Nox

                 Reviewed by Stefan Herber

Well, I wanted to play a recent RPG where there were no solutions
available on the net and of the two obvious contenders (Septerra
Core being the other) Nox won the toss. I didn't know what to
expect and the beginning didn't forebode well as we have the
"Diablo" engine or something similar drawn out again. But after
all it wasn't what I was dreading ... In fact the game isn't half
bad - it doesn't have the depth of the recent "Fallout 2" nor the
incredibly huge world of Baldur but it's way ahead of such recent
travesties such as "Revenant".

First - you get a chance to be a warrior, conjurer or wizard. The
first few missions differ depending on your alignment and the
others do in at least subtle ways. This gives you a chance to play
three games, not just one. That's what I initially intended to do
but gave up this idea at the penultimate and final mission which I
played as a wizard only. Effectively the plot is slightly
different although most of it will be obvious to fanatics like
myself - you start as a mortal on earth living in a caravan park
who is transported to the world of Nox to save them from untold
miseries.  Can't think where they got that idea from, myself.
Peace has reigned on the world thanks to the extermination of the
evil necromancers - but sadly the previous hero spared the life of
a baby girl who is now threatening to dominate the world. To
defeat her requires 3 elements of a magic sword. It will also
require all the expertise in dodging, fleeing, cutting and running
etc. that you probably learned from playing first person shooters
such as Quake.

Because the combat is hard - very hard indeed. Indeed the final
nastie is near impossible to kill as a wizard - basically you need
to cast a reflective spell and pummel her with your weapon.
Trouble is she teleports away and heals and you start all over
again. Many of the other nasties are equally impossible - expect
ages of combat before you defeat them. To make it worse it's a
third person viewpoint; your defensive spells last a limited time
and there's no way I found of detecting when they're starting to
fail until you get killed. I think this was the major reason I
abandoned finishing the game with all three characters - I
couldn't face it all over again.

Up to this point I'd say the conjurer is the easiest as he has
access to powerful ranged weapons, the warrior somewhere in the
middle and the wizard by far the hardest. As the latter you never
get any decent armour or weapons until the final scene and your
spells have to be pinpoint accurate to work except for the magic
missile which automatically seeks the target unless you fire it
into a wall (easier to do than you would believe). AND, some of
the nastiest enemies are resistant to some forms of magic. On some
of the earlier levels it took me twice as long to reach the end as
a wizard compared to the conjurer. That tells you all you need to
know.

One other major gripe - it's impossible to tell when you are
winning in combat. Many other games have a health bar next to the
monster - nothing here. This was to make it even more difficult I
suppose.

With these provisos I can recommend it although I think if you
only play one set of missions it would be too short to be regarded
as value for money. There is a patch, which I preinstalled but I
think it fixes only certain multiplayer elements; the only bug was
that towards the end when the wizard is killed the game crashes
and needs restarting. However load times are fast so it's not the
end of the world.











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