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A short Play starring Davey, Amaya, Patrick and Duncan.


SCENE ONE: THE FOREST
(Duncan is clutching the ZERO teapot.)
Amaya: Hang on a minute. When I left the office a second ago, there was no tree over there. And where did you get those clothes, Patrick? I mean, what a fashion catastrophe! (The initial laughter dies down as they realise they've all acquired the dress sense of Arthur out of Eastenders.)
Duncan: (Looking perplexed at the teapot.) Um, ah, I think, perhaps, this may have something to do with me...
All: What?
Duncan: Erm... well, I was just going to make some tea, you see, when I noticed this blemish on the side of the kettle...
Davey: That's the handle, you fool.
Duncan: Aha! So that's why I couldn't rub it off.
Patrick: That means we've got a magic teapot! Think of all the money we can make! Girlies will find me irresistible! I'll get free tickets to all the Cicero gigs... (Several savage and hungry-looking curs bring him down to earth.)
All: Yikes!

SCENE TWO: THE TEMPLE
Davey: Phew! That was close! Fortunate that I was able to construct a makeshift Allegro and bring us here. (Enter two strange-looking blond people.)
Strange People: All Allegros are makeshift. We are your brothers. Welcome to our temple.
Amaya: (Narrowly ducking an arrow shaped thing.) What the hell was that?
Strange People: That was the cursor, controlled by The Rodent Who Is All. He is everywhere, yet nowhere. We thought you'd have worked it out by now. You are in the enigmatic and mystical world of life and of death, of tragedy and of triumph, of Yin and of Yang...
Patrick: You're full of crap. Do you want a knee in ver nuts?
Davey: (Whispering to Amaya.) I think he's telling us we've been plunged into a role-playing game, with a mouse-driven system similar to Dungeon Master and the like. Judging by the way that pointer's nipping about, it's a pretty damn good interface.
Strange People: The one you call 'Patrick' irritates us.
Davey: (To the rest of the crew.) Quick! What should we do?
Duncan: We've got the teapot. We could make them some Horlicks. (Disgusted, the Strange People obliterate the ZERO team on the spot.)
Crap Message Box At Bottom Of Screen: Your entire party has died. Would you like to play again?

Title Eye of the Beholder 2
Game Type RPG
Players 1
Company SSI/US Gold
HD Installable Yes
Compatibility 020 + (?)
Submission William Payne

Review
Eye of the Beholder 2 is generally regarded as the best game in its
series, expanding on the advances made in the first-person RPG genre by
EOB1, but without getting hitched up in the technical difficulties and
over-complicated play mechanics that many people felt ruined EOB3 (Amiga
owners at the time seemed to agree that they weren't missing much when US
Gold reported that the final game was not being developed for their
platform).

The game started out by having the player generating a party of four
adventurers to boldly sally forth in the general direction of some fairly
ambiguous ancient evil. Personally, I preferred the slightly more in-depth
approach to character statistics used by Dungeon Master, a game to which
this series is often thought of as a kind of spiritual successor, but
EOB's use of deliberately simplified statistics works fine too, so there's
not much to complain about there.

But it isn't long before the first innovation hits home. Its a simple
one, but nevertheless effective, and something I'd been thinking about
since first playing Dungeon Master. Rather than restricting the game
environment to atmospheric, but eventually boring, caverns and dungeons
and such, the first section takes place in a forest, home to several packs
of vicious wolves and a creepy old lady. Its only a graphical thing (the
walls that restrict the player’s movement being drawn to look like dense
foliage, rather than dank stone walls) but I was impressed at the time and
it somehow alters the feel of the game in an effective way.

There's also a lot more emphasis on plot line and character interaction,
with more characters that don’t just try and suck out your brains as soon
as they see you. There are more NPC’s to join your party as well.

The game is also noticeably larger, and it certainly takes longer to reach
the final encounter, but fortunately this isn't because the designers have
simply put in more identical corridors full of cloned creatures. The
diversity of both environment and enemies is much greater than it was in
EOB1, and in Dungeon Master as well.

As I mentioned before, it’s a long game, and pretty tough, and by the time
you've fought your way through to the final level and defeated the big
baddy (twice) you'll feel like you've achieved something, which is always
important with games that require a large chunk of your life to work
through. Luckily I look back at the weeks I devoted to this particular
game as more of a pleasure than a chore.