Recently one of my siblings moved out of the house, though when I went to his room today to see what was left I saw a very familiar stack of PC CD-roms in his desk.
There's all sorts of stuff in there, regular PC video games, 25-games-in-one compilations, edutainment software and some miscellaneous stuff like pension fund planner software, carshow software, a geography project and some encyclopedias, including one of human anatomy with a naked man and woman on the cover. Oh my!
Lots of nostalgic stuff in there, mostly the video games of course. All of it, I 100% assure you, legal. Totes legal. No burned CDs or anything here.
With that said, let's just dive right in, see what I've found and what I remember about all this!
Dune 2000
Here's a familiar game. It's Dune 2000! Apparently based on a literate series by the same name, Dune 2000 is a RTS game, I think one of the early RTS games too? I recall this game having FMV, which is of course delightful, and some of it was probably way too mature for a child to be playing, but then it's not like I ever got anywhere in this game anyway, I was a kid, knowing barely any English, so I mostly just let my brother play it instead and watched. He and I used to do that a lot, it was fun, given it was the sort of game that was fun to actually watch.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
A pretty big-name game, I think. I remember playing Prince of Persia on DOS and how precise and unforgiving the game was, though this game here came out much later and is a 3D platformer sort of game, I guess? I suppose you could say it has a lot of that parkour stuff where you need to navigate a giant 3D space filled with traps with some combat on the side, with the game's gimmick being the ability to reverse time, provided you have enough sand. I also liked watching this game, though I think at some point it got too difficult for my brother, perhaps I should try it myself and see how far I can get.
Super Speurder: Rekenen
Well, this one is probably gibberish to non-Dutch people! If I had to translate, I'd say it was something like "Super Sleuth: Maths". You can guess this is edutainment! I always liked edutainment as a game, especially when they merged the education and the gameplay together so it felt like a puzzle game rather than a lesson. This game was about navigating the ocean in a submarine, solving math riddles and dealing with nautical foes. I recall it being somewhat difficult, though mostly due to the gameplay and not the puzzles.
Super Speurder: Techniek
Another Super Speurder! This one has the protagonist, the enigmatic character in the coat with the ridiculous collar, and the villain, the insane scientist, on the cover. The theme of this game was physics and mechanics. You'd navigate around this 2D screen with a ton of doors collecting parts for a vehicle, like a solar-powered car or a miniature plane by solving all these physics puzzles, like stuff about balancing a scale, use of pulleys, electricity grids, that sort of technological stuff.
De Brand Slakkenrace
Oh man, now we're getting real obscure. This is a Snail Race game by a dutch brand of beer. Yeah. It promotes itself as "The slowest race in the world as an exciting computer game" and boasts having online play against the best snail racers in the world. I dunno if it actually has online play, I only ever played against the AI. The game itself is pretty simple, there's a 2D racing path in some sort of forest and you need to avoid obstacles such as bouncing tires, BBQs and oil slicks and use try to use boosting pads to speed up and get to the finish before your opponent. I sometimes played this and I have doubts it'd run on my modern PC.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Back to something more well-known, it's a 4-CD bundle of Red Alert 1 plus its expansion packs! This is another RTS game like Dune 2000, set in an alternate timeline after WW2 in which there's a war between the Allies and the Soviets as the game describes them. I know the later Red Alert games would get very silly, especially Red Alert 3 with its hammy FMV and ridiculous units, but Red Alert 1 mostly kept things about as serious as it can be for a story about a time-traveling Einstein. I don't think I ever got far, though, due to being real bad at RTS games as a kid. Probably still am today.
Competitie Manager 2000
A lot of the CD games I found were football stuff, your Pro Evolution Soccers and Fifas, nothing I care about. But there's one game that stood out; Competitie Manager 2000. It's a football competition manager sim, but with a twist. There's FMV commentary and game analyses from Wim Kieft! WIM FUCKING KIEFT! The star, the legend, the overlords of football commentary Wim Kieft! I don't know anything about football but I do know that Wim Kieft is the best thing since canned bread and everyone must bow to him in reverence for his infinite wisdom. Also the game itself is both a management sim and a 3D football game but for me the management sim parts have always been more memorable, and of course the brilliant FMV scenes with Wim Kieft.
