If you like dungeon romps..........

I bought this game awhile ago because the graphics looked neat. Loaded it up and played it once, got frustrated, ignored it for over a year, now I'm finally playing it.

For what it is, this game is kinda fun in a cheesy sort of way. I lost my book for it so I had to figure out the controls, they aren't very intuitive. This game was a good try but really needs a ton of fit and finish to make anything approaching the Arena games. This game does have one thing that Elder Scrolls doesn't...multiplayer capability. You can play via lan or internet...that's a plus.

What is it?
It's a good old fashioned d&d style world with swords and bows and magic. Characters are pretty flexible because you can do what you like with your points as you earn them. As you gain levels in combat skills you may get some new "moves" or block better or hit easier, etc. There are normal and supernatural monsters, hidden rooms and treasures to find.

Techie stuff:
Need at least direct x8 to play, cd reader, some hard drive space
The cd doesn't need to be in the drive to play

Game play:
You start out in the forest outside fargrove. You can't get into the gate because the ruler's daughter has disappeared, you have to find another way in. A suspicious little dude will offer you a way in.....don't believe it, it's an ambush just slaughter him now and run around the corner and wait for the rush. The way into the city will be obvious......but of course it's not just a walk in the park.

The graphics aren't bad but the ai of some of the monsters needs some work. It's amusing to watch the bad guy hanging in the air because he's too close to the wall swinging at you wildly and missing all the time...of course this gives you a chance to pick him off with a missile weapon (if you're lucky enough to get one early on in the game). It's also fairly easy to fool some of the baddies into getting stuck in corners so you can back off and pick them off from a distance.

The only really annoying part of the monster encounters is that the game doesn't seem to take into account single player vs. multiplayer games. Even if you've got the game set to easy and the encounters set to less, you still get the same groups of 6 or 7 that all attack at once, I.e. not much chance of picking them off one at a time unless you can run them around in a maze or something. This makes it hard for a low level character, you don't want to die because rezing loses you some attribute points such as intelligence that have to be bought back. Later you get resurrection scrolls that I assume negate the loss but I haven't used one yet so I don't know for sure on that.

Another somewhat annoying aspect to the game is that the text for the npc's rarely matches the voice overs you're getting from the npc, it's like they had scripting changes after the voices were recorded for the npcs. After you manage to enter fargrove you are off to the monastery where you get a couple more quests and end up in the monastery catechombs to recover an ancient artifact that some evil power also wants......after this quest you see the ruler and end up being given orders so you can leave the city and pursue his daughter.

Saving and loading:
There are a fair number of save spots accessed from the escape key but there is no way to load a saved game from inside the game, you either rez (and usually loose points) or exit the game and load a game from the main screen--this is kinda bad design if you ask me (this seems to point to the plans for the Xbox version because some xbox games are like this (old xbox, not talking 360 here).

Leveling?
Leveling is pretty fast and straight forward, you get points for what you kill and a couple of the monsters give you a ton of points so you can improve the character quite a bit. Just like D&D you usually can't identify an item yourself and while it can be used, you don't know what it does. I've only played a couple of hours and my character is up to level 6 already, I chose the male reptilian race option and made him a sort of modified fighter with a few points in magic and lockpicking/trap disarming skills.

Weapons and armor etc.
There are all kinds of weapons and armor and like D&D of different grades, you buy and sell in the cities and find stuff in coffins, chests and crates scattered through the dungeons.

Potions:
Fortunately most monsters drop healing potions and you often get them in crates, chests and coffins too. Poison cure potions are a bit harder to get and apparently poison doesn't wear off in this game, you need to quaff a potion to cure it. You don't heal while poisoned and there are several critters, spiders, snakes, and scorpions that poison you.

Animal parts:
Apparently one of the schools of magic uses rituals that need animal parts to operate, you find these parts in crates, coffins and chests and sometimes monsters drop them too.

Chests and disarming traps:
It took me awhile to figure out how to disarm chests...you get symbols in the lower left corner of the screen that you must click as they light up in the bar above them. The speed with which the bar lights up is determined by your skill vs the chest level and any mods you get from lockpicks etc. A level one chest is pretty easy, a level 4 chest is really hard because that bar zips along and if you don't hit the symbols right the trap goes off....and more than just once too!

What I think of this game?
I wouldn't spend fourty dollars on it again, this is a 30 dollar game at most.......mindless amusement but it really isn't all it could be. The multiplayer capability could be fun if you know anyone else that has forked over for it...LOL. There are only two female characters available out of all the races, elven or human; I feel cheated, what if I wanted to be a lady lizard? The initial character setup is pretty straightforward and allows each character to be different. I have gotten through the fargrove sewers and the monastery catechombs, the catechombs were quite a challenge for a level 6 with zombies and headless giants and a demon who thankfully I was able attack with my bow and kill without him coming after me. Like I said a lot of the AI needs work, you shouldn't be able catch a monster in the right spot and just pour arrows into him without him eventually figuring out that he's beeing shot at.

This game had potential, I just think the technology available at the time couldn't handle their vision, that or they couldn't make it what they wanted for other reasons. I don't think the xbox version ever came out, shame because that may have been a better platform for this game and multiplayer would have been pretty fun. I would like to see them issue a second chapter to this game for windows 64 and really do it right this time. The hand to hand fighting really does look kinda gay and if you're out in the wildnerness and have an encounter the baddies don't leave you alone till you find another encounter--but at least only one bunch comes after you then, not both. The game can be great mindless fun with enough challenge to make it interesting. I take it there may be some forums where you can find others to play with but I've not investigated that yet. If you just want a mindless hack and slash this isn't a bad game but go buy it used, it's not worth the full price.