The Master of Magic - C64/Spectrum

[kernow]

I used to play this as a child on my best friends spectrum and eventually got it on my trusty C64 (with better graphics and sound, but pretty much the same game).



Every time I crank it up on an emulator now the sense of nostalgia comes flooding back, from the pretty basic but functional graphics to the simple storyline and the amazing Rob Hubbard soundtrack. It just takes me right back. Despite the fact I can't actually get past the first few monsters anymore.



The basic premise is that you're exploring caves one day and some magician type called thelric pulls you in to a pond and expects you to do his dirty work by retrieving an amulet in a labyrinth of caves, guarded by a Minotaur who you can only really hurt by finding the Dagger of death and showing him what for. (lol my writing skills suck) annyway.

Not to be confused with the later Microprose 'Master of Magic' which I've actually never played. The game provides you with context sensitive actions depending on your situation i.e 'pick up potion' etc, I guess its like a point n click adventure but you actually use the stick to perform such things.

To be honest nowadays its just a total pain in the arse 'pick up .. potion' 'put in .. backpack' etc its clunky but at the time I was in love.

I think my friend managed to complete it a couple times, and on keyboard too, hah, the atmosphere was awesome opening a door and suddenly having a vampire or something chasing you around this network of caves 'you got bit' 'you got bit' 'you attack the vampire - you missed' followed by usually 'you are dead' .. awesome

This is a play through I watched last week where the elite player does it in about 20 minutes or so, you can get a feel for it if you haven't seen it before, (it runs very well on vice the c64 emu, on my psp for example).

http://www.veoh.com/videos/v255377kW6tmejR?rank=0&jsonParams={%22numResults%2 2%3A20%2C%22rlmin%22%3A0%2C%22query%22%3A%22master +of+magic%22%2C%22rlmax%22%3Anull%2C%22veohOnly%22 %3Atrue%2C%22order%22%3A%22default%22%2C%22range%2 2%3A%22a%22%2C%22sId%22%3A%2221072627311594779%22} &searchId=21072627311594779&rank=1

hmm, nice link, check out the music though.. its the best.

[charlesr]

The music was ace beyond aces. I recorded it on my tape player and listened to it geek style.

[kernow]

Indeed, I need to find more hubbard classics really, I'm sure it'd come flooding back when I heard em

[Baseley09]

Master of magic, spells and illusion, Enemies crumble in fear and confusion!

[DCharlie]

a great game, a mastertronic classic

as mentioned, the music was outstanding (Hubbard is a god)

i might drop this on the PSP and play it

[nintastic]

Defenders of the Earth , DEFENDERS !

[kernow]

a great game, a mastertronic classic

as mentioned, the music was outstanding (Hubbard is a god)

i might drop this on the PSP and play it

yeah!

VICE is very good on psp, only problem is that this game will own you, I'd used up all my magic and didn't have a dagger to hit anything with, so I was just running around looking for a dagger, and waiting to die

Maybe I'll try again.

[Dave3622]

If it's Hubbard tracks you want, or any other C64 music for that matter, this is the place to go:-

http://www.hvsc.c64.org/

Get yourself a copy of Sidplay2W and you'll be in C64 heaven

[butane bob]

I remember playing this game heaps when i was a kid. I'm pretty sure i got up to the minotaur but kept getting my arse handed to me hehe. I never actually beat it. >

Did anyone else play another game with Rob Hubbard tunes called Spellbound??

[charlesr]

I think I beat it. I think.

[kernow]

From the video playthrough, the ending seems a bit unrewarding hehe, but I guess the personal satisfaction would be awesome.

[butane bob]

C64 endings were always unrewarding, it was actually the thrill of beating it alone that was worth it, coz damn those games were hard.

[kernow]

I tried playing through turrican on c64 via VICE the other day (psp) and I couldn't work out how to change tape sides, I could change the tape, but when i pressed space to load it it cocked up, so it obviously wasn't the right side as such, it just asked for tape 1 side 2, and I had no way of loading it, there must be a workaround or a button to switch tape sides or something, no idea.

edit: next time I'll just create a save state before I try loading the next side as I lost my progress. blargh

[DCharlie]

Did anyone else play another game with Rob Hubbard tunes called Spellbound??

yup yup - that was part of the Magic Knight series (Finders Keepers, etc)

A great sound track, some fairly obscure puzzles and some annoying instadeaths. But yeah, a Hubbard sound track would go a long way to helping ignore those gameplay issues! lol

[samanosuke]

Going off on a tangent here but Ben Dalglish was the t!ts too. Terramex on the Speccy 128k had a f*cking awesome soundtrack. These guys were the Yuzo Koshiro of the 80s.