Darkstone
Published By: Gathering Of Developers

Reviewed by _fo0k
8/17/99

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First Impressions:

I saw an ad in PC GAMER for Darkstone about 3 weeks ago. It was the first I'd heard of it (uncommon because I work in the computer gaming industry). There were some pretty nice screenshots of various adventurers battling evil and so forth, but I've learned to take advertisements in magazines (and on game boxes) with a grain of salt these days. The last line of the ad was what pretty much instantly assured itself of me buying it to give it a try: "It will take your mind entirely off Diablo II." You'll probably snicker when you hear that I *STILL* play Diablo, to this day, nearly four years after it was released. I'm a big hack and slash fan, and my "ultimate rpg" would be a mixture of Diablo with Nethack. In other words, Diablo with MORE STUFF! Does Darkstone live up to this brash statement? Read on, in breathless anticipation, oh reader!

Graphics:

Very nice. Rating graphics is getting harder and harder now. If you stack this game up to Diablo in visuals, it would get a 9 or possibly 10, because it uses hardware acceleration and direct 3d very nicely. You are in a 100% 3d environment with a full roaming camera (zoom in or out, turn in any direction, or play with an overhead view if you prefer). This adds a GREAT new feeling of immersion to the good old fashioned dungeon crawl. I hope no TV commercial ever uses the sound of a ring drop in Diablo. I could be jaywalking the autobahn during rush hour, hear that tone, and immediately stare desperately into the screen to try and see where it landed. NO MORE! On the other hand, the characters aren't as "cool" looking. The female monk character is a skinny, goonie looking girl wearing a white tutu and carrying a club bigger than the upper half of her body. Silly stuff.

Sound:

Everything works well. I haven't seen a game in a LONG time that really drew my attention to how great it sounded. This would probably score slightly above average, except that every time I cast a flame thrower spell, when the critters crackle and pop under the flames, my speakers are overdriven slightly.

Gameplay:

Let's get this perfectly clear now. This game is more than SLIGHTLY similar to Diablo, in just about every aspect of the interface and style of play. I'll start with what they did good, and then move on to what they need to fix.

GOOD THINGS: There's a nice new selection of spells. Some are direct lifts (Magic Gate, which conveniently puts up a portal directly to town from wherever you are in the outside world) and others give a new feel to the game (invisibility, haste, slowness, fear, confusion). They've added in a skill system to further diversify the different classes (there are 4 base classes, with both male and female variants of each main class). They've added a BANK (for the love of god, why couldn't Blizzard have added this! I wonder how many millions of 5k piles of gold I left behind in Diablo because my inventory was full) and your characters need to eat food to survive. There seems to be a much broader selection of magical items, and gold is still worth something as a very high level character (There are items that cost over 450,000 gold coins, imagine the same currency value but with many many many more things to spend gold on). My wizard is now 47th level and still not capped on any of his stats, so there is a LOT of room for growth. There are also a few outdoor quests. The primary focus always seems to be on the dungeon levels, but it's still better than traveling directly from the town into the pits of hell (you actually have to walk across a few maps of wilderness to get there). There's a lot more variety to magic items and weapons, but still not even close to the feeling of unpredictability of the DEFINITIVE "rogue style" game, Nethack. I've been complaining about this for years, though.

BAD THINGS: Dungeons are not randomly generated, which is probably the biggest downfall of the game. Instead, Darkstone has a large database of quests. It randomly sticks 7 or 8 of these quests together each time you create a new game. One quest usually requires clearing four dungeon levels (about the same time investment as clearing four Diablo levels), before the final conflict with the Head Nacho (on dungeon level 33). You might be starting to pick up on a pattern to these numbers. Some of the game needs better balancing. A lot of the challenge of the game was lost once I picked up the invisibility spell. Frankly, it just makes the game too easy.

Enjoyment:

This is a very biased rating, coming from someone who thinks the game that spawned it is probably the greatest computer game of all time (top three, for sure). I am still having a blast playing this. My girlfriend is probably going to be buying a handgun very soon.

Multiplayer:

I haven't played it yet on the Internet, so I'm not sure how well it handles. Atari, Froggy and I have been playing it at home on our LAN for the last week and they are starting to get tired of it. I'm not.

Overall Impression:

The answer is simple. If you loved Diablo, you'll love Darkstone. If you didn't like it, you won't like this game, either. I shudder to think of how many times I've said DIABLO in this review, so I'll add three more. Diablo, Diablo, Diablo. I hope I'm making the point clear to you here... this game plays a LOT like Diablo. ;)

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

I scored this one fairly high as well. Women are shown to like RPGS more than action games, this title is the middle of the road on that.. It's an action rpg. There are an equal number of male and female characters to choose from, and both sexes are given dignity as heroes. I wouldn't exactly say this game was marketed FOR females, but there wasn't anything I saw that would immediately push them away from this title.

Cheats, Hints & URLs:

In the market for a great cheat book? We highly recommend Prima's Official Strategy Guide. Usually ships within 24 hours.

Also take a look at Darkstone Revealed, a website dedicated to the Darkstone game.