Maze Quest - Tom Sherwood
           Available for the PC on disk 408

          Reviewed by James Judge on a 486sx

RPGs, don't you luv 'em? They allow you to get hot and
sweaty, hefting large bits of wood and metal in the name of
justice and peace and freedom and righteousness an' all good
stuff like that. They let you wander around in strange items
of leather clothing without getting funny looks in the
high street.  They let you do all of that and more without
having to do anything more tiring than clicking your mouse
and thumping your keyboard every once in a while. The perfect
thing with which to while away your life...

Maze Quest is one of these wonderful inventions so, ignoring
the name (which was enough to send a shiver down my back and
make my forehead break out in a cold sweat - "M-m-m-m-
ma-m-may-m-MAZE!!!!"), I quickly copied the disk onto my
computer and loaded the old girl up.

The requirements for the game aren't bad at all - EGA and a
little biot of base memory (I was able to run it first time
with all of my drivers etc. loaded - something that rarely
happens today!) is all you need, so most PC owners will be
able to run this game.

The background to the game is a little vague - almost
nonexistent. All you know is that you start the game in a
guild preparing a team of hearty adventurers to go on any
quests that may present themselves to you.

Creating characters is pretty standard stuff with you naming
them, giving them a job (either fighter, mage, cleric or
thief) and then a race (human, elf, half-elf, dwarf,
halfling). You can have up to eight characters in your party
- all can be created in the guild or you can leave a couple
of spaces at the back for anyone you may pick up on the way.
I completed this shareware version with just the basic six
characters, not meeting anyone recruitable.

After character creation you enter a friendly zone which has
a temple (for healing and resurrection) as well as a shop and
the person who gives you your quest.

The first thing that strikes you is the quality, or lack, of
graphics. The actual 3D parts of the game (ie the rooms,
walls, floors etc.) look decidedly shoddy, as if they were
cobbled together by an eight year old playing with an Atari's
medium resolution paint package. Also from a distance the
monsters look decidedly dodgy, but when you are toe-to-toe
with them the resolution improves noticeably and they become
pleasing to the eye with nicely drawn mice and orcs for your
hacking pleasure.

Coupled with the decidedly average graphics (when everything
is taken into account) the odd "phuzz, phutt" you get from
the internal speaker the first impression of this game is one
to stay away from "oh no, another pile of steaming crap" was
the phrase that entered my mind.

However, after a few minutes playing I found that something
had snuck out of the disk drive and superglued my bum to the
chair - I was playing the game and I was enjoying it. That in
itself was a strange experience for me - actually enjoying an
oldish shareware game with poor visuals and "phutts" coming
merrily from my CPU.

In fact it was so strange I had to take a little holiday,
finding a small monastery in Dorset where I donned a black
robe, took a vow of silence (sneezing, coughing and
exclamations of pain were the only verbal utterances allowed)
and spent my nights in a cold stone room with a crude
horsehair mattress and an oil lamp for company. My mornings
were spent planting and looking after a variety of vegetables
(the runner beans were especially fine) while, after a rustic
dinner of the said vegetables and a slice of Bessy (the lamb
that had been my constant companion for three days), I spent
the afternoons and evenings in deep meditation trying to come
to terms with this strange experience of actually enjoying
something. Finally, after three weeks in this isolated, quiet
retreat I felt strong enough to actually brave the real world
and returned to my brazen life of debauchery and playing this
game.

Unfortunately, returning to the game after my sojourn proved
to be disappointed - having played it for an hour before I
went off to Dorset I was now presented with only three or
four more minutes of gameplay left. <Snivel>.

Yes, this shareware version is short. The game took me about
an hour to complete and that was my first time through too.
However, the full version promises to be much bigger with
multiple quests (instead of just the one in this version) and
different areas and cities to visit. So, let's ignore the
premature ending to this shareware version.

The game, as a whole, will play in a familiar way to anyone
who has played a Bard's Tale game, or something of the same
ilk. You're presented with a first person perspective with
which to move around the game world (a la Dungeon Master -
boo hiss ;->) in which you see all of the major things in the
game (such as characters, doors etc. but not individual items
as you would in something like Ultima Underworld). Whenever
you come across a monster all the action freezes, you issue
commands to your troops (either attack, sit there like a
sausage or cast a spell) and then the computer takes control
of the action and updates you with thrilling messages such as
"Jegayer hits the rat doing 4 damage". Not exciting, but
functional.

Everything is controlled with the keyboard from movement
right through to buying goods and swapping items around your
characters' backpacks. This can get bothersome, but in this
game it isn't half as irksome as I've found even Bard's Tale
to be, so it can't be all _that_ bad.

Given everything this game is a good one. It's not brilliant
by any means, but it is worth a look at - especially if you
have enjoyed the odd game of Bard's Tale now and again. It
may look primitive and play a little too slowly (some of the
battles really do drag as eight of your characters wage war
against ten opposing wolves), with the limited amount of
items, spells and monsters provided not offering enough
variation to the game and a few annoying little things (such
as not being able to access the inventories of dead
characters, rarely being able to rest your characters for
more than an hour or two wherever you go and a couple of
other small, niggly gripes) making the game not very
easy/enjoyable to play, but I honestly feel that with a
little bit of perseverance and the full version (which only
costs $17) many of you will enjoy this game - not as a full
blown RPG that will keep you up night after night, but just a
little filler to dip in and out of every so often.





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