Warriors of Might and Magic

3DO Europe £29.99 PlayStation Out Now

You are Alleron, Captain of the Guard and you stand accused of Necromancy (dark witchcraft). After having the painful Mask of the Accused put on you, you are thrown into the Pit of the Accused to begin a journey of redemption. A woman onlooker (Daria) is relieved to see you thrown in.

3DO's third person action adventure, WMM, also has RPG elements that become apparent through character development. One of the icons on screen is Alleron's experience bar and as the game progresses, not only does the character's level increase but also his skill and competence in using the weapons and spells that he collects throughout the game.

The monsters and enemies found in the levels increase with difficulty as you travel through the Pit. Stone gateways located around each level, allow the monsters to teleport into that level, so it's in your best interest to destroy these gateways as quickly as possible. There's a boss at the end of each level and in order to defeat the boss, you must have all the new weapons and spells that can be found on that level. Look thoroughly and use the teleporters!

To use the teleporters, you have to collect purple orbs and you get these from slashing your way through all those monsters. The teleporters take you to temples where you collect new spells and weapons and of course defeat a few more monsters.

Don't worry about having to play over and over again until you've figured out how to defeat each monster because WMM has numerous save game portals. However, some are not obvious as there are hidden areas to discover. But before attempting to defeat the boss, remember to save your game as there is always a portal nearby. If you do die, there's no long and tedious reload time, it automatically brings you back to the last save game portal. This is a great feature as I particularly dislike waiting around.

All the way through the levels you collect red health points and blue mana to increase your magical abilities. These are indicated by a circle on the top right of the screen. The inside of the circle also indicates which spell is currently selected. Fantastically these health and mana points do not disappear if you don't collect them, so you can always backtrack a little to get that extra boost of power! Keys and gems are also collected along the way to open chests and doors.

The graphics are much better than Crusaders of Might and Magic, there are some stunning special effects for attack moves and the whole game is brighter, not at all dark and dingy. The graphical quality is really amazing considering that this has been produced for a game machine that is nearly 6 years old! You won't find that on a 6 year old PC. You can also alter the camera angles yourself with the L2 and R2 buttons, which means no more dodgy view points. This ability will help you locate those hidden areas.

Only 2 memory blocks are used to save the game and this is excellent for today's standard of almost filling a whole memory card!

Control in WMM is very smooth, the buttons on the gamepad are used extremely well, you can alter camera angles, switch spells and weapons, fight and jump as well as moving Alleron around. It doesn't feel as though you could use a spare hand!

Warriors of Might and Magic is a very playable and enjoyable game. The introduction does give the game a good mystical setting but it also gives the impression of being quite bloodthirsty, but I didn't find that in the game itself. Yes, Alleron does bleed if he gets injured but not to extremes.

Unfortunately for deaf gamers, there are no subtitles to be found in the introductory cut scene. But the small paragraph at the start of this review does outline the content of the cut scene. Thankfully, instructions throughout the game do appear as text on the screen. This is a little confusing though, why not put subtitles in the cut scenes if 3DO are willing to use them in the game?
I would definately recommend WMM to all those who like this style of game, it's easy to get into to, has a very simple control system and is good fun to play. You'll come back to it again and again.

Overall Game Rating: 8.5/10

Quality of text: 6/10 No subtitles in the introductory cut scene puts the deaf gamer at an immediate disadvantage. The rest of the game has very sparse instructions, which are subtitled.

Graphics: 9/10 Excellent attack graphics with an overall improvement in quality.

Interface: 10/10 Quick to understand and simple to use and yet you can still do everything that you want.

Gameplay: 9/10 Easy to pick up and play for that quick half an hour, so much so that you WILL finish Warriors of Might and Magic.