Ultima I

After a hiatus in reviewing, I decided I'd start to get into the Ultima series in earnest, one that has after all has had a storied albeit checkered history in gaming. Along with the Wizardry series, the Ultima series dominated CRPGs during the 80s. And in the 90s the Underworld games were widely acclaimed—though my attempts to play the first always found the controls far too clunky to handle—just as well as Ultima VI and VII in the main series (or at least the first installment of the latter). In addition, there was also a long-successful but now defunct MMORPG from this time, Ultima Online. So why not start from the very top? This review will go into gory detail about just why you should not do this.

To start with, there is the issue of the GOG.com release itself. Now, in general, I like GOG.com and will tend to buy from them, if they have it, even when I can easily just download elsewhere, and even though I have the slight inconvenience of having to install through Wine most of the time. And the reason I do that is because they do a lot to curate these old games and keep them viable on newer platforms. (Virtually) all of the time, I could figure it out myself just as well. But why not spend a few dollars making sure that doesn't need to happen? The GOG.com release is a bargain per se, with the trilogy of the first three games—the so-called Age of Darkness games—going for $5.99, or ~$2 per game. A great deal, no doubt. But the problem is that the documentation included for Ultima I is deficient. It includes only the manual, which in many cases for games of this era really mostly has narrative content and not much that helps you with the mechanical aspects of the game. As it so happens, the manual for Ultima I included in the GOG.com release does not include any details about the keyboard commands that are essential for everything about the game! A very useful pointer for retrogaming is that when the manual alone doesn't suffice, very often you need to look for something called the "player reference card" or "quick reference card" in addition to any map(s) and/or cluebook. It so happens that Ultima I had a player reference card, but Googling for it wasn't very informative. For the keyboard command, and various other details about the game, I ultimately hit upon the following very useful sites:

• Dino's Complete Guide to Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, which leads to two others I also used:
• The RPG Classics shrine for Ultima I
• And the Gamer Corner Guides guide
• Lastly I made some use of the maps here

OK, so, anyhow, I get the game up and running and this is the first thing I see:

Seems promising enough, minus the irritating pseudo-medieval language that appears frequently in the entire series. I then went on to create my character, Pepe, a Human Male Wizard:

Oops, that's not what I wanted to upload. Let's try that again:

The idea is that Pepe would be high in Wisdom and Intelligence, the main stats related to magic, but also fairly tough and not totally incapable of hand-to-hand fighting. This sort of outlay would make the most sense in a lot of games, but not in Ultima I. As I later found out, all of these stats can be raised to their maxima fairly easily. Additionally, spells in the game function like scrolls in most roguelikes. That is, you have to buy as many as you plan on using. This resulted in me ultimately fighting hand-to-hand with my Wizard virtually all of the time, and had I known this upfront I would have spent more on Strength, Agility and perhaps Stamina to make the start of the game easier. One thing I did right was not spending a single initial point on Charisma, which only influences prices for items you sell in the game; it's virtually worthless accordingly. Ultima I doesn't have skills, only attributes, so after this point distribution process you can hit the bricks running. This is the first thing I saw:

The graphics are magnificent already, and they're about to get even better. One stumbling block I had to overcome very early in the game is that you can't use any of the apparent shops in the castle to the west and a bit to the north of the starting location to improve your equipment or buy food—without which you will die. Any attempt to carry out a transaction in the relevant areas pictured below will result in the befuddled interpreter making some comment about how you want to deal with the king but he is not there (!)

