165 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
165 lines
10 KiB
Plaintext
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THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR
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THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR is advertised as the definitive Arthurian Legends game,
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combining adventure, fantasy role-playing, and strategic combat simulation. I'd
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actually classify it as a role-playing game, with added strategic elements. It's
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quite enjoyable to play, but it also has its share of problems, especially at
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the start of the game. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version.)
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The story begins after the death of King Arthur. You assume the role of
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Constantine, who was appointed by King Arthur to succeed him as the ruler of
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Camelot. Your main objective is to defeat all who threaten Camelot, and unite
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all of England.
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The game is divided into five separate episodes. In each one, your kingdom
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faces different threats and hazards that you must eliminate, all the while
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trying to bring more territories under your rule by finding and fulfilling
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various mini-missions. Various NPCs with different information and objects
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appear in each episode. Your characters, however, do retain all the improvements
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in their statistics, along with all the objects they've accumulated from
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previous episodes. By the same token, characters that have been killed
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previously will not be reincarnated.
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As Constantine, you command all the knights and other characters present at the
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Round Table, as well as other knights in castles under your rule. The knights
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can travel all over England, either alone or in groups, and they can interact
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with any non-player characters (NPCs) whom they may encounter. At any one time,
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you may have as few as one or as many as half a dozen (or more) groups all going
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to different locations and doing different things, and all under your control.
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Things can sure get hectic in a hurry, especially when you're new to the game
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and unfamiliar with the names of the people and the cities.
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All traveling is done on the map screen. The entire map of England is presented
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graphically complete with cities, castles, mountains, rivers, oceans, and
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forests on a total of 16 screens. To scroll to another part of the map, all you
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have to do is move the cursor to the edge of the screen. The map is beautifully
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drawn, and scrolling is very smooth. Clicking the cursor on the cities and
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castles reveals their names, and any characters who may be inside. To move a
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group, you click on the GO icon (which is a knight on a horse), select the group
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you want to move, and then select a destination. All the travelers on the map
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are represented by shields of various designs and colors. Again, these can
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become difficult to remember when you are commanding several unfamiliar groups
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traveling in unfamiliar territories. An option that allows you to choose
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different speeds of movement alleviates this problem to some extent.
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A magnifying glass icon on the map screen lets you zoom in on a locale, and
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brings you to an interior screen. This will sometimes lead to other interior
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screens through doors, archways, and stairs. You may zoom in on locales without
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your characters present, in which case you may look, but nothing else will
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happen. If you do have a character present, then you can interact with any NPCs
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who are there, or pick up objects that you may find.
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All the playing characters in this game come with fixed statistics. These are
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maximum hit points, hit points remaining, magic points, combat, armor, nobility,
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and faith. Combat and nobility can be increased by winning in combat. Armor can
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be increased by finding and using enchanted equipment. Faith can be increased by
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meditating in chapels. There are various potions that can increase hit points,
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agility, and strength. The characters do not advance in levels, and I found that
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combat and armor were the only two really important statistics for succeeding in
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the game.
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Fighting can occur two ways: There are single one-on-one combats, and full army
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encounters involving soldiers and archers. In single combats, you may elect to
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control your player manually, or let the computer control both sides while you
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watch. In manual control, I was never able to correlate what I did with what
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happened on the screen. Eventually, I simply played the whole game with the
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computer controlling both sides during all the combat sequences. During combat,
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the character and companions can also use items and cast magical spells. These
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abilities become very important in the later episodes. You can also elect to
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decline a combat challenge or withdraw from it, but doing so will cost you
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nobility points. When the nobility points of a knight fall below a certain
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limit, he is lost forever to the Round Table.
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Full army battles are handled pretty much the same way. You can let the
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computer handle both sides, or you can control the forces under your command.
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You can CHARGE, ENGAGE, FLANK, RETREAT, etc. Again, I found that what I did
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really did not affect the outcome. The side with more and/or better soldiers
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always wins: This is where the strategic element of the game comes in. Enemy
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forces continue to march toward Camelot while you are busy trying to find the
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necessary clues, objects, and/or characters needed to defeat them. In order to
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allow yourself more time to complete your quests, you have to amass whatever
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military resources are available in your realm to slow down the enemy advances.
