It wasn’t without difficulty but part 3 of my Caverns Of Callisto longplay is complete:-
The last level was tricky in its own right but the biggest headache was caused by the straightforward task of picking up the ion drive. It was at the bottom of a little hole that my jetman insisted on skipping over every single time I tried to fly down it. In the end I tried swapping to joystick control as a last resort and much to my surprise it did make steering around a lot smoother. Whether it’s an emulation oddity or the game genuinely supports analog joysticks I don’t know but it allowed for slower flying and I could complete the game this way. A HOTAS joystick with a range of movement that is clearly too large even for flight sims isn’t ideal for this game but it also made it easier to stay alive so was of double benefit.
I finished off my map before playing and part 3 is below:-
The first time I played this game four and a bit years back, I wondered how anyone was ever expected to finish it but there was less of a challenge that I expected to be honest. With the finished map I reckon I could have a good shot at completing in one go now, but I’ll spare people any more videos of me playing 30 year old games for the moment. I doubt it’s made for rivetting viewing as it is but I’ve enjoyed myself at least.
Caverns Of Callisto is clearly no classic and can hardly justify the pricetag on its gameplay alone but it is a fun little arcade shooter for 1983 and deserves better than just being left sat on a collector’s shelf.
I’m pleased to say there were no major difficulties in knocking off another 2 levels of Caverns Of Callisto and part 2 of the longplay is below:-
I kept with the same plan as before mapping everything out before attempting to play through the levels. I had a practice run this time which went perfectly not losing any lives. When it came to the real thing it didn’t go anywhere near as smoothly with 3 lives being lost in quick succession + I forgot to get the key and had to go back for it. I still finished with the same lives as I started at least so it should be good enough to limp to the end of the game. In the unlikely event anyone else ever wants to have a crack at finishing this, I’ve scanned in the annotated maps so far below:-
The levels are getting harder at this point and I’m finding my laser blaster does have a use after all. This is going to be especially true in level 5 which I’ve still only got half mapped out. I’ve seen enough to recall that it ramps the difficulty way up with narrow twisty corridors and lots of critters. The concluding part 3 will be up next if I can finish it.
Caverns Of Callisto was Origin’s second game published way back in 1983 in their first year. It was written by Origin’s only founder who wasn’t part of the Garriott clan, Chuck Bueche (aka Chuckles) and was an arcade game involving flying around a maze-like cave system collecting objects. The game didn’t get the widest release only ever coming out on Apple II and Atari 8-bit which has led to its main claim to fame in that it is ludicrously hard to track down a copy. I finally managed this at 3am last boxing day after years of looking. After the effort and expense involved, I was always going to have to play it again at some point and enjoy it if it killed me. I savestated my way through the first time around so I thought I might as well do things properly and attempt a longplay while I was at it. I’m still going to cheat slightly and do it in 3 parts using a savestate at the end of each one.
In the game, I get to play an astronaut on a routine patrol to Callisto. When I get there I find the station destroyed and my ship beset by monsters who steal all its vital parts. Stranded in a hostile environment I have to venture forth into the subterraneous “Caverns Of Callisto” to retrieve them.
In true Origin form, this game came with a map although only on paper and it makes the world of difference to have it now when playing the game. It doesn’t tell me where everything is but the whole layout of the world is on here in detail. The first thing I did was fly around mapping hastily scribbling down item locations on those first two levels. I hasten to add, that I used a scan of the map rather than the real thing. On the map F is Fuel, S is Shield, K is Key and C is Component:-
Once you know where everything is, this game is fairly easy. The longplay below represents my first attempt at those 2 levels after mapping them and I still managed to finish with as many lives as I started. There are 5 zones in all but I have to fly all the way back to the beginning at the end so it should split into 3 videos nicely. There are 8 parts to collect in each zone + a key to allow access to the next level:-
After spending way too many hours on Batman Arkham Asylum this week, I was in the mood for an older game and I’m enjoying playing this again. Jotting down notes and navigating using a paper map is quite the oldskool experience. It’s well judged in terms of difficulty with my main problem being that I could have done with a pause button to look at the map and get my bearings. Glancing at the manual in hindsight, I realise now that Escape pauses the game which should help no end with part 2.
I can’t say that there is much use in shooting the aliens as it’s usually easier to run away or fly offscreen and back which conveniently makes them vanish. The jerkiness of the controls doesn’t help here with aiming being difficult and it’s occasionally tricky to pick up items with the little jetman skipping over them. You’ve got to allow leeway for a game this early though. It’s still entertaining and very reminiscent of the sort of thing I used to play on the ZX Spectrum as a kid. Assuming I can finish them, levels 3 & 4 should be up next.
