Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul

The Good
Thought no individual element of the game can be said to be truly original, it does manage to grab all the good bits from most RPGs and bundle them all in a package that is likely to make you think "Wow. How come I've never heard of this game before? I should leave my cave more often..."

The 3D engine is very nice. The texturing is well done and the modelling and animations are superb, both for your characters as well as the enemies. The options are there to zoom really close in, and far out, and particle effects are galore as the spells get cast (although, unlike lots of games, they don't really seem to slow the game down at all).

The background music is really well done, and non intrusive, whilst also making you think "Why's the music gone all dramatic?!?! What did I do? ARGH! HELP!". Also the sound effects are nicely selected, and non repetitive. There's the expected change in footstep sound as you walk over different terrains, but a nice array added for opponents (right up to the screen-shuddering slow thumps of huge trolls and ogres). Also, combat sounds are appropriate based on your characters. As you play through the game you get used to the "thud crash bang clonk thud thud smash" of leather-armoured bone-weaponed combat, but after I upgraded my armour on the second landscape I was rewarded with a "thud crash bang CLANG! clonk thud...", and I sat up in my seat and thought "What the...? Hey! He hit my new metal body armour! HAHAHA! I'm wearing metal, fool! Come and get some!" ... or something like that.

Run, walk, creep and crawl: All your characters can move in these four different ways. Crawl about and you can sneak your way past guards, just a few meters from you. Creep around, and you just might be able to sneak into the stronghold, pickpocket your objective item, and sneak out without having to resort to combat. The option is yours.

Plot: You're never left wondering where you should be going, or who you should be talking to, as can be the case in certain RPGs...

Stamina: It's used for when you want to run. Run too much and your character slows down to a walk (usually complaining at you that he's not a racehorse), and you have to rest a while for your stamina to recuperate. However, stamina is also used for casting spells. So, try and run your magician to the nearby combat and by the time he gets there he will be useless. Or if you do get him there and he casts spells lots, don't expect him to be able to run away if trouble happens. I know this sounds like a bad thing, but I found it quite innovative, and it does mean you have to strategize a lot more, which I love!

Spell and item construction: There's about 20 or so spell types in game, but as you progress you create yourself modified versions of these by applying runes to them (where a rune may extend the spell's duration,e ffect, range, etc. etc., or even reduce it's spell casting cost). A similar system is applied to item construction. The shops you go to sell pre-made items. However, they also sell item 'blueprints'. These blueprints give you a rough idea of how good the item is. So, for example, you might have a blueprint claiming it will form a 'leather coat' and that you need 8 pieces of leather to make it. So, after adventuring a bit, you manage to kill of a bunch of pigs. Scavenging their corpses you end up with armfuls of pig leather, which you head back to town, combine with the blueprint and "voila", a tough leather coat. The nice thing is the blueprints only state the "kind" of material they need (e.g. leather), but many "types" of these materials exist. Also, you can deconstruct armour (or weapons) in a similar way, and even imbue them with any spell you like. And in doing so it changes its game appearance. So, you might find an okay looking iron sword out on your tavels - it looks a bit brown and a bit rusty. So, you take it back to town, deconstruct it, sell of the iron, use the blueprint with some steel you found, whack in a lightning bolt spell, and "kaching" one large amount of construction money later you have one glowing shiny mean-looking steel sword, ready to blast anyone that comes nearby. It is easy to spend as much time trying out spell and item combinations in the shops as it is adventuring...

The changing scenery: As you advance through the game, you will progress from one island to another, ditching party members and old alliances as you go. Each island has a different look and feel to it (from forests, to snow, to desert), as well as a whole new array of creatures. Plus, expect to be stripped down to the bare minimums more than once. Again, it stops you feeling like you can deal with what's coming up as it's only going to be a little different from what you're currently doing. Many times through the game, when I was confident of my combative superiority over the local populace, was I placed in a situation where I had my characters crawling around on their bellies, seriously hoping no-one would see them...

Chats with characters are more than just text and voice-acting. Each chat is accompanied by a cinematic close zoom-in to the people concerned, with camera changes as the characters chatter. Simple, but effective. And, even when zoomed in more than can be achieved through normal camera management, the characters still look well designed and textured.

Hot-key heaven: Other than actual moving about the landscape (which, understandibly, requires mouse clicks) everything in game can be accessed via hot-keys (weapons, spells, characters, posture, moveemnt style, camera, window-pop-ups, etc.). It's wonderful in an RPG.

