STONE PROPHET by S.S.I.

FORMAT: PC CD-ROM
DATE: April 1995
PRICE: N/A

This is the third adventure from the computer role-playing game "Ravenloft", with the first being "Strahd's Possession". "Menzoberranzan" was also found in this series.

"Stone Prophet" is an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure game with some improvement and creativity added to the very classical AD&D rules. The adventure begins when a spatiotemporal gate is found leading to the ancient desert of Har'Akir. Of course your team of adventurers are the first to travel through the gate. Suddenly you realize that you're trapped in these strange wastelands haunted by curses, evil creatures, zombie-like monsters and diseased corpses rotting away. One of your prime concerns is the water. Your only hope of escape is to follow the advice of some blind old man and seek out the stone prophet, a huge hieroglyphic wall hidden within an obelisk. Beware of the ancient mummy of Anhktepot who is said to bring death to those he touches at night. Naturally you'll have to explore vaste desert lands, but also some ancient underground dungeons and caves filled with friends who may help you, or foes such as monsters.

Click on image to visit site

This game is of a very good quality and there are no important gimmicks missing. You have an automap option, with the possibility of adding your own comments, easy management of your team, the spells and the belongings. You can recover ancient characters from the previous "Ravenloft" adventures. The textures and images are very fine. Unlike "Menzoberranzan", the latest in the series, the strange simulated S-VGA rendering is good and the game speed is satisfactory. You can play it in free movement, but you always have the choice of step-movement, the game doesn't freeze when a monster appears before you. The introduction is well worth seeing, nice animation in these cinematics which explain why you have suddenly passed from a normal environment to a desert through a wall of light. The encounters with other characters are quite good. You may talk to them choosing from a series of questions or answers. Every interesting encounter comes with digitalized voices and face animations.

But what makes this game more than another CRPG? Well for one, the plot is ameliorated with some puzzles left for you to solve. Some are quite easy and others are not, but they are not all vital to the success of the game. Some new spells for flying, even during fights allow you to see the game from a totally new angle. One thing that bothered me during the game was that it seemed a bit too straight forward and easy to play, but the puzzles presented to you require a little effort to solve. I've always found that a good team of adventurers begins with four characters and increases to six. Unfortunately you can only create two characters in the beginning and add two more during the game.

Conclusion:

One of the best achieved components of this game is its atmosphere. It begins with the hieroglyphs and the sarcophagus pictures in the background, continues with the music, and ends with the game and the monsters. You really feel as if the curse of the ancient pharaoh from the Egyptian pyramids may strike you. Beware of the grave elementals, one of my favourites by the way.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:

386 DX-40 MHz or better,
Min 4 MB memory,
MS-DOS 5.0 or later,
Hard drive required with 13Mb free disc space,
Double speed CD-ROM drive or faster,
SVGA 256 color graphic card and monitor,
Microsoft Mouse or 100% compatible,
Aria, Sound Canvas, Spundscape, Wave Blaster, Soundman Wave, SW 32/GW 32, Gravis Native mode, Sound Blaster family (except AWE) and 100% compatibles.

Ratings and Publishers

                                    Mindscape UK Ltd,
 GRAPHICS ------------------ 85%    Priority House, Charles Avenue,
 SOUND    ------------------ 80%    Maltings Park, Burgess Hill,
 MUSIC    ------------------ 80%    West Sussex, RH15 9TQ, England.
 GAMEPLAY ------------------ 85%    Tel: +44-(0)1444-246333
 INTEREST ------------------ 90%
                                    S.S.I. Inc.,
                                    675 Almanor Avenue,
 OVERALL ------------------- 85%    Sunnyvale, CA 94086-2901.
                                    Tel: 408-737-6800