Buck Rogers - Matrix Cubed

Year 1992, the Solar System is still a battlefield, and I'm sitting at a 486 with floppy disks stacked next to my keyboard. Buck Rogers back then wasn't just a comic — it was a license that SSI built a two-part RPG on using the Gold Box engine, and Matrix Cubed was the second installment.

It's a classic party-based RPG set in the Buck Rogers science-fiction universe. The Solar System is gripped by tension between races and factions, and this time a new political power enters the mix with ambitions to unite them all. The story is noticeably more complex than in the first game — Countdown to Doomsday — and if you were captivated back then by the pulpy sci-fi atmosphere with a hint of space politics, you'll get it here in fuller form.

The engine is Gold Box, which in 1992 meant exactly what you'd expect: create or import a party from the previous game, turn-based combat on an isometric grid, stats everywhere, and an inventory you could get lost in for hours. Character import from Countdown to Doomsday worked smoothly, and for players back then it was a real selling point — your battle-hardened team arrived for a new adventure with their entire history intact. Anyone starting from scratch had to accept that the first few hours were slower than you'd like. By this point in its lifecycle, Gold Box wasn't breaking any new ground, but as an RPG content machine it worked reliably.

What set Matrix Cubed apart from generic fantasy in the same engine was the context. The science-fiction setting demanded different weapons, different character classes, different enemy types. Laser pistols instead of swords, mutants instead of orcs. It wasn't just Gold Box with a different skin — the world had its own logic, and SSI put in the effort to make it feel like Buck Rogers, not like a reskinned Forgotten Realms. Today what stands out most is the age of the engine: dungeon navigation through wireframe 3D, an interface that demands a manual, and a pace that modern players have to adjust to. But that's part of its charm.

Today Matrix Cubed will appeal to anyone who knows and loves Gold Box — or who's discovering it for the first time and doesn't mind that comfort was defined differently in 1992. The sci-fi setting sets it apart from dozens of fantasy games of the same era and gives it its own identity. Fire it up in your browser via DOSBox without much fuss, and if you've got saved games from Countdown to Doomsday, it would be a shame to leave them gathering dust.