The Savage Empire - Origin RRP œ35.99
                        (RPG for PC)

                 Reviewed by Julian Gregory.

As a change from the traditional Ultima series Origin came up with
2 different role playing adventures; Savage Empire and Martian
Dreams.  This is a review of Savage Empire. There is still a
reference to the usual series as you start out by being sent by
Lord British to investigate the Orb of the Moons which you
received in Ultima 6.  You have to find your friend Prof Rafkin
and things quickly go awry when his laboratory is blown up and you
awake to find yourself back in prehistoric times.

The game seems to me to be based on the old B-movies with various
dinosaurs which will need dealing with. A certain amount of
liberty has been taken in the game as humans missed the dinosaurs
by several million years. However, who am I to carp over such
artistic licence? Even so I half expected Raquel Welch to feature
somewhere!! There are eleven warring tribes in the Valley of Eodon
and your main task is to unite them. Not all the tribes are easy
to find, even with the map which is provided. In particular there
is one tribe which is well hidden and is not even shown on the
map.  The task of uniting the tribes is not something which can be
done overnight as you will have to perform tasks for each tribe
before they will be prepared to listen to you.  The tasks will
include rescuing a tribe's princess, defeating a King Kong sized
gorilla, fighting a Tyrannosaurus Rex and various other mini
tasks, which are all in a day's work for an experienced adventurer!

The game is not as large as Ultima 6 and the different story-line
makes a pleasant change. One point I found slightly annoying was
that the days did not seem to last very long and you will have to
eat and sleep regularly as travel at night is dangerous.

Overall this is an adventure well up to the standard we have come
to expect from Origin and is well worth the price. I found both
Savage Empire and Martian Dreams in a double pack for œ9.99. What
a bargain!!
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