Captive (1992)

covercap captive

Captive is basically a Dungeon Master clone with a futuristic setting. The game is fun for a short while, but plagued in the long run by a lack of variation when it comes to the gameplay. You’ll hop from world to world to find yourself (you remotely control four robots with whom you try to free yourself), going into futuristic dungeons full of monsters and other stuff. After some time everything begins to look the same.

Sure, every so often you stumble over new monsters or get new equipment (instead of leveling up you buy better body parts for your robots). But these elements don’t change that this essentially a very long dungeon romp with some slight key puzzles and monster killing. It’s easy to get bored later on, though I played through to the end. And like so often with older games, the ending is very curt.