I’m a die-hard adventure gamer with a dash of wanderlust. I’m interested
in the best other game genres have to offer. I’ve wondered about role-playing
games for some time. The only game even arguably in that category that I’ve played
is the original System Shock, and that was a hybrid of three genres (action,
adventure, and role-playing).

I’ve always heard that Lands of Lore: Throne
of Chaos was a great RPG for adventure game fans to try, so a couple of weeks
ago I screwed up my courage, downloaded the patch, and installed the 1993 revised
CD version of this famous game.

Let me emphasize that this is a review of
LOL as an adventure player. I am by no means an RPG expert. Quite the opposite,
in fact.

For those of you who are RPG virgins like me, let me explain just
a bit of what I’ve learned. Unlike adventure games in which you play a set character,
in an RPG you get to choose and develop one or more characters. These characters
can develop new abilities through experience or puzzle-solving.

Combat in
an RPG can either be “turn-based” (based, I believe, on the old Dungeons
and Dragons games dice-rolling and probability methods) or “real time.”
Lands of Lore is in the real-time category, meaning you’re thwacking away
at the bad guys as they’re flaying away at you.

Like adventures, RPGs can
be either first- or third-person. LOL is first-person, which of course
appealed to me.

This is a DOS game with graphics that are attractive without
being noteworthy. The game begins with a promising little movie that sets up the
plot. Scotia, an evil sorceress, has discovered an artifact that will allow her
to change her shape at will, rendering her an immediate threat to the kingdom.
King Richard of Gladstone (voice by Patrick Stewart) calls for a champion to take
up the cause. As the player, you have the choice of four different characters
to choose from. Each has different abilities in the areas of strength, magical
powers, and “rogue” skills (including lock-picking and using bow weapons).
I chose Conrad, the most well-rounded of the four.

Richard gives you your
marching orders, and you’re off! Into the woods of Gladstone to rescue a friend
of the King. Very soon into your quest, King Richard is felled by a mysterious
illness, put in a magical stasis by his court, and then stolen and imprisoned
by Scotia (yes, it was an exceptionally bad day for the poor guy). Your goals
during this game are to come up with a potion to cure the king, rescue him, and
destroy Scotia.

Right off the bat you’re attacked by wild pigs and marauding
bad guys in the forest. Oh, great, combat, I thought. Combat doesn’t usually do
it for me in games. I’m just not that interested in whether I can shoot or not.

However,
in an RPG like LOL, there’s more of a point to combat. Through successful
combat you strive to improve your ratings in the three skill areas. After a certain
amount of progress is made, your character goes up a level, and his skills become
that much more effective.

This added a whole new spin to the combat thing
for me. It gave it a real purpose! I lived to see my skill level indicator creep
up, up, ever closer to the next level. I cheered whenever the game congratulated
me for reaching a new level of magic or fighting or whatever.

It’s a good
thing I found a certain satisfaction in this fighting, because it made up at least
90% of the gameplay of LOL. Sure, there are puzzles and cutscenes. There
are vast areas to explore, characters to meet, subquests to fulfill, etc. But
mostly it’s figuring out ways to cut down the bad guys before they kill you.

Along
the way you make friends who become companions on your quests. In other words,
you end up fighting as a party, not an individual. This adds interest to the game,
as you decide which weapons, armor, and gadgets to supply each character with.

As
I said, this is a gigantic game, one of the longest I’ve ever played. If you get
sent into a cave, it’s not just a cave, it’s a four-level booby-trapped, monster-infested
labyrinth, each level about the size of Rhode Island. If you get sent into the
swamp, ditto.

This causes the game, for me, to become quite repetitive.
The structure of the gameplay never changed: it’s always work your way through
a maze (with automapping, thank you Westwood Studios), getting ready to kill the
scary things that are probably around the corner. Only the scenery changes: we’re
in a forest maze, now we’re in a cave maze, now a mine maze, now a swamp maze,
now a castle maze, etc.

I guess I didn’t find it too tedious, because
I never stopped playing over a period of about fifteen days. I did long for more
puzzles to solve or more character interaction, however.

The game has a
serious flaw near the very end that I must mention. To solve the final three puzzles
that end the game, four artifacts are needed, one of which is behind a locked
door that you have to pick open. Unfortunately, it turns out that this particular
lock can only be picked by a character with a certain (high) “rogue”
skill level. If you’ve reached this point in the game without achieving that level–as
I did–you are in serious trouble. I almost had to give up on the game. Finally,
after several brutal hours of fighting the toughest monsters in the game with
a prissy little crossbow in a desperate attempt to upgrade my “rogue”
rating, I managed to do it … but I almost had to call 911.

I’m glad I
played Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos, and I’m interested in playing its
sequel, Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny. I also think I’ll give Betrayal
at Krondor, Baldur’s Gate, Fallout, and Planescape: Torment a try.
Wonder if I’ll be able to handle the combat in those games?

I know LOL
isn’t representative of all RPG games, and I suspect that character building
and development in later RPG titles becomes much more complex and interesting
than the three simple qualities used in LOL. But this game did whet my
appetite to learn more about this ever-popular genre. I recommend it to my adventurous
friends.

Final Grade: B

System Requirements:
IBM or 100% compatible 386SX/33MHz or better
Windows 3.1 or better/MS-DOS
5.0 or higher
4 MB RAM (3 MB XMS or EMS)
VGA/MCGA graphics
5 MB hard
drive space
CD-ROM drive
MSCDES 2.2 or higher
Microsoft compatible
mouse and mouse driver
SoundBlaster-compatible sound card
General MIDI