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THE CREATORS
In 1990 Mindscape published a game designed by Anthony Crowther for the Atari ST called Captive. Years ago, a fellow gamer claimed that he read a magazine article in which Anthony said that he had been inspired by Dungeon Master. I have no way of confirming this because I don't have the magazine. Captive was later ported to the Amiga and the PC. Anthony also did some work for a European game company called Imageworks. |
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THE GAME
Captive uses the familiar first-person 3D view and directional arrows. The player controls four droids which can be outfitted with weapons and equipment. The environment is very interactive. The interface and playability are very similar to that of Dungeon Master, but the game is quite different. The objective consists of exploring bases on planets, destroying power generators, and retreating back out the entrance before the bases exploded. Along the way are hordes of adversaries, both organic and robotic. There are also plenty of puzzles and hidden rooms. Captive is a science-fiction game, rather than a mediaeval-fantasy like Dungeon Master. Captive's graphics are quite excellent. The sheer size of the game is truly impressive. The first four missions each each consist of 11 bases, with each base comprised of 1 to 5 levels. Some of the levels are massive, easily dwarfing the largest levels in Bloodwych. |
THE SEQUEL
Liberation (Captive 2) was released in 1993 for the Commodore Amiga in the CD32 format. According to a 1993 World of Commodore review, the CD32 version was 640MB. The review stated that, "There are 8 cities all with different people, and over 4000 missions."
FINAL THOUGHTS
Captive was one of my more memorable computer gaming experiences. I believe that if Captive had been released a year or two earlier it would have been as popular as Dungeon Master. Unfortunately, Captive was released toward the end of an era when Atari ST and Amiga computers had dominated the 16-bit computer market, especially among computer game enthusiasts. The market share of Atari and Amiga quickly diminished in the early 90's because IBM compatibles had caught up in technology. Games were being released in 256 colors with support for the new sound cards emerging at the time. Captive was ported to the PC, but was soon overshadowed by other games such as Eye of the Beholder. |
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