Chris Wild did a superb job on unofficial PC conversions of Lord of Midnight and its sequel Doomdark's Revenge, Mike Singleton's epic RPGs first released for the Spectrum and Commodore 64.
Like Mike Singleton's later and more complex Midwinterseries, RPG and strategy elements are combined with a truly epic fantasy story. The AI in this game is quite amazing for its time: you can raise armies, send NPCs out on separate tasks, and see the detailed world from multiple viewpoints, all in real-time. It is the innovative "landscaping" feature and the highly original gameplay - you control several independent characters - which give the game its unique feel.
At the start of the quest, there are four characters under your command, and as you explore you can recruit others. The action revolves around two main characters: Luxor and his son Morkin - they must eliminate the power of the evil Doomdark who is trying to control Midnight through his overpowering ice-fear and massive armies. There are two ways to defeat Doomdark: Luxor can command the armies of the free to victory by seizing the Citadel of Ushgarak, or Morkin can destroy the source of Doomdark's power, the Ice crown at the Tower of Doom. The first is akin to a war game and the second more of an adventure-- both equally excellent.
When controlling the characters you have four main choices as to what to do: you can VIEW the landscape surrounding you in eight compass directions; MOVE towards any of these unless something blocks your path; THINK - allows you to examine your character's state in more detail; or CHOOSE from a range of actions which varies according to your situation. Usually the latter involves seeking information, recruiting men, hiding or going into battle. The land is littered with mountains, citadels, forests, towers, keeps and ten other types of feature. At each of these you may find information, men or shelter, or even a more hostile reception.
With great graphics for their time, complex and satisfying gameplay, and vast gameworld, these are true classics of truly epic proportions. Make no mistake, these are very long games that will take you weeks, if not months, to finish. Definitely must-plays for all fans of RPGs and fantasy strategy-- see for yourself why these games are considered by most to be the best Spectrum games ever made.
Two thumbs up!
Review By HOTUD




Comments and reviews
How are you gonna be great
ZZ: Download DosBox (or something similar) if you haven't already. Start DosBox and when the black window you can enter text into (the command-line interface) shows up type in the following, pressing Enter after each line (replacing the "[directory...]" part for what I ask for there) :
mount c [directory you unzipped the files to, e.g. "D:\LoM\"]
c:\
Then type in *one* of the following three lines depending on which game you want to play (The Citadel, Lords of Midnight 1 and Doomdark's Revenge respectively) and press Enter:
citadel.exe
8_bit/midnight.com
8_bit/revenge.com
The selected game should now start. If you quit any of the games, but not Dosbox itself, you only have to type in that last line to play any of the other games (or restart the game you just played). Also note that in Dosbox you can press ALT+Enter to switch between window mode and fullscreen, and press CTRL+F9 to close Dosbox.
Hi guys- nood here; i've downloaded the file, how do i run it?
Thanks!
clicking play runs the 1st LoM, not LoM the citadel [ಠ_ಠ]
i use dfend and it works fine,you have to increse cpu speed to around 15000.
This game freezes for me after playing for a few minutes on D Fend Reloaded. Any suggestions?
I remember seeing the box of this game in K-mart. I thought the screenshots looked awesome. I never did get to play it and couldn't find it until much much later because all my searches resulted in the original game. Maybe I'll try it one day.
if you are old enough to remember this games first release on the ZX spectrum you will remember how good it was now lets farword 10 years to domarks remake and a very good game got even better nuff said
No comment nor review for this game at the moment.