Lands Of Lore 3
                       ELSPA : 15-18+

                      Reviewed by MerC

Minimum Specs - PC / Windows 95 / Pentium 166MHz / 32 MB RAM / 450
MB HD space / 4x CD ROM drive / Direct X* 6
Recommended Specs - PC / Windows 95/98 / Pentium 233MHz / 64 MB
RAM / 1GB HD space / 32x CD ROM Drive / 12MB 3DFx Voodoo 2**
graphics card / Direct X 6
Reviewed on - PC / Windows 98 / Pentium II 333MHz / 128 MB RAM / 1
GB HD space / 40x CD ROM drive / 16MB Voodoo Banshee graphics card
/ Direct X 6.1

* Direct X 6 drives are supplied on the CD

** or AGP 2x supported 3D Accelerator. Note: Voodoo Graphics 3D
add-on (Voodoo 1), and Diamond Viper cards : I could not get to
work correctly.
     *************************************************

We seem to have waited a long time for this sequel to Lands of
Lore 2.  The production team clearly spent time and effort on the
game engine, so that 3D support is firmly in place - but it's a
pity they did not expend the same effort on the game play. I found
it to be like the curate's egg - good in parts. Unfortunately, the
good parts are very much in the minority. I don't particularly
like writing negative reviews, but any SynTax reader could suggest
at least three immediate improvements.

At the time I shelled out for LoL3, I was struggling to get to
grips with adding a 3D card to my system, and as you may notice
from the specs table, you need one to make the most of this game.
With software acceleration the graphics are well, poor : with the
right hardware they can be spectacular. For those unfamiliar with
3Dfx and the like, hardware acceleration allows the writers to
include realistic graphics effects such as minimised pixellation,
natural lighting, shadows, textures, liquid surfaces and metallic
lustre.  You also get more resolutions and faster play. It is an
upgrade I thoroughly recommend, though it may be a struggle to get
it working properly. I had a very similar experience to that
described in a recent SynTax article, and found the Creative 3D
Blaster Voodoo Banshee to work with all the games/demos I've tried
(about 20), though I had to download the latest drivers from the
Creative Website, and then re-install the ones supplied.

LoL3 is on four discs, and you will soon find out the
disadvantages of this. I seemed to be changing discs every five
minutes. Once you come to the disc change, you cannot back out. If
you accidentally activate a portal (the way you move from world to
world) you need a disc change, and you have to go through a long
process if you need to correct it. (Do not use the "abort" option.
The game ends, and next time you boot it, it rebuilds your game
disk cache, which is a 450MB file remember!)

The real disappointment with this game is that its flaws (which
are deep) could have been so easily avoided. I am becoming more
and more convinced that games writers are not, and do not consult,
real-life games players. Let me try to list some of the main
niggles :


1. Very short game - not nearly the value for money of Might &
Magic Vl or Vll.

2. Bugged.

a.  if you visit the Keep at the "wrong" time you get to talk to
the King's Minister without his actually appearing. If this
happens, do not close the door to his room or enter the secret
passage. I did, and could not get out again. The door stays
locked, and as far as I can see, there is no way out through the
passage. (I could be wrong!)

b.  your erstwhile companion Dash is supposed to meet you as you
enter the sewers. This does not always happen, which leaves you to
guess that the keyhole symbols on the walls are not keyholes, but
pointers towards the Thieves' Guild.


c.  do not wear the dragonhide bracers in Gladstone. They cause
you to attack everyone you meet, which is invariably fatal
(perhaps this is intentional).

d.  the quests for the Clerics' Guild do not work properly : one
does not get crossed off from your Journal (though the patch is
said to cure this, it did not), and another you seem to have
completed without knowing it. (and there is an altar in the Guild
I could never get to).

3. Major Flaws ( a subordinate of General Protection-Error)

a. As a Warrior, I did not get killed in combat. Fighting is far
too easy (your Familiar does most of it for you) and even at
climax, once you get the technique, the Rift Hounds can be hit
without hitting you back.

b. Do not bother collecting things, except food and items useful
as-is. I spent ages collecting everything possible and storing it
in a storehouse in the North of Gladstone. Imagine my reaction
when I returned from one of the worlds to find Gladstone had been
destroyed, and with it my store of goodies. Even more galling,
this did not make a hap'orth of difference - they weren't needed
anyway!

c. Your safe haven in this game is Gladstone. It is a place you
can explore and interact with characters; a place to come back to
after a bit of a bashing. It is poor writing and even worse drama,
then, to have your last view of it (even after you have banished
the baddies) as an overrun and useless ruin part-way through the
game.

d. Most of the worlds seem to have a short and a long way of being
solved. I seem to have inadvertently done the short way most of
the time. The way I became aware of this, is that if you allow the
credits to scroll through at the end (you get a different ending)
there are numerous NPCs mentioned as being acted that I never came
across (e.g.  prisoners in the White Tower).


e.  There is something vaguely dissatisfying about the spells
system.  About the only ones worth bothering with are Ancient
Magic, and they are only needed at the end. Hint : in the
Shattered Desert make sure you find the pink piggy-bank, and open
the stained glass in the Droracle's Cave.

f.  Trudging. To complete some quests you have to return to
locations you have already solved in their initial stages. Getting
back from these the first time is often facilitated by a teleport.
However, when you have to go there again, you have to walk all the
way, jumping the same chasms, ice-floes, lava rivers or whatever,
and even then you have to return to Gladstone by the same
long-winded route, covering territory which no longer has anything
of interest in it.

4. Quests : what is the point of a hard-fought campaign being
rewarded with a suit of armour which is useless to you (except as
trade goods)? It would have been useful early on (but you can't
get to the quest setter that early), but you have already bought

better armour at the Keep. And don't expect gratitude from the
Guild of Thieves (actually that's about all you do get).

5. In this sort of game I have no objection to tough but logical
puzzles (actually, aren't they the point of it all?). The best of
these are in a section called the Gauntlet, which has no real part
in the game, serving merely as practice. However, I do NOT like
having to do obscure or illogical actions in order to progress. In
the lava world, as but one example, there comes a point where you
can see where to go, but can't jump down to it (you break your
neck every time). You need to get a column of rock moving up and
down, so you have a platform to jump off. There is nowhere any
indication of this, and, even worse, is what you have to do to get
it moving.

6. To say this game has a 15+ rating, the 'humour' (or what passes
for it in the US) is remarkable only for its lack. That your voice
is that of a smart-ass American adolescent helps not in the least.
Once you've heard that "I could eat a horse, though I suppose that
it would be a kinda boring meal without potatoes...." you don't
really want to hear it again - so you make sure you don't get
hungry. Why do games include food and (sometimes) water, if they
serve no useful purpose?  In LoL3 there is so much of it around at
no cost, it is just annoying to have to eat (contrast Might &
Magic Vll, where the food plays an integral part of game resource
management).  It can't be realism - otherwise we would also get
bathrooms and rest-stops.

I suppose that some of these problems might be different if I'd
chosen to play as a Cleric or a Magician, but the game-play was
sufficiently frustrating as it was that I couldn't be bothered to
go back to it. No, I'm afraid this one's a lemon - save your money
and buy Might & Magic Vll - you know it makes sense.






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