Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen Review
Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen, was the game that got me away (temporarily, at least) from the Nintendo and opened my eyes to the world of PC gaming. Clouds of Xeen is the first chapter in a two part (three if you include "Swords") series of Xeen games that would be known as "World of Xeen". The game reall ydoes have a sort of cult following these days, to anyone that remembers some of the more comical characters and, effects, and hit-spots of the monsters featured. This is an old DOS based game, but if you had windows 98 or 2000, it should work. The game-play is very simplistic, adn again, this is an early 90's PC game, so there were some quirks that would be terribly annoying to some of today's gamers. I'll try to review it by being Cloud's specific without giving too many hints (review, not hint/cheats), but "Darkside of Xeen" really is important to the game.
You start out in a village with 6 characters (it was standard then to have more than 1 character in the old RPG), and you can edit them or create new ones if you're not satisfied with the game standard. Your job is to help free a Wizard and restore order to Xeen by defeating "Lord Xeen". However there are several smaller quests along the way that you have to perform to get you closer to that goal, whether it be restoring an old castle or helping bring peace to the little villages that are over-run with monsters and curses or doing favors for random characters. As you go through the game you gather experience and objects that you can try to use to boost your parties statistics and abilities, and you get to explore dungeons and caverns filled with some riddles and puzzles along with bad guys and comical 'good' guys. Also, you get to go to the top of the towers and explore the world above Xeen by walking on the clouds (after casting a spell, of course!). You don't need a joystick to play the game. In fact, the game comes with a quick reference card so you can get away with just using the arrows on your keyboard; the mouse isn't really necessary either.
The quirks? Well, dealing with your item inventory could be a chore, and the man-management part of equiping, un-equiping and moving items could take quite a bit of time. You end up spending quite a bit of time with the blacksmith instead of exploring. And I wasn't a fan of having to pay the blacksmith to identify the items you'd get to see if they were really upgrades (some armor, while more expensive, didn't necessarily give you better protection), and it was important to save the game often, as nothing was more frustrating (and expensive) than having a character get knocked out, thus breaking their armor (or in some cases, weapons!). Finally, sometimes, the 'clues' wouldn't be repeated, so you had to pay attention the first time you heard things because it wouldn't always go in your 'quest notes' section. BUT... they did include a handy note-pad in the game-box for you to use and had a map of the land as well. The instruction manual also had the story and information - remember, this was the early 90's.
But despite all of this, I loved the game. The puzzles were never too difficult, you had a massive world to explore, and plenty of Golem's to slay! As stated earlier, this was one half really of another big part called "Darkside of Xeen", which when loaded, links the two games together. There are some dungeons and towers in 'clouds' that you cannot access without Darkside, which made the game even cooler. While games today are far more sophisticated and are visually stunning, this old game here still provides plenty of fun. Amazing how the Might & Magic series would evolve in time!
Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen Feature
- 3-D animated roleplaying epic!
- Complete musical score!
- Dungeons, Castles, Towns, Towers, Caverns
- Dozens of quests and puzzles!
- Hundreds of animated monsters and objects!
Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen Overview
Explore a 3-D world that has fallen under the iron grip of a diabolical overlord. Create a personalized party of adventurers and journey to the four corners of your imagination as you strive to complete your mission. Throughout your explorations you will take on fantastic quests, fearsome monsters, and challenges beyond compare. When you are ready, journey to the cloud world and face the ultimate foe... Lord Xeen himself!
Available at Amazon Check Price Now!
*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 04, 2010 10:55:15
0 comments:
Post a Comment