Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday - Matt Chat 465

Oh boy! This game blew my mind when I rented it for my Mega Drive all those years back, First real RPG I played, and it was a sci-fi setting!
I recall game magazines being down on it as the graphics and music weren't the best; it was the first time I realized my tastes could be different from game reviewers!
I replayed it a couple of years ago on handheld and it still holds up.
It worked so well on the console I wished some of the Goldbox games had got conversions too.
 
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One of the best science fiction games of all time that I've ever played, hands down. The goldbox love that just keeps on giving, I sure wish someone would remaster some of those wonderful joys. I'd pony up some cash directly!
 
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Bought this on release for the Amiga platform and loved it. It did come with a Buck Rogers novel too. One of my first rpgs.
 
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To old school for my tastes and my tastes in games is shitty.:lol:
 
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Brilliant game - I completed it both on C64 and PC. I still have my original boxed editions as well. That said, I never did finish Matrix Cubed, the possibly lesser known, much less discussed sequel. Maybe one day... :)

Bit surprised they're not already available on GOG - that's a community wishlist job for sure.
 
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Bit surprised they're not already available on GOG - that's a community wishlist job for sure.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a rights issue preventing them being sold. TSR was being run in the early 90s by the granddaughter of the original rights owner of Buck Rogers (or so is claimed, but the legal stuff around this is apparently a real headache), so she arranged for them to make the paper RPG and its subsequent computer games. So the characters were being licensed from a third party and weren't actually owned by TSR (and subsequently Wizards of the Coast)
 
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One of the best games ever made. The story is just as strong as it was back in the day. The best quest is still the second one where you liberate the maelstrom rider from an ECG investation. You have a limited amount of time to do it before your party gets infected one by one. Great levels of suspense which are achieved through both good visuals and increasingly worrying alert messages.
 
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One of the best games ever made. The story is just as strong as it was back in the day. The best quest is still the second one where you liberate the maelstrom rider from an ECG investation. You have a limited amount of time to do it before your party gets infected one by one. Great levels of suspense which are achieved through both good visuals and increasingly worrying alert messages.

I wanted to slap Matt when he kept saving over his game instead of saving a new one for maelstrom. It was funny through.
 
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I seem to remember there was a mechanic where a character could go "comatose" or something, where they wouldn't be dead but they also couldn't participate in combat or earn any XP. I had a guy that I think was my medic go comatose, but for some reason I decided to continue with the campaign rather than reloading. When we finally got back to the ship and he could heal, he was so far behind everyone else in leveling, but I just went with it.

I also remember that they had things like monoknives that were so called because they were so sharp that at the edge they were only one molecule, or so the manual claimed. I actually still think about the science of that to this day when I'm looking at something sharp...
 
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I'd buy both this one and Matrix Cubed immediately, were they available on great old games. I'm ever hopeful that some kind programmer will make it so, and then many more people can learn what a fabulous set of games these were.
 
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One of the best games ever made. The story is just as strong as it was back in the day. The best quest is still the second one where you liberate the maelstrom rider from an ECG investation. You have a limited amount of time to do it before your party gets infected one by one. Great levels of suspense which are achieved through both good visuals and increasingly worrying alert messages.
Yes, this part is the pinnacle of an awesome game.

It's my favourite sci-fi RPG and one of my favourite games at all.

The game contains all I like regarding narrative, everything from the other similar SSI's games (a cool rather than deep tone, a focus on what the characters do, obviously linked with full party creation + temporary extra companions, some input during to-the-point events and just enough text) plus in this context the setting is actually fresh, actually recommendable pulp sci-fi games are not legion.

The SSI's gameplay is obviously solid. The number of different consumables does probably not completely make up for a lack of spells but the encounters are more than decent and the dungeons are arguably the best among the SSI's games, this one especially but there are plenty of small events where you can check your skills (skills are a cool addition) for slightly different results : there's a dungeon where you may crash or not, I think, alarms to disable, sneaking through an unoccupied path and a super hard optional "it's a trap" dungeon.

I think Matrix Cubed, if still much worth playing, is slightly worse because after the first third of the game, more or less, all your characters carry rocket launchers and eventually all enemies do too, from then there's no much gain in power nor variation while finding the two or three rocket launchers you can find in Countdown to Doosmday is really satisfyng and I think the encounters are more fun overall.
 
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I jumped as I thought Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday will be REMASTERED!!! My second thought was:
- Could it be that Matt is playing better games on his C-64 emulator than we do on PC nowadays?
 
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The answer to that, Mercy, would be an unqualified yes, for the most part. There are days I truly miss my Commodore, I'd even go back to the BBS days.
 
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