The game is a mix of a traditionnal role playing game and a "doomlike" or better "hereticlike" game. On the role playing side of the game you find the classic experience points, level of experience which can give access to more powerful spells and better weapons handling. It is quite straight forward, you get experience when you find some specific items or when you kill something. There are some magic potions, health potions, poison, strength, magic rings, amulets, etc. On the doomlike side, you find a freedom of movement, a superimposed map, keys specific to each door, the game divided into levels, protections and powerups, teleports, four difficulty levels with the respawn of monsters as the thoughest.
One big difference is that most of the combat is close combat in which the handling of weapons is primordial. There are some spells that can be used from a great range, and so can the bow, but it is warmly advised to save them for the "difficult clients". The handling of the bow requires, of course, arrows but also skills; you can always check how many arrows you missed because they show up stuck in the wall and no, you can't pick them up.
The innovations of this game are quite logical. The weapons wear out quite quickly which means that after a cetain number of hits, depending on the nature of the weapon, it becomes damaged, and is unusable. The protections are also variable in number of hits and in protection level. A chain mail will stop 75% of the damage while a leather armor only stops 50% of the damage. The chain mail will wear out quicker than the plate of armor.
If you like the slash and dice kind of thing, it is possible in the blood and gore menu to choose the blood option. The only difference with this option set on is that when you hit a monster you'll see blood and guts flying everywhere!
One thing bothered me when I played the game is that most of the monsters were stupid looking and quite ridiculous. A monster shoud not look like Rudolph Valentino, but it could look mean or evil, not like a little green man with a short sword. The behaviour of the monsters are also strange and weird. Once you have attacked them, they don't necessarily charge you, and sometimes they will turn their back on you. This makes it much easier but not very realistic.
A good effort was made in the pictures of motion, hacking and slashing of the hero. Some weapons have two kinds of attacks, which were all very well drawn. There is also an SVGA mode but it slows the game down a bit too much to be really enjoyable.
The sounds are good and go very well with the game in every situation. The quality of the sounds for normal or magical combat and the bow firing are extremely well produced. The music is also of a very decent kind.
It is a fun game to play but I don't know how long the durability will last, especially if you have already played with other games of this sort.
486 DX-33 MHz or higher,
Min 4Mb memory,
DOS 5.0 or later,
Hard drive required with 5Mb free,
Single speed CD-ROM drive or faster,
VGA or VESA-compliant SVGA video graphic card (PCI or VESA local bus).
Microsoft mouse and 100% compatibles, joysticks supported.
Most popular sound cards supported.
BBS support: 305-374-6872
Order line: 800-468-7226
Web site:www.gate.net/~intracor
See developers.
In Europe:
In UK:
U.S. Gold Ltd.,
Units 2/3 Holford Way,
Holford, Birmingham B6 7AX.
Technical Support: +44-(0)121-3560831
Overall: 82%
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