Dark Wars - Budgie UK RRP œ2.95
                     (RPG for ST)

                Review by Matthew Pegg

Dark Wars is an RPG from Budgie games. The setting is a typical
Dungeons and Dragons pseudo-medieval world. The story involves you
and your companions, in the aftermath of the eponymous wars,
exploring "south of the river" to find out what horrors are
lurking there. My guess would be "an evil magician intent on world
domination" and/or "an-ancient-evil-old-as-time", also intent on
world domination; but I didn't get that far.

Initially you have to create your character.  You can choose from
four races: human, dwarf, elf and tory...no I'm joking....actually
there are no elves.  You also have three professions to pick from:
greengrocer, bag lady and double glazing salesman...O.K. I'm lying
again.  Make a wild guess at what professions are available and
you'll probably be right.  (I'm surprised the economy survives in
these games when nobody ever seems to do any work apart from
adventuring, inn-keeping and running the adventure equipment shop:
where do they get all the provisions from that's what I want to
know!) You start the game aligned neutrally but various characters
will try to convert you to good or evil in the course of the game.

When you start the game proper your freshly minted character is
the only person in your party but you are able to recruit other
people as you meet them.

The top left of the display has a window onto the game world which
is displayed in Bard's Tale 3D fashion, except that unlike Bard's
Tale you can actually see the people you meet and communicate with
them in a similar fashion to Bloodwych.  Most of the people move
around independently.

Below this window is a list of commands which you can select with
the mouse.  These include standard adventure commands such as
"search", "examine", "open", "close", "buy", "sell" and "eat".
There are also commands for communicating such as "talk", "ask",
"plead", "agree", and "disagree".  Another window on the bottom
right of the screen displays text, such as responses to your
commands:  if you click on "ask" for instance it displays a
further list of things you can "ask" about.

Movement is accomplished by clicking on a set of arrows as in
Dungeon Master.

The first impression you get of Dark Wars is, unfortunately, the
'functional' nature of the graphics.  They are small, blocky and
hard on the eyes.  They are not even up to the standard of the 8
bit versions of Bard's Tale.  Also control can be problematic: the
mouse is sometimes too sensitive and it is easy to choose the
wrong command because the list of options is so cramped.  I would
have appreciated keyboard alternatives especially for the movement
keys.  You will probably find yourself getting killed fairly
quickly if you throw your weight around:  most of the characters
seem to be very hefty!

This initial unfriendliness is a shame really because if you
persevere you find that an awful lot of work has gone into this
game and it has some really interesting features.  Weather for
instance:  outside little clouds scud across the sky.  When the
weather is bad they emit the odd fork of lightning. This is not
just decorative though:  bad weather affects your emotional state
which in turn affects the people you chat to.  If you are in high
spirits you are much more likely to recruit a few friends. They in
turn have their own emotional reactions and if they get depressed
by your actions they may clear off.  Characters' reactions to you
vary according to other factors as well:  which include your
charisma and your alignment.  They even seem to get annoyed and
attack you if you bump into them more than once.

Not only this but the program is updated to the disk, (you are
advised to play with a copy) which means that characters
'remember' how you treated them before and react accordingly if
you restart the game.  Also if you start with one character say
Bernard the Barbarian milkman, collect a few pals and some useful
objects and then die, when you re-start the game those objects and
people will not be in their original places because the game
'remembers' that previously they were moved.

All in all a lot of work seems to have gone into making this a
complex and 'living' world in which your character's statistics
actually seem to have some effect upon the gameplay.  The range of
commands available make this much more than just a 'spell and
slash' affair.

Unfortunately there are drawbacks:  the graphics are one and the
lack of keyboard shortcuts to the commands another, especially in
the case of directional commands.  These are minor complaints
however; what is really annoying and mars what would otherwise be
a very impressive offering is the speed with which you die if you
sleep and then neglect to eat and drink: it is all too easy to not
realise your energy is going down and expire just as things were
getting interesting. Not only that but the program automatically
saves itself at the point where you enter a dungeon:  therefore
you can easily get lost without enough food or drink and quickly
die.  Since you re-start at the same point you will then probably
keep on dying, the only solution being to restart with a new
character, but then of course you find that all the good
companions are not where they should be since they are still stuck
in the *œ$%& dungeon!

There are sixty odd files in this game so creating a new master
disk can be a bit of a pain, but it is the only solution I found
to these problems.

I was annoyed with 'Dark Wars' because it was very nearly
excellent and just missed it because of an easily adjustable
problem.  Let's hope for a new version in which you don't peg out
five minutes after missing breakfast.  If the programmer sorts
this out, 'Dark Wars' will be well worth getting hold of; for now
prepare to starve to death in a dungeon! Hnyah hnyah hnyah!

@~Dark Wars is available through the ST Adventurer's PD Library.
@~See John's advert in the appropriate section.