To carry out vital commercial transactions you have to be in a the town next to the castle and of course later in the game it will make sense to visit and use other towns in this fashion. Here's what the first town you'll visit looks like:

What you should then do, in my opinion, is a get a bit more food then a slightly better weapon that you can afford. There are no class restrictions on weapons of any kind, because the classes are pretty meaningless in the first place beyond the initial boost they give. Then comes one of the most important parts of this game: tediously level-grinding to level 10, the maximum so that you can defeat the arch-villain Mundane, uh, I mean, Mondain. There is a dungeon north and somewhat to the west of the first castle and town that is entirely suitable for this purpose. The dungeons all look like fucking shit. This is one of the first scenes I remember from them:

I recommend that you do all this level-grinding on the first to perhaps the fourth levels of any dungeon you enter into—although honestly it goes by pretty quickly on the first and second because beyond that the enemies become very difficult at any level of experience, stats and equipment and I only recommend going that far for quests—more on them a bit later. One of the things I learned through this process and that may be very important for some people to know is that, in both dungeons and in the overworld, it is not possible to attack just by bumping into an enemy like is possible in any roguelike I can think of, where I got this habit from. When I tried this I got the unhelpful message "Blocked!" and assumed that meant my initially wimpy but later Herculean mage couldn't get past the foe's defenses. To attack, you always have to press "a" unless you're in an armed vehicle in which case you can also press "f" to fire it. Anyhow, having figured that out, I was soon racking up experience and coins dropped by the slain. I was also gaining essential hit points because Ultima I has a very weird way of healing. There are two ways, offering a king "pence" for which he will grant you a number of HP equal to half again as many coins as you gave him, which is expensive, and simply exiting a dungeon after killing a number of enemies therein. If you do it right, which isn't too hard on the levels nearest the surface, you should "profit", or in other words gain more HP than you lost in it.

One of the other things you have to do for the endgame is level up your traits, except for useless Charisma, to the maximum, which is actually pretty easy. There are eight signposts in this game or two per continent that confer various blessings. Of these, six increase an attribute by 10%. (The other two, respectively, do nothing at all and give you the lowest level weapon that is not yet in your inventory.) Details on these signposts can be found on the signposts and overworld sections of the RPG Classics page. (N.b.: the quadrants containing each continent in the overworld maps are confusingly organized as follows: NW, NE, but then SE, SW.) The only snag with visiting signposts to get their benefits is that you can't visit the same one twice in a row. To get the fullest benefits, this means visiting the one on a given continent, then the other, and so forth until you've tediously ground your way to the top on that continent. And then repeating the process with the other three continents. Oh and you may have noticed that no signpost raises Strength. To get a permanent 10% boost in Strength, half of the kings will grant it after completing their quest. These kings are listed here. (Apparently from this source it's also possible to do this from random stat gains after dropping any number of coins in certain bodies of water but I never used that method because it's hinted at only in the most utterly vague way in the game and I didn't know until I checked into which kings give the bonus.) I actually didn't raise my Strength to the maximum 99 because I was tired of doing dumb quests towards the end and ultimately still won pretty handily. And of course don't worry about raising Charisma much at all.

But the other thing besides stats that you should worry about is getting the best weapon possible. To do so, visit the Pillars of the Argonauts (press "i" on the signpost to confirm you're there, if needed, in the Lands of the Feudal Lords, the northeastern continent. Then visit the other signpost in this continent, the Pillar of Ozymandias. Go back and forth between them until you've gotten every weapon in the game. You will top out at Blaster—after having come by Light Sword and Phazor. These other weapons can then be sold for a pittance at any Charisma level.

Of course doing all this requires a vehicle capable of going over water—there is no other way to access the other continents and their small islands. I would say it's best to save up a little money for an aircar which are like the speeders seen in the original Star Wars trilogy—yes, really. They're more general than the traditional sailing vessels you can purchase in that they can go over land and sea. The only terrain they can't manage is mountains, which are impassible period, and forests. This is perhaps not such a bad idea.

They also feature a fairly powerful laser gun which can hit enemies up to three squares away, very useful for the various overworld foes which are a bit tougher than the easier dungeon foes.