THE BEST GAMES EVER Dubbel-CD 50 games
Next there's a compilation of 50 games on two CDs. A bit much to talk about them all, so let's just over any notable ones. There's Doom, Hexen and Quake for FPSes. Alone in the Dark II, Magic Carpet, Transport Tycoon, Sim City 2000, Theme Hospital for 'Adventure'. There's a Sam & Max game! I have some of them in my Steam folder I need to get to. Hm, there's Warcraft II as well.
Then there's Tomb Raider, Duke Nukem 3D, Day of the Tentacles, Dungeon Keeper, System Shock (Made by CH people, I think!), Carmageddon, Go, X-Com and Heroes of Might and Magic 2. Haven't played all of those, but some of them do interest me. Might try some of them, see if they work or not.
Aerokid
Another edutainment game. This one is a series of puzzles centered around an airport, such as checking in bags, assigning passengers to seats and apparently a basic flight sim. It also has some bonus games like a colouring tool and an ABC-wordgame. I recall playing this, vaguely. I don't think I ever did the flight sim part good, I mostly did the colouring minigame.
Redcat: De Reusachtige Letterraket
Another Dutch title, it translates into "Redcat: The Giant Letter Rocket"Oh my god, this game has a video walkthrough. It is pretty much the typical crappy 3D edutainment game. It has an obnoxiously cool cat as a protagonist and a rat and dog as the villains and it's all animated in 3D and it's awful and it's amazing, and there's singing and the OST is like a really bad protoSplatoon OST or something? The gameplay is 3D platforming with bad controls interspersed with these word-recognition puzzles. There's also combat and weapons and a health system, and any command you give Redcat has voiced lines and it's the worst thing, which is the best thing.
GTA2
You've probably never heard of this game. It's the second game in the Grand Theft Auto series. Real obscure stuff! Yeah, this is on the same list as kiddy edutainment games, I just played games like this too. GTA2 was a 3D bird's eye-view crime game. It's pretty much like recent GTA games, you can steal and drive cars, run over or kill pedestrians with weapons and do missions for all sorts of criminal organizations. I dunno if I played it much, I probably mostly watched my brother play it.
JoeJoe
What am I even looking at here. The game's cover is this except there's also some very poorly drawn deviantArt anime OCs there. Apparently this game is pretty much just an advertisement for a paid 'real SAFE, real FUN, real INTERNET' online browser for children. Doing a bit of research online shows that this is pretty much a scam and that the browser doesn't offer any real security for kids and just comes with some crummy edutainment software. It costs like 60 guilders a year! Since this was back when the euro didn't exist yet. Anyway, the game comes with an Arkanoid/Breakout-type game but that's it basically.
Trick & Treat De Budget Serie De Kometenknaller Howie's Avonturen
Well, that's a mouthful. It's a "Budget Series" from Trick & Treat, specifically "The Comet Shooter" in the "Howie's Adventures" series. Another edutainment game, this one a comet shooting game where every comet is a math problem and you need to shoot the right rockets. It's not in 3D like that Red Cat game and the protagonist isn't trying be all cool, he's more the congratulatory type who is always saying how well you're doing and how much you're learning. This is pretty much the sort of game right at home on a public library PC.
LocoKid
Hm, looks a lot like Aerokid. This is pretty much the same concept, except with different games based around railroad systems and for younger ages. Again, I mostly recall doing the colouring minigame.
Winnie Poeh en de Honingboom
Here's an 'animated storybook'! It's Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. This one has a video walkthrough of the English version. This game is pretty much what it says on the cover, it's a series of screens of Winnie the Pooh doing things and you need to click on certain things to advance the game, so it's mostly like a point and click adventure game I guess. It does have pretty good production values, I recall liking it.
