WIZARDRY VI - BANE OF THE COSMIC FORGE   CONFESSIONS OF A ROLE PLAYING ADDICT   by Gus Wrethman Ed: Gus finds quite a few drawbacks in this one, but loves it anyway.  (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) This was my virgin Wizardry experience and despite a lot of shortcomings it won't be my last. The Wizardry series was conceived and written by David Bradley, who by all accounts is something of an eccentric. Wizardry VI is released by Sir-Tech (in fact Wizardry is all they release!) and comes in a well presented package. In the package are five game disks, the manual, Amiga reference card, and the obligatory offer for "The Official Hints Guide". Also included are some "stat sheets" which are very handy things to have when playing a complex RPG, such as this. One of the strong points about this game, (in fact it is THE strong point) is the storyline. It goes (loosely) like this...... "Once upon a time... the bad and nasty man took a pen, THE pen, the pen with which destiny is written, The Cosmic Forge. Having done this, all sorts of unspeakable things started to happen and it is up to you and your hardy, intrepid and brave partners to uncover the hiding place of the Cosmic Forge, thus freeing mankind from its terrible burden, to live happily ever after, in peace, rhapsody etc..."  Interfacing The interface has modeled itself on Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, but unfortunately comes nowhere near either, whether in terms of presentation or user-friendliness. The presentation is poor because, as always, this was originally an IBM game and it looks like nobody told the programmer about icons and point&click interfaces, menus and the like. The graphics are poor to average, but I suppose this is due to the fact that they are EGA (16 colors). (The IBM version has options to install the game in CGA, EGA, or VGA, so I suppose that the graphics would be pretty good in VGA). Somebody also forgot to tell the programmer that computers have stereo sound now, 'cause this is in MONO, despite these extravagant claims on the box "...will push your computer to its very limits" (Maybe it would push a Vic-20 or a C-64) "Only through the power of modern computer technology, could the full dimensions of this new genre in Fantasy Role Playing, be possible." "State of the art." What garbage!  Playing As usual you control the standard six player characters (PCs) and match wits, via a 3-D perspective, against an impressive array of puzzles and monsters. The normal "roll of the dice" technique is employed to create your characters and this can take quite some time as some of the races (there are 11 races and 14 professions) take a big roll to enter certain professions. As with most RPGs, the more time you spend doing this initially, the better, because it is all worth it in the long run. Be prepared to save this game often, as the magic users start with abysmally small hit points (like two or three would you believe?), and in the early stages you get wiped out a lot. I found these low hit points enjoyable, as it presented a greater challenge, but to first time RPGers, it would be a BIG problem.  Single drivers beware Saving the game is no problem, that is if you have a hard drive, or at least, one external drive. If you have only one floppy drive, think twice before buying Bane, as the disk swapping will drive you crazy. Despite being a five disk game, it only uses the internal drive as the main drive and the first external as the save game drive. Crazy, what about those who have more than two drives?? Again, poor programming. Also, it doesn't multi-task, which is a real downer. Haven't these clods heard of multi-tasking??? If you do have a hard drive, make sure you use the HD install program and not just filecopy the thing, as the program is hard coded to work from df0: and the HD install makes the necessary changes to the files on the fly.  Monster programmers The monsters are great (well, sort of great). There are LOTS of them, lots of different ones that is, though several share the same picture. Herein lies another problem. When the monsters attack, they are presented as animated (sprites?) and if attacked by seven Pirates, you see seven pirates. Due to the Amiga's slow CPU speed, the game slows down to a standstill when fighting large groups, or indeed just large, monsters. But it only slows down because these IBM guys have never heard of "Custom Chips" or "blitter", they just put the whole load on the CPU and that's it! Although the message delay speed can be quickened up, fights can take as long as 20 minutes! The fight style is a la Bard's Tale, in other words it is NOT in real time. You choose each player's action individually at your leisure and proceed when you think all is OK. The options are FIGHT, PARRY, EQUIP, SPELL, USE, MOVE and RUN all of which are clumsily selected with the mouse. Now sit back and read your favorite novel while the "state of the art" (mono) sounds load and the action starts. If you're fighting more than one group, pray that you can kill at least one group, because if you don't the monsters at the rear will advance in the second round, and this takes AGES as they shuffle around and make their state of the art sounds. As monsters go, they are many and varied and a lot of strategy must be applied over all stages of the game, to win with all members still breathing. At no stage of the game do you find yourself in the particularly boring position of fighting "Two Rats" when your party consists of Level 103 Mages that can cast "NuclearBlast'emup- AnnhililationKiller" The monsters seem to match you at all times. Very nice!  