Death Gate
              By Legend Entertainment Company.
          Authors Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
                     Published in 1994.
         Reviewed by Mandy Rodrigues on PC AMD K6-2
                    450MHz with 64Mb RAM

This is quite an old game by today's standards but enjoyable non-
the-less.  There is plenty to do and plenty of interesting places
to explore, but, before I get carried away, let me explain the
plot.

The world has been sundered and the peoples scattered. The magical
Sartans are responsible for this.  The races, including the
Patryns, the Elves, the Humans, the Dwarves and, of course, the
Sartans have been divided up and imprisoned in different realms
which are governed by Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

The Patryns are the magical arch-rivals of the Sartans and have
been imprisoned in the dreadful Labyrinth.  Only one Patryn has
managed to escape from the Labyrinth, Lord Xar, reputed to be a
mighty Sorcerer.

When the realms were sundered, so also was a great Seal, the five
parts of which were scattered throughout the world.  Only when the
five pieces are recovered and the Seal made whole can the world be
made whole again and the races be allowed to live in peace once
more.

You take on the role of Haplo, a Patryn youth who manages to
escape the Labyrinth with the help of Lord Xar who has taken up
residence in the library of the abandoned Sartan city of Nexus.
In return for helping you to escape, Lord Xar wants you to go off
and find the missing pieces of the Seal and return then to him.
He tells you that you will need to learn magic and gives you a
couple of spells to get you started.  The rest you will have to
discover for yourself.

I have to say, at this point that I thoroughly enjoyed myself
completing this gem of an adventure.  It has all the elements
which I enjoy in a game.  Lots to see and do, loads of locations
to explore, loads of interesting characters to interact with and
many different spells to be learned (well, magic plays a large
part in this adventure), and, last but not least, puzzles of all
kinds.

This is a fairly large game.  You travel to the different sections
of the world via a winged ship.  The different locations you need
to visit are opened up to you as you learn of their existence from
your interactions with other characters as you progress.

The characters you meet are many and varied.  Some are really
memorable characters.  I had some extremely hilarious
conversations with an old dwarf who absolutely refused to move
from beneath a broken pipe that was dripping oil all over his
head.  He was deaf and kept misunderstanding my remarks.  You
usually have to help a character out or perform a task for them
before they are willing to help you in return.


Most of the problems are extremely absorbing and range from the
kind which are logical in hindsight (and make you feel like
kicking yourself for not thinking of the solution sooner), to the
downright devious ones which can have you almost tearing your hair
out in sheer frustration.

With the magic part of the adventure you have to learn spells as
you go along.  Many spells are learned by watching other
sorcerers.  Of course you have to entice or trick a lot of them
into giving away their secrets, which is usually great fun.  The
rule seems to be that if you can see a spell being cast you
memorise it instantly into your spell book.  Your spell book
consists of different rune shapes which fit together to form a
spell.  Once you have drawn your spell then you can cast it on
whoever or whatever you have selected.  It is made easy by having
a list of all the spells you have learned so far listed down the
side of the screen so you can cast them instantly without having
to remember which runes make up which spell.


I got a great deal of satisfaction and loads of fun trying to
animate objects and statues etc and bringing paintings to life and
entering them.

You converse/interact with characters by choosing from a list of
possible sentences which appear when you chose to talk to a
character.  Some sentences get you absolutely nowhere whilst
others give almost instant results.  Most conversations bring up
further lists of dialogue to chose from.  If you have played
Monkey Island and fought the duel then you will know exactly what
I mean.

The ending of the game was not as spectacular as I would have
wished after all my hard work but then again, you can't have
everything can you?  All in all I have to say that it has been
quite some time since I enjoyed a game as much as this one.



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