WIZARDRY: BANE OF THE COSMIC FORGE (IBM VERSION NOTES)

 "The Cosmic Forge" in the title of this game is a pen that has the strange
ability of turning its writings into reality but in a twisted sort of way.
You and your party find yourselves locked in the strange castle of the evil
king who had last stolen the cosmic forge for his evil purposes. Your job is
to develop your characters, unlock the secrets of the castle and surrounding
areas and finally unravel the surprisingly complex relationship of the
various principle characters in the story.

 Even though it carries the WIZARDRY moniker, this game looks and plays very
differently when compared to previous games in the series. While retaining
the first person 3-D perspective, it now features full color graphics and
digitized sounds as well as detailed monster animation and special visual
effects for spell-casting.

 The WIZARDRY series has always excelled in its character development system.
It is so well tuned and balanced that the player actually feels that the
characters grow and mature as he progresses in the game. BANE carries this
excellent trait to new heights. The game features 11 races and 14
professions, each having its own unique combination of strength, weakness,
and special abilities. As the player goes through the game and nurtures his
party to attain higher levels and greater powers, he can't help but to
develop strong feelings of attachment to his characters and hence the game.

 In the IBM-PC version, the graphics support VGA (16 color only), EGA, CGA,
and Hercules. The game also features fully digitized sound effects through
the PC speaker. The early version of the game must be installed on a hard
disk to play. The latest version allows play on a floppy drive and has mouse
and sound board supports. Both 5.25" and 3.5" disks are included in the game
box. The manual is clearly written and well illustrated.

 On the negative side, I agree with some of the comments in the basic review
(WIZBAN.REV). The dungeon tiles need to be more varied to reflect changes in
geography. The digitized sounds and animations really slow down combat
sequences. (You can opt to play with the sound off but there is no way to
turn off the monster animations.) And the copy protection is very offensive.
(It's a booklet of black on dark purple icon/magic word look-up tables.)

 All in all, the positive aspects of the game far outweigh the negative. BANE
has a wonderful story which develops nicely as the player gets further into
the game. There are some rather complex but fair puzzles that need to be
solved. Combat is interesting and nicely balanced. This is a game I highly
recommend to all role-playing game players. And the best part is that a
sequel is being readied as this is written and I, for one, cannot wait to get
my hands on it.

 WIZARDRY: BANE OF THE COSMIC FORGE is published and distributed by Sir-Tech
Software.