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Eye of the Beholder
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SSI use to be one of our favorite companies. Although they had the tendency to get greedy and go for quantity over quality, they still put out some of the best strategy and role-playing games of all time. They were particularly well known in the 1980s when they purchased the video game license for Advanced Dungeon and Dragons, which was the inspiration for Eye of the Beholder. Because it was published by SSI and developed by Westwood Studies, you might think Eye of the Beholder is one of those typical early ‘90s RPG clones made by now-defunct companies. Well the company might have tanked, but this game was an absolute gem.
To set the stage, the city of Waterdeep has a major problem - there is something evil rising up beneath it and they need someone to take care of it. So they commission a band of adventurers to go down into their sewers in pursuit. No sooner do they enter the sewers than the tunnel collapses and their only way forward is down into dark... this is where you come in. After making your way through the sewer you find a dwarf city, then a drow (that’s dark elves for the none AD&D people) city, and then finally the lair of the evil beholder. If all goes well, you successfully defeat the beholder and emerge from the underworld as a hero. Ok, so the storyline is the weakest part of the game.
A first-person dungeon crawler, Eye of the Beholder was one of the first RPGs with a point-and-click interface that was simple to use. It was also non-linear in that you could retrace your steps, take multiple paths, and skip entire levels. But the most impressive part was how engaging the creepy atmosphere was, due to the superb graphics and music. Heck, we can still remember the haunting sounds of monsters just out of sight.
To set the stage, the city of Waterdeep has a major problem - there is something evil rising up beneath it and they need someone to take care of it. So they commission a band of adventurers to go down into their sewers in pursuit. No sooner do they enter the sewers than the tunnel collapses and their only way forward is down into dark... this is where you come in. After making your way through the sewer you find a dwarf city, then a drow (that’s dark elves for the none AD&D people) city, and then finally the lair of the evil beholder. If all goes well, you successfully defeat the beholder and emerge from the underworld as a hero. Ok, so the storyline is the weakest part of the game.
A first-person dungeon crawler, Eye of the Beholder was one of the first RPGs with a point-and-click interface that was simple to use. It was also non-linear in that you could retrace your steps, take multiple paths, and skip entire levels. But the most impressive part was how engaging the creepy atmosphere was, due to the superb graphics and music. Heck, we can still remember the haunting sounds of monsters just out of sight.
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