45: Liberation: Captive II

Number 45
(124 points)
Liberation: Captive II
1994: 33 (40.8)
1995: 47 (43.2)
1996: 61 (40.0)

There is a version for regular Amigas, but the entries in the Top 100 lists pick this out as a CD32 game worth buying, so I have included the CD32 version for review here. It's the sequel to Captive, and although it didn't ensure success for the ill-fated CD32, it may well be worth a look today.

Looking more like Hired Guns (featured earlier in this list) than the original Captive, Liberation sees you in charge of four droids who have been sent on a mission to rescue someone who have been wrongly imprisoned by the security service in this futuristic world. You must explore a massive city to search for clues to help you in your quest, interviewing citizens and avoiding the attention of the police. While Captive featured almost no dialogue, Liberation makes full use of the then-nascent CD-ROM format to deliver an experience that, especially at the time, was almost too big.

I've included the suggested disks for the OCS/AGA version but I confess I didn't even try it. I can see that it's quite different to compensate for the differing hardware, but Amiga Power made it clear that the CD32 version was what mattered to them. If you've been following this blog for a while you can guess that I didn't go very deeply into this game, but the intro is the kind of thing I would boot up back in the day with little intention of playing, and I'm sure that if I dived into it, the game would be a real treat.

Recommended TOSEC disk(s):
Liberation - Captive II v2.02-2.00c (1994-04-08)(Mindscape)[!][CDD3716] (CD32)
Liberation - Captive II v2.00c (1994-02-10)(Mindscape)(OCS-AGA)(Disk 1 of 5)[cr HLM][f DLM]
Liberation - Captive II v2.00c (1994-02-10)(Mindscape)(OCS-AGA)(Disk 2 of 5)[cr HLM][f DLM]
Liberation - Captive II v2.00c (1994-02-10)(Mindscape)(OCS-AGA)(Disk 3 of 5)[cr HLM]
Liberation - Captive II v2.00c (1994-02-10)(Mindscape)(OCS-AGA)(Disk 4 of 5)
Liberation - Captive II v2.00c (1994-02-10)(Mindscape)(OCS-AGA)(Disk 5 of 5)