BLAIR WITCH - VOLUME III - THE ELLY KEDWARD TALE

                   Played by Peter Clark

The Blair Witch trilogy has been out for some time now and I have
only just got around to playing it. Several people have told me
that it is best to start by playing game three in the set so that
is what I have done.

The legend originates in 1785 when Elly Kedward is accused of
being a witch and is forever banished from the Blair Township. She
withdraws into the silence of the woods and is forgotten until the
sudden disappearance of the children begins. Jonathon Prye, a
onetime preacher, but now in conflict with his own shattered
faith, takes on the role of a fanatical witch hunter. He journeys
to the Town of Blair where he must master all forms of magic, both
black and white, if he is to save anyone including himself.

As the game begins, you, Jonathon Prye, arrive in the town of
Blair. Villagers who are leaving the town in a hurry meet you. You
are told by some of them that everyone is leaving because of the
witch. Initially you meet with the Magistrate, Jonah. He tells you
that he has suspects locked up in the cells.  Your next meeting is
with the priest, Father Goodfellow. He will give you further
information. Talking with the people in the jail, the town drunk
and Elizabeth Styler, accused of witchcraft will give you more
information. You wil l eventually have to make a sortie into the
woods to find Coffin Rock. This is where you begin the seemingly
never ending task of killing zombies and collecting ammunition and
strength power-ups. Finding your way through the maze of woodland
paths is quite easy once you have a map. After visiting Coffin
Rock you find yourself back in the town and have more conversation
with the Magistrate and the Priest. It is now necessary for you to
go to the Graveyard and pick up a cross. This again involves a lot
more zombie killing.  After talking some more to our suspect
witch, it is time to enter the woods once more in search of
Asgaya, an old Indian brave. Yes, you've got it, more woodland
path walking and lots more zombie bashing.


You will eventually discover that you need to visit the Spirit
Plane and the Demon Plane before the evil can be put to rest.
These places can be reached and entered using various talismans
and Twanas. Children that you rescue along the way give some of
these to you. It did cross my mind that, if the children had all
these useful things, how did they come to get captured themselves?
The Spirit Plane and the Demon Plane are really different versions
of the same theme. Kill the zombies, mad dogs, skeletons etc. You
visit the Demon Plane last and, after battling your way through
even more zombies and killing Baal, you have a timed section where
you must hurry back to the Demon Gate before all comes crashing
down on you and you are trapped for ever with the demons.
Assuming that you manage to escape, Elizabeth who has somehow been
freed from jail meets you. She wants you to stay but you decide to
return to your own church having regained your faith.  She
disappears from Blair, as she doesn't want to be burnt as a witch.
Thus ends the game.

The graphics in this game are quite good even if the characters
seem to walk on air as they use the stairs and that is just about
all I can say in favour of it.  Although the Options screen says
that it is possible to use a mouse for control, I found this
impossible to set up and had to use the cursor keys for control.
This did not work very well and I found it difficult to stop my
charac ter from wandering in circles unless I was very careful.
This is not useful when you are trying to cross a log bridge over
torrents of water! The endless walking back and forth through the
woods I found very boring especially as every few steps it was
necessary to stop and kill something else. The storyline was good
but it has been let down by game play that is boring and
repetitive.  I would like to know whether Parts One and Two of the
trilogy are programmed similarly. If they are, then I for one will
not be bothering with them. I regret that I cannot really
recommend this game unless you are a lover of mindless zombie
bashing.

The game was played on a PC using a Pentium 3, 700Mhz chip and
running Windows Me. I had no problems with this but the game had
no Uninstall facility and thus had to removed manually.
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