Death Gate

[Discoalucard]

www.hardcoregaming101.net/deathgate/deathgate.htm

I actually wrote this like two weeks ago and forgot to post it. It's another Legend game based off a fantasy series, but I quite like this one! Its plot is much better than Companions of Xanth, and completely beats the pants off Shannara. It actually has a pretty good plot, too.

Gonna take a break from Legend stuff for awhile to work on other stuff. There are only two more I want to cover - Mission Critical and Blackstone Chronicles - but I still don't want to get burnt out on them. I should probably focus on editing other stuff so I can finally get a real update out.

[Strider]

Interesting stuff- I loved the books, but I've never played the game. Has this game resurfaced on Abandonware sites? There was a pulldown scandal about the time I first started following the abandonware scene.

I have to say, for the record, that IMHO the Death Gate Cycle is a tremendously underrated series of books. On a certain level, yes, it's a straightforward pulp sword-and-sorcery affair, but it's significantly better than Weis and Hickman's much better-known Darksword trilogy, terrible final book nonwithstanding.

(I probably shouldn't be recommending things that I haven't read since high school... Oh, well. )

Addendum: www.hardcoregaming101.net/deathgate/deathgate-16.png

Is that supposed to be Sang-drax? Sang-drax isn't supposed to have wings.

Addendum 2: Does Marit appear in the game? She may not have been introduced yet by the time the game was released...

- HC

[Discoalucard]

Yup Sang Drax. It doesn't appear until the fourth world which I guess is supposed to be based off the fourth book. It's a really short chapter and I think they just interpreted that the way they wanted.

No Marit, though. Alfred Montbank is also nowhere at all. I'm not really familiar enough with the books at all but I'm just going based off what I've read elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure it's on abandonware sites although the ones I found were missing the voice acting. I think Abandonia has it. I ended up grabbing a copy of the game cheap, though, just to get everything.

[Strider]

I don't think Sang-drax had teeth, either, come to think of it. But that's neither here nor there.

The first four books of the series pretty much consisted of Haplo visiting the four elemental-themed worlds- Arianus (Air), Pyran (Fire), Abberach (Earth), and Chelestra (Water)- his mission, handed to him by Lord Xar, was more or less to explore the worlds and cause as much dischord as he could to make it easier for the Patryn to take over later. The last couple books revisited the previously-explored worlds after- if memory serves, the fifth book took place mostly on Arianus, the sixth was mostly a catch-up with the supporting cast from a number of different worlds, and the last book was mostly centered in the Labrynth.

Judging from the few screenshots that you've posted, it looks like Alfred and Zifnab may have been rolled into the same character.

- HC

ETA: Did they still have the part from the ending where the main villain hits his head on a ceiling and dies? That was kind of the low point in the series.

[Discoalucard]

Nope. In the game the main villain is essentially Sang-drax, even though he doesn't show up until the fourth world/chapter. Lord Xar is kinda sorta evil up in the fifth chapter, which does take place mostly in the Labyrinth.

What was the Sang-drax supposed to be like?

[Strider]

Sang-drax, and the rest of the dragon-snakes (or "Serpents"- I've forgotten what the books call them exactly), look exactly like you'd expect from their names- they're gigantic snakes and have no limbs. I believe they're described as "toothless" a couple of times as well. They are also shapeshifters, and after they are introduced, spend much of the series playing Wormtongue to the various characters in power. I believe Sang-drax himself acts as Lord Xar's lieutenant, and is the primary antagonist for the last couple books.

Sang-drax eventually died by accident inside the Seventh Gate at the end of the series; when trying to strike Haplo, he reared up too high and hit his head on the ceiling, which ended up collapsing on him (and possibly trapping him between worlds as well when Death's Gate closed). Perhaps my earlier statement was a bit of an oversimplification- I was just disappointed at the time in the last book, which had a very "Oh man our publisher wants this done by next month, AND THEN EVERYTHING TURNED OUT OKAY SOMEHOW" feeling to it.

- HC

[Discoalucard]

Oh. That's nothing like the game.

SPOILERS IN CASE YOU DON'T WANT TO READ:

In the end, you have to stop Lord Xar from doing a ceremony that will reassemble the worlds or something, but will actually destroy them. You need to follow up and switch the spell, while being tracked by the Sang-Drax. In the meantime, there are a few different spells you need to use to keep the Sang-Drax at bay.

[Ganelon]

Sounds like an interesting adventure. Any comparison between the VGA and SVGA graphics?

[Discoalucard]

Oops. I took pictures but forgot to put them up. I added them now.

Roushimsx sent me over a scan of the PC Gamer review, too:

www.hardcoregaming101.net/deathgate/PCGamer_1995_04_pg079.jpg

[Ganelon]

Ah, cool. Is there a reason the VGA screen looks squeezed? Are there black bars on the top and bottom or something?

[Discoalucard]

It's mostly just due to the resolution. The VGA mode is 320x200, the SVGA mode is 640x480. Even when shrunken down to half size, it's 320x240, there's an extra forty lines of pixels that make the image look less squished.

[jorpho]

Jan 29, 2010 21:50:28 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

Gonna take a break from Legend stuff for awhile to work on other stuff. There are only two more I want to cover - Mission Critical and Blackstone Chronicles - but I still don't want to get burnt out on them. I should probably focus on editing other stuff so I can finally get a real update out.

Oh good, now I feel better about taking so long with Superhero League of Hobken. (You never did send me that trainer, by the way.)

Jan 30, 2010 10:36:14 GMT -5 Discoalucard said:

I'm pretty sure it's on abandonware sites although the ones I found were missing the voice acting.

I'm pretty sure at one point HOTU had a rip that included the voice acting but not the CG cutscenes.

One thing the article perhaps ought to mention is that the voice acting is amazing. Not that the voice actors themselves did a particularly good job (Haplo sounds positively nerdy), but pretty much every action you can think of, like cooling and warming random things, gives you a unique response and a voice clip of some sort. It really gives the impression that Legend went all-out when it came to making the game.

And now, two grammar nitpicks:
it's clear even in the begin that
it's clear even in the beginning that

is meant to take places far
is meant to take place far

[Discoalucard]

Oh, yeah. I tried to e-mail them awhile back but Google Mail caught them because it thought the EXEs are viruses. They aren't though! I tested them myself. Don't activate more than one at a time, it seems to freeze up. I'll just upload them below.

www.hardcoregaming101.net/39991_train.zip
www.hardcoregaming101.net/96062_train.zip

[ryochan]

Interesting. I've been told to read this series, but have yet to find book 1 in my library. Nice to know I could play the game either with, or without, reading though.

And btw, the image with the wizard and in the forest leads to a thumb when you click it.

[onoff456]

Hey Discoalucard: You may also find this interesting. While this game supports the Roland MT-32 and Roland SC-55 MIDI modules, it also supports the compatibility MT-32 instrument set found on the SC-55. It's the only game I know of that does this. When you run the setup program, you will see the MT-32 and SC-55 listed on the MIDI device list. Upon selecting the SC-55 however, the program asks an additional question. ("Would you like to use SC-55 extended MT-32 instrument set?" or something along those lines). It's probably a "because we can" case related to their game engine, but pretty interesting still.