Damocles (Third Review)

Title           Damocles (Mercenary II) (Third Review)
Publisher       Novagen
Game Type       3D Adventure
Players         1
HD Installable  With Patch: from Bert Jahn's WHDLoad page
Compatability   68000 Amigas only (All Amigas with patch)
Game data/utils Spoilers - aminet:game/hint/damocles.txt
Submission      Andy Helliwell

Review
When I first saw Damocles on my Amiga computer, I fell in love with it.
For the time it was ground breaking stuff.

I was watching the intro sequence with amazement, as my shuttle was
aproaching the planet Eris. It entered orbit and flew towards a land mass
way below. As my shuttle got closer to the land mass I could see buildings
and roads. My craft was flying through the city to get to the starport
where the game begins.

In this game you get a real 3D universe, made up of a small solar
system, and a comet called Damocles. Damocles is on course to smash into
the planet Eris. You can choose to look around the Damocles gameworld, and
let the planet be destroyed by the comet if you like. As long as you are
not on Eris when the comet hits, you should survive, but I found that
method of play to be very boring. You will have much more fun if you take
the car to the Presidents residence, and take on the mission to save the
planet.

There are hidden clues and objects on most of the planets, some can help
you in your mission to destroy Damocles, and some can be sold in the many
shops, to earn cash enabling you to buy special objects. If you can
afford, for example, a beacon locator, a flashing light will give the
location of some hidden objects, it can be seen from space,so keep your
eyes open, Commander !

There are several ways of destroying Damocles to save Eris. Your solution
depends on which route you take, and which hidden objects or clues you
have found. Gaming dice are hidden around the Damocles game world, these
are teleportation points, and each side of the dice teleports you to a
different place. You can even be transported to another planet, but you
have to remember which side of the dice you entered, or getting back can
be a nightmare!

Damocles is a typical Amiga game, it is well thought out, and the game play
is, as with most Amiga games, first class. You never know what you will
find in this game. Unreadable text written on an unimportant looking wall
inside a weird building, what does it mean? Could it be telling me
something usefull? Maybe I should have picked the reading glasses up when
I visited that moon, and why were they just lying there? These are
questions that you will ask yourself time and again while you play this
exellent game.

Damocles is a bit of a lonely game, there are loads of buildings to
explore, but not many have anything in them. There is only one other ship
in the game, which is guarding a prison. Frontier has bulletin boards and
pirates which give the player at least a sense of not being alone in the
universe, and it is a shame that Damocles did not have this feature, but
if there had been more computing power available when Damocles was being
developed,who knows what would have been in this groundbreaking game?

If I hear the birds singing outside and I realise to my surprise it is
morning, I know I have just played an Amiga game. Damocles, The Settlers,
Frontier, why do these magical games keep you awake all night? And how
did they get them to fit on to a floppy disk?

Alphabetical list.