Fate:Gates of Dawn - Reline RRP unknown
                 (RPG for ST, PC and Amiga)

                 Reviewed by Piotr Tyminski

Oh dear, I have bought a hard disk especially for it (honestly!).
Not because it does not work with floppies fast enough (there are
only two of them in the ST version, and there is not much disk
swapping really), but the game was so good and it got even better
when run from a hard drive.  It swallowed immediately 7 MB of
space of my hard beast so it should give you some idea of what
kind of monster it is.

Some people say ULTIMA VI has a huge playing area ("you may not
see it all", that is what they say on the box).  I have played
ULTIMA and enjoyed it but I have been playing FATE for a couple of
months now and I can tell you: ULTIMA IS NOT huge at all.

So what is it all about? You are Winwood, owner of a small record
store.  It's evening and you get back home as usual trying to have
some sleep. And then it all starts; you are suddenly engulfed by a
vicious vortex which seems to drag you away from your place and
finally pushes you far beyond your time and space. You end up in a
world completely unknown to you and apparently your unwanted
journey took you some several hundred years back, too.

Luckily enough there is a guy around who proves to be quite
helpful, at least when it comes to explaining briefly the mystery
of your journey to this strange place.  So it turns out that
somebody brought you here using strange magical forces, someone
who is pure evil and who needs you to fulfil his wildest wishes.
You have never considered yourself to be an especially important
person but what doesn't mean much to you in your world can be of
great value here, so some of your 'normal' abilities are of
extreme importance to somebody here.  This man is called Thardan
and is supposed to be a living evil possessing unbelievable
magic power which he is using to bring havoc to this land and he
hopes to become even more powerful when he finally lays his hands
on you.

And that's it.  You are told no more. What you do now is entirely
up to you.  You may even commit suicide if you want but I guess
you'd rather prefer to get back to your home world.

What is good about the game is that you seem to start in the
middle of nowhere, not knowing what to do and where to go.  So
maybe a beer or two would serve you well if you manage to find
some settlement or town.  You are now a part of a completely
different world with lots of cities, villages, islands, and
abandoned places.  And this world is full of people (my dear,
there are not hundreds of them; there are thousands) who have
their own lives and problems. This is a living world: rains fall,
vessels sail, hunters hunt and thieves lurk in the dark. You have
to live your life here, getting jobs, stealing, drinking in bars,
doing anything you want and just hoping one day you find the guy
who brought you here. Many people may join your team (in fact you
can have up to four parties, all acting more or less independently
of each other, with a total of 28 characters) if you will be
wise enough to get somebody to do so.

What is nice about the game is that you FEEL it's a living world
full of people and strange creatures.  You may interact with them
in any way you may only think of.  When talking to people you may
laugh, tell jokes, swear, threaten them, flatten, bribe, beg,
boast, etc.  You may even kiss one of your companions (in case
she's a nice lady; but beware, she may not like it!).

And TALKING to people is really important. Without it you just do
not know what the whole thing is all about (I bravely started with
asking everybody and his brother about Thardan but forget it,
nobody seems to know him, so instead after wandering around
aimlessly I decided to help some folks with repairing a cave train
which refused to work - this was my first sub-quest, and I swear
there are dozens of them.  Finally I put the train to work; it
sounds simple but it took me about four months of intense work,
honestly).

Obviously, the game is full of usual RPG/adventure stuff: dozens
of potions, magical items, weapons, scrolls and what not.  And it
is REAL:  you get cold when it rains and no proper clothes are
used, you may become sick, tired, hungry or bored, you get drunk
when you order too much beer.  Your companions may become unhappy
when you keep on ordering them to camp in the open air instead of
renting a nice room or two in a hotel (and even there you have a
choice of several rooms with different standards).  Thieves and
murderers are more likely to be met in the night and during bad
weather - that's obvious.  Wild animals crawl out of their
hideouts in the night, wind changes direction and torches burn
out.  Even your companions are REAL: they may have different
opinions on a certain thing, if they are extremely polite and
honest they may refuse to do dirty jobs.  They also express their
opinions if they feel you do not do something in a right way.
They even smile and tell you about their birthday.  They get old
(you too) and a 16 year old sweetheart looks different on the
screen from the same sweetheart at the age of 68.