De interactieve rekenreis
More edutainment software. This one's "The interactive math trip", which is a series of maths puzzles taking place all around the world. I rather like this one, you're accompanied by a pink frog and a beige cat on a quest to find the mathemagician (rekentovenaar), and after completing all puzzles it turns out you're the mathemagician!! The game had a nice variety of visuals and puzzles, doing additions, subtractions, division, multiplication and fractures. I recall some of the levels being sharing pizza in Italy among cats, making a house out of lumber in America, planting crops across the Nile, a ski-lift in the Alps, making snowmen on the North Pole, snail fractions around a wrecked ship undersea, mixing fruit drinks on Hawaii and probably more. Nice game.
That's quite a lot of games! I might see if I can get any to work, most edutainment software probably doesn't run on Windows 10, but there's a few other games that might be worth a shot.
Also nice to just think back on a time when I played stuff like this, that's so long ago now!
Roundabout is a 70s B-Movie Full Motion Video driving/3D platforming/revolving limousine driver simulator game and it's absolutely wonderful. It was released in 2014 by No Goblin and I got it during 2016's Steam Winter Sale for only two euros and it was definitely worth the purchase.
Meet Georgio Manos
In the game you take on the role of Georgio Manos, master of nonverbal communication and the world's first revolving limousine driver and drive around an open world, pick up passengers to drive to their destinations and partake in challenges, all coated in a wonderful layer of 70s FMV cheese. It's a game with an absolutely ridiculous and silly premise and plot but with surprisingly challenging gameplay, as it turns out that driving around in a revolving limousine is not actually the easiest task out there.
There's also a skeleton
As I said, the game is roughly divided up into three parts: Open world exploration, Wacky Taxi-style passenger rides and challenges and during each of these parts you take control of a constantly revolving limousine which is controlled with the D-Pad.
During the open world segments, you're free to explore the area you're in and hunt for a variety of collectibles which can be used to buy new cosmetic upgrades and unlock new special abilities for your limousine which can be used to explore the city in new ways or help out finding collectibles or navigating safely.
Yes, new upgrades! Exciting!
When you come across a yellow star, you can pick up a passenger who asks you in a FMV cutscene to take you to a certain location or perform a special task. These tasks vary from driving over pedestrians, ramming over mailboxes or chopping grain, but the meat of the rides is taking the passenger through a series of checkpoints while collecting coins along the way and trying to minimize the amount of times your car crashes in a giant explosion.
Don't worry, Georgio definitely won't crash his limousine. Probably.
When you drive across a blue star, you can play in a variety of challenges to compete with friends or the global high score list to see how well you do. These challenges vary from a game of hot or cold, speedruns, pedestrian eliminations or good old destruction derbies.
In all these segments good play is rewarded with streaks for perfect driving, achievements for meeting certain passenger ride requirements and good scores while sloppy driving is punished with the limousine blowing up in an explosion. Mercifully your limousine instantly respawns at the nearest or latest checkpoint and the passenger rides are generous with giving out checkpoints.
Of course Georgio has no need for checkpoints.
The highlight of the game is definitely the cutscenes though. They use a combination of Full Motion Videos obviously filmed in front of a green screen and stock footage, combined with amazing voice acting and a 70s B-movie vibe which gives the whole game a delightfully cheesy tone which does a lot to add to the game's memorability and humour. The cutscenes always give an extra push to progress further through the game just to see what figures you'll be driving around next and how the plot advances.
Seriously FMV is wonderful and more games should have it.
The game starts out rather easy, the first area you get to explore is pretty easy to maneuver, there's not many obstacles or much traffic to worry about, and the first few rides serve as learn-by-playing tutorials that explain basic movement in relatively safe environments, but as the game progresses the areas become increasingly more dangerous and some rides start having extra obstacles such as requiring you to travel over the sea, jumping through the air (yes there's a jumping limousine mechanic!) or having cars rain down from the sky.
Yes Georgio, you read that right.
Still, the game manages to stay fun throughout these challenges by knowing to focus on its main mechanic, driving around the revolving limousine, and avoids frustration by not making the player have to replay long stretches should they die. And death will happen a lot, considering you're driving around in a revolving limousine.
