Veil of Darkness

The Good
Well, to begin with, I'm a fan of horror games, especially adventures. There are not much of them, so I was very glad to get this one. And I must say, it is a very good attempt, though not the best one.

The story is quite standart at first, but it becomes more complicated as the game progresses. As you solve different quests, you find out that everything you meet is a part of the story, it is somehow tied to the characters you already met and to the prophecy you have to complete. Really, the story is very strong and thought-over, lke in a true adventure. The atmoshere is also very nice - dark, scary, you feel somehow lonely in this world, everyone you meet has his own problems and are seemed to be very scared too. As for the other characters - they are very well done. There are quite a lot of them, everyone has his own appearance, manners and has enough topics to talk about. Speaking with them is also well done - while the characte talks, some of the words in his speech are underlined, so you can talk about them later. But sometimes you have to tell the character about another topics, so you have to write the words from keyboard like in old good IF games, and this is very good indeed.

The puzzles are also very good, especcially the final one, where you have to collect several different things to kill the Kairn. In the beginning you got a Prophecy, which consists of all the main quests you have to solve in order to win (though not a solutions to them), so you don't have to think "what shall I do next?" walking aimlessly around. It was said in the other review that the game is very linear. It is not true. Most of the quests you can solve in any order, only a few requires the right order (and they are only in the beginning).

The Bad
Well, the game is still far from ideal. Not everyone will enjoy the RPG elemnts in adventure, fighting with monsters. Though, it is seemed more like action elements to me - the monsters you kill don't ressurrect and their bodies even don't disappear, and that's a nice touch. Also, in order to kill all monsters, tou have to take evrywhere with you a number of different weapons, as usually there is only one type of weapon for one type of monster. But, from the other hand, firstly, you can choose your skill level in the beginning (and on easy level the combat is quite easy), and secondly, you can just run away from monsters - there is really nothing you need from them.

The graphics is not very good, though the isometric view is quite nice.

There are several mazes in the game that can become frustrating, but, again, there is one good feature to help in navigating - a map that is drawn automaticly while you are wondering in the labirinth, which you can look at any time you want - isn't this wonderfull!

The Bottom Line
This is one good horror adventure game with interesting story, nice atmosphere, good puzzles and some nicely implemented RPG elements. For all horror fans.