Lands of Lore - Virgin/Westwood RRP œ35.99-œ44.99
               (RPG for PC and CD-ROM)

        CD-ROM version, played on a 486 DX2 66Mhz
               Reviewed by Alex van Kaam

After seeing and reading all the reviews of Lands of Lore and
hearing about a CD-ROM version I placed my order at Special
Reserve, it took a while but last week it arrived.

Installing was a breeze, the program creates a directory on the
hard disk, you give up your type of soundcard and off you go....

You are greeted by the king (voice of Patrick Stewart - captain
Picard) and you must choose your hero, you can choose between four
types, Magician, Warrior, Thief or the all rounder.

Clicking on the characters will trigger them and they will tell
you why to choose him and not one of the others, again all is said
in very nice and clear voices.

After choosing your champion you enter the castle and you are
greeted by a guard who tells you that the king is waiting for you.
Here the adventure begins, and it is a great one, you encounter
lots of people, all with real voices and, most importantly, voices
that fit that person, so a large strong looking person has a deep
strong voice.

In the city of Yew you come across a pub, after entering you see
some customers and you think that one looks very familiar, he
looks like that postman in Cheers, and when he starts talking you
know he is that postman from Cheers, and the guy next to him has
to be Norm......

As for the game itself, it starts off very easy, some robbers and
some boars are all you have to kill, at this point you start
thinking if it is only the outside of the game that looks great.
But on the second stage of the adventure as you meet your first
companion (a max of 2 companions) you just know that this is a
great game with lots of eye for the story and detail.

The only drawbacks I found were:
- too few player statistics (but that just personal)
- the map, the basic idea of a map is great, it saves a lot of
  paper but it also spoils a lot of the game. When you walk
  through a corridor or forest it is mapped, but not only the
  corridor but also the hidden buttons and secret passageways,
  this means that instead of checking out each wall for something
  you just have to look at the map to see what you have missed. My
  advice for those of you who want to play the game completely by
  yourself, don't take the magic atlas in the beginning.
- death, you need no food so you can't starve, and when you die
  from a fight with a monster your companion can just cast heal to
  bring you back to life.

But that aside, it is a great game to play, a good story, some
great music on the background, nice animation, and of course some
great voices that are clear and crispy without much noise that you
often hear with samples.

On the CD-ROM you also get demos of Dune II, Legend of Kyrandia,
Hand of Fate, and an extra to Lands of Lore called Lore of the
Lands.  Dune II looks great as does Kyrandia, but Hand of Fate was
nothing special (no voices that is).

Lore of the Lands, however, is a short story told by Patrick
Stewart and tells of the history of the Lands, nice to see and
hear once or twice.

All in all I think it is a great game, I only hope that not
everybody bought the disk version, because they probably won't buy
the CD-ROM version and that's a real shame after all the effort
that was put in it. (Just look at the cast list at the end!!)






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