DESERT ISLAND DISKS

                     From Graham Raven

I would have sent in my selection for Desert Island Disks much
sooner but I have to admit that I was slightly worried that my
choices would be rather old fashioned, and possibly 'odd' in some
people's view. There's not one 'state of the art' game amongst
them! However, I read in SynTax 64 that no one else had bothered
to send a selection in, so here's mine!

My number one choice is perhaps surprising for an out and out RPG
fan. By a short head it's Doom 2, given that I could take to the
island one of the several CDs now available, which contain
literally thousands of new levels. Doom may not be a state of the
art game by today's standards, but it still has a huge following,
especially in the USA. You can download hundreds of new levels
from the net, all created by Doom fans world wide; my son acquired
fifty new ones this way and wrapped them up as a Christmas pressy
for his mum! Many of these new levels are available on CD now,
which gives you a huge variety to choose from. You need never get
bored playing Doom! At present my better half and I are playing
from a selection of approximately 3000 new levels, and with that
many to choose from it takes you a long time to get bored! Just
imagine, 3000 new levels of a game you enjoy! We almost never play
a single level more than once, and by the time we've worked our
way through the CD, we're ready to start all over again.

So far we're on our third re-run through the CD, plus we've a
second CD to go at should we want for even more variety, not to
mention the hundred or so odd levels we've downloaded from the net
so far. So, for sheer variety, Doom would be a must for my desert
island.

A close second choice would have to be a good RPG. I haven't found
the definitive RPG yet, and if I had to choose one right now, I'd
probably plump for Mordor. It certainly isn't the most popular RPG
around (Oh for a game editor!), but I took to it well. Perhaps
paradoxically, what the game lacks in stunning graphics encouraged
my imagination to 'fill in the gaps' and enrich the fantasy world
to an even greater extent than it would have been had it had super
3D graphics. When playing the game I always had the feeling that I
had one eye on the game, and the other looking elsewhere ..
perhaps 'inside my head'? Characters I created took on their own
personalities in my imagination, and I enjoyed playing Mordor for
three years on and off. For sheer enduring entertainment, this
would be a close second choice.

Third, and probably my eventual single favourite on an island
environment, I'd have to choose a program which isn't a game
strictly speaking. I'd want to have something which enabled me to
make my own games, such as the DC Games Builder. I'm not really
competent how to use the DC Games program as yet, but I do know
several games which have been based on this program and which I've
enjoyed very much. With a means of making my own games, and having
endless amounts of time to spend making them, a program like this
would be a must!

@~Please send in your own contribution! If you'd like to contribute,
@~just pick three games which you'd like to take with you onto a
@~desert island if you were shipwrecked. Which games would you like
@~to replay (or finish!)? Which ones would stand the test of time?
@~I'd be interested to hear the reasons for your choices.
















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