BANDOR
                  (RPG for PC on Disk 485)

                  Reviewed by Graham Raven

My first attempt at reviewing Bandor was aborted after I realised
that the game crashed every time I encountered a combat situation.
Of course, I hadn't installed the game properly - make sure you
run 'read 1st.bat' and do exactly what it tells you to do, then
run config.  Once reinstalled the game worked perfectly. If you
don't know how to follow these instructions yourself, and I
didn't, find yourself an average twelve year old and they're bound
to know what to do.

I couldn't find any twelve year olds near to hand as it happened,
but my sixteen year old son stood in and soon had Bandor up and
running and didn't look back!

Bandor is a full RPG with character creation featuring a number of
different races and professions to choose from. There is a good
background story explaining what your over all task is, and good
advice as to how you might achieve it. The graphics are quite
attractive, though not 'state of the art', and for being a
relatively small game, it is fairly comprehensive in comparison to
more expensive upmarket games. In fact if you can ignore the lack
of state of the art graphics and sound, this game has things to
offer which any number of technically superior games don't.

(Pause to pick up GT Interactive's latest brochure). Apparently
GT's research has proved(?) that gamers don't want storylines or a
linear game progression any more. It seems that 'all out
slaughter' is all that matters, and if you can be convinced that
it's real people you are wasting, as opposed to monsters, then
that's even better! Well I'm delighted to say that Bandor is one
of those old fashioned games with background and a story line, and
I for one like it all the more for being that way.

As you might expect it is a good idea to read the manual before
charging into your first encounter. I'm afraid the desire to play
the game got the better of me and I soon realised that I didn't
actually know how to go about fighting, but that was easily
solved. I also discovered that you really do need to run a party,
a single character isn't going to last very long, especially when
starting out.

The game is entirely mouse driven, unfortunately not my
favourite choice as I much prefer the keyboard. Having said that
it was easy to control and move your party around the landscape.
The map view function is invaluable, especially early on in the
game as a lot of the town looks pretty much the same (ie a bit of
a maze).

I was happily surprised that it didn't take very long to get into
Bandor and start making some progress. It looks like a game that
could keep you occupied for many hours, killing bad guys, finding
gold and developing your characters. If you're into RPGs this one
is definitely worth trying out.

Rating: Definitely a stroke above Faintly biscuit.

Rating Key.
Hey wooo!! - Rather good actually!
Earl Grey (my second favourite tea) - a good second place.
Faintly biscuit - Better than average.
Flatulent - a lot of hot air and none too fresh.
'U' bend  - self explanatory.













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