No need to worry about managing your equipment: Most RPGs have you standing around after a battle, wondering whether to ditch that scroll you found, or leave this new magic helmet, simply because you haven't got enough 'slots' in your backpack to carry both. In Evil Islands, everything gets picked up. Your encumbrance only applies to the armour and weaponry you are equipped with - everything else goes into a mystical wormhole, which can be accessed freely once you leave the playing area, or are back in town.

Your equipment isn't indestructable: Your equipment needs repairs to keep it working. And the more expensive the equipment, the more expensive the repair. Plus: you need to do the repairing for you. This can be quite harrowing when you find yourself on a new island with your main objective being "get out of whatever trouble you're in, and find the local town". More the once I've been juggling between half broken pieces of armour, trying to keep Zak an effective combateer, when there's a shatter, an "Oh no, I liked that armour..." and there he is, standing without any body armour in the middle of a snowstorm with nothing to show for the now-completely-destroyed dead-expensive magically imbued breastplate you sunk half your wealth into. Whilst it can be devestating, again it adds another management and strategy side to things, which is great! Realism? We love it!

The Bad
This looks like a long list, I know, but I just go o.t.t. in my reviews, that's all. The negatives are miniscule compared to the positives...

Stamina: Although the creatures have it, they never expend it through any of their actions. This means they can cast spells non-stop whilst you can't, plus there's absolutely no way of running away from an opponent as you will run out of stamina whilst he doesn't.

Difficulty levels: "Normal" and "Novice"?? These should really be called "Insanely Hard" and "Normal" - switch to Novice. Trust me.

The voice actor for the main character (Zak) wasn't really that great. Incredulity, arrogance and shock seemed to be the actor's main 'emotions' when reading out most the script. Plus there's the little "Let's go there" comments you get when clicking for the characters to move on the map. They're all quite cute and non-invasive, except for one of Zak's - a simple "Yes". You wouldn't believe such a voice sample could really be messed up, but it sounds as if the actor was going through puberty at the time, as his voice audibly 'breaks' half way through the sample, leaving you cringing at controlling such a character.

Plot predictability: You wake up within amnesia, so sayeth the plot. However, once you make your way back from the second island, it's pretty obvious where the plot is going to go, and who you are. And everyone you meet will be shocked when the truth is finally revealed at the game's end. Doh! How wise are these great magicians meant to be, again...?

The multiplayer game is a LOT of fun... but only if you download the Nival-approved multiplayer patch (released end of August, 2001) - without that you will be left floundering in the early stages of the game. Beyond the absolutely awful equipment, you start needing 1000 coins or more to buy/upgrade a single piece of armour/weaponry for your character. This is fine - this is the way singleplayer worked, too. However, you go on an easy quest, taking you about 45 minutes to complete with some friends, and you end up (after repairs) with a grand total of about 50-100 coins. At this rate, it'd take you half a day's constant play just to replace one piece of your armour. And the character has 7 pieces! And weapons! And spells! DAYS of play would be needed just to upgrade you to the second-worst equipment in the game... sigh Fortunately, this has been fixed, as I say, by a mod.

On the penultimate landscape, the game did start to chug quite badly (although it cleared up for the final 'battle'). The save-game files, although only slightly over 1 Mb in size, were taking about a minute and a half to load in. And whilst on the landscape itself, a simple adjustment of the camera could cause a 3-second lockup whilst the hard drive grinded. Probably not a major problem if you have 256Mb or more in your computer, though...

The final battle, and its leadup. All through the game, you've saved up money, buying and upgrading armour a piece at a time as you get the money. So, in expectation of a big final battle, you save up lots of money, only to find that your companion on said battle will furnish you out with top-of-the-line everything totally free. It's quite nice to see, but does leave you with a feeling of "Oh, I just wasted my time getting enough money for something good, didn't I...?". As for the final battle itself: Admittedly I died the first time I tried the battle. That's normally the way for me in games - I equip myself as best as I can, but not knowing what will be coming up, and no battle experience to work on for that encounter, I ended up dying. Fair enough. However, whilst going through the brief reload process I thought "I wonder if that will work..." ("that" being something I've added here as a "Tip & Trick"), jumped back into the final battle for the second time, hit one key on the keyboard, point&clicked, and then watched as no further interaction was required for the game to be completed. Urgh. That was disappointing. I was into the final movie clip before I'd even realised that my plan had worked!

The Bottom Line
If you're into RPGs, pick up a copy. At its, undoubtedly, cheap price, you can pick up an enjoyable game and still have cash left over for some doritos, some beers, 10d6, a beginner's guide to monster-slaying and questing, as well as a suit of Hard Leather Gipath Armour and a Lightning Bolt imbued Steel Spear.... okay, maybe not the armour and the spear.....