Veil of Darkness

              Reviewed by Steve McLaren on a PC

Price unknown - check out your local computer shop

Veil of Darkness - as you gather, this is a Horror Adventure.
Inside the box you get 3 disks and a very good, easy to understand
book. Inside the book is a short story about the village and the
evil Kairn. And, of course, how to operate the adventure, it all
becomes very easy to get into the gameplay.

The adventure does have overtones of an RPG but not too heavy on
the RPG side.  You have 3 options of combat, you have FULL COMBAT
for those who like to have a good battle or a SIMPLIFIED COMBAT for
those who like not too long a battle like me. Then there is EASY
COMBAT for those wimps who do not like fighting at all.

I thought the opening intro was very good graphically but it has
been surpassed by today's standards of graphics. Nevertheless, this
adventure has a very good storyline, more than I can say about
Dragon Lore.  Veil of Darkness is so easy to operate with the mouse
between your inventory and gameplay area, sometimes it becomes
frustrating when guiding the guy to a door but once you have become
accustomed to this, it does get easier.

There is also quite a lot of interaction with people who you must
speak to, to gain knowledge of what has happened in the village.
There are keywords which are underlined so you can carry on with
the conversation and this is the crafty bit, some keywords are NOT
underlined which I found out through Sue Medley (THANKS SUE). To
get anywhere in this adventure you must help out the villagers and
vanquish KAIRN THE EVIL ONE to free the village from the horror
that surrounds it.

You will meet all sorts of creatures of the night from wolves to
will o' wisps and you must have the right weapon to kill each
creature. I would think most people would know how to kill a
werewolf from seeing all the old horror movies but how to obtain
the right weapon is another story.

The amazing idea of this adventure is when you either enter the
catacomb or a hedge maze an automap appears so you can see where
you have been or are going to. Also you can print out these maps,
same as the conversations, you have an option to print out all the
conversations if need be.

When you visit the tavern and chat to the punters they will give
you clues about who to see, then you will be given a map of the
country. At the moment you cannot go too far but once you have
done a few good deeds for some of the villagers the game will open
up and there will be more and more places to visit until you meet
and kill the evil one, Kairn. You do learn a lot about everyone
and sometimes they tell lies and you have to confront that person
and kill his zombie son.

I thought it was a fairly large adventure and with lots to do. You
know how much of the adventure you have done by going by the
Prophecy that is given to you. It is a help sheet. Every time you
do something right the Prophecy glows then fades away on the words.
There is a lot of work to be done and a few sub quests that you
must do as well for the villagers and a poor guy who got hanged for
nothing, you must release his soul by finding the true murderer.

All in all I would recommend this adventure to anyone who likes
horror with a dash of RPG elements thrown in for good measure. Mine
is up for SALE.

The adventure will run on a 286, 386, 486, req. 640K, VGA graphics,
8.5 meg of space on your hard drive.









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