52 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
52 lines
2.9 KiB
Plaintext
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WIZARDRY: BANE OF THE COSMIC FORGE (IBM VERSION NOTES)
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"The Cosmic Forge" in the title of this game is a pen that has the strange
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ability of turning its writings into reality but in a twisted sort of way.
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You and your party find yourselves locked in the strange castle of the evil
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king who had last stolen the cosmic forge for his evil purposes. Your job is
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to develop your characters, unlock the secrets of the castle and surrounding
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areas and finally unravel the surprisingly complex relationship of the
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various principle characters in the story.
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Even though it carries the WIZARDRY moniker, this game looks and plays very
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differently when compared to previous games in the series. While retaining
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the first person 3-D perspective, it now features full color graphics and
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digitized sounds as well as detailed monster animation and special visual
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effects for spell-casting.
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The WIZARDRY series has always excelled in its character development system.
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It is so well tuned and balanced that the player actually feels that the
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characters grow and mature as he progresses in the game. BANE carries this
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excellent trait to new heights. The game features 11 races and 14
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professions, each having its own unique combination of strength, weakness,
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and special abilities. As the player goes through the game and nurtures his
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party to attain higher levels and greater powers, he can't help but to
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develop strong feelings of attachment to his characters and hence the game.
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In the IBM-PC version, the graphics support VGA (16 color only), EGA, CGA,
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and Hercules. The game also features fully digitized sound effects through
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the PC speaker. The early version of the game must be installed on a hard
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disk to play. The latest version allows play on a floppy drive and has mouse
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and sound board supports. Both 5.25" and 3.5" disks are included in the game
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box. The manual is clearly written and well illustrated.
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On the negative side, I agree with some of the comments in the basic review
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(WIZBAN.REV). The dungeon tiles need to be more varied to reflect changes in
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geography. The digitized sounds and animations really slow down combat
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sequences. (You can opt to play with the sound off but there is no way to
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turn off the monster animations.) And the copy protection is very offensive.
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(It's a booklet of black on dark purple icon/magic word look-up tables.)
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All in all, the positive aspects of the game far outweigh the negative. BANE
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has a wonderful story which develops nicely as the player gets further into
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the game. There are some rather complex but fair puzzles that need to be
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solved. Combat is interesting and nicely balanced. This is a game I highly
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recommend to all role-playing game players. And the best part is that a
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sequel is being readied as this is written and I, for one, cannot wait to get
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my hands on it.
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WIZARDRY: BANE OF THE COSMIC FORGE is published and distributed by Sir-Tech
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Software.
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