William Shatner's TekWar (1995) (Short entry)

Date: 1995
Developer: Capstone Software
Publisher: Capstone Software

System Requirements:
 - 486SX
 - 8MB RAM
 - MSDOS 5.0 or higher
 - VGA Compatible video card

Where to purchase?
 - TekWar is not available in digital form anywhere so check Ebay or Amazon for original hard copies.


TekWar is a FPS game developed and published by Capstone Software in 1995 that is a tie-in to thespian and national treasure William Shatner's TekWar universe.  Besides this game, the TekWar universe spans 9 novels, 4 TV movies, a TV series, and a comic book series.  Given this extensive background from which to draw lore and the pedigree of  William Shatner's genius and Capstone's stellar track record of PC game development in the 1990s, I fully expect this game to be a milestone in PC game history, taking a place alongside other greats like Doom, Civilization, Command and Conquer, and Operation Body Count.  

I remember playing the demo of this game off a PC Gamer demo disk when it originally came out in 1995, but other than that I have no experience with the game.  I also know nothing about the TekWar universe, so I'll be experiencing the rich and nuanced stories that make up the tapestry of legends that is the TekWar lore for the first time as well.  I am excited to get started, so let's fire up William Shatner's TekWar and get going!

Ascendancy - Part 3

Ascendancy - Part 1

Ascendancy - Part 2


Today I am continuing my playthrough of the fantastic 4X game Ascendancy.  My Nimbuloid empire continues to exist while struggling against the tyrannical Fludentri, conniving Chamachies, and war mongering Marmosians.  My goal for this post is to eliminate at least one of these opposing species so I can get to a good stopping point to wrap up my coverage of Ascendancy.  The game is great fun and I'm enjoying my time playing it, but this is the third post covering the game so I think it is time to finish it and move on to the next game.  If I can't get to total galactic domination, at least I should be able to wipe a few of these other species.

Click below to continue to follow the rise of the Nimbuloid empire.

Ascendancy - Part 2

Ascendancy - Part 1

The Great Nimbuloid-Fludentri War continues in Part 2 of my Ascendancy playthough.  "Great" may be too strong of a word since nothing has happened yet, but I can tell those shifty Fludentri are going to be a tough opponent.  They look like toothpaste.

In this post, I hope to capture the essence of war in Ascendancy with ship-ship and ship-planet battles along with planetary invasion.  I should see some of this pretty soon since it did not take long for the Fludentri to declare war on me after we made first contact.  I can also start to show some of the weird tech tree gizmos that the game encourages me to place in my ships.  I will try to provide occasional overviews of the galaxy map to allow readers to follow along and understand how my Nimbuloid empire is progressing as well.  Hopefully we can conquer the other galactic denizens and spread our strange, gaseous cloud people to the farthest reaches of the galaxy!  To continue reading about Ascendancy, click below!

Ascendancy (1995)

Date: 1995
Developer: Logic Factory
Publisher: Logic Factory

System Requirements:
 - 486DX/33MHz
 - MSDOS 5.0
 - 2x CDROM
 - VESA compatible SVGA
 - 8MB RAM

Where to purchase?

 - Unfortunately Ascendancy is not sold anywhere digitally, so your best bet is Amazon or Ebay looking for use copies.  There used to be an iOS version, but this was taken down a few years ago.


Today's game is a change of pace from my previous outings of the past few weeks.  After playing mostly action games for my initial posts on RPDG, I'm going to slow down and play through Ascendancy, a 4X space strategy game.  Before starting, let's get some acronyms out of the way first: 4X stands for eXpand, eXterminate, eXplore, and eXploit, these being the primary driving motivations behind the gameplay in these kinds of games.  Like many of these kinds of games, Ascendancy is a turn-based strategy game (TBS), in comparison to something like Command and Conquer, which is a real-time strategy game (RTS).  Sometimes I find ATBA (Acronyms To Be Annoying), but in this case it is helpful to know this stuff ahead of time.

I have limited experience with Ascendancy from playing the demo way back in the 90s, so I'm going in to this game fairly blind.  But I do enjoy these kinds of galactic conquest games, so I'm looking forward to it.  Let's fire it up!

Star Wars: Dark Forces (1995)

Date: 1995
Developer: LucasArts
Publisher: LucasArts

System Requirements:
 - 386/DX-33MHz
 - 8MB RAM
 - 3.5MB HDD space
 - MS DOS 5.0

Where to purchase?

