💾 Archived View for mirrors.apple2.org.za › archive › www.textfiles.com › apple › REVIEWS › wizards.… captured on 2023-01-29 at 12:02:16.
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Summary: In the 21st century in the desert of Nevada, your band of Desert Rangers must track down the disturbances that seem to be coming from robots in this futuristic RPG. Plot: there's a lot of hyperbole in this game, which offsets the supposed seriousness of the holocaust. Yeah, the Earth's in bad shape after World War II, the Drug Wars of the '90s(heh), fake monks parade the Guardian's Citadel with automatic weapons, etc., but that doesn't mean technology has destroyed our ability to have a good laugh. One of your easiest tasks is to kill Harry the Bunny Master and his pets that have been ravaging a farm. On the way you can pick up NPC's(or kill them, if you're sadistic). But you'd better avoid radioactive ground. You can get stuck on stage at a club or swim in a pool to improve your swimming. And there are many different robot monsters to fight. There are also a few interesting touches, like nationality of your character(Russian/US/Mexico/China. Don't worry. This is P.C. Race doesn't affect your attributes!) There are bums aplenty, ready to give advice--some only when sober, some only when drunk. Oh, and you can use explosives. Lots of 'em. You'll need to, on some doors. TNT, RPG-7's. Just hope they don't backfire. Graphics: Grid-based. people are rather badly drawn, but the text(which comes in paragraphs and contains some very funny parts--especially the ones you can't ever access) is the real highlight of this game. The pictures of monsters you are combatting are interesting, as are the pictures of store owners when you enter--different nationalities are drawn well--but that's about it. Lousy graphics keep this game from being a ten. Sound: machine-gun noises when you "empty a clip" in combat, along with bugle noises when you radio in to base and(hopefully) get promoted, are your best bets. Controls: you can move around with IJKM and disband your party(especially during combat, to distract monsters), and there's always a challenge to build up new skills. You often want to keep track of your paty's health--if you get diseased or radiated, you can go unconscious and possibly get into serious condition--which leads to death. In this RPG, death actually is final, because there ain't no resurrection spells in the twenty-first century, and if there were, you couldn't spare the magic points. You can radio in for promotions(adds two hit points and skill points) as often as you'd like. There are also a lot of neat futuristic weapons, like AK-97's and even the obligatory energy rifles(these have energy packs for ammo--all guns need ammo and can get jammed, too, so you need to watch out!) There's even Power Armor to help stop such rifles from doing too much damage. Replayability: a lot. You can even re-solve the game with the same players. It's possible to avoid a lot of puzzles and still make out okay or just to bull your way through them and things can work out. However, there's no real logic to solving the last puzzle, which is irritating. But the main part of the game is its humor. Without it, the game would probably be saddled with a social message. With it, the all the puzzles are vibrant and fun to solve. Hey, even the hint book(which I bought to solve the final puzzle) was a barrel of laughs. Which is a message and statement on RPG's themselves. Reviewer's Score: 9 / 10