantasy role-playing game, bringing you deep in the underground to do battle with bizarre monsters and find untold riches in and beneath the city of Locklaven.
The player uses keyboard or mouse to control a party of four explorers who journey together and must work as a team to ward off the many inhabitants of the dungeons. Also, there are role-playing adventure elements, and you'll need to explore many lands and fight many monsters along the way. The graphics are 256-color VGA.
Ancients: Deathwatch reminded me of a classic pen-and-paper RPG with all the fighting in the game. It's more-less 90% fighting and 10% searching and talking. Gather a group of 4 heroes and venture into dangerous dungeons beneath a city.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Ancients 1: Deathwatch have also downloaded:
Ancients 2: Approaching Evil, Amberstar, Amulets & Armor, Abandoned Places, Anvil Of Dawn, Angband, Alternate Reality: The City, Ancient Evil
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