Chronicles of the Sword

Chronicles of the Sword spielt sich wie ein "King's Quest für Erwachsene"; ein mittelalterliches Schloß muß nicht unbedingt wie die Villa Kunterbunt aussehen. Viel Atmospähre, eine ordentliche Story, appetitliche SVGA-Grafiken - da kann man wirklich nicht meckern.

Trots detta är COTS ett utmärkt tidsfördriv för den vane äventyraren och en bra introduktion för nybörjaren.

So, basically, if you want a couple of nice puzzles and some lovely graphics - but little else - buy Chronicles Of The Sword. If you want a decent, gripping and well-told story about the legends of King Arthur, go to your local video shop and rent a copy of Excalibur (it's a brilliant film, made even more so by the fact that Cheri Lunghi gets her kit off). Or if you want a laugh, there's always that Monty Python thing...

Zwar kein Leckerbissen der Adventuregeschichte, aber doch solide Hausmannskost mit einigen Mängeln. Die von uns getestete Originalfassung erfordert brauchbare Englischkenntnisse. Wer sich nicht sicher ist, sollte die für Mai geplante deutsche Version abwarten.

For all the variety, some basic problems steal from the fun. Clicking on onscreen hotspots sometimes doesn't take you where you'd expect. I wish the script writers would learn the correct use of "it's" and "its", which are constantly misused. This may be the Britain of the year 420, but Merlin sounds Slavic. Arthur tells Gawain to retrieve an item that he has in his hands. And the mannequins never bat an eye.

Overall, Chronicles Of The Sword is a mediocre product at best, a mechanical exercise in "find the hot spot" and simple puzzles, with flawed design and little in the way of "when knighthood was in flower". Anyone wanting a taste of the real thing is better off reading Le Morte D'Arthur.

Chronicles of the Sword does have some nice elements, most notably the richly detailed background art and the excellent musical score. But the positive features only manage to distract you from the fact that the game is confusing, frustrating and—worst of all—excruciatingly dull.

Aside from some neat religious imagery — Chronicles of the Sword is filled with more Gothic crosses than Westminster Abbey — this adventure, in which you play a questing Sir Gawain, moves with all the speed and vitality of a knight in a 500-pound suit of armor. And talk about the Dark Ages: Early on, Chronicles blanked out a few times on my computer, requiring ye olde reboot.

Chronicles of the Sword on yksi huonoimmista vähään aikaan pelaamistani peleistä. Lähes kaikki on onnistuttu mokaamaan, eikä edes Arthurin legendaa ole osattu käyttää hyödyksi.Peliä voisi käyttää varoittavana esimerkkinä siitä, millainen peli ei missään nimessä saisi olla.

Overall TQ is a product that provokes extreme emotional responses; you'll either love this game to death ... or loathe it with a vengeance. If you're a gamer who enjoyed the scholastic endeavours of your youth then TQ is the game for you; I doubt you'll have experienced anything as dialectic as this in a long while. If you prefer your computer entertainment in a more conventional form (or couldn't understand the previous sentence), give TQ a miss... there are plenty of other titles out there better suited to your desired level of challenge.

Medieval England and in particular stories related to the Arthurian Legend have so much to offer -- fantastic quests, heroic deeds, magic and magic swords -- but unfortunately Chronicles of the Sword just somehow misses the mark. It's a very serious and ordinary adventure game sprinkled with a few not too difficult problems. Even the stable boy with his unspeakable itch wasn't particularly funny. I waited patiently for that 'brief and shining moment' but it just wasn't to be.