After you've leveled up the important stats through signpost visits and done the quests for each of the eight kings in the overworld, you will have a decently high strength and four gems that are vital to the operation of time machine that you need to go back in time and terminate Mondain before he becomes omnipotent. Note that these tasks overlap—some of the quests themselves require signpost visits. It makes sense to take on all the quests at once then cross some of them off as you visit the signposts. Also beware that two of the quests require you to go deep into the dungeon and kill, respectively, a Lich and a Balron—presumably named to avoid an intellectual property lawsuit from the Tolkien estate. Liches can be found on dungeon levels 7 and 8 and Balrogs™, sorry, Balrons, can be found on levels 9 and 10. Liches don't look anything like a Lich is supposed to but instead look like a really crummy Kalkriese mask:

The lowermost levels of the dungeon are brutal places and I suggest you spend as little time as possible there. To do so, preferably have Intelligence and Wisdom maxed and then get a whole bunch of Ladder Down and Ladder Up spells. These will allow instant access to the lower and higher levels of any dungeon. Then go down to the needed levels with Ladder Down as needed to see these creatures and bump off one of each. Then Ladder Up the fuck out of there.

The penultimate task towards the endgame after completing these other ones is becoming a space ace. And that of course requires going into space. With a shuttle. Yes, a fucking shuttle, of the sort that you can at this point casually buy in some of the towns at this point. After boarding the shuttle you will enter into a crummy portrayal of the Sol system with the Sun, the Earth and some kind of space station. To proceed with becoming a space ace, dock with this station by slowly flying the nose of the shuttle into a port that accommodates it. (Never mind that during its career the Space Shuttle airlock attached to the ISS on the dorsal side just aft of the cockpit and the nose only ever housed the forward reaction control system but who the fuck cares at this point?) The space station, however, for some reason lacks pressurization on the inside, and to enter it without dying, you have to be sure you have purchased and donned the armor known as the vacuum suit before doing this. Then it becomes possible to enter one of the two other ships initially docked at this space station. The one to the "north" has less shielding but carries more fuel. The other, to the "west", has less fuel but more shielding. I chose the "northern" ship because getting hit by an enemy fighter doesn't happen often but running out of fuel is inevitable and once that's gone you'll get lost in space. After detaching from the space station, entering "front view" and then making a hyperspace jump, you will likely see something like this:

And yes that piece of shit you see to the lower left is a fucking TIE fighter and you are now playing a really shitty Wing Commander-like game. You will have to shoot up 20 of these to become a space ace, only they're slippery as fuck and there is no explosion animation when you succeed in destroying one. The only way to see your tally is by pressing "z" (for "ztats", yes, "ztats"), which will give you an indication of how many enemy ships have been destroyed. You will almost certainly have to make several gos of this because of fuel limitations. When fuel hits about 1000, keep making hyperspace jumps until you hit the home sector, which is in the very middle of all the sectors. (You can see which sector you're in with "i".) Then dock with the station and exit again. This will automatically deduct 500 coins for repairs and refueling, and you can enter into space combat again in the manner described previously. It is recommended to accumulate at least 3000 on Earth to have enough for this process. When returning to Earth, it is necessary to use the space shuttle because the others have no heat shielding and will burn up in reentry. Despite this, I was somehow able to fly my preferred fighting ship right over the Sun with no ill consequences:

Wrapping up the game after getting all four gems from completing quests given by kings and becoming a space ace then requires doing something very counterintuitive, perhaps hinted at only in the most oblique way in the manual: striding into a castle, any castle, killing its jester, taking the key he drops, and then using it to free the princess of the castle who is imprisoned for some reason, fighting very tough guards the whole way. Only, it's not that simple, because sometimes the key doesn't even work, causing you to have to leave the castle and try again! Of course this makes total sense: being the heroic do-gooder that you are, towards the end of the game you slaughter an innocent man in cold blood and then execute a jailbreak at the behest of someone apparently legitimately incarcerated—at least by high fantasy standards—where you can't really even tell by the shitty pixel art that they are in fact the princess you are supposed to be saving:

Anyhow, after this is all said and done and you kill or evade all the king's guards—another feat of nobility, no doubt—and exit to the outdoors, the princess tells you that the time machine is far to the northwest. After you take your aircar up that way and find the time machine, you then board it and enter into the realm of Mondain long, long ago where more counterintuitive behavior is required. I just shot at him with the blaster acquired previously until he turned into a bat, and then chased the bat around and shot at it until it became a limp corpse, which I then continued to shoot at, to no effect. Looking at a walkthrough of the game, I saw some reference to taking the gem that supplies his immortality by walking up to up and typing the letter "g" (for "get"). Having done this I sustained a massive amount of damage but it was moot because this dumb game was finally over:

All told, don't play this boring, shitty game unless you have some burning need for completion, as I did. But when I say this, I'm not shitting on the entire series. Looking forward, Ultima II seemed like it would just be more of the same and the CRPG Addict—whose review of Ultima I was far more sanguine than my own—actually took a big dump on Ultima II. So I will not be playing Ultima II. Ultima III, however, seems to be far more playable, and it may be the next Ultima I review. Or perhaps IV. In any case, you will likely see this series revisited, and almost certainly in a much better light. Until next time!

Syndicate Plus

This is all I'm going to say about Syndicate Plus: that I quit here:

Yes, I quit here

You can go look at the Wiki page if you want further details about the game as such. But for my part, suffice it to say I finally just got tired of the utterly shitty pathing that makes things like leading around Down syndrome kids who have miniguns, the clueless escorts, not being able to see what the hell I'm doing because of the isometric perspective and the overall lack of mental stimulation to compensate for the frustration of playing it. It was pretty aesthetic but past a certain point blowing up hapless cops ceases to have any appeal in this setting.

Some people absolutely love it but my opinion? Fuck this game.

Master of Magic

The first title I am reviewing is the Microprose game Master of Magic but before I do that I'd like to share with you the expanded ratings data I have scraped from My Abandonware:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4NCn8v5YnqhWWhqcnRCSGQwcjg

Anyhow, what is Master of Magic? In short, it's a game that doesn't seem to be as well known as it ought to. If the title seems reminiscent of Master of Orion that is the case entirely because Microprose are also the authors of that series and in many respects these games are similar to each other or indeed to other 4X games. However, it certainly deviates from Master of Orion in its overall theme: where the games of the Master of Orion series are predicated on the founding, development, defense and conquest of entire planets with godlike technology, Master of Magic takes place on the much more cozy scale of imagined Iron Age villages, towns and cities, all redolent with the odor of burning wood and cowshit. There is no direct superluminal travel from one system to another and often long and arduous journeys overland must be undertaken by units wanting to get from point A to point B. Nonetheless, one thing about this world where people don't yet know how to treat in-game outbreaks of Yersinia pestis with antibiotics is very advanced and that is the element of magic that makes the title so fitting. In Master of Magic you play the role of a powerful sorcerer (or sorceress) overseeing subjects first of one race, then ultimately of several as your empire expands, all towards the end goal of banishing all your rivals in the magical realm into nothingness and establishing your total and final dominion over the entire world.

An experienced player reading this will note that I have made a mistake when I said "world". I should have said "worlds" because there are actually two and this is one of the things that gives the game its charm and distinctness. With all but one of the default leaders, you will start in the world of Arcanus which is much like our own except for the high fantasy setting. From here it is possible to seize towers typically occupied by powerful, nasty creatures that you will not be able to beat very early on in the game and gain access to the world of Myrror, pictured below, which, with its earthy color scheme seems like it might be deep within the Earth, but is described in the manual as a world on another "plane of existence" from our own altogether. Whichever of these two is really the case, Myrror is a world of more potent magic and a world where (relatively) fantastic races are found: Beastmen, Dark Elves, Draconians, Dwarves and Trolls, each with unique advantages and disadvantages. (It is worth bearing in mind that in Arcanus the plainest race of all, with neither distinct pros nor cons, is that of the Orcs, who are nowhere to be found in our world.)

The strange world of Myrror

Wherever you start in Master of Magic, these towers are bidirectional, allowing free passage from one world to another once seized.

