Sacred for Windows

Encore software released this game in March 2004 and since then thousands of people have discovered it and liked it. It is a role playing adventure game in the same genre as Diablo, Diablo II and Dungeon Siege. Like the Diablo games, it has many different quests and side quests set in "acts" to complete along the way, however unlike Diablo you can access the entire map without having to complete any of these quests. The map is very large and looks to be somewhat larger than the state of Texas.

Sacred
The story unfolds in the world of Ancaria. The infamous necromancer Shaddar seeks revenge against the Lords of Mystdale Castle for banishing him many years before to a barren wasteland. In his stronghold called Shaddar-Nur, he summons a Sakkara Demon to use as his implement of destruction. During his summoning ritual one of his goblin slaves disturbed the pentagram designed to keep the demon prisoner and when the demon is summoned forth he escapes through this hole in the magical field and kills Shaddar. Now the demon is loose upon Ancaria and everywhere he sets foot, undead rise and follow him.

Gameplay
The game is played with the familiar point and click of it's genre and you have hotkeys for potions, spells and weapon select. The interface is very similar to Diablo II, if you have played Diablo II before you will have no trouble with the controls.

You start by selecting a character. You may choose one of six different characters each with their own special abilities, strengths and weaknesses. The characters are a Gladiator, a Seraphim, a Wood Elf, a Dark Elf, a Battle Mage or a Vampiress.

Once a character is selected, you can name your character and start playing either multiplayer over LAN or Internet, or a single player campaign. During the course of the game you will encounter many different animals, monsters and demons. There are many side quests to keep you busy along the way as well as the main quest which is divided into four separate acts. Game tips are turned on by default to help you figure out what you're supposed to do and where you need to go.

When you have a quest active, there will be a marker on the large map showing where you need to go and on the play screen there is a small arrow on the edge of the screen that points the direction of your quest. This makes navigating the incredibly enormous map very easy.

Characters
Gladiator
The Gladiator is a brute warrior that uses his strength and weapons skills to overpower his enemy. This is easy at first but as the game progresses I have found that the Gladiator is best played in a co-op multiplayer game with a group of other characters.

Seraphim
The Seraphim is a celestial being sent to fight for the side of good. She is a fierce warrior and skilled with the sword. Seraphim use magic as would a cleric in other role playing games. She calls down powers from the heavens to aid her in her battles.

Wood Elf
The Wood Elf is a sleek nimble creature who is deadly with bow and arrow. The Wood Elf calls forth magic from nature to strike down her enemy. She is effective with training on horseback using a bow to take out enemies before they even get close to her, however should they get close enough she does not do so well in melee.

Dark Elf
The Dark Elf is my favorite character in this game. He is skilled in martial arts and dark magic. Using two weapons at once, he is very deadly in close combat and can blind his enemy with fog or confuse them into attacking one another while he hacks them to pieces.

Battle Mage
The Battle Mage is a versatile character that uses powerful elemental magic to burn, freeze or electrocute his enemies. He also has healing magic to heal himself or party members. Aside from being a powerful mage he can also be trained in weapons skills to be a formidable warrior. Combining these two assets makes him a force to be reckoned with.

Vampiress
The Vampiress is a sullen creature who wishes to be human. During the day she is a skilled fighter and hearty warrior but at night she can transform into a fearsome Vampiress who steals life from her enemies among other abilities. She can transform into the Vampiress during the day but she must be inside a building or the sun will burn her each second she is exposed.

Interactions
In this game you can talk to almost anyone and there are hundreds of NPCs (non-player characters) to talk to. Most will have nothing important to say but as in real life, when do you ever strike up a witty conversation with a complete stranger? NPCs who have important information or want you to perform a task for them will have a "!?" above their heads. Some of these tasks are simple but others can be very hard and you may fail. If you accept a quest, blue markers will show on the main map where you need to go. If you complete the quest the markers will turn green. If you fail a quest, the markers turn red.

Aside from interacting with NPCs, you can explore many caves and dungeons along the way. You will find barrels, chests, cabinets, desks and magical hiding places with items or gold in them. There is no worry about having enough gold in this game. After an hour of playing you will most likely have more gold than you will need and during the course of the game your character will get very rich.

Some of the larger towns have a portal that you activate by clicking on it. Once you have activated a portal you can go to that portal from any other active portal on the map. This is helpful when you have to go from one side of Ancaria to the other. Walking across the map from one end to the other can take hours because of all the creatures you will have to fight on the way. Even riding horseback can take a long time.

Horses
As I am sure you noticed, I have mentioned riding horses several times already. In this game, unlike many in this genre, you can buy horses and ride them across the map. Horses can add protection when fighting but they also make melee fighting more difficult and they slow your attack speed. You can purchase saddles to use that add protection for your horse and your character as well but the horse can still take damage and if it takes enough damage it will die. You can see the horse's life meter right under the character's life in the HUD (heads up display).

