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Unplayable in it's current form.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: November 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Revising my previous review: having tinkered with this game some more, the problems are even worse than I thought. If I could give this game zero stars, I would, because it is absolutely unplayable in it's current form. In spite of some interesting design elements, there are EXTREME problems with both programming and game balance. I honestly don't see how this game could have made it through alpha testing without someone catching these problems. It is clear that nobody at the company ever played it all the way through.

About half way through the game, you hit a pair of monsters called "Amazoni man traps". I don't use the term "unkillable" lightly, but these things deserve it. They have an ENORMOUS, rapid fire, area effect attack that paralyzes and poisons, and always whipes out the entire party in the first volley! I had to replay the battle five times just to last long enough in order to be able to turn around and see what was attacking me! Their attack is so disproportionate to anything else in the game that it has to be a programming glitch. I really can't believe that any playtester on the game made it past these things without using some sort of cheat code-- if they even tested this section of the game at all. The Man Traps can't be bypassed, and even a party which has completed every quest possible by this point will be woefully inadequate to deal with them. Basically, the game comes crashing to a halt at this point.

Anyway, like I said, the game is unplayable in its current form. I'm annoyed that Activision released it in this state, and I feel cheated at having spent money on it.

Game is way behind current Gaming Technology Standards

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 11
Date: January 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The gaming engine is outdated and the interface is clumsy...

The other thing that really bothers me is that Text area... When I enter an inn or armory, etc... I have to read text... What happened to a real voice.. or an option to either have voice or text or both.. but instead its another text box.. scrolling away.. COme on... Just add a few more .wav's to take care of that....... This reminds me of those blasted silly Japanese RPG games for the Playstation....

text...text...text....with no voice...... Very Boring..... In addition, too much of the screen is taken up with menu buttons and other junk. You should have a hotkey to close out some of the junk that is displayed on the screen.. The player deserves more gaming area than what is provided...

Fighting in the game is extremely awkward and since I can't use the mouse to help with movement while pressing keyboard keys..... its very clumsy... The baddies basically own.......

What happened to MOUSE LOOK - looking around with the mouse...... Whoops.. the developers must have missed that one...???

Clicking arrows on a screen to move around is is outright silly..... Come on.... I thought we graduated from that junk..... ALthough many years ago.. Great games such as Eye of the BeholderI/II and Lands of Lore pulled that stuff off... beautifully... but this game doesn't even meet those standards of those old classics.. My recommendation is to pass this game up.... and let the developers smell the salt and wake up.. This game should have been a free mod or shareware title.. so that the developers can learn how to trully design a good game...... and this aint it...

Run of the mill

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Ok, as most of the other reviews say, the graphics are average 3D environments and the characters have average voice acting, but there are a few additional points I'd like to make.

The good points are as follows:

1. I was amazed by the little details in the game such as the way objects could be crushed by moving doors or lifts etc.

2. Each dungeon has LOTS to do, with far more than just straight forward find object/kill monsters objectives.

3. Apart from shop keepers and guild members, every other character is voice acted.

4. There is a clear sense of adventure right from the start.

The bad points are as follows:

1. What do you want to see when you enter a city in an RPG? You want to see people walking about - doing their own things, so you can approach them and speak to them etc. NONE of that here. You get a static screen that you can scroll left or right so you can choose which building you wish to enter. You cannot explore the buildings.

2. To complete any dungeon you have to be: psychic and unusually patient. There is no explanation anywhere on how to do things within the dungeon. For example: to do the 2nd dungeon you have to find 5 snake figurines scattered throughout the dungeon (one which is carried by a monkey that you let out of a cage), a coin which you have to get from killing a disciple (which you then place in a snake head to get some incense), place the monkey figurines on some bookshelves (why I don't know), get the revealed wand, go to a pyre, throw on the incense cast the magic wand, say some lines from some book you found randomly and then kill the serpent that appears. Now believe me, to get these things you have to go through much torture.

If you wish to see how convoluted and sprawling these dungeons are just check out a walkthough on the internet!

3. There is no background to this game. There is no feeling of history. It's just a bunch of dungeons that you have to access through windy paths. Difficult dungeons.

Now I am not a negative person when it comes to games, in fact I was willing to put up with Daggerfall's hiccups to enjoy it. But that game was filled with interest, whereas this game isn't.

If you want an amazing RPG experience play Morrowind. By a new PC just to play on it. It is so much better than anything else of this ilk.

Starts off good, but sours.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: January 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game is based around three towns on your journey where you can join guilds and do quests to gain experience. Those quests also enable you higher rankings in the guilds and the occasional super-elite role, such as the Valkeryie, Assassin, and Zen Master. The armor and weapons become increasingly interesting (through the first 1/2 of the game, anyway), although the assortment of weapons is rather low unless your characters use swords. You can do a full array of movement - back, forward, side, looking up and down, running, and swimming (except no squatting/ducking). You'll even ride a horse and a few other modes of transit.

The early characters you'll come across are memorable. My mate and I have come to deem the game "Ukabu," a name you'll be given by a strange group of toad people. You'll kill spiders, skeletons, trolls, and some other interesting characters. Watch out for the Mana/Lily Traps. They're a sore point of the game.

