145 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
145 lines
7.2 KiB
Plaintext
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DRAGON WARS
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DRAGON WARS is the third computer game released under Interplay
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Productions' own label. (NEUROMANCER, a critically acclaimed
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adventure game with CRPG elements, and BATTLE CHESS, an animated
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chess game, were the first two.) It should also be noted that
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Interplay created the popular BARD'S TALE series, as well as an
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innovative CRPG, WASTELAND. Although DRAGON WARS allows you to use
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modified versions of BARD'S TALE characters, it reminds me more of
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WASTELAND than BARD'S TALE. (This review is based on the Apple II
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version; IBM-PC and Commodore 64/128 version notes follow.)
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In DRAGON WARS, your characters are awarded skill points (as in
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WASTELAND), after accumulating enough experience to warrant level
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increases. These points can be spent on a variety of different
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skills or attributes. The various magic classes possess skills that
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must be awarded skill points before they can be used, and your
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spells must be learned by finding and using the appropriate spell
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scrolls for each class. Many puzzles in the game are solved by
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properly casting the correct spell, by using skills like "Climb," or
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by relying on attributes like "Intelligence."
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The world created by DRAGON WARS is called Oceanus, a place dotted
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with thousands of island kingdoms; Dilmun is the particular kingdom
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of concern in this game. The adventure begins in the prison city of
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Purgatory within Dilmun, where your party of four has been stripped
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of all clothing, items, and weapons. Only through courage and
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persistence will they survive, find an armed volunteer to join
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them, gain armor, weapons, and magic spells, and escape Purgatory.
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Then, they can pursue and take revenge on Namtar, the Beast from the
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Pit who has usurped the former ruler and caused all of them to be
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thrown into Purgatory.
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The action of the game is non-linear. For instance, there are five
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different ways of escaping Purgatory, none of which leads to a dead
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end. If you sell your characters into Slavery, you may soon find
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them in chains in the depths of a Salt Mine, but this can be
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overcome, too. There is a point about midway through the game where
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you can't make further progress until your characters have fought a
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key battle with some pirates, but apart from that, there is no fixed
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sequence of events. Your characters will have to eventually find and
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confront Namtar, and in order to do so, should have as many magic
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spells, items, and skill points as possible, but they only need to
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find one key item to get into his tower.
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Unlike the BARD'S TALE series, DRAGON WARS is not excessively
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difficult to map. You're given a wonderful, 3-D auto-mapping
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screen, and you spend about half of your time in non-confining
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cities and forests above ground. (The other half is spent mostly in
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small, single-level dungeons.) The puzzles are only moderately
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difficult, but they do force you to think through the problems
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carefully. According to one of the game's designers, DRAGON WARS
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should take some 40+ hours to complete. However, it took me well
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over 100 hours, and among those who were playing the game at the
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same time, I was just the second person to finish!
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The Apple II version requires 128K of memory and double hi-res
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ability. The disks are not copy-protected and the game can be
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installed on a hard drive. The game moves quickly with a minimum of
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disk swapping, for those of you who have only one floppy drive, but
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it will make use of two floppy drives automatically if they're
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present. You must make copies of the six sides (three disks) to play
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the game. You should also have an extra copy of Side One on which to
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store a backup of your saved game. For the most part, the interface
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is comfortable to work with.
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DRAGON WARS was designed by Paul Ryan O'Connor and Brian Fargo. The
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programmer was Bill Heineman, and Todd J. Camasta provided the
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artwork. They and the other members of Interplay's staff deserve
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applause for producing an excellent CRPG in the best tradition of
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role-playing games. Highly recommended!
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IBM-PC VERSION NOTES
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The IBM version of DRAGON WARS is supplied on two 5-1/4" and one
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3-1/2" floppies. The game consists of just three files: DRAGON.COM,
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DATA1, and DATA2. There is a fourth program to import characters
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from BARD'S TALE I, II, and III. Because of this structure, the game
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should be very playable on floppies, although I didn't do so.
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DRAGON WARS supports CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA, and 16-color Tandy
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graphics modes, and requires only 256K of memory to run. It's very
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nice in this age of bloated, slow IBM software to find a program
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that is so compact and fast. There is no copy protection beyond that
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used by the "paragraph look-up" system. The paragraphs supply most
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of the information needed to play the game.
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The IBM version is more than just a port of the original game. Some
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minor enhancements have been made in play mechanics. For example,
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anything that has a price can be safely sold.
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DRAGON WARS doesn't support any sound cards, but the sound effects
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on the PC speaker are superb. When your characters are hit, you hear
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a realistic scream of pain. And you hear the swish of the arrows as
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they fly toward their target. The roar of the Phoeban dragon is very
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impressive. The only negative aspect about the sound effects is that
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there aren't more; however, the ones that do exist really enhance
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the game. Additional sounds would be icing on the cake: DRAGON WARS
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is a superb entertainment product for the IBM.
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COMMODORE 64/128 VERSION NOTES
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The Commodore 64/128 version of DRAGON WARS is a top-drawer
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package, worthy of mention in the same breath with everything else
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Interplay has created during the past few years (the BARD'S TALE
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series, WASTELAND, BATTLE CHESS). Troy Miles had much to do with
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converting the original Apple IIe program to the C64. (He also wrote
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Interplay's NEUROMANCER.)
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DW's graphics are excellent, the keyboard interface is smooth, the
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auto-mapping feature is handy, and the "paragraph" idea is as neat
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here as it was in WASTELAND. The program is not copy-protected, the
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save option works anywhere, and BARD'S TALE characters can be
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transferred to Purgatory and Underworld.
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Single-letter keystrokes control the game: I, J, K, and L move the
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party; other keystrokes Cast spells, Use skills/items/attributes,
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toggle combat Pictures, Save the game, toggle the automap feature,
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and bring up the character view screens.
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From the Utilities screen, you can transfer BARD'S TALE I, II, or
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III characters, and use the copy option to make backups. You may
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play with the characters that are included, or create your own.
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The DRAGON WARS package comes with three unprotected disks (five
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sides), a complete instruction manual, C64/128 Reference card, and a
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poster that duplicates the cover on the box.
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DRAGON WARS is another example of Interplay's creativity and
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ability to make an 8-bit machine hum. Although it sometimes seems
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-- okay, it _always_ seems -- that CRPGs are a dime a dozen, most of
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them unfortunately don't even come close to Interplay's products. If
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you refuse to purchase DRAGON WARS, you'll miss out on skill-based
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role-playing at its best.
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DRAGON WARS is published by Interplay Productions and distributed
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by Mediagenic.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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