Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos

The Good
Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos is a very fine tuned game. Cutscenes are done in animation with fairly decent voice-over work, and some incredible effects within the game itself.

The Graphics are truly remarkable. The game is similar to Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, but the similarities end there. Instead of a Jolting step pattern (those playing the aforemention games know what I'm talking about), its a fairly fluid movement, and turning is fluid as well. Spell affects are very cool. Instead of happening on the window where the action is, the spell effects affect the entire screen. For instance, when a heal spell is cast, a glowing ball forms in the viewscreen, then travels to your character picture at the bottom of the screen. Instead of Dungeons, you explore swamps (with gas seepages... watch out with the fireballs), castles, towns, forests, mines, and other locales. Each location is unique, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses. For instance, tar pits in the swamps can be frozen and then crossed before they thaw. Neat trick, eh?

Sound and Voice-Acting are par for the course considering the time of release. The clincher though is that Patrick Stewart provides the voice of King Richard, and that alone is worth grabbing the CD-ROM.

Gameplay is again par for the course. Inventory is handled very differently than most 3D Dungeon Crawls. Instead of each person having a separate inventory, there is one inventory for all characters that you come across. Makes handling inventory much easier, although not very realistic.

Magic spells are handled differently as well. Instead of picking and choosing your spells (a la D&D), you have spells available to you and the only thing that limits your capabiltiy of spellcasting is your level and your mana energy. Kinda tacky, but it works well within this game.

The Bad
There are a few things that peeve me about this game. One one thing that stands out is a pit that CAN'T BE CROSSED! Talk about aggravating! I have tried every trick I know to cross it with the aid of a trainer, and I still haven't figured out how.

The Bottom Line
If you like Dungeon Crawls, this one is a visual beauty. A great game (despite it's minor flaws).

The Good
I love this game. I've had it for the past 10 years and I never get sick of playing it. I put it away for a few years and then come back to it. Time seems to fly by because there is always something to figure out. I like the mazes and the puzzles that are in the came. Fantastic.

The Bad
The only thing I don't like about the game is getting stuck. It can be hard figuring out what I've done wrong to find a path for a key or object. It could also be a bit brighter in the caves and caverns even when using the lantern. Just not bright enough to see down the path very far.

The Bottom Line
I would describe this game as exciting. Like I stated before in what I liked about the game. Trying to figure out the paths and where the keys and objects are to get to the next level keep the game interesting and unique. There's adventure in every land. The game keeps you on the edge of your seat and I quite enjoy that. Bravo Westwood Studio's and Virgin Games.

The Good
The team who developed it is the same who did the eye of the beholder series, so the same graphical detail is applied here but this time with much better ingame animations and animated cutscenes compared to the EOB series. The game is rich in cutscenes and plot changes through the game and sometimes it reminds me of an epic adventure game rather than a typical dungeon crawling RPG. That's a great plus!

Being able not only to crawl through dungeons but moving in a palace, through woods, visiting inns and a great variety of places like a city, a swamp, some mines or a castle, buying or selling stuff or clicking on things and see what happens makes it's world quite more interesting and varied than older games of it's kind. There are a lot of surprises and new stuff to discover each time you play it again from the start.

The music is also much better than in the EOB series. There is a different MIDI tune for each dungeon out there, some of which are quite good and remind me of music from other Westwood titles. Although, some of the musics kinda destroy the atmosphere in certain places, which the EOB series implied with their pure silence.

The Bad
It seems that the gameplay and RPG rules were simplified to the extreme point, maybe because the designers wanted to make the game far too easy for anyone who hasn't played an RPG before.

• First of all there are no D&D rules but that's ok for me since an RPG is allowed to carry it's own preferred rules.

• There is no character creation, you just choose from four faces who bear different characteristics as might, speed or magic. The characters can be both fighters, cast magic and have rogue skills at a different rate according to the character you choose.

• There are some extreme oversimplifications that totally kills the feeling that this is an RPG where you are actually challenged to survive. If one character loses all of his energy then you can either use the healing spell or drink a healing potion to revive him. There is no such a thing as truly dead that needs to be raised by a cleric or something. The game only ends if all two or three characters have lost their energy. Also if a character is poisoned, you just wait till he loses all energy by poison and healing him would also make all the effects from poison disappear.

• Automap is good. But not when it automatically reveals you all switches you might have not seen and secret walls you might have not passed through. Just move in a room and bring on the automap and you can see blocks marked with a big S for secret walls. But what is the point of secret walls if the automap reveals them to you before you happen to hit air trying to bump into an illusionary wall?

• Using a bow or throwing stars, they come with unlimited ammo that you never have to pick up from the ground. I know that in other RPGs like eye of the beholder it was truly annoying to have to pick up all projectiles you have used after every small or big fight but what is happening in lands of lore kills all realism and so the atmosphere.

Except from the rules, other things that I didn't like is how fast some monsters are killing you, also that there are no clues of where some special objects are needed to be used (like in certain areas on monsters that cannot be killed otherwise or how to bean the final witch).

The Bottom Line
Some people describe it as what Eye of the Beholder 3 should be. It's not exactly that. While it's much better visually than the EOB series and while it's more varied in places and plot, there is something wrong with it's gameplay and roleplaying rules. It's maybe the fact that the developers tried to cut-off and simplify the gameplay for people who haven't played an RPG before. Which might be disappointing for those who have played the EOB series or any other D&D based games. Several simplifications in the gameplay kill the atmosphere too. Great visually, not so great in terms of gameplay.