As for technical issues-- the game stopped crashing after I installed the patch. Overall, you should be fine as long as you save fairly often and don't try to ALT-TAB to another program.

I still haven't finished (I have the final dungeon to complete), and I've put twice as many hours into the remaining dungeons and getting to them as the ones before.

My opinion of this game has dropped the more I play because the quality of this game went down considerably after the first half. Except a few new monsters/things to fight that appear when you reach the ocean, you don't see much development in the fighting. It became boring and required little skill. My people are almost invincible to all the monsters, which makes fighting just an annoying task. Unfortunately, you can't level up to get the spells you NEED to do the dungeons and travel unless you fight.

The worst part of the game for me has been getting to and being in the sunken city. You have to spend forever searching for crabs to kill for their shells, then go all the way back to the second town to turn them in. Then you have to buy them back as breathers and helmets. You need BOTH a breather and a helmet to survive the long dives with your characters, totaling _12_. It took me hours just to get the shells... not a fun task. I finally gave up trying for all 12 and had to let 2 characters die during my dives until I found breathing areas to resurrect them.

This games needs a quicker way to get from town to town and town to dungeon. It's okay to have to take the long road there, but once you've gone through a dungeon once, it's crazy to have to travel back through the same dungeon just to get back to the town . It just wastes time.

I was really disappointed that this game went from being so good to so cruddy. I guess the changes in who developed the game really hurt it worse than I expected.

Overall, not a bad game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game and played it most of the way through (my computer crashed, not as a result of the game, just before I got to do Cet's pyramid.) The storyline is okay, the graphics and music are great. If you're a fan of the Might and Magic series, you'll like this game. There are a few things in the interface that are awkward, but you get used to them quickly enough, like Having to switch between different menus all the time to do things that should be on the same menu. There are also a lot of red herrings - active objects that give you a description when you mouse-over or click on them, but don't really do anything. Otherwise, the game is pretty good.

An unknown gem

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 18, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is a nice blast to the past. Somehow this game was missed by the general public despite the fact it is actually pretty nice. Or perhaps it has more to do with the fact that it's competition was so superior that it just wasn't worth spending the money on (Baldurs Gate, Fallout...) It combines a bit of old school RPG (and their associated annoyances) with a bit of new school perspective (first person 3d graphics). The game can be made to work under XP with some tweaking and even mostly made to work under Vista (with UAC turned off).

Great character advancement, but a couple of bugs

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

As noted in other reviews, there are a few bugs, and the discussions surrounding Activision/Heuristic Park have been the most confusing thing I've ever seen in game playing. Who ever heard of a publisher reluctant to release a patch?? The gameplay, however, is fantastic. I've restarted the game on three different occassions and explored different character advancement strategies. The whole skill/magic advancement is very enjoyable -- there's a real sense of progress in this game. The dungeon crawls are fun; the puzzles tend to be pretty self-explanatory (not a whole lot of "find the right pixel"). The journal/quest tracking mechanism could be better, and there are quite a few bugs, but overall this is the best game I've played in the last few years.

Good game, mostly!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: January 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I'm about half-way through it, but so far, it's worth the money and the wait. The patch seems to have fixed almost all the bugs (but characters still "loose" things they pick up...where do those items go???). It looks and feels like the Wizardry series (no surprise) so if you liked those games, especially the last two or three, you'll like this one, too. Some complaints: the way the game handles the passing of time is strange - I seem to do most of my travelling and fighting at night! There's no way to rest and let time go by, as in M&M. I don't like the way the outside world is arranged, in long winding "paths" rather than just one wide open space. And I definitely don't like the game's tendency to give one hit point when a character levels up. Other than that, a pretty good first person RPG. I hope Bradley gives us more of the same!

RPG Fans Will Rejoice!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This RPG is a lot like Dungeon Master, Dagerfall and Lands Of Lore, but the graphics for the monsters and locations look better, as does the changing sky as night approaches. You move up to six characters around a huge world by foot, horse, and boat meeting quest helping NPC's and fighting for your life. The interface is a bit clunky at first, the normal move with arrows and look with mouse combo is missing, also, you can only restore your position by quiting the game back to the town menu, where to save you must leave the town. Still, after you get used to the mechanics of the game I found myself having a lot of fun!

Return to the Golden Days of Gaming

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: May 07, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've read a lot of mixed reviews on this product. For those of us that have
been gaming for more than 20 years, it's a real find. First up, it's NOT new. It's dated and reeks of those 90s games that we find in a bin at Best Buy for $2.

Once you crank it up, the fun starts. It's a very open ended game like Morrowind. You can follow your given quests or just explore vast areas and be your own boss.

Character creating is a hoot. If you're a guy, load up your band with female characters. Reverse that if you're a gal. You can even pick a character that looks like Ganesh. lol.

I've seen the complaints about the point-and-click method for entering buildings. That's not really relevant. The fun takes place when you LEAVE the town(s).

Like Dungeon Siege, make sure you have some members of your team with distance weapons and/or spells. Your warriors will go down fast without them.

Skip the online manual and directions and just dive in.

It's a hellova lot of entertainment for an older game.

Okay, I'm ready for all of the dissing now. : >

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