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Gameplay involves sending out your various characters to visit as many locales
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as possible to gather information, objects, and clues. Apparently based on
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historical truth, some knights hate one another and will immediately challenge
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to fight to the death when they meet, so you need to be quite careful when
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assigning your knights to different missions. Some missions have very tough
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enemies, and only a knight with high combat rating can succeed. When you play
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this game the first few times, having no prior knowledge of what and where the
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encounters may be, it is virtually impossible to make intelligent choices. This
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(along with having to struggle with unfamiliar geography, various shield
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designs, and the names of the characters whom you're commanding) makes playing a
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very frustrating experience.
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The game documentation also adds to the confusion. It does not explain any of
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the commands you use to interact with NPCs. It took me a while to realize that
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SEARCH is only for looting victims after a combat, that REQUEST is used to see
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what an NPC is carrying, that TRADE is for buying an item of interest. The
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manual also makes no mention of the magical spells that are so crucial to
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solving the game. The only way to discover what they do is to save the game, and
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then cast all of them to find out what happens. Some spells (in fact, all the
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important ones) require special items to work, and again, the only way to learn
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this is by casting the spells. The game does tell you which items are missing,
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but the messages sometimes disappear so fast that you don't even have enough
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time to read them. The same is true with most magical items: You have to use
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them to find out what they do, and then restore the game.
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Because of these problems, staying interested long enough to learn how to play
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is the hardest part of EXCALIBUR. In fact, after several halfhearted starts, it
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took me three excruciating evenings to familiarize myself with the map, the
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shields, the character names, the spells, the items, and the commands before I
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could finally delve into the game itself. Once I became comfortable with it, I
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finished it in four evenings. All in all, I played for a total of about 15
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hours.
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Graphics in the 256-color VGA version are very well implemented. Each screen
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looks like a full-color painting. The graphic style very closely resembles that
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of DEFENDER OF THE CROWN by Cinemaware. The game also supports EGA and Tandy
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graphics. It requires 512K of RAM in EGA, and 640K in VGA. There are several
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musical themes and sound effects for walking and magic-casting. Roland, AdLib,
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Covox, and CMS sound cards are supported. The music is nice, but a bit too
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repetitive.
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The software supports a mouse, a joystick, and keyboard commands. I did not try
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playing with the joystick. Playing with the mouse is quite comfortable; it seems
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to be more responsive than the keyboard commands, especially when using items or
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casting magic during combat sequences.
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EXCALIBUR has no on-disk copy protection, and can easily be installed on a hard
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drive. A large, folded, beautifully drawn map is included with the game. The
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coordinates are represented by shields of various designs. At the beginning of
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each session, you're shown two shields. You have to refer to the map and find
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the name of the location at which the two shields intersect. Often it appears
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that two cities are near the intersection, but you do have two chances to pass
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the test before the game exits back to DOS.
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Be aware that the game does require close to 570K of free RAM to run in VGA
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mode. If your system has less memory, the game will still load and allow you to
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play, but periodically you'll encounter find-block errors, and the program may
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hang during combat sequences. The most amusing bug of all (now looking back)
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occurred when Nineve was preparing to cast a spell in Merlin's cave: She walked
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off the screen completely! Whatever I tried to do afterwards was greeted by the
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message "Please wait for Nineve to finish." I finally had to reset the computer
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to exit; if you're going to play in VGA mode, you may want to boot from a clean
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floppy.
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THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR is very pretty and pleasing to the eye, especially in
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VGA mode. A lot of patience and perseverance are needed at the beginning of the
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game, but it does become quite easy and comfortable after the second episode.
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The game appears very well researched. I say "appears" only because I'm not a
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great Camelot fan and cannot authenticate the legends and characters used in
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this game. The manual, while lacking in other respects, is curiously full of
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background information regarding all the legends surrounding King Arthur and
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Camelot. I liked the ability to command several groups simultaneously and
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control them independently of one another. I recommend EXCACLIBUR to players who
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are enthusiastic fans of Camelot, and who have the patience to overcome the
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initial difficulties of the game.
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THE SPIRIT OF EXCALIBUR is published by Synergistic Software and distributed by
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Virgin Mastertronic.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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