For the second time, Golden Disk 64 sports a medieval siege scene on its cover. Compared to issue 08/90, this one is a bit more grounded in reality. For one, it doesn't feature any trolls. Instead, there is a collection of actual siege weapons, like catapults and a mobile tower. Also, this castle's drawbridge is up which should help tremendously to keep enemies out.
The two knights in the foreground are in similar positions as the two knights seen in the 08/90 cover, and the one on the left is even wearing the same helmet, just without the historically inaccurate horns. The way he's waving his axe and shield at nothing makes me imagine that he's running down the hill and shouting something akin to "RRAAARGH!".
I'm not very impressed with the people defending the castle from within, though. Just look at the chaos of spears that poke out of the battlements at random angles. It's as if nobody in there knows how to hold their weapons. On the other hand, the occupants' siege tower is on fire, so the defenders must've done something right. Either that or the attackers severely misjudged the aim of one of their own catapults.
Once again, the cover suffers from perspective issues. However, many medieval illustrations display similar problems with architecture, so let's just say that the artist was trying to emulate that particular style.
The artwork obviously refers to the text/graphics adventure The Yawn, which is the only game on the disk that takes place in a medieval setting. There is no siege going on in The Yawn though, and the game is way goofier than this depiction of castle warfare might suggest.
Games
The Yawn
Puzzle Shuffle
Artillery '90
Summary
The selection of games on this issue is of a consistently high quality. The Yawn is certainly the main title, not only because it is depicted on the cover, but because it takes up the entire backside of the disk thanks to its multitude of pretty room graphics. Unfortunately, my disk was faulty and refused to start up the game properly. This was quite a bummer for me, as adventures were among my favorites on the C64, and this one would've been right up my alley. There was a warranty slip in the magazine that I could've mailed to get a new disk, but I only realized that years later.
Puzzle Shuffle is a tile shifting puzzle game that I didn't particularly like. I replayed it relatively recently for this blog, though. To my surprise, I could get quite some enjoyment out of it, mainly thanks to the virtues of emulation. The game features some nice graphics and a very catchy SID tune.
Artillery '90 is an artillery game that's best enjoyed with another player. Fighting against the AI always felt a bit weird to me because I knew that the computer had all the data to immediately hit me if it wanted to. The game sports some great backgrounds and even greater music.
All in all, I'd say it's worth checking out all three titles on this disk. If you want to play The Yawn, you need to understand German, though, as there is no English version. And even if you can read the text, I recommend playing with a walkthrough, as the game's puzzles can be a bit obtuse at times. Puzzle Shuffle and Artillery '90 both are competent, nicely presented titles that don't exactly have a lot of longevity, but they can provide some solid entertainment for at least a couple of minutes.
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