DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
      (RPG on SynTax Disk 173, see also Disk 643 for a
           later version with five more dungeons)

                  Reviewed by Graham Raven

Dungeons and Dragons, or 'Dungeons of the Necromancer's Domain' by
any other name. Er, no sorry. After enjoying the likes of ADOM for
several weeks this game was a disappointment. From the outset you
are told to press a certain key in order to perform a given
action. Okay that's pretty standard except that you look at your
keyboard and realise that there is no such key! You read the
manual and try to memorise which keys on the keyboard correspond
to the keys required by the game instructions. Pressing the wrong
key at any time usually throws up a message such as 'WRONG KEY
DUMMY'. These little messages quickly ceased to be amusing.

As with many games, including ADOM, it's almost too easy to die
when just starting out. I don't know about you but I only have to
see my new character die about twenty times in succession, say in
half an hour, before I start thinking that I ought to be doing
something enjoyable instead. I have to say that my son Mike
enjoyed the game, whereas I was quickly bored with it. The
graphics were okay, though possibly even more basic than ADOM. The
game lacked depth I felt, it seemed to excel at appearing
extremely two-dimensional.  You killed monsters, found treasure,
and died. I only once got my character to level 2 and had little
chance to really explore - my character never lived long enough!

By comparison ADOM did manage to convince me that its world was
real, at least during 'play time', and I've often found myself
looking forward to getting back to that game to explore further,
advance more levels, learn new spells etc. Dungeons and Dragons
never did. The best part about this game is the name, after that
it goes steadily downhill for me.




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