PoR Review at Gamehelper

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(Originally posted by Darien)

Gamehelper has posted a rather long review of The Ruins of Myth Drannor, giving the game an overall score of 4.6 out of 6.

The game itself looks decent. The characters are nicely modeled with nice animations and effects for spells. It customizes their appearance based on what armor and weapon they are carrying. The same is true for the monsters, and I am particularly fond of how the undead fall when they are killed – like a puppet with each string being cut.

The sounds are actually quite nice, and the soundtrack – in context – goes a lot farther. The voices of orcs and rattling bones of undead really heighten the mood as they should. I hope there will be more combat music, however, as at this point I have heard the same track over and over and over and I’m still very early in the game.

The boards are massive. Though the textures are nice and interesting to look at, I got the feeling they were cramming every square foot into the space, which makes navigation a bad kind of challenging. The way certain wall sections are drawn is misleading, making me think there are passages where really none exist, or that I am missing some entrance to access an area when really I have to go waaaay over to the other side of the map to access it.

The challenge level of the game is downright brutal in spots, with tedium soon after setting in. The auto-save “feature” is virtually non-existent even though I have seen evidence of its passing. You would expect an auto-save after each camp, but not so. That assumption cost me over an hour of spelunking. It appears to only auto-save at transition points between levels or areas. Boooo.

You don’t play this game for a storyline, either, though again there is evidence that one will develop. At this point in the game, Gauntlet has more going for it in this department. The descriptions of the setting come mostly in pop up text from the “DM” that you must click on in order to progress.

Read the rest here.