Kingdom O' Magic

The Good
You’ll find a whole lot to laugh about in Kingdom O’ Magic, especially if you are a Tolkein fan.

There are two very different main characters to choose from and three quests. As the game begins, the Narrator (a monk-like character with spiked yellow hair) tells you about the characters and the quests. This Narrator stays with you during the whole game, making snide comments along the way.

The characters are: Thidney, “the Lizard Bloke” (a tall, bright green lizard with a super tail), and Shah-Ron, “the Girlie” (who looks like an overexaggerated version of Lara Croft clad in red latex with hip-high black boots). Thidney likes action movies, sports, and drinking huge quantities of ale. His magic skills are almost non-existent, but he has a hard head that can withstand hard beatings without impairing his intelligence. Shah-Ron is an independent blonde who loathes to be called “honey”. Built like a babe who has had too many implants, she is highly skilled in magic casting and would rather not use physical force.

Three quests, playing as either of two characters, make for great replayability – The Traditional Quest (find the dragon and steal his treasure), Bizarre and Twisted Quest (find the Lost Lava Lamp of the Ancients and relight it) and the 7-11 Quest (rescue the Slurpee-in-distress). While there are some overlap segments, you’ll find different characters, items and actions in each.

There are numerous creatures and people living in a variety of interesting places. Imagine all of these beings in one game: an Elvis impersonator, trolls, dwarves, a gorgon, a dragon, Jack-in-the-Beanstalk, human eating gingerbread men, Ring Wraiths, a lady giant, a mafia “don”, orcs, a wizard, and a ninja, to name a few. Along with the characters from Tolkein’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, many of them are based on real people. For instance, in a disco you’ll meet the dancing John Re-Volter. Characters akin to Ronald Reagan and Robert DeNiro also make appearances.

Visit places with cute names like Flake Town, Rivendull, Moronica, Dimwit Dale, Bearing Downs and get into the Halls O’ Stuff in Dwarf Mountain.

The game world is alive with lots of characters randomly moving about and fighting each other. You might easily approach a scene where a ring wraith is fighting a karate chopping elf, for instance. Click on the boxing glove to start a fight with someone else. Hand-to-hand combat tends to be a bit silly. You attack someone, you fight for a time and then they walk away as if nothing has happened, sometimes even approaching you for a conversation. Magic spells are thrown with the wand in hand icon and include the Spell O’ Airstrike, Spell O’ Floater, Spell O’ Left the Gas On and the Comedy Mallet.

You can talk to almost all of the characters in the game, unless they attack you first, that is. Conversation choices directly effect the direction your game takes, too. Puzzles range from medium to difficult and do include an arcade sequence or two. But the puzzles themselves are not the strong point of the game. The reason to play this game is for the comedy.

The 3-D graphics are nicely done, the sound and music are great, and the interface is easy to learn. No groundbreaking advances here, but everything works well and smoothly, which is more than I can say for some other games I played when this game was released.

The Bad
Playing as Thidney I found myself falling out of my chair giggling. But, the voice acting for Shah-Ron came off not nearly as funny, although she did have her moments.

The three quests could have been completely different, without overlap of any kind.

The Bottom Line
I played all three quests with both characters – a total of 6 times – and had a great time during all of them. The mix of character types is interesting by itself and adds to the comedy element. KOM is pure gaming entertainment. It is a light-hearted, fun adventure game and a worthy addition to your gaming collection.