Some characters like the Wood Elf can perform well on horseback and others like the Gladiator should probably get off the horse during a fight. The horse will not take damage if you are not on it when fighting and will run off a short distance to stay safe. You can call your horse at any time, even if you left him three towns back and he will come to you in a snap.

Horses come in many varieties. Like real horses, they are different colors and have different levels of usefulness. The better the horse the more life points it will have and the more expensive it will be.

If you have no riding skill, you can still ride a light nag but if you want a powerful war horse you will have to spend some skill points on riding when your character levels up. If your character is able to ride a particular horse, the pointer will turn into a horseshoe when hovered over the horse. If your character does not have a high enough skill to ride a specific horse the mouse pointer will show an X through the horseshoe when you hover the pointer over the horse.

Map
The map has two views, the local area map and the world map or main map. The local area map shows the area a short distance around your character along with quests and important markers. The larger map shows the entire known world of Ancaria. It does not show the caves, sewers and dungeons but all the land is shown.

The local map is completely black in areas you have not been to yet. You must explore those areas to see them on the local map. The larger map shows the layout of the land but as in the real world you will find that, just because it looks like a road on the map doesn't always mean you can pass there. Some places the forest is too thick to travel through but on the map it may look like there is a pass there. Exploration is necessary to find the passes through the forests and canyons.

The large map shows the lay of the land but will not show any towns you have not visited yet. Once you have found a town, it will show on the map along with the name of the town. Once a town is displayed on the map you can also see where important places in the town are, like the blacksmith or the trader.

Playing the game
Playing the game is sort of like watching a movie. The first time through you are checking everything out and exploring the entire map. Once you have played the game through it is still fun to play but you already know the story and the quests so you will find yourself skipping quests that are not totally necessary or don't give enough experience points or gold to make it worth the time to do it. I have beaten the game with three of the six characters and I still love to play but after a while I find myself getting bored.

There are enough things to do in the game to keep it entertaining for a long time but the replay value is not as high as I would have thought at first. Like watching "Star Wars" for the hundredth time, you still like the movie but you may not watch it all the way to the end.

As you travel across the land, you will notice that time passes with day turning into night and back to day again. The real time is about 20 minutes per day, 10 minutes day and 10 minutes night. It is important to keep track of days when doing certain quests because sometimes there is a limit on how long you have to complete the quest. You may only have one day on some or three days on others. The main quest has no time limit but many of the lesser side quests do.

Graphics
The graphics are good, not great but good. The game uses the same type of 2D landscape layout as Diablo but the characters and monsters are all 3D accelerated. You do not need a powerful graphics card to play the game but you may want a decent one for the special battle effects.

My biggest complaint about the graphics is that with the scope of this game and the size of the map used, it would be nice if you could rotate the view like you can in Dungeon Siege. This would require the landscape to be textured into 3 dimensions as well and would probably make the game require a much more powerful system to play but I would have liked to see it anyway.

Sounds and Music
The sounds are adequate for the game and the music is decent. Battles are filled with clanking and clanging, thuds, cries of pain and excited screams of rage. The horse gallops with a steady clipity-clop. The music starts when a battle starts with an urgent, excited midi orchestration to make the scene more dramatic. Birds chirp in the background during the day and crickets chirp at night. When passing a stream or river, the sounds of trickling water are heard. Market places and towns will find the sound of background chatter and children playing or laughing. All in all the sound is done tastefully.

Problems
Yes, this game as many others has problems but they are not too bad. The biggest problem I have found is when playing a multiplayer game, sometimes your horse will not come when called or it will come but when you get on it you can't move anywhere. This usually happens when more than one player is on the screen at a time. If you are the only player on the screen it doesn't usually happen.

Another glitch in multiplayer is when more than one person is on the screen and you go through a portal, the other players can not enter the portal until you move far enough away from the portal that it is no longer visible on your screen. These are strange glitches but consistent and hopefully there will be more patches in the future to correct these issues.

Another weird issue is when completing a quest, sometimes it will only let one particular player talk to the person to accept the reward. This is strange because it is not always the player that accepted the quest in the first place. Again, hopefully there will be a patch to fix this in the future.

System Requirements
* Pentium II 450MHz or equivalent
* Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP
* 64MB RAM (128MB for Windows 2000 and XP)
* DirectX 8 compatible video card and drivers (16MB or better recommended)
* DirectX 8 compatible sound card and drivers
* 1.8GB free Hard drive space
* Modem or broadband for Internet multiplayer games

Conclusion
This game is fun and will keep you entertained for weeks. Even after beating the game it is still fun to play but in shorter sessions. I have been playing it for two months and will probably play if for a few more before I am tired of it. Thanks for reading and happy gaming.

Gr8ful :-)