One of the titles I remember most fondly from over a year of playing Origin games was Paul Neurath’s largely forgotten Space Rogue. Those memories are fairly cloudy at this point and it’s a game I’ve been looking for an excuse to revisit. After some searching that excuse arrived in the post recently in the form of Space Rogue for the FM-Towns:-
I only managed to find an unboxed CD, so I’ve had to borrow the cover image above. The photo may have looked dodgy on the regular cover but we get to see the whole thing here and realise it could have been worse. From reading through the IRC log of Chris Robert’s visit to the WC CIC birthday bash, it seems he wasn’t a fan of these cheesy cover photo’s Origin were using at the time either which is why they were lacking for Bad Blood and Times Of Lore.
I read an interview with Paul Neurath the other week where he said that Roberts played Space Rogue for several days straight and then came to him with loads of questions about how the 3D worked. He had been working on a fantasy game at the time but shortly afterward changed his mind and started on what would become Wing Commander. I’d love to know if Space Rogue really was the inspiration for Wing Commander and would have asked on Saturday morning if I’d not managed to sleep through the whole of Chris Roberts’ Q&A session.
Paul Neurath had already attempted a 3D space sim with his first game Deep Space : Operation Copernicus which was published in 1987 by Sir-Tech. That was arguably the first ever filled polygon game allowing 6 degrees of movement and is one of the games I’d like to have a go at for the blog at some point. Space Rogue took the concept further by trying to combine simulation and RPG elements into one game. These two genres weren’t truly merged however and it was more a case of swapping between gameplay styles. It still worked well enough that Neurath wanted to fuse these parts together into a more cohesive whole which is what led eventually to Ultima Underworld. If it can claim to have been the genesis of both Underworld and Wing Commander, it’s fair to say that for a game no one remembers Space Rogue made some big waves.
It was originally developed on the Apple II not long before Origin finally made the move over to PC as their primary platform. The PC version I played did support VGA but was restricted to PC speaker sound and there was certainly room for improvement from a technical standpoint which is one of the reasons I wanted to try the FM Towns version. After creating a virtual floppy to save the game, it ran perfectly in the Unz emulator. My hopes that it would largely be in English were dashed though. Flying and controlling the ship + the game menus are OK and this part of the game is playable. On landing however, all the conversations are in Japanese so I’m not going to be able to do any more than take this game for a quick spin.
The biggest change comes right at the start as the intro has been completely redone with new animation, graphics and sound. The in-game graphics are much closer to the DOS version being only marginally more colourful but the biggest improvement after the intro comes from the CD music. The original game had no music whatsoever and it helps the atmosphere no end having it here. Gameplay appears to be identical although I have to confess to struggling to control my ship and it needed some finesse to dock with the space station. I expect I’d soon get the hang of it and setting up a joystick instead of using the keyboard would certainly have helped. Initial impressions then are that this looks to be a good port, not a huge step up from the original but a definite improvement. I’ve put up a short clip below of the intro + a visit to a space station (apologies about the mouse pointer):-
All the CD music is available in mp3 format below:-
Not being able to play this game is entirely unfulfilling but on a brighter note it turns out that thanks to the efforts of R. Capowski, there is already a translation of the first Ultima Manga which I’d managed to never hear about. I guess I should have known to Google. I’ve not read it yet but intend to put that right shortly.
I’m finishing off the week with the first in the series of Ultima comics. There were four of these manga’s published in Japan by JICC, this one is titled “The Terror Of Exodus” and came out in 1988:-
As the title suggests, it’s based around Ultima 3 although you may start to wonder when it jumps to outer space after the early colour section. Also, the ending would be more in keeping with Final Fantasy with planets/moons crashing together and giant monster battles so epic they won’t fit on one page. It certainly looks like fun and the artwork isn’t bad on the whole. Like all this weeks books, I only wish I could read it.
It wasn’t the easiest to scan but it’s now in the downloads for anyone to take a look. On the offchance anyone wanted to use this to do a scanlation, please don’t feel the need to ask first.
The Japanese Ultima 3 well hasn’t quite run dry yet, but that’s the end of the week and I’ll stop here for now. I definitely need a break from scanning and am long overdue another playthrough on here, so next up (and assuming it will run), I’ll be having a go at Space Rogue for the FM Towns.
