@~Two reviews of Westwood's Hand of Fate, one by Roy Sims, the
@~other by me.

           The Hand of Fate - Westwood Studios.
      Published by Virgin Interactive - œ39.99 (IBM PC)

1. Review by Roy Sims

The Hand of Fate is the follow up to The Legend of Kyrandia and is
the second release in Westwood's "Fables & Fiends" series of
graphic adventures.

Parts of Kyrandia are vanishing and the mystics are stumped as to
the cause. After long deliberation, the Hand comes up with a plan
that requires someone to locate and retrieve a magical anchor
stone from end of the world. Zanthia gets out voted and is
selected to complete the task. This brief summary of the plot is
displayed as part of the intro to the game. It's quite short, but
there's the addition of speech (in the form of a narrator)
throughout. It's not quite as good as the intro to the first game
(or Lands of Lore - The Throne of Chaos) but it's still quite
impressive. (It's a shame that the plot is so lame).

If you've played the first game, you will feel right at home with
this one. The simple point and click interface has been retained
which may or may not be a good thing. It's easy to use, but you
might miss the smart pointer found in games like Day of the
Tentacle (Lucasarts) where the cursor changes mode when it passes
over an object or item the player can look at or examine. However,
on the other hand (excuse the pun) that makes the game a little
too easy to solve. In this game (as in its predecessor), you have
to hunt around for spell ingredients (berries, mushrooms etc) and
having the cursor give away their position would make it too easy.

The graphics are up to the usual high Westwood standards, but the
animation is a bit poor. Zanthia walks around the locations in a
very jerky manner and this detracts slightly from the otherwise
overall excellent mood set by the graphics in general. The scenery
and the supporting cast are nice, bright and colourful as always.

The game is very laid back at the start and it allows even the
most inexperienced of adventurers to make progress quite quickly.
The whole thing feels quite easy in the early stages, in the same
way as Legend of Kyrandia did. Whether it proves to be a worthy
challenge for the seasoned pros is another matter entirely. The
music is quite nice, but it hasn't come up with any tunes yet that
are quite as catchy as those found in the first game.

The Hand of Fate does nothing new. It uses the same control system
as The Legend of Kyrandia, but at least the graphics and music are
up to the same high standards. It might just be me, but I think
the days of the graphic adventure are numbered (in the same way as
the days of the eternal Dungeon Master clones are). The vast
majority of them are very linear and unimaginative in design. I
would guess that a CD-ROM version will appear in due course with
tons of digitised speech added. I would also guess that Westwood
are planning a third outing to Kyrandia in the future to wrap up
the series as a trilogy. Before that though expect to see a sequel
to Lands of Lore, (as well as the CD-ROM version of the original,
featuring Patrick Stewart's voice amongst others) and Command and
Conquer, which uses an advanced version of the Dune II wargame
interface.

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2. Review by Sue

The land of Kyrandia is disappearing, tree by tree, rock by rock,
island by island. The Mystics are ... mystified.  Despite
searching all the books and parchments in their libraries, they
can't find any reason for the strange happenings, or any way of
stopping it.

But someone, or rather something, has an idea - Marko's new valet,
a giant hand. He (it?) uses a pointer to indicate the solution;
someone must get an anchor stone from the middle of the world. But
who will go? The Hand moves its pointer to indicate Zanthia, the
youngest of the Kyrandian Mystics. Ah well, she thinks, it will be
an easy trip; just cast a spell. But when she and her companion
Faun arrive at her cottage, she is horrified to find that all her
equipment has been smashed or stolen, including her cauldron and
spellbook, without which she cannot perform even the simplest
magic.  Who has performed such a mindless act and why? Will
Zanthia still be able to complete her quest and save Kyrandia?
Play on and find out!

This is the second in Westwood's Fiends and Fables series, the
first being The Legend of Kyrandia which I haven't played. It
isn't essential to be familiar with the original game but, during
play, I felt it might have made some of the references to other
people a bit clearer. From reading other reviews of Legend of
Kyrandia, I knew the name Malcolm, but who was Brynn who was
mentioned part way into the game? In many ways, I don't usually
identify with characters I play in graphic adventures compared to
text adventures. Seeing them on the screen is one reason; it feels
as though the game is being played in the third person, rather
than 'being' them. This feeling was stronger than usual with
Zanthia because she seemed to know so much more about what was
going on than I did.

