See what 3D mazes looked liked in 85!
Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds sure is a pioneer of pseudo 3D graphics. The game was your regular old era RPG, that is, it offered you all of your controls through text input, your stats, your characters and your battle moves, again, all packed in a simple mathematical and numerical matrix. Oh, but te exploration was sure ahead of its time. You see Wizardry was amongst the pioneers of 3D space modeling, and sure, while it didn't mean photorealistic creations, it did have enough punch packed for people to go wow when they saw it! Unfortunately 90 percent of the titles would repeat most often, which meant that in absence of rigorous pen to paper cartography (a great lost art, if you ask me) you would soon lose your bearing in the often too sprawling underground spaces. But it was all in the name of fun and games, and if you had what it takes it was worth it. While the controls and action could be called classic, it's still the RPG kind of classic of the early days of the genre, so don't expect to be greeted by ease of use or by a welcoming tutorial stage. So read on, watch how it's played and ask some nerd of the era how to kick it 85 style! Otherwise better go for more recent titles in the Wizardry series as usability gradually got much better.
