Swashbuckler: I don’t know why I even played this game

I guess you already know how I feel about Swashbuckler, a 1982 computer game for the Apple II created by Paul Stephenson and published by Datamost. Sorry, Paul, it’s just so … boring.

Oh, I used to enjoy playing it, back when I was, what, 10 years old. I thought I could rekindle the flame by watching a video of Swashbuckler, but no go, unlike other Apple II video games.

The problem: Swashbuckler grew old pretty quickly. Check out this entry in Wikipedia about the reception of the game (emphasis in bold face mine):

Computer Gaming World gave Swashbuckler a glowing review, only lamenting the rollover of the five-digit score at 250 (which was fixed prior to final publication), appended by an editor’s note that, although the graphics were superb and the concept somewhat unique, the players at CGW grew tired of the lack of variety after a few dozen kills.

Not convinced it’s a bad game? If you can sit down in front of the PC for the entire length of the video, Paul might give you a cookie.