Rise of the Triad won the 1995 Shareware Industry Award in the category of Best Action/Arcade Game.
User Rating: 8.4 | Rise of the Triad: Dark War PC
Rise of the Triad: Dark War 1995 Award Winner (10 years-old already) This game was released December of 1994. Rise of the Triad won the 1995 Shareware Industry Award in the category of Best Action/Arcade Game, beating out other titles such as Descent and Heretic. InterActive Gaming gave it “Game of the Year”. This game is from Apogee Software, LTD. These are the folks who started it all with games like Wolfenstein 3D, and Blake Stone. It is only available in the DOS version, so it forces the author to dig out older hardware to play it. Windows 2000, XP, or NT does not play well with DOS program anymore. In fact, Microsoft recently released a Windows Hotfix that makes many DOS versions now nearly impossible to operate with their present systems. One can contact Apogee (now 3DRealms) at: http://www.3drealms.com/rott/index.html for more information. Use of a DOS emulator is another option. This is the first PC game the author ever bought that is in CD version. Most all software before that time was installed from 5 ¼ or 3 ½ inch discs. The original Doom, for instance, required four - 3 ½ inch discs to install. Rise of the Triad is a high quality FPS, fast scrolling, and perspective 3D action game (for its time). The author thinks it looks slightly better than DOOM. It has lots of destructive “baddies”, a boat-load of weapons, life-preserving armor, traps, ambushes, and the ability to play by modem or Internet (one of the very first modem-friendly games). Other than Doom, there was not much else available then; unlike today, where games are hitting the market like leaves falling in the autumn. The gamer(s) is/are (gamers in up to 11 network players) part of an elite group of operatives called HUNT (High-risk United Nations Taskforce). Your job is to stop a maniac religious cult leader from killing millions. There are four “Bosses”; he is the last and worse. Gameplay starts from the get-go as you are quickly surrounded by the enemy with guns blasting. You enter a huge and majestic monastery. You are equipped with a myriad of high-tech weaponry, which leaves a trail of flaming to charred skeletons behind you. Like present day games, features include the fact that nearly every object can be destroyed – showing even bullet holes in the walls, floor, and ceiling. There are 32 levels that are super-sized with as much as one million square feet. Not only is the X - axis immense, but now one gets the massive perspective on the Y - axis with heights up to 16 stories. For the first time, one can soar to great heights by traversing a trampoline assembly in the floor that will propel the player up like a shot. These appear to look like pink “man-hole” covers on the floor. Run over one of these and you get propelled at an angle. This is perfect for reaching those hard to get at places and power-ups. Weapons include the bullet type that never run short of ammo. Starting with a pistol, one can pick up another, thus the double-handgun blasting now very common with games like Max Payne. There are other standard bullet weapons up to the bazooka. There is even a drunk bazooka. This one deserves extra credit to its designer. When the weapon fires; missiles erratically seek the enemy (hence, the drunk part). You can change weaponry to heat-seeking missiles, split missiles, and even a flamewall cannon. There are magical and just odd weapons too. The excalibat is the author’s favorite. It is a baseball bat. With one swat it is a melee, much like a long sword. However, if one holds down the fire button, the bat puts forth a volley of baseballs. Power-up and modes include a fireproof vest, gas mask, Mercury mode (enables the player to fly – talk about dream-city!), and even a special "GOD" and "DOG" mode, both making the player invincible for a short time (with hilarious side effects). If one has a GOD mode; one must, therefore, have the anagram DOG mode. Maybe so, but the dog mode gives the user a dog snout for a short period. Do not let this discourage you, one can do a lot of damage to every in the area with the BarkBlast. These are NOT cheats, but found scattered throughout the game. All one has to do is pass over them like any other power-up. Ankhs (look like old religious symbols) add to your total points. Points are like Drew Cary’s television show – “Whose Line Is It Anyway”; millions of points but they do not mean anything! Ankhs are everyway. Remnants of the Wolfenstein 3D’s secret rooms filled with treasure, but mean very little in the overall gameplay. To make play interesting; hazards included, spinblades, gun bunkers, huge boulders (like Indiana Jones), firejets, fog, pits, firechutes, lavawalls, gas grates, lightning with delayed thunder (very realistic). Skies shots are not as spectacular as Far Cry, but rivaled anything at that time. There are lights or lamps along many of the interior walls that if shot, the area gets darker. With ricocheting bullets, wind sounds, and a music track, the audio rates very high. This game shares credit for many firsts in PC gaming including adjustable violence/gore levels, from none (for children) to "excessive” for maniacs like the author. The games of today would not be where they are if they could not stand on the backs of games like Rise of the Triad. It is my hope that games such as this find a way back to out game playing. They are surely worth it. Oz
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