No sound Although the individual levels of state of the art sound can be adjusted, they forgot something, a soundtrack. There is none, just poorly digitized repetitious, monster sounds and the even more repetitious background sound.  More slow programming When the monsters are vanquished, experience is shared between the party and sometimes you will find treasure. Another problem, each man can carry only ten items and ten more in his "swag". If the character you want to give the item to has his main inventory full, you must go through an incredible rigmarole of swapping and changing between characters. Hopeless! If you think this is fun, wait until you find an unknown weapon, because in order to "equip" a weapon, you HAVE TO "de-equip" EVERYTHING else, armour and all, first. Just getting the men dressed is a major operation. Pity that the state of the art technology didn't permit the use of "dragging" items between men. Speaking of items, there are LOTS, over 400 in fact, lots of fun finding and experimenting with them. The spell book is pretty nifty, with a possible 462 combinations of spells and power. When the spells are cast in combat, you can actually see the spell, sometimes a smoke ring looking thing, or a ball of fire or a ball of ice even, although as I said before, these and all animations are S----L----O----W.  NPCs There are several non-player characters (NPC's) to meet and converse with. Unfortunately the parser (the thing that interprets what you type into what the computer/NPC understands) is very limited and it takes some time to come to grips with what is required of you. The Mindread spell comes in handy here. Interaction with the NPCs is only a small (though crucial) part of the game.  Puzzles The puzzles are many and varied, most, logical and all (with one exception) solveable. Unfortunately the poor interface causes some problems here as certain things have to be done when in a certain "mode" else they just don't work.  Many and varied dungeon walls The game proper starts inside a castle, the atmosphere of which is close and I looked forward to getting out into the fresh air. Pity that, the outside looks the same as the inside. You know, trees look like dungeon walls and rocks look like dungeon walls and mountains look like dungeon walls. Apparently in the state of the art graphics, there was no room for anything else. At least the water looks like water. (Well it's blue anyway). Bane progresses from the castle and its towers and dungeon to a cave, a river, mountains and the like. Bane is VERY LINEAR, in other words, you must complete a certain sequence of events before you can proceed to the next location. Very restrictive and frustrating as there are a few red herrings lying about. (Actually a "GREEN" herring HINT HINT"). Initially, opening the doors is a huge problem and until your thief has progressed several levels, leave them alone, 'cause if you jam the doors, they are very difficult to open, although a spell is available for this purpose. The level increases are good, as each class advances differently, so you seem to be getting advancements all the time. I played a few "get the feel of it" days until I made my main men and I went with a LORD (fighting/spellcasting), NINJA (fighting, critical hit/spellcasting), RANGER (fighting, spellcasting and SCOUTING, needed for ferreting out the secret locales which abound), THIEF (for lockpicking and thieving), BISHOP (Mage and Cleric spells), and a MAGE (full on spellcasting). A BARD is particularly useful early in the game as he can play magic instruments without the restrictions of spell points.  Trade up or down An unusual option is built in, being "CHANGE CLASS", that allows your Mage to become a thief or your Samurai to become a Cleric or whatever. You can't cheat either (unless you hack 'em) because the game saves only the party and its position and not individuals, so you can't use the old load him and swap then drop him and rename then turn it off and reboot trick. For those of you into intros and end sequences, you're out of luck. There aren't any. There are several endings but all are VERY anti-climactic especially after such a long game. (There is one ending that I have yet to explore, but I don't hold up much hope for it.) Some of you might get the idea that I didn't enjoy Bane of the Cosmic Forge. You're wrong! I enjoyed it immensely, despite its MANY shortcomings. I rate the game- SOUND - 2 (state of the art) GRAPHICS - 5 (pushing your computer to its limits) STORYLINE - 9 GAMEPLAY - 9 ADDICTIVENESS - 10 VALUE - 10 ($65-79 depending where you get it. Many 100s of hours worth, that's top value for mine!) The sequel "Crusaders of the Dark Savant" is in the offing. If they retain the original flavor and feel of the game, but improve the graphics, state of the art sound, and general polish and Amigaization of the game, it may well prove to be the best game of 1992.  Gus Wrethman  ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh, well, Bane is finished, on to Fate the Gates of Dawn then Black Crypt. **IMPORTANT** At the time of writing, 24-2-92 Fate does not work! The distributors, Mindscape, informed me that the original was faulty and were making efforts to get another from the German supplier. This means EVERY SINGLE (legal) copy in this country does not work, so make sure that you ask before you buy. If you need some help with the game leave me E-Mail on a BBS (Sydney).  (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 )) (( 27 ))