• GOG.com
• Steam

Last week I played a game that was completely new to me (Alien Odyssey), so this week I am playing Dark Forces, a game which I know very well.  I purchased Dark Forces new when it was originally released and played it through to completion.  Since that time, I have played a number of custom levels, the sequel Jedi Knight, and Jedi Knight's sequels Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy.  So it is accurate to say I am familiar with this game and I am also a fan.  I'm really looking forward to going back and playing it again for RPDG.com.  For this playthrough, I'll be playing the Steam version, which means I'll be playing the original vanilla version through DOSBox.  I won't be using any modern updates or mods, of which there are many.  If you are interested, the most popular update for Dark Forces is the DarkXL engine, which can be found at its's website: XLengine.com.  

Dark Forces is an FPS (first person shooter) set in the Star Wars universe just prior to the events of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  To read about its development, my impressions on a playthrough, and my thoughts in a review at the end, read on!

Alien Odyssey (1995)

Date: 1995
Developer: Argonaut Software
Publisher: Phillips Interactive

System Requirements:

- IBM PC compatible 486/DX2-66MHz
- 8MB of RAM
- DOS 5.0 of higher
- 8MB HDD space

Where to purchase?

 - It is not sold digitally anywhere, so your options are limited to resellers like Amazon and Ebay.  Copies go for anywhere from $2 - $40, so it is pretty cheap


For the next game on RPDG, I'm playing a game that is completely new to me: Alien Odyssey by Argonaut Software.  Alien Odyssey is a game that is difficult to categorize, it is kind of a mix of genres.  Based on my reading about it, it supposedly combines FMV rail shooter sequences like Rebel Assault or Cyberia with third-person adventuring like Bioforge or Alone in the Dark.  As I mentioned, I've never played the game so this understanding is based on the background reading I've done on the game, I could be completely wrong.  But I'm curious to find out.

FMV or pre-rendered rail shooters had a period of brief popularity in the mid 90s as CD-ROM technology was first establishing itself on the market.  Games that combined rail shooting sequences with other genres like third person adventuring also seemed to be a popular niche in PC gaming for a short while from what I can remember.  I've played a few games that fit that description and I don't remember them being particularly fun, but maybe Alien Odyssey will change my mind.  Let's find out!

Crusader: No Remorse - Part 3

Crusader: No Remorse - Part 2

Crusader: No Remorse - Part 1

- Mission 3 -

I've realized that to keep posting the amount of detail I have for the previous two posts will result in my just playing and posting about Crusader for the next month.  While I don't mind playing Crusader, that will take up too much time and space on this site and I want to eventually get to other games.  So I'm going to try to cut down again on how much I post for each game going forward.  Like I've said before, this is new to me so I'm still trying to find a good middle ground.  

Crusader: No Remorse -- Part 2

Crusader: No Remorse - Part 1

Crusader: No Remorse - Part 3

- Mission 2 -

Before getting my briefing for mission 2, I walked around and explored the Resistance base.  It looks like it is an old subway station, and there is not much to explore.  There is the bar where I can interact with my fellow Resistance teammates, Col Ely's office where I can get my mission briefing, a small area with a health recharge station and shield recharge station, and one other room that looks like a clinic area where I can't interact with anyone right now.  Now that I've done that, let's meet our teammates at the bar.

Crusader: No Remorse

Date: 1995
Developer: Origin Systems
Publisher: Electronic Arts
System Requirements:
 - 486/DX2-66 MHz
 - 8 Megabytes of RAM
 - 2x CD-ROM
 - Video card that supports SVGA at 640x480
 - 30 Megabytes of HDD space

Where to purchase?

• Origin
• GOG.com

This week on RPDG, I'm going to be playing a PC DOS game that I played and loved when it first came out.  I have not played it since then, so this will be pretty close to a new experience for me as it has been 20 years(!) since I last played it.  The game is Crusader: No Remorse, an isometric third-person action game by one of the best development studios of the 80s and 90s: Origin Systems.  Almost every game Origin made was a classic, I can't think of a bad game by them.  They had a run from the release of Wing Commander in 1990 to Wing Commander Prophecy and Ultima Online in 1997 where basically every game they developed was fantastic and a competitor for being a game of the year.  Even the games they released as the publisher were great, such as Ultima Underworld 1 and 2, System Shock, and Shadowcaster.  

Crusader: No Remorse came out in 1995, right in the midst of Origin's peak.  It got great reviews at the time, but how does it play today?  Can a third-person action game, that was acknowledged to have somewhat cumbersome controls at the time of its release, overcome this issue to be still playable and fun?  I hope so!