Genre: RPGDeveloper: Strategic Simulations, Inc.Year: 1993
Rating: 0.00 / 10.00
(based on 0 votes)
[ Download not available ]
In my opinion, here's the best series of D&D-related; CRPGs from the early nineties, even better than both the very successful and fun Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance series. Dark Sun had only two games (Shattered lands and Wake of the ravager), but they were major epics, with great graphics and music, functional gameplay, addictive storyline, .... what more can I say? The only problem (a big one too) was that both had been released with an amazing amount of irritating bugs. Even so, I played Shattered lands to the end two or three times.
Anyone who played AD&D; will be familiar with the classes, races, the dozens of spells available, everything. In fact the game is quite accurate in terms of AD&D; rules.
Gameplay is as sweet as possible. Point-and-click, drag-and-drop, a few shortcuts, easy to navigate character screens, still following the complex systems of spell memorizing and multiclassing. You can use a pre-generated party, or create characters from scratch, with a lot of freedom. Not much to tell.
The story here is as follows: your party is a group of slaves in the city of Draj, set to fight as gladiators in the arena. It might not seem too original to start with, but your first mission is to escape, and that's gonna be tough! Only after a few bloody presentations will you be prepared to fight your way out, or resist the world out there if you slip out when no one's looking. This is Dark Sun baby, no reward is better than survival. Once you're out, you slowly get in the middle of an epic plot to keep alive. I won't spoil it, but be ready for a 60+ hours game, specially if you're up to all optional quests.
Overall, I love this game. Too bad it was released with so many bugs, but worry not, our package features the patched up 1.1 version. It *still* has bugs, but you can still complete it without too much trouble (except for the final combat, which is ridiculously hard). Save often and find freedom, gladiator!
