Shadowlands - Domark RRP œ29.99
               (RPG for Amiga, ST and PC)

             Reviewed on the Amiga by Roy Sims

Whilst the Dungeon Master clones keep coming, a couple of recent
computer role playing games have taken the genre on from a
different angle. The 3D isometric view point was first resurrected
in 'Cadaver' (although this was more a puzzle game than a real
adventure or RPG) and has been used again in Mindscape's 'Legend'
and Domark's 'Shadowlands'.

The heart of your quest in 'Shadowlands' is to resurrect Vashnar
Herenil, the recently deceased warrior prince who was slain by the
sword of the Overlord of the Shadowlands. In the Overlord's dark
temple lies an altar of regeneration. If your party can survive
long enough to reach it, the bones of Vashnar can be brought back
to life and he can gain his revenge and slay the Overlord. If only
it was as simple as it sounds!

The four noble warriors who are chosen temporarily become bearers
for Vashnar's spirit and guidance during the game. (What this
really means is that you take on the role of the dead Vashnar who
controls all four characters).

You start off by selecting your party of four from a character
generation screen. A nice feature is the ability to design each
character's face along with the usual RPG statistics. You can't
end up with as varied results as the face editor in Midwinter 2,
but it's still a nice feature to have.

As I've already mentioned, once into the game proper it is
displayed in an isometric environment. You begin outside in nice
colourful green countryside. There are plenty of apple trees about
and a few other items are handily left lying around for you to
collect. To be able to do anything in the game you must get used
to the control method. Each character has a small window of his
own which is overlaid on top of the main isometric display. The
four of them can be lined up along the bottom of the window or
displayed in each corner. The choice is yours. Each window shows a
diagram of the character's body (if they are all nearby) or the
face of the character if he is not so close. If that character is
on a different level altogether (as the party can be split up)
then his back will be turned instead.

To pick up an object you must click on the character's left arm in
the window. If you then move the cursor over the object it will
flash to indicate that it is within that character's range and
that he can collect it. Once picked up, the object is immediately
transferred from his left hand to his right. If you want one
character to move to a certain area on screen, you must click on
the character's left leg and then click on the area you want him
to move to. If you want the entire party to move together then you
do the same thing but select his right leg instead.

To throw an object you must first select the left arm, then the
right arm and then the area where you wish to throw it. Again, you
can only do these things if the target area is within that
character's range.  To look at something you must first select the
head then select the target. As you've probably worked out
already, this is a little bit complicated at first. I got the hang
of it eventually, although I have to admit that I find the system
overly complicated and a bit awkward to use.

The most annoying part of walking around in 'Shadowlands' is the
awfully noisy sound effect you get whenever you walk. If I call it
noisy crisp packets at dawn then you'll hopefully understand what
I mean!

The screen will 'bump' scroll if you try to walk off it as the
window shown is only a small area of the overall map. This causes
a number of problems as it sometimes doesn't scroll until your
party are right on the very edge and you can walk straight into a
monster without much warning.

On the subject of monsters, combat is a bit on the naff side to
say the least. The monsters tend to follow set paths most of the
time and when you fight something the animation is very minimal
and you have no real control over the fight except when you
started it and when you run away if things aren't going so well.

There is a magic system in the game somewhere, and it involves
pre-formulated scrolls and items that all contain an element of
magical force.  I'm only in the second level of the game, but I
would have expected to have used magic a few times already and I
haven't. It would be unfair to pass comment on magic until I've
used it, but let's just say for now that the idea of yet another
rigid and inflexible style spell system doesn't fill me with
anticipation.

One of the major selling points of this game is 'photoscape'. What
this boils down to is dark and dingy dungeons which are lit up by
torches. You carry a source of light which casts light around you.
As the torch burns down so the light encircling your party gets
smaller until it disappears altogether. This looks rather neat at
first, but I suspect that nearly all of the levels are going to be
dark and dingy and I've already got a little bored with the
puzzles that are specifically designed around being light
sensitive. The majority of the puzzles are of the lever, button,


key and pad variety and take some working out. It would be nice to
have puzzles of a different kind, but I suppose they can always do
those for the sequel ('Shadow Worlds' as it is known at the moment
is a science fiction style game using the same system).

The graphics are okay, but each party member looks exactly the
same in their flowing brown capes. The monsters are a bit on the
squiggly and poorly defined side too. I'm sure that this is down
to the particular graphic style chosen rather than an incapable
artist. Again the graphic style looks interesting at first but
after a while you begin to wish for a more colourful palette and
better defined monsters and adventurers. Oh for a nice bright and
colourful land to go adventuring in!

You are only allowed one save per disk which quite frankly is
ludicrous.  The designers obviously wanted to penalise the players
by not being able to have more than one save game on a disk, but
it's not really on. As it is, you can wander around a level not
really knowing what to do or where to go.

I desperately wanted to like this game, but as usual the glossy
mags have over-hyped a game that doesn't really have the depth and
user friendliness that it requires. The idea was a damn good one,
but somehow it doesn't quite work. The control system is at best
finicky, and the dark graphics soon become monotonous. It has been
very slickly put together and the designers obviously put a lot of
hard work into the game, but I can think of another isometric role
playing game recently released which is much better.