Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (DOS)
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- For other games in the series, see Eye of the Beholder.
Eye of the Beholder III: Assault On Myth Drannor is the third official installment of the Eye of the Beholder series. It is a part of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons series and uses its 2nd Edition rules. Unlike the previous installments developed by Westwood, Eye of the Beholder III was developed internally at Strategic Simulations, Inc.
The game takes place after the events of Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (DOS). The game starts out in a tavern, where the party in the previous game talks of their success over Dran Draggore. Suddenly, a robed stranger enters the tavern and begs the party to help kill an evil Lich named Acwellan. The party accepts his pleas and he teleports the party to the graveyard outside Myth Drannor. From there, the party must fight their way through the burial glen, the warriors tomb, a labyrinth-like forest, the abandoned city of Myth Drannor, the Mages' Guild, and finally, Lathander's Temple.
Because of different developers, Eye of the Beholder III uses a completely different game engine than the previous two games called AESOP, programmed by John Miles. It functions similar to the previous games, except resting isn't in realtime (where enemies move as the party rests), and it suffers from many flaws, such as random lockups. However, the gameplay itself is pretty much intact, and the party can now use the All Attack feature, which enables all highlighted players to attack simultaneously.
Eye of the Beholder III received negative criticism due to the buggy game engine, the poorly-written storyline, and the annoying sound effects, just to name a few. Many fans of the series believe the game to be the worst out of all o them. Later, DreamForge released a game with the same engine and graphics called Dungeon Hack (DOS), a much superior game to Eye of the Beholder III.
Contents
Screenshots
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Music
Because Eye of the Beholder III was not developed by Westwood, gone are the scores by Frank Klepacki and Paul Mudra. However, the game does offer a nice selection of music by Mason Fisher; his first work on a video game. Similar to the previous installment, the music only plays during the cutscenes in the game, and there are no in-game songs.
Eye of the Beholder III's audio differs a great deal from the previous games; the music now plays on a variety of soundcards, rather than just the AdLib/SoundBlaster soundcards. However, the sound effects are now relegated to the SoundBlaster card, as they are all digitized. The previous games allowed the user to use the AdLib card or PC Speaker for sound effects.
Fisher wrote the music in Digital Performer for the Macintosh and then converted his music from MIDI to XMI. There are three versions of the soundtrack, Fisher said he had to make a different arrangement for each sound card type. According to Fisher, he was happy with his MT-32 scores, but was worried about the arrangements he did for the AdLib/SoundBlaster's FM synthesis, but was reassured by his boss (presumably Ralph Thomas) that his arrangements for the FM-based soundcards sounded fine.
There are also two unused songs in the game. One of them is the only song that actually loops. Interestingly, the song was used in the later-released Japanese version during the Character Generation screen. However, in the DOS version, the Character Generation screen is silent. Its XMI is titled CHGE.XMI, confirming its intended use. The second song sounds like it was meant for one of the many cutscenes. Its intended cutscene may have been implemented in more complete versions of the game during its development, but was stripped from the game prior to its release.
Another interesting thing to note is the credits; the manual adds credits for Brian Lowe, Michael Provenza, and Ralph Thomas for Music and Sound Effects. However, the in-game credits give more specific roles to Provenza for sound effects, and Thomas for music coordination. Interestingly, Lowe is not listed in the in-game credits. We have contacted Lowe, who confirmed that he only served as a sound designer.
The AdLib/SoundBlaster and PC Speaker versions still need to be uploaded. When they do, the AdLib/SoundBlaster recording will start with a 2, and the PC Speaker recording will start with a 3.
Recording
| # | Title | Composer | Arranger | Length | Listen | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Introduction | Mason Fisher | Ralph Thomas | 1:55 | Download | |
| 02 | Theme of Florin Falconhand | Mason Fisher | Ralph Thomas | 0:24 | Download | |
| 03 | Mausoleum | Mason Fisher | Ralph Thomas | 0:07 | Download | |
| 23 | Theme of the Dark God | Mason Fisher | Ralph Thomas | 0:24 | Download | |
| 24 | Ending Theme | Mason Fisher | Ralph Thomas | 1:52 | Download |
Credits
- Ripper: Doommaster1994
- Recorder: Doommaster1994
- Game Credits:
- Music Coordination: Ralph Thomas
- Music: Mason Fisher
- Sound Effects: Michael Provenza credited as Mike Provenza
- Uncredited Sound Driver: John Ratcliff
- Manual Credits:
- Music and Sound Effects: Mason Fisher
- Music and Sound Effects: Brian Lowe
- Music and Sound Effects: Michael Provenza
- Music and Sound Effects: Ralph Thomas
For some reason, Brian Lowe only receives credit in the instruction manual, and more specific sound roles are presented in the game's staff credits. According to Brian, his only role in the audio portion of this game was sound effects.
(Sources: Game 1, Game 2, Manual)
Game Rip
The XMI files were extracted from the Eye.res, Dark.gff, Finale.gff, Intro.gff, and Lich.gff files in the root installation folder using EXTRACTOR. There are three versions of the soundtrack, one for the Roland MT-32, Ad Lib, and PC Speaker. The sound files have a SND extension, but are headerless PCM RAW files with a playback rate of 8000 Hz and 8-bit encoding.
The VGZ files were logged both in the game and through Midpak using the game's audio drivers which are installed in the game's directory.
Sound driver files for Midpak are included in the .zip file. STDPATCH.AD can be changed to MIDPAK.AD to play the AdLib music properly in Midpak.
Audio Devices
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Eye of the Beholder III uses a plethora of sound cards to play back music, but mainly SoundBlaster can only be used to play sound effects. It is interesting to note that out of the three games, this is the only one not to play sound effects through the PC speaker.
Releases
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Links
- DOS Games
- Games Released In 1993
- Games Developed By Strategic Simulations
- Games
- Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (DOS)
- Missing Screenshots
- Games By Ralph Thomas
- Games By Mason Fisher
- Games By Michael Provenza
- Games By John Ratcliff
- Games By Brian Lowe
- Games That Use XMI
- Games That Use RAW
- VGM Conversions
- Games That Use AdLib For Music
- Games That Use LAPC-I For Music
- Games That Use MT-32 For Music
- Games That Use PC Speaker For Music
- Games That Use Pro AudioSpectrum For Music
- Games That Use SCC-1 For Music
- Games That Use Sound Blaster For Music
- Games That Use Sound Blaster Pro For Music
- Games That Use Thunder Board For Music
- Games That Use Pro AudioSpectrum For Sound
- Games That Use Sound Blaster For Sound
- Games That Use Sound Blaster Pro For Sound
- Games That Use Thunder Board For Sound
- Games Released In USA
- Games Published By Strategic Simulations
- Games Released In UK
- Games Published By Kixx
- Games Released In Germany
- Games Published By Softgold Computerspiele
- Games Released In Poland
