DRAGON WARS (Interplay) RRP œ29.99
                   (RPG for PC and Amiga)

            Amiga Version Reviewed By Phil Darke

Interplay's RPG Dragon Wars is a fairly old game, the copyright
date being 1989 and when new was probably quite revolutionary in
its game play and user interface. However by comparison with more
recent games it is quite cumbersome and not at all easy to play
compared with for example Eye Of The Beholder or Ultima
Underworld.

Being a comparative newcomer to role playing games as opposed to
main stream adventuring, I found it difficult to get to grips
with and although I spent a whole weekend playing I never really
felt comfortable with the game and found myself constantly having
to refer to the manual for what should have been fairly
straightforward actions such as spell casting and healing
characters.

At the start of the game you find yourself with the default party
of four characters in the city of Purgatory. You have the
opportunity at this stage to design your own party or to import
characters from Bard's Tale 1, 2 or 3 and I have no doubt that
anyone familiar with these games would be quite at home in Dragon
Wars. Since I did not have the benefit of this experience I
decided to stick with the default characters.

The game screen is divided into 3 windows, the largest being the
upper left which is the main action area and shows your
surroundings in a fairly low resolution. To the right of this
screen on the border with the right screen is a compass arrow
showing where you are facing. Movement is mouse controlled by
arrows on the main screen, to left or right to turn through 90
degrees in the direction indicated or straight ahead by a vertical
arrow. A curved arrow allows a 180 degree turn. To the right of
the main screen is the character screen with the names of your
characters displayed with status bars running horizontally beneath
them. Clicking on a character's name brings up a status screen
with a menu giving a general overview, item overview (inventory)
and a magic overview.  Running the width of the screen below these
windows is the main message window.  The game plays what I can
only describe as funereal music throughout, which you can
fortunately switch off and there are also limited sound effects
mainly when you are in combat.

The game also features an automap which is of somewhat limited
usefulness as it only shows your immediate surroundings and while
it is possible to scroll by means of the cursor keys vertically
and horizontally you soon lose your bearings as the map only
shows buildings and roads with no indication of what or where
they are. A large scale map showing the whole playing area and
your position on it would have been far more useful.

At the start of the game you have no possessions whatever. You
must move around and fight any opponents barehanded although if
you go to the arena at the North of Purgatory you can enter the
arena and fight the gladiators and you will be equipped for this
with a choice of weapons and a limited supply of armour. I found
the combat system to be particularly unwieldy. When confronted by
an opponent a menu is presented giving various combat options or
run or advance. You have to go through this menu for each of your
characters and for each action. When confronted by several
opponents or by particularly strong opponents this can be rather
slow.

I also found the system for using magic to be rather awkward, at
first none of your characters has any magic at all. If you go to a
shop to the west you can acquire some low level spells free, but
having got them you have to equip your character with the chosen
spell, which he must then learn and having done so, if able he can
then cast. All of this is done by the same kind of menu system.

Movement around the playing area is fairly straightforward but it
is impossible to tell exactly where you are and when you do enter
a new area there is no indication of what it is unless it is an
important location in which case you are referred to a paragraph
in the manual which gives a description of the location and any
items or characters available. I presume that this is intended as
a form of copy protection since it makes the game unplayable
without the manual, but is really self defeating since by the time
you find the relevant paragraph and read through it you can easily
have lost your train of thought.

I hate to be so negative about a game since it is obvious that the
authors have put a great deal of effort into designing this game
but I believe that with only a few minor changes this could have
been a really enjoyable game. Other people, however may not share
my views and find it enjoyable. I do hope so because I am sure
that it has great potential.









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