Exile III : Ruined World - on SynTax disks 11791/c
                        (RPG for PC)

                 Reviewed by Julian Gregory

The surface world is ruled by the Empire. That's what it's called.
The Empire. Not the Empire of Something. Just the Empire. For
many years the Empire, in its arrogance, banished everyone it
felt didn't fit into Exile.

Exile is a network of caves and tunnels under the surface of the
world.  However the Empire became complacent and sent down several
mages.  After the Emperor had been assassinated several years
later the portal into Exile was closed and no one was able to be
sent through. Other portals were created and soldiers sent through
for vengeance.

The Empire discovered a new bizarre, humanoid race, the Vahnatai,
living even farther down in the caves. They had the ability to
take the spirits of their ancestors and bring them back in
crystalline form. These Crystal Souls were the spiritual guides
and much revered.

The Empire kidnapped them, so the Vahnatai joined forces with the
Exiles. A new teleporter was built to be used to return to the
surface and find a way to take a piece of land to use as their
own.

Before this can happen spies have to be sent onto the surface to
find out the state of affairs. And that is where you come in....

So begins the introduction to Exile III, a shareware game of which
you can play the first third without registering.

Registration costs $25, the editor $9 and the hint booklet $8.
The complete package costs $35. As far as I am aware you would
need to register with an address in the USA. The game does come
with a registration form which can be printed out.


You control a party of 6, either the ready made group provided or
one you can make up from scratch. As in other RPGs there are
different races to choose from, each of which has different
traits. I found that the party supplied was quite sufficient.

The game runs under various versions of Windows and there are an
impressive number of facilities available.

The main screen where the action take place is fairly small and I
didn't find any way to alter it. Likewise the characters are
rather small. I liked the option of being able to move the
on-screen map around so it did not obscure other important parts,
such as the status screens for the characters.

Even though it is a graphic game there is a text box in the bottom
right which gives a running comment on what is going on.

I have not yet completed Exile III fully, but it does appear to be
relatively easy so far.  It seems that it is not necessary to rest
in order to regain hit points and spell points.  The game comes
with an editor. If you load a saved game into it you can restore
the characters to full health, even from death. The registered
version gives you access to all the objects and weaponry
available, even if you haven't come across it yet, which may
rather defeat the purpose of the game, but would I am sure make
it more playable, particularly for newcomers to this type of game.
I feel that this could be a good introduction to RPGs, if you are
prepared to put sufficient time into finding out all the game's
different facets.

I fell that the game is superb to look at but I think that the
game itself has been sacrificed as a result, which is a pity.

Overall 50%





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