BATTLESPIRE Review by Dave Booth Marvellous! The next episode in the Elder Scrolls series had just arrived in my greasy mitts. Anyone who has played Daggerfall and/or Arena will appreciate the anticipation I felt when the CD went into the drive. Was this a worthy successor to the magnificent (if extremely buggy) TES 2? If you aren't familiar with the Elder Scrolls series, you can't have been taking SynTax for too long, as reviews, walkthroughs and comments have been flowing through that august source for a while. Suffice to say, that TES 2 : Daggerfall would have easily scored as RPG of the year in most magazines if only the program had not been so full of holes. Still, the game kept my attention for a full 10 months, not a bad feat. With the next instalment in the story - Battlespire - on promise since mid-1997, I've been keeping a watching brief on its arrival. And lo, it arrived! Late, but who's counting? (I was.) Had I then simply installed and run the game, it would have been a shock to find that it didn't work. Thankfully, I knew from hindsight that Bethesda, the software house, have a real talent for releasing product and subsequently generating bug fixes. So it was no surprise, when scanning the Bethesda website before buying Battlespire, to find that patch 1.3 was out. The bugs it fixes, among other things, are a refusal to run under Windows 95 (period, stop, tuff luck) and non-support for several graphics cards... including mine, of course. Anyway, with the patch the game was up and running, and what's it like? It's not a full-blown RPG in the sense that Daggerfall was. It's more of a hybrid, with RPG, adventure, and arcade elements. The premise is that you, the Hero(ine), have been dropped into the Battlespire. This is a realm which has been taken over by Mehrunes Dagon the Daedra Prince, and has been adapted by him as a gateway for the incursion into the world by hordes of nasty Daedra. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to liberate the Battlespire from Dagon's far-from-benign control and, er, save the planet. Oh, and knock off lots of Daedra in the process. Graphically the game is a significant improvement on TES 2. The monsters are now rendered in proper 3D, not cardboard cutouts. The Xngine used in Daggerfall has been improved, so for example you can't fall into the Void any more. (Errata 24/2 : You can fall into the Void! This happened to me at a very fortunate stage in the game. I was stuck in a puzzle, trying to awaken a sleeping Noctural princess (of course). Nothing I did seemed to work. Eventually I saw what looked like a doorway in the wall of the crypt where she was entombed, opposite my precarious position on a ledge. So I jumped at it, trying to open the door in mid-air. It wasn't a door, but I *did* fall into the Void as a result of this escapade. And what do you know, at the bottom of this Void area was the exit. Thankfully!) Whilst not up to the standard of the eye-candy of games like Diablo, visually the Elder Scrolls has come on a lot. Sounds have been lifted wholesale from Daggerfall, but now are used in different contexts. Pressing a button in Battlespire often produces a sound previously only found when a Vampire Ancient threw Shock spells at you. Quite unnerving when it first happened! You create your player-character in a similar fashion to Daggerfall. Choose a race and profession (or create a custom profession), then juggle advantages/disadvantages to amass bonus points. These points can be allocated across attributes like Intelligence and Speed, on Skills such as Long Blade or Destruction, spent to obtain a collection of weapons and armour, or used to buy spells. The latter is by far the most critical area to attend to, as a good Shield spell is worth more than a solid Pauldron. So care and attention is needed to ensure your PC has a variety of spells for all eventualities. Don't worry too much about buying armour and weaponry, you'll find both aplenty scattered among the dead bodies as you carve up the opposition. The mechanics of moving, exploring, and of course fighting are basically unchanged. It is possible to redefine the control keys for movement etcetera. What *are* missing are the Cast and Use keys, though I soon adapted to using F12 to access the spellbook and F10 to bring up my inventory. Individual spells can also be assigned to function keys. One carryover from Daggerfall that is really handy, if a touch unrealistic, is that your PC can stop in mid-battle to go through their inventory or to cast a spell. At several times when my life bar was perilously low, a quick F12 and Heal Wounds brought the PC back to vitality. All the time this spellcasting was taking place, my opponent stood in freeze-frame. Very nice of him, I thought. There's no opportunity to toddle off to the Mage's Guild to collect yet another guard quest, or to train/loiter/loiter to boost your skills. Instead, you progress through the game by meeting Significant NPCs (such as the Battlemage on level 1) who will give you a quest required to complete the level. It's much more linear than Daggerfall. There's a goodly amount of NPC interaction, which is triggered when a Daedra decides to parlay instead of exchanging blows with you. This is accompanied by an on-screen prompt, so you can tell why s/he isn't running pell-mell with sword pointed at your midriff. Conversation is then conducted by multiple guess; get the 'right' response and. Sometimes they attack nonetheless. Othertimes they will actually band with you and start slicing at other Daedra. Alternatively you will be given information relevant to your current quest. This at least is in the RPG tradition --- if it moves, slice it, if it doesn't, talk to it THEN slice it. The monster AI is better. In a recent foray, my PC encountered his first Spider Daedra, and verily did the lifebar start to shrink. I directed him to heroically run like bugger, escaping eventually. In a quiet corner, reflecting on the vagaries of existence and replenishing my PC's life points, it was with horror that I saw the same Daedra climb down a flight of steps, turn, and come at my PC! Thankfully, after a frenzied bout of sword swinging, the PC emerged triumphant. My nerves, however, were a bit jangly for a while after. Promotions only follow when you finish a level. When your character is promoted, you are given a batch of bonus points. These you can distribute among your skills. Skills are also enhanced with usage - hopping on the spot is a good way to improve your Jumping skill with no pain. Looks a bit daft though. Unfortunately, being promoted ups the class of monster that you meet. After hours of chopping up Scamps (little gits with big ears) and Vermae (all thick as a plank), it was no fun to be under attack from a Spider Daedra. The lifepoints just fell away like well-cooked chicken off the bone. The adventure aspect of this game is that puzzles abound. So far, none have been too difficult: collecting cogs to make a door- opening mechanism work, pressing buttons in sequence to raise a bridge above lava, that sort of thing. I imagine though, that Bethesda have secreted more fiendish conundrums on later levels. Not being a big fan of puzzle solving, this is something I personally view with trepidation. Other folk will love it though. Thankfully there are ten savegame slots, and believe me you WILL use them. Go to it. Chop chop. Oh, and zzzzittzzz zzzzittzzz as well (sound of a Shock spell being cast, don't you know?) The game comes with Internet multi-player support. As in Diablo, this should excite those who prefer to pit wits against flesh & blood instead of a box of microprocessors. Unfortunately it's also a good way to fill BT's coffers, so I shall (regrettably) pass on this option. Battlespire isn't the RPG to succeed Daggerfall (that's supposedly Morrowind, due sometime in 98 or 99. 2098 or 99 that is). However, it's a good stop gap, and retains the look and feel of the TES series. `Twill do until Might & Magic 6 appears. Ratings : Visuals 75% Audials 60% Controls 65% Arcadiology 75% RPGness 65% Adventurosity 50% Humdinginess 60% (ad nauseam) - o -