I knew that Zanthia had been a minor character in the first game,
so it was interesting to see that Westwood had decided to promote
her to the role of heroine. I'm not bothered by the fact that 99%
of the time I have to play male characters in adventures - most of
the time it's academic WHAT sex a character is - and remembering
Infocom's abortive attempt at a female hero in Plundered Hearts, I
was hoping that Zanthia wasn't going to be the sort of woman who
was forever twisting her ankle and having to be rescued by men.
Far from it - in fact she will punch out anyone or anything that
annoys her and seems to have no fear, dealing with swamp monsters
and alligators being all part of her day's work. As she says at
one point, she likes to live dangerously. Her main concession to
being a woman is the fact that she likes to change outfits at
regular intervals. All her quick changes are done magically with a
wave of her hand.

Fortunately, Zanthia will soon find her cauldron and her spellbook
which the thief had stolen. Most of the pages are missing from her
book but at least it's a start, and on her travels, more pages
will turn up. In order to cast a spell, she needs to add certain
specified ingredients to her cauldron to make a potion which must
be bottled up into flasks for use. Many of the ingredients are
easy to find and, if natural, may be replenished eg plants will
regrow.  If she should make a mistake in a potion, the cauldron
has a handy 'flush' option which will empty it ready for another
attempt.

While she is travelling, Zanthia can call Faun and find out what
is happening at home. Things deteriorate rapidly as the game
progresses, giving a sense of urgency as she makes her way towards
her goal.

The game is completely mouse-controlled and the screen display
shows the current location in a large window with a panel
containing Zanthia's spellbook and cauldron plus the contents of
her knapsack which are arranged as a series of shelves which can
be revolved using a wheel at the side. Objects are selected using
the mouse and taken from the main window into her inventory (or
the cauldron) or vice versa to use them with other items or
characters eg to give an item to someone.

The graphics are excellent, brightly coloured and nicely animated.
There's a lot of variety in them too, as Zanthia moves from area
to area across Kyrandia - the verdant woods around her home, the
drier areas of Morningmist and the lava pools and pumice beaches
of Volcania. A journey by ship turns into an exercise in skill and
imagination by the artists as the craft is drawn by two giant fish
who chase after huge worms which are dangled in front of them,
much as in the traditional donkey with a carrot on a stick. Much
use is also made of effects of light and dark, as Zanthia moves
into and out of shadow and sunlight and, on Volcania, into and out
of misty regions created by the hot air vents which belch forth
plumes of steam. The lava pools in this area will turn her
(currently) red outfit into a glowing yellow and orange should she
stray too close to them. Closer still, the poor woman will be
reduced to a smouldering pile of ash!

Since there are quite a few ways to die (none unfair or
unexpected, thankfully), it is fortunate that the save game

facility is virtually instantaneous to use. I could see no limit
to the number of saves allowed either.

The narrow arrow-shape cursor, which is used to manipulate
objects, changes into a more chunky 'this way' arrow when moved to
the edge of the screen or to doorways etc, showing available
exits. Scene changes are performed smoothly, not breaking the flow
of the game.

The sound effects are also good. There is speech for the
introduction and no doubt the forthcoming CD-ROM version will have
speech rather than on-screen text. The music is atmospheric
without being strident even at the more exciting points of the
game; I let it play throughout which is very unusual for me.

There is a strong but well-balanced sense of humour running
through the game, sometimes in actions performed by Zanthia or
other characters, at other times from spot animations such as the
tidal waves, small boats and unidentified monsters which
occasionally are spotted in Zanthia's cauldron. It is worth doing
things wrongly just to see the humorous responses, both in terms
of the text and graphics, even in the case of her death.

I thoroughly enjoyed Hand of Fate from start to finish; there's
quite a sense of urgency in the last few moves. My main moans
would include not really being to examine objects unless the
program deems it necessary, some messages being given out of order
or at inappropriate moments (such as Zanthia in the outer room of
the jail saying 'Zanthia, mystic felon' when the mouse is clicked
on her before she had actually been imprisoned) and the illogical
and inhuman reach the woman has! Objects can be the other side,
say, of a lethal lava pool but click the mouse on them and they
are picked up without problems whereas crossing such a pool would
mean instant death.

However, these are minor points and don't detract from the game
which is very well designed and programmed. It ran a tad slowly on
my 386SX-16 but not enough to cause any problems. All in all an
excellent game, not too hard but not a doddle though there are
clues provided, both in comments spontaneously made by Zanthia
when she enters certain locations and others that can be called up
when you click the mouse button on her and effectively listen to
her thoughts.
















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