A more general distinction among the leaders of the game is what sort(s) of magic they are skilled with. The five disciplines that distinguish wizards in ability are:

• Life, focusing on healing, inspiration and protection mainly but also allowing transit from Arcanus to Myrror and vice versa in one instance
• Death, which summons undead and is otherwise oriented towards terrorizing enemies and causing disasters to beset them
• Chaos, bringing beneficial changes to allies and harmful ones to foes and otherwise just fucking shit up with fire and lightning
• Nature, which turns the elements to your favor in various ways and also allows divination of things otherwise far out of sight
• Sorcery, allowing great power over the winds, even to giving flight to otherwise flightless creatures; the power of illusion and also powerful opposition to the spells of other wizards

Lastly all wizards have proficiency in Arcane magic which allows summoning heroes, creating artifacts for those heroes and includes various other general purpose spells. Arguably the most important of these is the Spell of Mastery which, when cast—and this is very expensive in mana and time simply to research much less actually cast—will result in the end of the game with you as the victor and all the other wizards banished into the void. (This research- and economy-based victory is analogous to being the first to reach Alpha Centauri in the Civilization games or, elsewhere in the Civilization universe, being the first in the Alpha Centauri system in turn to attain the Ascent to Transcendence in SMAC.)

Note that, in addition to the various default wizards available to the player it is also possible to compose custom wizards much like it is possible to compose to custom races as in Master of Orion 2: one has a number of picks that are gradually exhausted by raising the various magical proficiencies and adding other perks.

In my most recent winning game, I had it set on Normal difficulty (REEEEEE) with only two opponents out of a possible four due to some earlier irritating false starts where I was hemmed in by aggressive psychopathic rivals from the very beginning. I like room to expand and mind my own affairs in the beginning. Land size was set to Large for the same reason. Magic was also Normal, giving an intermediate level of magic power from shrines, libraries etc. as well as special magic nodes that can be found and controlled throughout Arcanus and Myrror.

I then went on to choose one of the default wizards, Tauron, the Chaos specialist. He has ten spell levels in Chaos and none anywhere else, in addition to Chaos Mastery which accelerates his research of spells in his specialty. (Note that as mentioned elsewhere, Tauron still has the full complement of Arcane spells.) I was then given a choice of races to govern in my first village and in later settlements founded from their population. Because I like to develop my settlements to the fullest, I chose Orcs, who have no restrictions on what they can build in a given settlement. (I will likely choose differently in future games but more on that later.)

From then on, no matter what other conditions you chose to start with, your empire starts as a single pitiful little village (typically) defended only by a Swordsman and Spearman unit of your chosen starting race. You will notice that, just as in virtually every other 4X game, virtually the entire map is shrouded in blackness but for your immediate environment. The Swordsman is a little stronger among the two so set him on patrol mode in your village, then—and make sure of this!—start production of your first building, such as a granary, in your first village and after this start exploring with the Spearman for a good site for your next settlement and for other features of interest, including rival settlements that you should steer clear of until you're more powerful. Good sites for a new settlement are those on the shore of the ocean (inland lakes are typically poor places to build harbors on because of their lack of access to anywhere else), with a mixture of terrain types nearby conducive to balanced development and prosperity. (The details on terrain types can be found in the manual and also viewed interactively with the Surveyor tool under the Info menu.) You will also come across various caves and ruins. It makes sense to explore them immediately, because you have an option of whether to fight the denizens or not and the site may be unguarded altogether, usually netting you some gold or mana crystals. It's essentially a risk-free undertaking unless you want to try to wipe out the current occupants. Another thing I would recommend doing early on is reducing the allotment of total magical power to the magic reserve, total mana available for casting spells, shifting it to research and casting skill (how much mana is available per turn for overland spells and in each battle—often very critical for victory when the odds are otherwise against your forces). Of course if you find yourself running low on mana this can be altered but for most of the game I tend to keep total magical power alloted to the magic reserve fairly low. (Remember that you also have the option of alchemy: turning gold to mana or vice versa if you are long on one and short on the other.)

