Remember back in the days of MS DOS? Well if you don’t I don’t blame you for it since it is a relatively old piece of work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS

Now MS DOS was in many ways a block of clay for a game designer back in the days where computers were becoming household objects. Designers could make a game about virtually any concept and man did things get out of whack but because of those crazy creators we had a line of classic games like the original Duke Nukem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Nukem_%281991_video_game%29

 Battle Chess, and one of the under rated classics Rise of the Triad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_of_the_Triad

  When I was a kid I remember spending hours on end playing the shareware version of this game. What makes it so special?

Gameplay – Playing this game is sorta like playing Wolfenstein…in fact its basically just the same.  Rise of the Triad gaming engine was almost a copy past of the original Wolfenstein engine but with a few minor changes. First being the levitate pads which act as elevators, stairs, moving platforms etc. Second was the jump pads which helped you get across certain obstacles or helped you reach higher platforms and items. Finally was the traps that they placed in the game for you to avoid such as the gas chamber rooms, spike traps, spinning saw blades, fire walls, etc. Top it all off with an arsenal of rockets, flame blasting weapons, a machine gun, a magic staff, a magic baseball bat, the power of god and the power of a dog and you’ve got a unique game-play experience.

Graphics – MS DOS graphics were similar to 8 and 16 bit games and Rise of the Triad was no exception. Textures and character sprites all look polished and smooth for the time this game came out which was 1995. Gun effects and explosions all look and feel fantastic especially when your blasting some demented monks with a firewall…wait what?!

Story – Yeah…Monks as enemies?! What the heck?! Well this is where our plot comes in. You take control of a military organization called H.U.N.T,. High-Risk United Nations Task-Force, as they are sent to investigate San Nicolas Island. Upon their arrival on the island they discover an ancient monastery and a cult of super human monks whose goal is complete global destruction. Members of the cult spot your boat and promptly destroy it, leaving your team stranded on the island with only one option left: Go in and blast the cult to bits! You can choose to play as 5 different HUNT members: Taradino Cassatt, Thi Barrett, Lorelei Ni, Doug Wendt, and Ian Paul Freeley. Each player controls differently from the other so it depends on you as to which character you will use. As you traverse the monastery you will encounter soldiers that work for the cult along with monks and robots…man this monastery is pretty dang high tech.

Music – The music in the game is made by MIDI tracks and honestly for MS DOS its pretty impressive. Song like “Going down the Fast Way” and “Run like Smeg” are likely to get stuck in your head for a few days cause of how catchy they can be, especially during game-play. Overall the music itself is worth a good listen and in my opinion a downloading.

Overall Rise of the Triad was a pretty good game for its time but was greatly overlooked thanks to more popular games like Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein 3D. If only there was a way to revive this great gem…….wait……they did WHAT?!?!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhi-7lj7osI

Oh…..my…..god…..THANK YOU INTERCEPTOR AND APOGEE!!!!!! A DECENT REMAKE IS AT LAST WITHIN REACH!!!!…..Perhaps its too early to celebrate but I have high hopes for this revival. The original game was such a glorious masterpiece that its shocking it took so long to re-make it….but you know what they say….”Things take time” and “Quality over quantity”…well I think this revival has taken its sweet time and its quality is top-notch.