In today's entry in the ADVENTure Game Calendar, we take a moment to pay homage to a side effect of the season. No, I'm not talking about joy and I 'm not making reference to the murderous rage we feel when someone snakes a parking lot spot from us at the mall when all we are there for is a quick bite to eat at the Chik-fil-a. No, today I am talking about being broke while The Man keeps us down. So today, we look to our rich-robbing friend in the green elastic tights. Yes, today we talk about:
Conquests of the Longbow: The Adventures of Robin Hood was a sorely overlooked title from Sierra that deserves every bit of praise it's brother and sister titles at Sierra have received over the years. The game is filled with excellent Sierra-level puzzles, variations on adventure game mechanics that add a new dimension to the contemporary Sierra adventures of the time, and an extraordinarily detailed and accurate story to keep the player going through even some of the game's more challenging puzzles.
Puzzles in Conquests of the Longbow could be challenging and, in some cases far reaching. Not only would the method of completing the puzzle affect the outcome of the game (and also provide some pretty funny death sequences), the manner in which you followed up on the quest with the innocent poor would affect how they would present you later on in the game in a trial. Failure to provide enough witnesses on your behalf and you could technically win the game by completing the story but ultimately lose as you are hung for your crimes. As with most other adventure games, the name of the game is to take everything not nailed down or figure out how to take the nail out so you can take the item and then figure out how to use that same item later on down the road in the story.
The game utilized a number of unique components that are found in very few adventure games. As one of the main objectives of the game is to obtain enough money to pay the ransom to release King Richard, Conquest utilizes a money tracking component as well as a system for monitoring the number of outlaws that have joined your merry men, left it, or have been outright killed. To top it all off, the game implements first person shooter elements. That's right, before Call of Duty was ever even imagined, Sierra was utilizing FPS concepts in adventure games. While this mechanic does not deviate as much from traditional adventure game format asQuest for Glory's RPG grinding, it does add a little bit of a unique feel to this particular title.
The story of Conquests is extremely detailed and quite accurate compared to the time the story takes place in as well as comparisons to the original stories. In fact, you will find that the instruction booklet for the game carries a bibliography that would rival most college-level papers. As one would imagine, it is the story of good men pushed to become outlaws to save themselves and their King from tyranny as well as a love story between the hero and the sometimes lovely Maid Marian (there is a scene towards the end where she has something on her head...not sure what it is but it looks awful).
I got lucky with this game, I almost missed it entirely. Luckily, I had finished with my Game Gear (the first truly color handheld system for you young folk) that I traded off for a bunch of PC games, this one included. My parents weren't big on the trading games and toys thing at the time, so I left them out of the loop on this one (I am a terrible example, children), and it is probably best we leave it that way...
As always with my ADVENTure Game Calendar titles, hunt this one down, rob the sherrif, buy it, and play it, you won't regret it. Thanks for reading.
"Excuse me, could you lend me a hand? You see I am nearly safe but I decided to do something truly foolish and get myself killed." - Robin Hood Blowing a Prison Break
Catch up on all of the past ADVENTure Game Calendar games:
Day 7 - Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist
Day 9 - The Adventures of Willy Beamish
Day 11 - Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Days 14 and 15 - The Wolf Among Us and King's Quest