I would say my only issue with the game comes from the open world exploration part, as collecting every collectible becomes very hard once there's very few left since even the upgrade meant to scan for them only gives a hint if one is close. Likewise, there's not that many checkpoints in the open world bits, so it can sometimes be annoying having to respawn in a distant location when looking around for that one last collectible somewhere.
I'm sorry Georgio.
This is only a gripe if you are like me and want to do most of the open world exploration though, the player is perfectly free to ignore it and playing the game by just doing all the passenger rides alone is still a fun way to play the game by itself. Picking up passengers generally doesn't take long since the drop-off points of passengers usually end up being near to the pick-up point of the next passenger. It's definitely still an enjoyable game after all and for a very good price point considering the game comes with a big discount during Steam Sales.
See, no need to worry, Georgio.
So overall I'd definitely recommend checking the game out! It's a driving game with a twist and a memorable experience!
You might have read my blog about Laser Lords from a few hours ago called "Lessons from Luxor", of which this blog is the continuation. After all, while one verse of the Sooth Song has been learned, we're nowhere near awakening Seb or finding Petra.
As with the previous blog, I'll mostly be referring to this video. With that said, let's dive right in!
Do I look like the kind of guy who'd cheat you?
Going to the right after finishing talking with Baahka, there's another screen with a wandering NPC and a house. Once more let's assume the house is entered first, which occurs at 6:12. There we find another NPC, what looks like an old man with a cane. Surely a friendly face worth talking to.
MY ACCENT IS THAT I HAVE NO INDOOR VOICE
Quite an accusatory man, and with a lovely pair of lips and cheeks. If asked for his Name he explains he's Sinuhe and he's a goldsmith. Right away he seems much less friendly than Rahman or Baahka, but he is quick to explain why.
There are some keyword paths that can be taken, but most of them end up being about Usert stealing Sinuhe's Gold Necklace. Sinuhe asks the player to steal the Necklace from Usert and give it back to him, offering he'll pay to get it back. What's rather interesting is that asking for the payment prompts Sinuhe to say this:
DO I SOUND LIKE THE SORT OF GUY WHO'D CHEAT YOU?
This is a crucial moment. When you prompt Rahman to explain what he can give he says he'll richly reward you, while Sinuhe here simply asks the player whether he seems trustworthy. Baahka and Rahman certainly seemed trustworthy, but does the same go for Sinuhe? It's also interesting to note that Gold is a conversation topic for both Baahka and Rahman who both consider it a greedy pursuit, while Sinuhe seems to be taken by gold and money given his craft.
Either way, Sinuhe does clue the player in on where and how they can get a Gold Necklace, which might be useful to have. Another path of keywords also makes Sinuhe mention that to enter the city Amentet, you need a password and he tells the player it's 'Seb Sleeps'.
Never talk to strangers because there could be dangers.
Coming out of the house at 7:15, there's still one more NPC wandering around, what looks to be a little girl. If you try to talk to her...
You'll never get some jiva with that attitude!
That's all she has to say. Hailing her, asking for her Name, saying a Word, none of these prompt any response. Of course, she gives an obvious clue that you should kneel down to speak to her. This both teaches the player some NPCs will only speak to them if certain conditions are met and of course how to kneel and crawl.
Once the player kneels, either Hailing or asking for a Name makes Nebka introduce herself. As far as I know she's the only NPC in the game with the same reply to Hail and Name, so that makes her rather unique. She's also one of two NPCs to have the 'player must kneel' requirement to be spoken to, and one of few NPCs who is a child.
Nebka mostly speaks in little rhymes and about her mother. The former give some more worldbuilding and gives the player an alternative way of learning the Amentet password 'Seb Sleeps'. This is rather important since it clues the player in on the fact that there can be multiple ways to learn the same piece of information, should they hear it from both Sinuhe and Nebka.
One interesting rhyme Nebka has is that Amentet is full of monsters, such as the Remren, the Hakar and the Priests. While it has already been implied there would be combat with the Hakar if you ask Baahka the right questions, Nebka also implies that the Priests of Koptos are monsters, foreshadowing the player might have to fight them too.
Should have told Sahti that Baahka sent you.