Except for regular RPG character attributes like stamina,
strength, intelligence, hit points, dexterity, agility, etc.
there are lots of other attributes which seem to be unique to
'FATE', e.g.  each character having a set of invisible 'spheres'
(i.e.  anti-poison sphere, anti-fire sphere, etc) which in some
way defines a character's ability to resist poisons, wounds, etc.
It means any two characters having identical abilities like
weight, strength or stamina may be completely different when it
comes to ability to survive, say, in a hostile environment like
a poisoned swamp or burning room.  These spheres can also be
developed in certain guilds.

There are even different legal systems in different towns, too.
In general, you cannot just walk around hacking and slashing
everybody in sight (e.g. to gather cash).  If you keep on doing
this you become an outlaw and life becomes difficult for you and
your buddies since hordes of town guards (no weaklings there) are
hunting you.  Some cities are more tolerant than others - you may
cut throats of two or three innocent peasants and it's still
OK for local authorities, but in other places one murder may be
enough and may well cost you your life.  Don't worry though, there
are places where nice priests can zap your sins (as well as your
coins) so you can get back to society pretty safely.  It is not
quite safe to become a robber; it's much better to talk to people
(there are lots of inns and bars in the cities and you can always
find a drunken knight who will be happy to tell you stories if you
serve him a beer or two), you can get to know about real treasures
buried here and there.

There are strange and abandoned places where you can find bodies
of fallen heroes; if you manage to resurrect them somehow you will
have faithful companions to join you.  There are ships which can
be bought (when I saw a price it seemed to me I would have to play
for years to gather that much cash, but there are ways...) and
islands to be explored.  There are dungeons and caves, and WHAT
dungeons they are!  You may just keep on wandering there for
months without any apparent result, unless you know exactly what
you are looking for. There are so many spells available they just
form a second manual for the game, so do not worry - you will not
be bored.

The manual is excellent and very interesting to read and beware -
do not even bother to play pirated copies!  Not because of some
sophisticated protection (although there is some, too) but simply
because the game is so massive you will never get any enjoyment
from it when playing without a manual. Although there is no need
to refer to the manual very often, there are still pieces of
strange maps or diagrams printed which you must know when reaching
certain points in the game (oh dear, there are still many strange
drawings in the manual which do not appeal to me at all!).
The controls, looking complicated at first, are really pretty easy
to get used to and the whole thing works very smoothly. The
graphics are nice, nothing extremely innovative, but just good
enough not to let you feel they're suffering from lack of
something (at least on my ST, I don't know how it works on AMIGA
or PC, they are probably better).

This is definitely the best RPG I have ever played, and I have
played some really. There are maybe better things for PCs around,
but as far as I know they mostly have better graphics but for
hardcore RPG fans playability and plot are most important I think.
Anyway I would strongly recommend the game for AMIGA and PC
owners, too. Strange enough 'LEGEND OF FAERGHAIL' by the same
software house (RELINE) seems to be more known than 'FATE' and
really God knows why.  It is a nice game, too, but it's nothing
compared to 'FATE'.

So just rush out and buy it.

I am now working on producing some nice maps of cities and
villages I have explored. I will also put together most important
conversations I had with non-player characters, as well as any
other important hints and clues I have managed to discover so look
out for it in SYNTAX (er, provided Sue will be so kind as to make
any use of my efforts).

@~'Course she will - look out for Piotr's walkthrough which will
@~start next issue.

And don't think I have ever completed 'FATE'.  I am stuck at one
point and have some free time now to put my experience on paper,
that's why.