John Joseph Adams and I were just recording some material for Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy in which we briefly discuss the horror that was CGA graphics. You kids today with your “Halo” and your “Super Mario Galaxy” will never understand what we went through. Not only did we only have FOUR colors to look at, but they were the four goddamn ugliest colors ever dreamt up in the twisted imagination of some sadistic dark god of color-blind computer engineers. Here are some screenshots to show you what I mean. Keep in mind that I spent literally HUNDREDS (possibly thousands) of hours playing these three games.
OH MY GOD MY EYES!!! This is Heroes of the Lance, a Dragonlance tie-in game.
This is Phantasie, the first computer RPG I ever played all the way through. Man, when it comes to flooring, you just can’t beat cyan and magenta checkerboard. (Also read my retrospective on this game.)
This is Rings of Zilfin. The graphics in this game are so ugly that I literally cried the first time I saw them, especially considering that the evil lying game box had led me to believe that the graphics would look like this. “Sham”? Yeah, you got that right.
Leave a Reply