Dungeon Master
First person hack and slash; dungeon crawler mostly
Dungeon Master is one of the first person role playing games to offer you a first person experience of the depth and quality that it does; not that it was a pioneer; there had been lots of games that tried the first person perspective before, especially the ones that were built on the Golden Box engine. But, nonetheless, Dungeon Master is a bit more special, in that it had a lot more depth and a lot more to show for itself, especially given it was released very early on, in 87. The game had a beautiful, black and while with shades of gray kind of graphic set-up, which was very well done, and sprite monsters that required you to use specific weapons to defeat them, without, however, becoming too cumbersome to play, without a lot of different fighting styles. Overall, Dungeon Master is thus a good, well produced game, surely worth looking into and totally playable and well done. So, have it in your collection, along with Wolf 3D, a good shooter counterpart, if you're into oldie first person games.
Dungeon best
Dungeon Master is without a doubt one of the best dungeon game available anywhere. Modern attempts at the genre try to "upgrade" the process and make it all play faster. The terminology has even reflected this change and players usually refer to it as "running" a dungeon. In doing so, they remove the aspect and atmosphere of fear. This is what Dungeon Master has in spades. You're allowed to select a party with various skills. Your party has to deal with aspects of inventory and weight management, food and water, stamina and rate of movement based on weight, and the terrifying monsters down in the dungeon. But be warned, playing this game without a manual or magic guide is near impossible. Skills are enhanced by being used. You grow stronger the more times you fight, you level up ninja skills by throwing, your priest and wizard levels go up by casting priest and wizard spells. Balancing the level grind with the finite amount of food and water is always a delicate task. This game is exactly what dungeon crawling should be about, and more games need to emulate this.
Stunning game
An absolutely stunning game for the time. Allowed you to use your mouse and manipulate (pickup, throw, move) items. Really cool for the time - groundbreaking. I still have it on my pc today somewhere. Never seem to get tired of it, still fun to load up and roam around. My favorite trick is: once you complete the staff, throw it across the floor tile near the exit and pick it up on the other side. If you don't the stairway closes off and locks you into the lower levels. Leaving the stairway open allows you to go up and kill more rats or get water for running around - Purple worms rock!