She also gives the player a sidequest to get her mother Lixir, a restorative Potion, but unlike other sidequests Nebka can only tell that Lixir can only be received on another planet. This makes it clear to the player that not every quest has clear intrusctions of where to go and what to do, in this case the Lixir quest is probably one of the final ones the player will be able to accomplish before the end of the game, I assume this was done on purpose to make it clear for the player that not every quest can be solved right off the bat.
Halt, alien!
Continuing on at 8:30, there is another empty screen. Well, mostly empty. There is a lizard dashing around but as far as I know it's not possible to interact with, so not much to say about it really. Not sure why this filler screen exists, perhaps to put some distance between the houses we've seen so far and Amentet.
Speaking of Amentet, the next screen over has a solid gate guarded by an armed guard. This is the first NPC so far to walk around carrying a weapon, so that should immediately clue the player in that not every NPC is unarmed. So far if you tried to attack any of the NPCs they'd just flee, but certain NPCs can fight back. Still, no reason to attack NPCs randomly.
There's a variety of accents on Luxor.
Hailing Mahkent just prompts him to ask for the password into Amentet. This is an important gating moment since it forces the player to use the Word function to both remember the password from Sinuhe or Nebka and then say it to Mahkent.
If the player has not used the word function so far this might also prompt them to go back to previous NPCs and look for any words to remember from them. They could also try to use the Name function if they've not already since Hail leads to a dead end, but the keywords there mostly lead to some more worldbuilding, this time from the point of view of a Koptoan.
A bit overconfident, perhaps.
Though this information is interesting, it's not actually useful for finishing the game. Much of the dialogue you can have with NPCs is flavorful, but only some of it is actually useful in your quest. It's up to the player to figure out what information is useful and what's not.
Once the player does say the password, Mahkent opens the gate and gives a new line of dialogue. This is another important moment since it shows the player saying words is a way to get past gates and how to prompt NPCs to tell them more.
If the player at any time experiments enough with words they can figure out that saying a word is the same as selecting a highlighted keyword, so selecting the keyword people or remembering and saying the keyword people leads to the same results. This is important since not every keyword an NPC replies to is one they bring up themselves. Usually when these keywords exist the NPC prompts the player to say a password or asks the player a question, but sometimes these keywords need to be intuited based on what you need from the NPC in question.
Mahkent also tells the player they can enter and warns them not to speak to women or try to enter the Temple of Koptos, but this is a rather confusing lesson since speaking to the women in Amentet doesn't actually lead to any punishment, though the Temple of Koptos will be somewhat of a puzzle to enter.
Lessons Learned
From Sinuhe it became a question whether every NPC can be trusted, while we've also learned more about Amentet and the Koptoans from Nekba and Mahkent. There were also some more gameplay lessons:
-There can be multiple sources for the same piece of information.
-Some NPCs have special requirements before they talk to you.
-NPCs react to said keywords just like selected keywords.
-Some NPCs require you to remember and say keywords to progress, not all keywords can be found by regular dialogue.
-Some NPCs are armed and capable of fighting back.
Now that Amentet has been reached, a lot of paths suddenly open up. There's still verses to be learned and people to meet.
I've recently rekindled my interest in Laser Lords, I hope to acquire its audiofiles which seem to have been lost on the web, but for now I thought it would be interesting to tackle a more cohesive topic, namely the design choices made on Laser Lords' 'tutorial planet' to determine how the game teaches the player how to interact with its various NPCs and other basics of the game. For this I'll be using images and a video playthrough made by YouTube channel BrokeBackBros LousyLay.
Introduction
The video starts with the game's intro, which explains the overall goal of the game to stop an extra dimensional being of condensing the universe into a crystal. That's quite the task, of course, so the game knows to guide the player on their first steps with a cutscene suggesting the player start on Luxor. The game then does something very important, which is give the player three goals to accomplish on the planet Luxor which do not directly relate to the overall main quest.
