Moria
       (RPG for ST, PC (PD 516) and Amiga (PD 377))

           Reviewed by James Judge on a 1040 STe

At the first mention of Moria my mind flicks back to the Lord Of
The Rings and Gandalf's showdown with the Balrog at the Bridge of
Khazad-dum in the Mines Of Moria and to my surprise in this game
you must go down fifty (methinks) levels to kill the Balrog. (The
game was obviously not based on the book due to the fact that
there is a thriving town above the dungeon and not a single
sighting of Gandalf, Frodo or the rest of the gang).

Right, to business. You start off with a screen to create your
character. You have all the usual RPG stats as well as Social
Status and your dimensions and age. Firstly you choose a race from
Human to Half Ogre with the usual smattering of Elves and
Halflings etc in between. You then choose a sex (male or female
for the dense ones among you out there) and finally you roll up
your stats. Well, the computer does it actually but you can make
it re-roll them until you've got the character you want.  Finally
you choose a profession from warrior, wizard, priest, rogue,
ranger or paladin.

Okay, you've got your character so now you've got to get them
kitted out. You start off in the town with six shops you can go to
and some money in your pocket (how much depends on your social
status) so it's time to go shopping.  There's an Armoury, Magic
Shop, General Store, Temple, Weaponsmith and Alchemy Shop, all of
which sell you certain items at certain prices.

Depending on when during the game you enter one of these shops
more wares will be for sale at different prices. When you see a
piece of kit that takes your fancy you must haggle with the shop
owner for a suitable price. This is all well and good but if you
haggle too much you could end up being chucked out of the shop and
not being allowed in for a day or so.

Kitted out?  Good.  Now it's time to enter the dungeon.  Somewhere
you will find a set of steps leading down into the depths of
oblivion.  Now you're down here you'll need a light source, either
a lamp or torch will do. These will last for so many thousands of
turns. It sounds a lot but I'm telling you it isn't. Got a light?
Bravo, off we go again.

As you wander around the dungeon you will come across the usual
assortment of monsters that will try to splatter you decoratively
around the room. So to fight them it's a simple matter of moving
over to their letter (I'll explain it later) and trying to move
into their position. They retaliate and then you have another go
and so on until someone's life gives out.

Magic is in the form of scrolls, rings, wands, potions and
staffs. Only if you are a wizard can you read the scrolls but
everyone else can use the other items.  If you find, say, a
potion, it doesn't tell you what it is until you've tried it. This
can lead to all sorts of complications especially if the object is
harmful. A lot of staffs, wands and rings also hinder you by
generating monsters, attracting monsters to you making them

quicker, stronger or even healing them! Magic items are a matter
of try and suffer the consequences.

Back to the rather cryptic remark about the monsters' letters.
Well this game may sound all well and good but, to look at, it's
awful!  It has been programmed to use over a network using ASCII
characters for graphics. The floor is represented by full stops
and the door are lines etc. So in the immortal words of Ian Taylor
(reviewer of Nethack!) "If you see a letter in the dungeon, it's
after you!"

This game may sound great but its content is really terrible.  All
the game is a matter of walking around fifty levels killing
monsters and being killed then when you're ten levels down find
you've run out of food so back up you go, buy some food then back
down you go. Very boring.

My version of the game was (it refuses to work now) riddled with
bugs. If you have a social status of over eighty or below twenty
the game just freezes up.  Periodically the game freezes up. If
you entered commands too quickly it froze and every time the game
saved it crashed. This, as well as the atrocious game play turned
me right off so I can't really recommend this game. It is better
than Hack! but not very good.

@~It may be an old game but does anyone have a copy of the ST
@~version of Moria to add to the Library, please? Sue