Matt Chat reviews The Eidolon (1985 first-person 3D game)

 

 

If you were a computer gamer back in the 80s, you probably played some of Lucasfilm’s classics like Ball Blazer, Rescue on Fractalus!, and Koronis Rift. These games were super-slick and polished, often looking years ahead of the competition. This review, however, is on one of their lesser known games from 1985: The Eidolon. At first glance, this looks like a first-person shooter, even though the manual reveals that you’re actually in a spherical vehicle called “The Eidolon,” and the place you’re exploring is the mind itself! Critics raved about the “stunningly realistic” graphics, including animated monsters that look like actual cartoons rather than blocky blobs of pixels. Even after all this time, it’s still a wonderful achievement, even if it didn’t exactly take off. In any case, you might as well give up playing this one without some instructions, so I’ve taken the time here to explain the basic concepts and, as always, actually have some FUN playing it. Check it out and let me know what you think of the game!

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About Blacklily8

About: Dr. Barton is an associate professor of English at St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota. He is host of Matt Chat, a weekly YouTube program dedicated to classic videogames for all systems. Matt Chat has been featured on several prominent Websites, includingGeek.com, Game Banshee, Blue's News, Tech Report, and RPG Codex. The show features historical retrospectives on important games as well as personal interviews with their developers and designers, including John Romero, Timothy Cain, Chris Avellone, and many others. He is the author of Dungeons & Desktops: The History of Computer Role-Playing Games (nominated forGame Developer Magazine's 2008 Front Line Award), author of Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, and editor of Wiki Writing: Collaborative Learning in the College Classroom. He is a founder of Armchair Arcade, a PC Magazine Top 100 Website mentioned on Slashdot, Boing Boing, Slate, and many other prominent tech and game-related publications and Websites. His other games-related writings have been published on Gamasutra andGame Studies. He is currently writing and producing a feature film documentary called Gameplay: The Story of the Videogame Revolution, for Lux Digital Pictures. Matt is presently responsible for Armchair Arcade's technical and editorial direction, as well as general content generation. Be sure to check out Matt and his work at the following links: [LinkedIn] [Facebook] [Twitter] [Amazon Author Page] [YouTube]