There are as follows:
-Find Petra
-Learn the Sooth Song
-Awaken Seb
For a short introduction, Luxor is an Egypt-inspired slave planet to a large space empire, known as Argos. Argos instituted an oppressive and theocratic ruling class on Luxor consisting of Koptoans, followers of the god of death, gold and grain Koptos, who seek to betray Argos and expand their religion across the whole Void with the help of the sleeping god Seb. Opposed to them are the oppressed Gameans, followers the goddess of fertility and flora Sysis, who also seek to awaken Seb, but to free them from both the Koptoans and the Argosians. Both the Gameans and Koptoans follow the same code, the Sooth Song, which concerns Sysis and Koptos' status as Seb's parents and Seb's destiny to free Luxor from Argosian rule.
The game itself doesn't give an introduction like this and doesn't require the player to read its manual to find it out either, but it makes it easier to discuss the game in this blog. The same goes for the controls which can be accessed through an in-game help menu but basic movement can be intuited just be regular play.
Once the player beams down at 2:45, they do not actually see any NPCs on the first few screens, these screens only serve to give the player a safe zone to practice movement in, which works in a sort of grid-based fashion, and lets the player use movement keys to move around, to jump, to crawl and to descend/ascend traction beams (which function identically to ladders) and handle staircases. The menu would have also ikely have been brought up by now, showing various options such as Hail and Name. These screens also show off the planet's Egyptian vibe Which helps to explain the planet's culture.
Come in! Come in! Have some Jiva.
Once the player walks far enough at 3:08, they come to a screen with a wandering NPC and a house. At this point the player can either talk to the wandering NPC or enter the house, for the purposes of this blog I'll follow the video and assume the player enters the house first.
Inside the house, there is another wandering NPC. At this point the player should be able to intuit they need to Hail the NPC. Once they do this, they are taken to this screen.
At this point they also hear the AMAZING VOICE ACTING.
This is a very important moment and a very important screen, since dialogue with NPCs is the main purpose of the game and what most gameplay consists of.
There are several things that draw attention. First there is the lovely face of the NPC you are talking to, which paired with the voice acting helps keep every NPC distinct, though this part of the screen is static so it's otherwise not too important to talk about.
More importantly, the word Jiva is clearly highlighted, and is the default highlighted word in these sentences. I believe it's also possible to select Void, but the game clearly guides to player to pick Jiva first by making the NPC tell you to take it.
Then when you select Jiva, two things happen. The NPC gives you the Jiva, which is an introduction to item management, and starts to talk about Jiva since it's the keyword you selected. This is the main way conversation works, by saying a highlighted keyword the NPC goes in more detail about it. It's also good to note that Zendo, the reptile from the game's intro serves as your guide through the game's menu by telling you you have received an item.
The next dialogue option is Starman, which prompts the NPC to hand out a sentence which obviously contains multiple keywords by asking the player what they are after, Gold or Glory, but also allows the player to ask about Luxor. From here the player can get used to the way the game handles its dialogue and get some information about Luxor as well as Argos, showing that it's valuable to talk to NPCs in detail since they can give the player useful information and more detail about the game's world.
If you choose the right keyword, you can get a discussion about how the NPC misses his son who has been taken by Argos and he asks the player to SAY 'Rahman' (the NPC's name, this can be found out by choosing Name rather than Hail) to his son if you find him and to richly reward the player if they bring any news from his son. This is another important moment, since it's the first time an NPC makes a request of the player with the offer of a reward in the form of a subquest. It also shows that while you may be on Luxor right now, this quest requires you go to Argos to complete it, showing that not every quest in the game is contained to just one section or even planet.
That's quite a lot to take in from just one NPC! It's good to note that Rahman is an overtly friendly NPC, he freely offers you an item, information and gives you a quest, and there is no way for Rahman to be angered with a player, meaning the player can safely faff about with Rahman. If the player says something or does something that does not make sense to Rahman he just gives a standard "I don't know about that, Starman." reply, which also has the Starman keyword in it which shows that even is the player messes up they can still get access to a keyword for it.
