MIGHT AND MAGIC VIII
                  The Day of the Destroyer

                 Reviewed by Carolyn Brown

Anyone who has played the previous last two games of the Might and
Magic series will be struck by how similar this latest incarnation
appears to its predecessors. There are differences, though, the
main one being that you can only choose one party member
initially, rather than four. You collect and discard others as you
progress. You can choose from several character types, Knight,
Cleric, Necromancer rather than the rather more familiar Mage,
Troll, Minotaur, Dark Elf and Vampire. You can also recruit a
dragon later. I chose a knight as my starting character but
quickly found a cleric and a necromancer, both of whom have the
normal skills of clerics and mages, except that the former can
progress in Light Magic and the latter in Dark Magic. I also added
another knight pretty quickly, also a vampire, temporarily, but I
replaced her with a dragon as soon as I could, but more about that
later.

The story is the usual 'slay everything that moves and save the
world' stuff - it seems that before the game begins a mysterious
stranger had showed up in various towns, erecting a huge crystal
in the town centres which turns out to be the gateway to various
planes, and letting loose evil on the land and guess who has the
job of clearing up the mess? No surprises there then.

The graphics seem to be a little sharper than those of the
previous games, but basically there isn't much difference, and the
game absolutely flies on my Celeron 466 with just 12Mb of video
ram. I suppose that graphically it couldn't be considered state of
the art by any means, but it is attractive enough to make you want
to keep exploring. Some of the spell effects are quite impressive.

Although I completed MM6, I never finished MM7 because I found it
got just too tough towards the end, or maybe it was that I just
didn't have the patience to play every fight as turn based, and
spend half an evening trying to demolish one group of persistent
bad guys. This game is no different. You think you have killed all
that you are required to kill, when suddenly another wave shows
up. You heave a sigh of boredom and start hitting the 'Attack' key
again before giving up and going to bed with a good book. Some
players will probably enjoy the combat, though, but I would prefer
a little more character interaction of the kind to be found in the
Ultima games.

The designers have again included the Arcomage game, which you can
play in the inns, and which was first seen in MM7, so you can
always have a go at that if you want a respite from the fighting.

Another thing I find frustrating is the fact that you would
normally assign one character to major in a skill such as
'Identify Object' or 'Repair', but it slows gameplay down
tremendously when you have to stop and transfer items from
everyone else's inventories into his, before he can do his stuff,
and then back again. I think it would have been much better if he
could use his skills on items held in another's pack. The merchant
skill is another example, where all objects to be sold must be in
your merchant's inventory, which causes yet more rummaging about
before you enter shops. (In MM8, though, I am finding there is
less need for merchant skills because money is not as hard to come
by as in previous games).

Another problem I have with the game is the continual running
around in the search for trainers to boost your skill levels. It
gives you the feeling that the designers want the game to seem
much longer than it is, so they give you all this busywork to do.
I spent the whole of yesterday evening just travelling around the
country getting my characters trained up - and this was after
downloading maps from the internet showing the locations of the
various trainers. Without the maps I would have given up ages ago.
What I really want is to be progressing in the game, not messing
about.

On the plus side, there is the odd touch of humour, for example,
the Chapel of Eep, containing some rodent-type thugs, is Mickey
Mouse shaped when seen on the map. The music, as I have said, is
excellent and varied, and the one thing that is keeping me going
now is that I have added a Dragon to my party who helps things
along no end. I found some hints on the net about how to find a
Dragon quickly, although the writer said he never used one as he
found it made the game too easy. I have no such scruples and now
have a really feisty fighter who causes at least 30 points of
damage each round and he is still at a low level, so I have high
hopes of a brilliant future for him. (If anyone is starting the
game and wants the dragon quickly, go to the Dragon Hunters Camp
in Garotte Gorge and you will find a cave in the hills.  Enter the
caves - no one will harm you - and you will soon find an eager
young dragon who is longing to join your party).

I know that this review sounds rather negative, but I am still
playing and will try to finish it. (although I did find the game
at the budget price of œ9.99, so I can't really complain).  If you
have bags of patience (and time!) and enjoy plenty of combat then
you will probably not be disappointed.



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