What I like to do as far as my initial strategy is concerned is get some industry and commerce up and running in my first village which soon becomes a larger town. This means having things like a Sawmill and Miner's Guild which speeds all further production as well as a Granary and Marketplace to encourage growth and revenue generation. After this is done I want to start the cycle of creating one foot soldier unit and one settler unit and then installing them in sites that look promising with the single soldier there to "hold down the fort" until further, more substantial defenses can be arranged. Even if there is only one defending unit you can intervene against attackers with what magic you have at the beginning of the game. It bears mentioning that these are not only forces sent by competing wizards but also raiders from other settlements and even wandering monsters. A settlement not defended will soon be wiped out, ravaged or seized outright. Another thing that bears mentioning with your foundling settlements is that as outposts you settle turn into hamlets they will not do anything but produce new housing until you set them to do anything else!

Anyway one thing you can be sure of at some point is coming into contact with the other wizards. There are various diplomatic options that can be entertained with them but I don't make extensive use of them. For one thing, in this game, there is no such thing as diplomatic victory (something I've never attempted in other 4X games either anyway), only victory through total military conquest or casting the Spell of Mastery. Diplomacy is ultimately just pretend in Master of Magic. For another thing, as in other 4X games, the other wizards are all at heart hostile, faithless sociopaths and the only difference is a matter of degree. If for example the wizard you're dealing with has a Ruthless personality, why bother? You might only delay the inevitable declaration of war by a few turns. Another thing I've noticed about the AI wizards is that every single one of them does not want any concentration of your units on its territory, even if it's only just one scout we're talking about. Initially, if my scout Spearman encounters any rival wizard settlements I will just get him the fuck out of there and explore elsewhere until I'm competent enough to handle a declaration of war on me.

Another avenue of exploration that I seriously recommend is to get a boat in the ocean as soon as possible. If your initial settlement isn't on the ocean shore then you should build one there pronto and develop it to where you can at least get a trireme built and exploring, maybe even a galley or warship if you want to wait longer to build the facilities for these more advanced vessels. Triremes can move two squares which is, at least, more than most land units not on roads. Galleys can do three and warships can do four. (Galleys have larger capacity though, being capable of carrying five units.) Whatever your decision is about what kind of ship to send out at first you should also include at least one armed unit and a settler unit in case you have the opportunity to make landfall in unoccupied territory and start a colonization effort.

As you progress further in the game you will pretty much inevitably build up your total magic power base which is essential for victory by Spell of Mastery which will other things being equal probably net you a lower final score than direct military conquest but most likely will also be a lot less tedious for you as the player, so I recommend at least preparing yourself for it. Another thing is that the sociopathic rival wizards are bound to start declaring war on you at some point. The bad news is that I suspect that the AI cheats, a suspicion shared by other players of the game. The good news which overshadows the bad news considerably is that the AI is severely retarded. The following is a fairly typical AI attack on a well-defended city:

Retarded, ineffectual attack on the capital of my empire

Enemies would very frequently throw away a few piddling units at a time (or even one) rather than try to concentrate any real force on my most important settlements. Very occasionally I would lose a less important town or city to a more serious offensive only to be able to reclaim it fairly easily in the coming turns, with only one exception that came late in the game.

Ultimately I won by casting the Spell of Mastery. When you attain this spell you likely have nothing else to research at this point so obviously you should take all magic out of research and divide it all between magic reserve and casting skill for any major battles to come.

You get to review the odious shitheads you are finally getting rid of after Spell of Mastery is cast

Of course as mentioned I won the last game I played but in the current one I am playing I went as far as to create a custom wizard with eleven spell ranks in Chaos rather than Tauron's "mere" ten. Chaos is by far my favorite magic discipline in the game with its no-nonsense focus on direct devastation to the enemy and I have not regretted emphasizing this capacity at this expense of everything else. I also did a lot more to try to raise up my military prowess earlier on and break into Myrror as well as conquer neutral cities and cave or ruins and am currently bringing one enemy city after another under my control. Additionally I started off with High Men rather than Orcs as they are a much better race to start with, having very powerful Paladin units. (I also think very highly of the Lizardmen's Dragon Turtles and the Dwarves' Golems.)

