User Reviews (61 - 71 of 147)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Stagnant Pool of Meaningless RPing - save your gold pieces!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: May 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Ok....You have already seen the reviews and, hopefully by now your not impressed - because I most certainly was not.
Pool of Radiance is basically a flop of a game made by those with little or no knowledge of the 'Hows, Whys and Whats' of good RPing, I have played all the BG titles, the ID titles and a myriad of other good RPG's and this comes nowhere close to even imitation.

The various differences to the game, no character kits, no character depth, limted special abilities, monotonous hack n slash, tedious repeated enemies,and basically no real storyline at all, make Pool of Radiance an exciting tangle of bad programming and mounting frustration.

Some people ask 'How could this game have turned out so bad whilst the Baldurs Gate titles are soaring? Aren't they both made by the same people??' The answer is 'NO' although thats what they want you to think; 'Baldurs Gate', 'Icewind Dale', 'Planescape Torment' and the upcoming 'NeverWinter Nights' are all made by Bioware through TSR.TSR are the previous owners to the Dungeons and Dragons line but still create the PC games (and they do it well). It is the 'Dungeons and Dragons' label that people are fooled by. Both companies have the rights to that label but you need to look on the side of the box to basically see who had a hand in your games creation.
Wizards of the Coast are the ones who produced Pool of Radiance so, if you have a problem with POR (which I do) make sure to know who to tell- Let us not knock those who are doing a good job with the Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale titles, and direct it to the source :)

My advice, continue to be excited by the Bioware releases and save your gold from the Wizards of the Coast.

Slow, frustrating, and boring

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 11, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Like so many very early attempts at role playing games, Pool of Radiance has failed to capture the very intent of D&D. The game is slow playing, has very little plot, no room for character development, and is technically inept. Combat simuilation is so slow as to be agonizing. Once combat is entered, you can't leave. Initiative (per combat rules) is almost impossible for a player character. In the early game, you can make a load of money, but you have practically nothing to spend it on. The graphics are poor, the interface is clunky, and the game respresents a bad interpretation of the 3rd edition D&D rules.

What a letdown!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: November 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was so much looking forward to a righteous dungeon crawl, and this showed promise. Previews were very encouraging. Unfortunately, the final product didn't live up to those previews.

I have not experienced any of the serious technical issues reported by others, nor install issues. Performance took a serious hit, though, and gameplay was just plain tedious. The interface was difficult to use and very non-intuitive.

After growing extremely bored with the first dungeon level, frustrated at the layout of the game world, and annoyed at the cursor drag and graphical performance hit, I uninstalled it and found someone else to pawn it off on. May they be more easilly entertained than I.

Waste of Money, Waste of Space, Waste of Time

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: December 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game has got to be the single most poorly designed RPG on the market. And I'm not even taking into account the plethora of bugs that it has. The interface cripples the game well enough, if you ask me.

The ranger class is rendered totally useless, or at least no more useful than a fighter with a bow.. since you can't move any characters in your party very far away from the rest of your party at all.

The story is very generic, and extremely lame. Basically.. you're dumped in some ruins with very little explanation, and you wander around killing things. And wishing the interface [wasn't so] bad.

Don't buy this game. (...)

What a waste of money!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: September 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the first Pool of Radiance series. It was the first computer game to bring a great PC version of a popular RPG to fruition. I also played the Black Isle/Bioware versions of the AD&D series (Baldur's Gate & Icewind Dale) and loved those games. But this one? I think my review would be censored if I told you what I thought of this game.

First of all, the game crashed on installation! Blizzard may be the only software company that releases relatively bug-free PC games these days but how can a software company justify a game with bugs in the installation process?! I've heard that I have it lucky. Some people have had their operation systems wiped out in the installation process.

After getting the game to run, I was unimpressed. The graphics are decent but it doesn't have the same atmosphere as the other recent Dungeons & Dragons products. It's a "hack and slash" only game and things such as quests, great storylines and character interaction which made so many of the Dungeons & Dragons games enjoyable are non-existent in this product. The instruction manual is also a poor substitute for an introduction to the new 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons rules.

I'm afraid that the more I play this game, the more technical errors I'm going to find. There are already many bugs such as the game crashing when you save it during certain conditions. I can live with a bugged game if it promises to offer great gameplay when it is fixed with patches but this game is a pitiful attempt to live up to some of the great successes the Dungeons and Dragons series has seen with PC games.

Don't waste your money. If you're an avid D&D fan, wait until the game price drops and then try it out but I'd recommend Baldur's Gate II as a much better alternative if anyone desires a great RPG game for the PC.

This game isn't worth your time.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: October 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I'll keep it short and sweet:

Imagine Baldur's Gate I. Now slow down the action tremendously and make the plotline totally linear. Then make the game buggy - it often sputters (lags) almost like Ultima Online did back in 1997. That's essentially what you get with Pool of Radiance.

