Betrayal at Krondor - Dynamix RRP œ44.99
                         (RPG for PC)

                  Reviewed by Alex van Kaam

From the manual:
Raymond E. Feist was born in Los Angeles in 1945 and has lived
most of his adult life in Southern California. He entered higher
education a bit later than is usual and graduated from the
University of California, San Diego in 1977. Feist first made
publishing history with his epic novel Magician, which was later
split into two novels:  Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master.
These were then followed up with the best-selling novels:
Silverthorn, A Darkness At Sethanon and Prince of the Blood, all
featuring the twin fantasy worlds of Midkemia and Kelewan. He also
co-authored a series of books with Janny Wurts featuring the
deadly Tsurani culture in Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the
Empire and Mistress of the Empire. Feist now writes full time and
resides in San Diego, California.

Mr. Feist and the people at Dynamix got together to making a
game that plays and feels like a book and that game is Betrayal
at Krondor.  The game is just like a book divided into chapters,
in this case 10.  In every chapter you have to finish a certain
task to get to the next chapter.

In chapter 1 your party is Seigneur Locklear, Owyn Beleforte and
Gorath.  As you start this chapter you first see a intro about how
the party got together, Gorath being the prisoner of Locklear and
Owyn who met these two after they had a fight with a assassin.
Locklear decides to free Gorath from his chains so that he can
help them fight the assassins, he won't run away because on his
own he doesn't has a chance.  Owyn has to come too so he can't
tell anybody who and where they are.  Your mission in this chapter
is to get then safely to Krondor, you can go straight to the city
or first explore the country for some sub-quests to get some
experience and items, this is the best option because the closer
you get to Krondor the stronger are the assassins you meet so you
do need some better weapons and more combat experience.

In chapter 2 Seigneur Locklear is (on order of the king) replaced
by Seigneur James and your mission is to get some information
about a attack from the north.

In chapter 3 you still have the same party but your mission this
time is to find the killers of a group of soldiers who were
killed in the pub you found at the end of chapter 2.

The outside world is in 3D graphics and in the small towns you can
walk past the houses and knock on the doors. Most of the houses
are occupied and the people living in them vary from shop keepers
to drunks.  The bigger towns are pictures where you can click on a
house or shop to enter.

In every chapter you are free to do what you want, you can explore
mines and forests and when you come back in the next chapter you
meet a new set of enemies or people with advice.

When you are attacked by assassins you get a view of your 3
characters and the assassins and on your turn move them around,
let them swing or thrust or, if the character can, let him cast a
spell, and if you are in a no lose situation let the computer
control you characters for a quick victory.  After you have won
you go back to the 3D view and see the bodies of the assassins
lying where they were killed (for the rest of the chapter).

Throughout the land there are chests hidden and you can open them
by using a key or picklock if they have a ordinary lock and if
they have a word lock you have to answer a riddle to get inside
the chest.  This is the biggest setback of this and many other
games: IF YOU HAVE ENGLISH AS YOUR MOTHER LANGUAGE THE ANSWERS ARE
PROBABLY VERY EASY BUT IF YOU DON'T ...................

There are many options to make life easy, like the one that lets
you follow a road, this means that you don't have to make any turn
in the road, the computer does this for you, you only have to walk
forward.

Then there is the bird's eye view of your surroundings which also
is a mapper in any dungeon or mine or whatever.

There is just enough music/sound in the game, outside you can hear
the birds, and with every encounter there is a very good tune.
All the characters whose faces you see are digitised pictures of
normal people dressed up like a lock-smith or a wizard or
whatever.  All in all the game is worth every cent (Dutch for
penny), it plays and feels like a book, it has a great atmosphere,
good sound and graphics, and it is something new (as far as I
know).

The only set-back is the riddles so here are a few answers to
them for the not-so-good-speaking-english among us: River, Ice,
Sword, Hair, Eggs, Thorn, Delekhan, Sieve (I never knew that word
existed)

PS: the first time I played the game my PC run at 16 Mhz and all
the movement was very slow and this is sometimes very frustrating.
@~Alex now has a 40 Mhz PC ... Sue