Once the player is done with Rahman, they can examine their inventory and see the Jiva he gave you. Looking at it reveals it's pretty much Luxorian coffee, and if the player uses the item then Zendo says it restored your life force. At that time the player could ask Rahman for more Jiva and receive it, but it's not possible to ask Rahman to give you two Jivas at once, if you do that Zendo tells you he's no longer has Jiva and Rahman gives his "I don't know about that, Starman" reply.
So, time to move on!
I am Baahka
Once outside the house, there's still the other wandering NPC. Once more, the player can either Hail her or ask for her Name, asking her Name makes her reveal she's Baahka and a priestess of Sysis, but for now let's just Hail her.
THE MOST AMAZING VOICE
Unlike Rahman, Baahka does not offer the player an item, but she does give a variety of other keywords. This could also serve as the player's first introduction to the dialogue system, so like Rahman Baahka is still an overtly friendly NPC who can't be prompted to leave or attack but freely gives out information.
There are a few interesting things about Baahka. Much of her dialogue centers around Luxor's lore, which can be overwhelming to a first time player since she talks about the history of Luxor and its religion in contrast with its current state.
One keyword that stands out is Sacred Songs, since it directly ties in with one of your quests on Luxor, namely to learn the Sooth Song. If you choose this keyword, Baahka tells you she's sworn to sing only the first verse of the Sooth Song, and then sings it for the player, at 5:20.
Not only is Baahka a wonderful singer, but she also marks the first tangible achievement the player makes in their quest on Luxor and introduces the concept of Recital and Codes of Wisdom. Since the game says you've learned Verse 1 of the Sooth Song, you can look around the menu and find that in the Recite menu it now says you have a quarter of the Sooth Song, clearly indicating the player needs to find three other verses.
Of course, there's 7 other Codes of Wisdom. So much Wisdom.
Trying to Recite the Sooth Song doesn't work, since you only have one verse, but the emptiness of the screen makes it rather clear that there's more to learn than just the Sooth Song, which is in fact true as every planet as a Code of Wisdom they live by and there's eight in total. Acquiring these Codes of Wisdom not only allows the player to Recite them to satisfy certain NPCs but also increases your maximum health, though that's not relevant quite yet.
Interestingly, choosing this option also doesn't give the player any keywords, prompting them to try to either Hail Baahka again or try asking for her Name, which reveals that even at the end of a chain of keywords the player can just starts over with the Hail or Name function.
Baahka also has important information to reveal about two of your other Luxor quests, namely Seb and Petra, though the video doesn't cover this. If you ask her about the Shrine of Life she says it's a lovely secret garden where Petra sings and if you ask about the Sebine Seal she reveals Seb is sleeping in his crypt and what you must do to get into the crypt. This makes Baahka a very valuable source of information, further pushing the player to diligently converse with NPCs.
Yet another piece of wisdom Baahka holds is that Sahti is the high priestess of Sysis and to speak with her you need to SAY to her that 'Baahka Sent Me'. As with Rahman, this prompts the player to say something to another NPC.
At this point the player should have figured out that using the Word function, they can REMEMBER a highlighted keyword, and that both 'Baahka Sent Me' and 'Rahman' were clearly words you need to remember not only because the NPCs told you to, but also since the keywords had apostrophes around it to show it's a word you should remember. Not all words that need to be remembered are this clearly telegraphed, but any word which is telegraphed like this is worth remembering.
Again, a lot learned from one NPC.
Lessons learned
From Baahka and Rahman we've learned quite a lot about Luxor's religious and political situation, fleshing out the game's lore and world, but we've also gotten some lessons in basic gameplay such as:
-How to talk to NPCs using keywords, Hail and Name
-That NPCs can give you items and quests by choosing the right keywords
-That NPCs can recite parts of a Code of Wisdom for the player to learn
-That the player can remember words and recite complete codes of wisdom.
And most importantly, that NPCs are worth talking to. I think this is the most crucial lesson to learn from the first two NPCs, the player should by nature feel at ease talking to NPCs since the game hinges on its NPCs to give out most of the game's items, quests and information.
Of course, Luxor still has ample NPCs left, and not all of them are this honest and nice. There's still lessons to be learned.
