KINGDOM - THE FAR REACHES
                  PC CD-ROM FROM INTERPLAY

                    REVIEW BY PHIL DARKE

The Argent Kings have been destroyed by the wizard Torlok. Before
their destruction the Kings established an order of Great Wizards.
The magic of the Great Wizards was held in the Hand Of Mobus.
Daelon, the last of the Great Wizards has transformed the Hand of
Mobus into five relics and hidden one in each of the five
Kingdoms. You play Latha and have been chosen by Daelon to recover
the five relics and save the Kingdoms.

Kingdom is supplied on a single CD. Installation is very
straightforward and sound selection is automatic. The manual says
that the game requires 555K of base memory. I had 557K available
but found that the game crashed several times. When I reconfigured
my memory to about 600K the game worked well without crashing.
The game plays direct from CD and requires only a very small
amount of hard drive space.

Once loaded you are presented with the Game menu. From this menu
you can choose to start as Apprentice or Wizard or view the
introductory History, demo, load or quit the game. The main
playing area of the game occupies about three-quarters of the
screen. The graphics are quite large and well drawn and
reminiscent of Dragon's Lair.

Along the top and right of the screen is the Tree Of Dendreon
which contains The Limb Of Life, which represents your health and
changes colour as your health deteriorates.  On the right is the
Eye Of Journey allowing access to the map screen. Below this is a
pouch representing the inventory. Below this are the replay and
help icons. On the bottom of the screen is a log where available
spells and weapons are displayed.

The music is quite atmospheric and speech is generally quite
clear, although some of the characters talk in a high pitched
voice and you may need to replay a scene several times to
understand exactly what was said. Most of the puzzles are fairly
logical and it is not too difficult to play. One small complaint I
had was that you have only one save game position available.

All in all quite a pleasant game and quite good value for the
budget price which I paid.














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