Final advice I would give you is that, although it is quite easy to get caught up in the action of the game it is entirely possible to save and save often, something I recommend doing especially before risky military ventures. Lastly if you are confused and don't want to look in the manual, remember that right-clicking most things will give you very important information on what it all means.

All told, given the fantasy and 4X themes here, the hours required to finish a given game (not even taking the replayability into account), fairly deep strategy and pixelated mid-90s graphics I am going to give this one a final rating of turbo autism/5.

Introduction and Ratings Data

OK so if you're in the secret autistic shitposting group for whom this blog is intended you already kind of know what's going on but if not and in any case I'd like to explain. This blog has been created for the purpose of reviewing computer and video games from the 80s through to (mostly) the early 90s. The majority of these titles will have been released for DOS and Win95, hence the kerned A E S T H E T I C in the title and hence the hasty vaporwave color scheme which I may refine later on. Why these in particular? Autists love vaporwave and also live much or even most of their lives through the digital computer in general and vidya in particular. I thought that by creating this resource I could help other autists live richer, more fulfilling lives by uniting non-threatening, asocial interaction with a computer with the sort of ironic pseudo-nostalgia for the heady days of the Reagan administration that vaporwave embodies. It's time to go retro!

As said I do plan to be playing mainly DOS and Win95 titles partly because of the vaporwave connotations of these particular operating systems but mainly because of the sheer volume of titles available which predominates over all else in the personal computer category. However I will likely at some point branch into Amiga and possibly even other platforms doomed to ash heap of computing history, as well as SNES and Sega Genesis titles. (NES? I'd be hard-pressed to play anything that's not complex enough to need save data.) This project is far more about a particular era and A E S T H E T I C than any one particular hardware or software platform. Furthermore, most but not all of these titles will be abandonware and I will provide the raw ratings data scraped from My Abandonware so that they could easily be sorted to get recommendations—the website does not have this functionality—in this same post. Some are not but they can be snapped up usually at amazing bargain prices on GOG.com and sometimes even on Steam as well, or otherwise "acquired". In either way my choices here will remain conscious of the stringent NEETbux budgetary limits that many autists face.

What kind of titles will be reviewed here? Mainly strategy and RPG titles. Furthermore, I tend to prefer the turn-based variety because it frees me to jerk off or commiserate with other autists in between turns. It is also true that seeing too much movement on screen at once confuses and angers me and has sometimes resulted in me breaking things with my forehead. But there will be a good faith effort to diversify here. I will look into RTS games, the Wing Commander series and so forth. Perhaps some of the huge compilations that look really shitty on their face might not be. Maybe even a first-person shooter or something.

In addition to reviews, I mean to provide strategy and overall playing hints as well as technical advice specific to given games (e.g. how many cycles to use in DOSBox). As for general instructions, My Abandonware has a good how-to. I will be available in the comments and elsewhere if you know where to look.

Now regarding these data I was talking about. They are CSV files with nothing more than the game title, the average rating (out of a possible 5) and the number of ratings for each row, in addition to the headers. These can be loaded into a spreadsheet or any other such software to be worked on. What I recommend doing actually is sorting the rows first by number of ratings descending, then by average rating descending. Not two sorts, mind you, but a single sort where number of ratings has precedence over the average. You can do this easily in Excel or Calc and I used Gnumeric for the same purpose. The reason for this is that some turbo-autistic game might get a handful of 5-star ratings which doesn't necessarily mean it's likely to be a decent experience. What's better is to see a game with lots of ratings where the average is high. For me this has been a far better proxy for quality. The categories are those from the genre browser on My Abandonware, all of which I included regardless of personal interest. Later I will post data for a few narrower rubrics from the theme browser which interested me personally. Without further adieu, the genre ratings to start with:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4NCn8v5YnqhWWhqcnRCSGQwcjg

Bear in mind that these data are only a snapshot of the My Abandonware repertoire. They will become outdated as new entries are added and the distribution of ratings changes. But they are a good start and as said I will be drawing most of my suggestions from them. You have the power to do much the same now. And at any rate this concludes my first post for what I hope will be an altogether fruitful blog in the coming weeks and months. See you later space robots!