Even with the inevitable release of a patch, the game itself is not compelling. You walk around slowly until you find a monster. The monster approaches you slowly. You slowly attack it and it slowly retaliates. When it's dead, you walk around some more.

If you're looking for a non-linear game that you can play as a single player, I'd consider waiting for NeverWinter Nights.

Not a Real RPG

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: February 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is not a real RPG. Despite claiming to follow the rules of D&D 3E it does so selectively. The biggest problem is that it does not allow you to level your character on your own (pick feats, skills) - its like playing with the worst kind of DM.

This game is nothing but a dungeon crawl in a (very poor) D&D suit. Dungeon Siege is much better (and gives you more control of your character development).

I waited for this??

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: October 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I agree with the other reviewers -- let down! Interplay has set the standard with the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series. This game can't hold a candle to them. Time to pray to the Interplay/Black Isle Gods and hope they keep the great D&D games rolling.

Lack of in depth story, clunker of a combat system, navigation limited to monitor display are all problems. What's so great about the graphics anyways?

Somebody please tell me this is not what the Third Edition Rules have turned the game into. This game must have suffered from some serious mission creep. How else can you explain it?

STAY AWAY!!! Save your money for IWD 2 or anything else

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Worst of the worst!!! This game has glitches, glitches and more glitches!! Spells and magic items that are so cumbersome to use you dont bother. You have items that will kick you out of the game back to your PC desktop over and over again when you try to pick them or anything else up. Fights that you cant leave the area or fight because the enemies are in a locked rooms that you dont yet have the key for but the fight was engaged because you went near the room. A store keep that wont trade with you and nothing to do but dump all your items. No place to stash or store anything. I wish i had given up weeks ago and didnt finish this nightmare! I wish I could get my money back. Horrible to navigate maps. Orginially we purchased this game to play multiplayer but gave up after weeks and weeks of trying to "resolve" all the problems getting everyone on and playing at the same time. Single player game started out relatively fun....but after getting kicked out time and time again, i gave up frustrating the daylights out of myself. I would rate it a minus five stars if possible. Save yourself weeks of headaches but anything else!!!

One of SSI's worst efforts.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Ok, let me start by saying that it is extremely rare for me to return a computer game to the store, especially after owning it for less than a week, but this is not your average game. It is by far the worst RPG (if not worst game) i have ever played, and the the last time i saw this many bugs was AREA 51 for DOS. It hangs, it crashes, the gameplay slows to a crawl, then picks back up, etc...This game is a production nightmare. Seriously, didn't anyone beta test this thing? It takes literally about 45 minutes to install (even on a system that is about twice as fast as the RECOMMENDED specs). You could prepare a small meal in the time it takes to install. The thing takes up anywhere from 750MB to 1.5 G on harddrive space, a fact which completely baffles me. (granted I got about 1/30th of the way through the game). It must be the depth of the game cause it sure .... isnt' the sound (which sounds like it was recorded by Alvin and the Chipmunks in their bathroom) or the video (which is nice, but not that nice).
so back to production flaws. There is no setup utility to allow you to tinker with things like sound card specs, or resolution, or the like, and the in-game options menu is a joke as well. As many people have stated, if you are unlucky enough to have version 1.1, the thing wipes your system files when it uninstalls. Lucky for me i got version 1.2. woohoo. Onto gameplay, the real reason i am dumping this game.
THe game is so complicated difficult it just blows the mind. The first dungeon is ENOURMOUS, and nearly every enemy encountered is considerably stronger than you are. This leads to the drudgery of having to save every few minutes (especially annoying in a game without a quicksave feature. In probably about 20 hours of play, i just barely made it out of the first level of the first dungeon. After being annihilated 10 consecutive times on first encounter of the second level, i deceided to throw in the towell. ANother failure is the instruction manual, obviously geared toward people familiar with D&D which i am not. It makes no effort to give you even the slighest introduction to the actual mechanics of the game (dice rolls, etc.) The maps are so large that after having gone off on a side quest, it took me half an hour to find my way back to the level exit. Another really sad aspect of this game, particularly for RPG players, is that in a game that is so combat-oriented, any class other than barbarian, figher, or cleric is almost useless. Socercers and monks particularly gain good abilities at high levels, but it is next to impossible to even have them survive that long. Gamplay summed up: it is like trying to climb a mountain while dragging a piano tied to your waist.
When i think of the SSI games i enjoyed when i was younger such as Dungeon Hack, Pools of Darkness, and The Shattered Lands (still my favorite RPG of all time), Pool of radiance really stands out as a pitiful effort. On a side note, this game has more than the usuall number of problems encountered when trying to run older games on windows XP. I believe however, that this is mostly the fault of microsoft. Bottoms line? you are better off spending the money to see the latest Jennifer Lopez movie. [.......].

Review Page: Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next 

Actions