[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Eye of the Beholder
May 5th, 2014 by Benj Edwards
How does he see… WITHOUT EYES. More like eye of the not-beholder, am I right?
Eye of the Beholder (1991) took the formula of Dungeon Master formula and ran with it, resulting in one of the best the first-person real-time RPGs of the pre-3D era. It’s definitely one of the best early VGA games for the IBM PC as well.
As far as games of this category go, I’m quite partial to Lands of Lore myself.
Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite first-person RPG game of the 1990s?
May 5th, 2014 at 12:50 pm
Have fond memories of playing this one back in the day. Had a quadrille paper notebook on the side of the PC (IBM PS/2, to be precise) for mapping it as I went along.
May 5th, 2014 at 10:55 pm
Dungeon master was my first but…the King’s Field series on the original playstation would have to be my favorite first person RPG of the 90s. It was just so much more accessible. Sorry guys!
May 6th, 2014 at 7:05 pm
I’m going to say the Wizardry series or Might and Magic. I was going to say Wizardry 8 but looking it up it came out in 2001. That cover is awesome. They just don’t make them like that anymore.
May 7th, 2014 at 5:01 am
I would say Daggerfall for the sheer scope of the game. But for the most part I love them all. They are for the most part very strong in some areas and weaker in others. However, I have the warmest memories from Dungeon Master and Lands of Lore.
May 8th, 2014 at 9:47 am
Loved Eye of the Beholder, but my version was for Sega CD. Had to scour the internet for a Mega Mouse in order to play it since using the Genesis controller was such a pain to use. The only thing I disliked about the game was in order to create a save file it ate up the Sega CD’s internal storage completely, as in no other game saves were allowed. Had to pony up for a Sega CD BackUp RAM Cart in order to save Eye of the Beholder as well as all my other Sega CD games. Still worth it though.
May 11th, 2014 at 7:05 am
ooooh… Eye of the Beholder
i played this series backward though. i started with 3rd and then reverted to 1st and 2nd. i never finish any of them, though… too difficult for me at that times
my fav First Person Perspective RPGs of the 90s are:
1. Eye of the Beholder series
2. Ultima Underground series
May 11th, 2014 at 12:14 pm
Never Winter Nights mmo hosted by AOL back in the dial up days. It is part of the Golden Box series from SSI. titles like Secret of the silver blades, cruise of azure bonds ….
May 11th, 2014 at 1:35 pm
I remember EoB game series, even though I wasn’t a fan of this genre (turned based).
May 12th, 2014 at 9:37 am
EOtB was the first videogame I purchased (the Commodore Amiga version with the added ending sequence).
I have fond memories of other similar games for the Amiga like “Black Crypt” (1992) and “Knightmare” (1991). Sure they were Dungeon Master derivatives, but they were each worthwhile in terms of their design.
Black Crypt had good graphics, very clean style. The monsters were a real challenge. The game came with the hint book maps in the back of the manual.
Knightmare seems really underestimated in the history of CRPGs. If you took away the main premise of it being connected to a TV show – it has lots of subtle elements – the different items that you could interact with in multiple ways, the gloomy gothic graphic style, the range of mythology-inspired NPCs, the versatile class system, etc. And it is actually a really tough game to get through.
Certainly more creative than the Amiga versions of the Gold Box games of the same era (which were more-or-less the same across platforms; that is, mediocre graphics and sound).
A sad day when Eye of the Beholder 3 was not released on the Amiga, though by many accounts we didn’t miss anything special.
May 13th, 2014 at 7:04 am
Excellent game, I finished the first one several times. Great gameplay (which still holds up today) and great AD&D atmosphere. I tried to finish the second game but that one was so much harder (and considerably longer) – still, a really great game. Third one wasn’t made by Westwood and isn’t nearly as good as the other two, but decent game on it’s own I guess.
For those who like this style I recommend The Legend Of Grimrock, http://www.grimrock.net/ – great game in the style of EOB.