Die By The Sword on PC

• Windows 95
• Pentium PC 100 Mhz (166 Mhz)
• 16Mb RAM (32Mb RAM)
• Quad-speed CD-ROM Drive
• DirectX 5.0 (included on CD)
• 120Mb Hard Drive space (300 or 560 Mb)
• 100% Microsoft Mouse or compatible
• DirectX-certified Sound/Video cards

Die By The Swordputs you in control of Enric, a heroic adventurer whosetrue love, Maya, is captured by evil Kobolds. These are just the first of manyenemies Enric will come across in his quest to get her back. Others includeOrc masters and even a giant octopus amongst terrain which includes dwarfmines, bubbling lava and treacherous underground rivers down which you’ll needto control your raft. You can just jump off these and head for shore, but thenEnric’s not a very good swimmer…

Playing the Game

There are different ways to play this game :

Tutorial

This helps you get used to the control system and to learn the fightingtechniques involved without the pressure of combat and with text and verbalinstruction throughout.

Arena

This allows you to hone your skills since you can choose which type of opponent- and how many of them at once – you wish to fight against, as well as choosingone of several arenas to fight in. It also gives you another chance to hack thebody parts of your enemies. In addition to fighting as Enric, you can alsochoose to fight as one of the enemies themselves.

Tournament

This is an extension of the arena idea. Level upon level of bad guys anddifferent arenas await you, each of which is more challenging than the lastand there are some which seem downright impossible when you get a mix of orcsand kobolds, both of which require different techniques to be killed. Thisisn’t very easy when they’re all coming at you at once.

This and the arena part of the game reminds me of a Virtua Fighter-typegame, but with swords, which adds an extra element to the overall package. Ifyou ever get stuck during the Quest and want a breather from it, this servesas the perfect alternative.

Quest

And so to the main game itself. Beginning in a series of caves, you’ll gothrough each scenario which contains kobolds initially but soon progresses tomore evil characters, a brief list of which follows :

After killing the enemies with a series of sword swipes you can choose torummage amongst their bodies hunting for food, or just hack the corpse topieces!

As you make your way to the next area you’ll notice that you can’t save the gamewherever you like, but it will auto-save at certain points, usually inbetweeneach fight.

For the more strategic player, there is a battle mode called VSIMwhich makes full use of the right-hand numeric keypad for controlling thesword movement. There is also a ‘move editor’ which allows the user to createcustoms moves for any of the Arena-playable characters.

Options

Graphics, Sound and Playability

I played this game with a 3Dfx card and the look of the characters andsurroundings cannot be faulted. Even as you walk along to your next battle,various shrubbery and plants come into close-up view with the camera followingEnric, since the game is played in third-person view. In a lot of other games,you’d expect such items to be sparsely detailed as they are rarely seen inclose-up. However, this is not the case here as they appear just as detailedin either case.

If I had a gripe though, it’s that the camera viewing Enric in third-personsometimes has to swing about more than you’d like as more enemies come intoview. As a result, sometimes battles will be viewed from behind the enemy ratherthan Enric, all of which does take a bit of getting used to, hence the slightlylower score for playability.

For the sound, there’s plenty to shout about as battles provide some meatythumps as you wave your sword about in the vicinity of the enemy. As you fightagainst some higher-level characters, if you’re winning Enric will shout inBrian Blessed-like tones, “You fight like a Kobold!”, but if you’re losingbadly, after another swipe (or if you’re unfortunate enough to lose a limb!),he’ll similarly-shout “Bloody hell!”

The background music which plays from the CD is also excellent, providing theperfect atmosphere, sometimes with quiet ambience and at other times buildinginto a crescendo as you engage in battle. Finally, another sound worth repeatingis the bone-crunching (literally) sound as you hack a corpse into pieces, justfor fun of course (!)

Overall

The Quest game can get a bit repetitive as you go from scene to scene killingmore and more of the same enemies and is also quite hard if not played on theeasiest skill level (Squire). Hence the tournament section lengthens theinterest in the game.

Overall, the Quest game came across initially as a medieval Tomb Raiderwith swords but the more I played it, the more it reminded me of a 3D versionof an old ZX Spectrum classic Fist II, the sequel to the fighting hitWay Of The Exploding Fist, in which you progressed from one scene tothe next battling a series of enemies along the way.

GRAPHICS : ****SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC: ****PLAYABILITY: ***ORIGINALITY : ****ENJOYMENT : ***——————————-OVERALL : ***½

If you’re after some more info on Interplay’s games, check out the officialWebsite atwww.interplay.com

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1998.