Hell yeah!

Riding a dragon spitting flames is sooo epic!

Sure SSI had the right artists for their cover! Thanks to Jeff Easley for such a piece of art 😉
Let’s have a closer look to the covers…

Sure SSI had the right artists for their cover! Thanks to Jeff Easley for such a piece of art 😉

Jeff Easley,

the advanced dragon!

 Jeff Easley was born in Nicholasville, Kentucky in 1954. He had an early interest in art, especially when it had a fantastic element. To say he is a huge Frank Frazetta fan is an understatement. He graduated from Murray State University in 1977. He had a brief fling at freelancing that resulted in a few projects with Warren Publishing and Marvel comics. In 1982 he had the opportunity to join the art staff at TSR Inc. which was starting to hit their stride with their Dungeons and Dragons role playing game. It is said that the amazing artwork of Jeff Easley, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson and Clyde Caldwell helped propel Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to new heights in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. During his 20+ year tenure at TSR/WOTC Jeff did many rulebook, boxed set, and module covers for all of TSR’s gaming worlds including the iconic 1st Edition AD&D hard covers and then all of the 2nd Edition core hard cover rule books. In addition, Jeff was responsible for many famous Dragonlance and Drizzt paintings. Afer parting ways with WOTC in 2003, Jeff found himself freelancing once again,and is currently producing art for various companies and individuals. And of course, picking up Pug poo…

Written by Jim Ludwig – Dark Sword Miniatures, Inc. – Read more…

Definitly the best artworks for an heroïc fanstasy game! Have a look to the advertisements!

Another AD&D RPG ?

Mmm…? Nope! Not at all!

The legendary Dragonlance^® game world comes alive in this exciting action game.

Really ? Action game ? Ok! Why not? Well… I guess it wasn’t a bad idea to find a new way to exploit the legendary AD&D licence… but unfortunately it ended up really bad. What about the story ? Here is the introduction that you can find in the manual:

It is now more than three hundred years since the Cataclysm when the wrath of the gods descended upon Krynn. With the only direct access portal denied her, The Queen of Darkness spreads her power across the land by awakening the evil dragons and creating the Draconians. Once in control of Krynn, whe will be free to force entry to the world. Only the ‘Companions of the Lance’ (they aren’t ‘Heroes’ until they succeed) can stop her final victory. Should they fail, the Queen of Darkness will be free to come through from the Abyss into the world and darkness will cover Krynn for all eternity, as she and her Draconians will control the largest, most evil empire ever created.

The only threat to her awesome power is the possibility of a revival of the worship of the old golds. In the years since the Cataclysm, the inhabitants of Krynn have lost their belief in the gods. Before opposition to Takhisis canb be united, you must restore faith in the old gods by recovering the Disks of Mishakal from the ruins of Xak Tsaroth. Use of their knowledge will bring True Healing back to Krynn and restore faith in the old gods, allowing them to intervene in the fate of their worshippers. More importantly, it allows them to confront the Queen of Darkness directly and restore the balance between Good, Evil and Neutrality.

This mighty relic is the only hope for Krynn and you must aid the Companions in their quest to retrieve the Disks. Unfortunately, the Disks aren’t just lying in the ruins but are actively guarded by Khisanth, an ancient, huge, black dragon, served by Draconians who have enslaved the local Aghar (gully dwarves).

The game offers the classic panel of races and classes of RPG games… with fighters, clerics, wizards, etc… Let’s check those nice adventurers!

Graphics are really poor for a game released in 1988! Color palette has been really underused on this one. Gameplay is also kinda weird… Controls are really a pain in the *SS ! Animation is ok, but… what animation ?! So, about the game system: you control 8 characters with differents abilities to fight the enemies. You have to select the right character for the right enemy. Here is the only RPG related thing in this game. Some screenshots:

Good point: music!

Thanks to Ben Daglish!

Ben Daglish was born in 1966 in London. He moved to Sheffield as a small child, and grew up benefiting from both its peripatetic instrumental service and its cheap bus fares. He was the principal percussionist for the City Of Sheffield Youth Orchestra, and performed extensively as both percussionist and conductor before starting to compose music for computer games in the early 1980’s. He moved on to compose and perform for a number of theatre companies as MD/actor/musician in places as diverse as Belfast, Tuscany and Jerusalem. Ben currently plays various instruments with a number of different ensembles (most notably Loscoe State Opera), and lives with his partner and three children in the Peak District. When he’s not playing music, he works as a programmer, writing network device backup software for Restorepoint. Read more

Ben managed to give his tune an epic feeling, perfect match for this kind of game! Unfortunately it’s just a 30 seconds loop. Have a listen!

Files:

Manual: Heroes of the lance – Manual (web) (.pdf, 3.1 Mb)
Software: Heroes.of.the.Lance-c64 (.zip (.d64),  142 Kb)
SID: Heroes_of_the_Lance (.zip (.sid), 2.2 Kb)
MP3: 

 (.mp3, 6.9 Mb)

Oh yes, here is a pic of the floppy… aaaah, way better (erm, just a little better) than the tape version! Haha!