I have always loved the Mario series. I've played games such as Mario & Luigi: SuperStar Saga, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and Hotel Mario with true delight. I loved the cartoon shows based on Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, they were amazing and perfect and good cartoons. Nothing I felt could come between me and the love I felt for Mario, but then it happened, then it all changed. I made a mistake that would cost me dearly, I played a Mario platformer.
Oh god no
The details are somewhat vague to me. Was it a year ago? Or two years? Either way, it all happened when I tried to play Super Mario 64, a game generally regarded as amazing and recommended by a guy from Finland. I like Finland. Finland seems nice. But Finland has done me wrong, because playing Super Mario 64 has changed me as a person, and not for the better.
As I picked up the controller and started Super Mario 64 I was excited. I've never played a N64 game like this before, it would be a first, and surely this game would be a wonderful introduction, right? WRONG.
I was so wrong
The moment I started playing I felt nothing but agony. Agony and pain. I had been betrayed. Gaming conventions and dear friends had stabbed me in the back with a 1,000 degree knife, yet that still didn't hurt as much as playing this game did. As soon as I started to move around I knew something was wrong. Something didn't feel right. No, nothing felt right.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Every step Mario took was as if I was walking on knives. The momentum of the movement, the acceleration, the way the camera moved. I could feel the depths of my stomach retching as Mario moved around in a way that was so alien, so bizarre. This game took my expectations of this 3D platformer, sneered at it, glared me in the eye and spat in my face. But the worst had yet to come. That came when I pressed the jump button.
Holy mother of god no
What happened was awful. As I saw Mario move I could hear the voice of Charles Martinet laugh at me and taunt me, shouting with every jump in an attempt to mock and belittle me. As I experimented more I realized that not only the jumping physics were awful and made me want to jump out of the nearest window, there were actually multiple types of jumps. Jumping combos where you would use momentum and repeated jumping to jump far or high. A mechanic that baffled and disgusted me so much, it almost made me quit the game right there. The details are vague to me but the feeling it gave me I shall never forget.
I was nearing my limit
I couldn't take it. I sought refuge in a painting of a mountain that also had a mountain. Bomb-Omb mountain or something like that. It seems in very poor taste to me, a mountain filled with bombs, what sort of mountain is that, anyway? As I tried to move around, I found out the game had enemies. That was it. I'd given up. Dealing with platforms was bad enough, but moving enemies? I decided it was enough, and let Mario stand next to an enemy, get repeatedly hit as Charles Martinet screamed in pain, and saw Mario die. It was the only part of Super Mario 64 I liked.
My mind was in tatters.
I closer Super Mario 64 and got rid of it. Never would I make my hinds dirty playing with this pile of poop again, never. I sought shelter among my friends, to share with them my experiences and to warn them, but as I did I was met with opposition from the person who instigated this incident in the first place. He mocked me, laughed at me, said my tasted were not refined and suggested I had to get better at the game. Since then the topic would sometimes come up when discussing games. But now I have settled the score, now everyone can know that Super Mario 64 is literally the worst video game ever made, barring The Witness which is even worse but for other reasons I won't get into right now.
He must have thought himself funny, the fool
In an attempt to broaden my horizons, I decided to give the series another shot. Not Super Mario 64, of course, since it's awful, but some of its 2D precursors, namely Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. But it turned out those games were just Diet Super Mario 64, having the same horrible, nasty and awful floaty momentumy controls, as if Mario was permanently in an ice level in which the air was also somehow made of slippery ice. It felt awful. It was nasty. I quickly realized the whole series of Mario platformers was like this, and realized it was a waste of time.
Me looking for a good Mario platformer, finding none.
Since then I haven't touched any Mario game that was a platformer, since the series is clearly better at making RPGs and cartoon spin-offs. That is unless Shigeru Miyamoto Mario, father of Mario Mario and Luigi Mario, the devil on Earth, also gets his grubby fingers on those by making it more like the Mario platformers.
I suggest you learn from my mistakes, and play one of several games which is better at platforming than Mario platformers, such as one of the following:
-Rayman
-Spyro
-Croc
-Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon & Link: The Faces of Evil
