Wizardry 7:Crusaders Of The Dark Savant - Sir Tech œ35.99
                          (PC RPG)

             Reviewed by James Judge on a 486sx

After seeing the graphical splendour of games such as Ultima
Underworld 2 it is something of a backwards step when playing an
RPG such as this. Why? Well, it takes you back to the heady days of
one step mode, six characters and, really, the basics of the
classic CRPG.

That is not to say this game is basic - far from it. To be honest
this is one of the largest, most involved and hardest games I have
ever played and, coupled with that, one of the nicest looking and
most enjoyable.

The basic storyline (outlined in an animated intro that get quite
tedious after watching it once) is that you take control of six
people who arrive on this planet to retrieve a magical artifact
that is very, very powerful. Also trying to get the artifact is the
bringer of death (aka the Dark Savant) and you can either team up
with him or rival him.

You start the game with a hefty read of the manual and appendices.
Normally I wouldn't do this but the manual is written in a fun way
("An iceball won't do an Ice Giant much good - unless he laughs
himself to death" and other such odds and ends help to keep the
reader alive) and knowledge of how each race and character acts
helps immensely when choosing your six starting characters. After
choosing their race, sex, profession and assigning bonus points you
choose their name and portrait and then get on with the game.

You start the game in a forest with the bare essentials and not the
foggiest as what to do. Already choices present themselves - do you
go and search for the automap, go down into a dungeon or see what
is in the city? Once in the city what do you do? Solve the library,
get a boat, figure out the museum, try and find the magic pedlar,
release the guy in prison, swim to the statue, pick some locks or
do you just go on to the next place down the road.

All throughout the game you are presented with a wide choice of
what you can do which is, invariably, a good thing. Just wandering
around the city and the dungeon took me about 4 days and I still
haven't completed it, although I am now many game miles away. The
wide choice allows people who get stuck to go to somewhere else and
see whether that can provide them with more clues or present them
with a whole new puzzle and quest.

The interface of the game is intuitive and enjoyable. The movement
is the same as old Dungeon Master but everything else has changed.
You can pick locks (that includes chests which could be trapped),
search areas, buy and sell objects, swap lore with NPCs, join
armies, interview/interrogate/steal from/pick fights with NPCs and
a whole plethora of other options.

Apart from the interface this game goes into great detail with
everything from spells to character levels and professions.

Fighting is handled on a turn system where each turn you instruct
each of your characters to do something (attacking, resting,
casting spells, running etc.) and after you have dished out your
instructions the computer takes over moving the quickest monster or
character first and so on down the chain until everyone has had
their go. Then you supply a new set of orders and so on. This may
sound boring, but after a few fights and you have more spells and
weapons to fiddle with you can start to develop in-depth
strategies, especially when you are facing more than one rank of
monsters.

Spellcasting is more simplistic, working on a mana system that
works very well. Instead of having just one large clump of mana the
spell caster has six areas of magic (earth, air, fire, water,
divine and mental) and has a set amount of mana for each area.
Then spells are split into those sections and you can cast to your
heart's content from one pool until it runs out. There is a huge
variety of spells in the game, split into four spell books, and
only certain classes can cast from the spellbooks.

Classes, that is another brilliant aspect of this game. Many moons
ago I used to run a tabletop RPG called Warhammer which had options
for players to change their character's professions whenever they
wanted but they had to follow a certain tree (a soldier couldn't
become a mage straight away unless he became a lot of other
characters to gain magic experience). COTDS follows this idea but
as there are only 12 professions the option to change class depends
on your stats which go up every level. For example, if you want a
new fighter you must have a character with strength of 12 or above.
The good thing is, though, if you make a mage into a priest the
newly made priest retains the mage skills and learns the priest
skills too!

Graphically this game is very good. True, we don't have 3D movement
here but we do have some great scenery that is varied and the
monster graphics are a cut above the norm. Object graphics are wide
and varied (different kinds of sword LOOK like different kinds of
swords) and so are the character portraits which you can change at
will during the game to reflect new professions (although non-human
races will find it a bit difficult as the piccies are mainly human
ones, shame).

Sonically the game is, again, above average. The music is OK for
the first couple of days but after a while you just want to rip the
speakers apart but, unfortunately, you are unable to do that as
music announcing level increases, monster encounters and the such
are inevitable and the only long piece of music that plays is
during sleeping. Sound effects are good ranging from whooshes and
clangs during fighting to bird song and crickets when wandering
around.

All of the above takes back seat for me when looking at RPGs. If
the puzzles are bad, the game is an instant failing. Luckily while
everything else in the game is very very good, the puzzles are even
better. To me it seems as if the best in RPGs have meshed with the
best text adventure and point and click games going. Let me give
you two examples:

In an early dungeon you come across a pool of blood and an
unopenable door. Upon inspection of the blood you see a ray of
light coming from the ceiling. If you have the right tool (a shiny
plate) you can reflect the light into the gateway to open it!

A large quest a little later on involves summoning four witches to
kill them and release their good sister. To do this you must learn
their true names, but you can only do that if you have a certain
artifact which is hinted by in a book of fables you find at the
start of the game. To get the artifact you must intrude into a lair
of giants and kill their pets. Even after summoning the evil
sisters you must have enough money to fulfil the prophecy, have
enough strength to defeat them and find out what to do with the
artifacts you find. Then you have to figure out what to do with the
item you are given by the good witch - it never stops!

Two things that did put me off the game was firstly the way the
cursor was snatched to the bottom left hand corner of the screen
whenever a message appeared. The other is the fact that you can't
see any objects or monsters in the game, unless you meet them or
see a symbol of them (ie monsters ALWAYS sneak up on you - you can
never see them in the distance). After a while, though, you stop
noticing this as the game just drags you in and your imagination
just fills in the gaps.

In all a very good game that will take even the hardened RPGer a
L-O-N-G time to complete. At the moment I am about a tenth of the
way through and I have been playing nearly solidly for three weeks.
If I hadn't been playing it along with someone who has completed it
7 times (he likes it) and is playing it again for mapping purposes
I wouldn't be half as far as I am now.

Maybe a little too much for the beginner but for the casual player
this is a very good long-term investment. For the RPG nutter (moi)
this is a challenge that will either enthral or annoy - either way
you'll enjoy it.

Buy it!





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