Wizardry 8

Wizardry is a lot like Ultima. Both series have a legacy that goes back 20 years. Both have at one time or another innovated the entire face of gaming (some credit Wizardry 1 with featuring the very first first-person interface in a computer game). Both have legendary names attached to them (Richard Garriott, D.W. Bradley). Both made us wait a long time for what is probably their final installment.

Wizardry differs from Ultima in one critical way. Wizardry 8, the probable last stand of the series, is a lot better than Ultima�s swan song, Ascension. That said, all is not roses.

Wizardry 8 is a first person RPG that will take you right back to the hours you spent in the dungeons of Ultima Underworld or Dungeon Master. This game was a long time coming, and it barely got released as Sir-Tech and Sir-Tech Canada folded, which is why this is probably the last hurrah. Although it just made it to release, the game is pretty stable. I had no crashing or performance problems. Give credit to Sir-Tech for releasing a polished game under extreme pressure to get it out as soon as possible.

The graphics are well behind other first-person games, even other first-person games that don't put a heavy emphasis on graphics. Still, you can tell what's going on at least, and the graphics do have their moments. Creature design is very nice, and battle damage is reflected on them--blood and scars and bruises cover bodies after a long scrum. I particularly like how the how the human opponents get roughed up--when they're near death, they look like somebody who might have asked Mike Tyson what the &*^# he's looking at. There are lots of spell and weapon effects, which run the gamut from bad to good.

The game has some wonderful audio, which helps provide a lot of the atmosphere the graphics miss. There are all kinds of different monster roars, and some of them really give the impression that you're about to take a trip through the digestive tract of some mythical beast, how tough you are be damned. Character generation actually allows you to choose a voice for your character, and they will say things in reaction to the various things that happen (hitting a monster, getting hit, finding a hidden object, etc). These voices, for the most part, are pretty good.

The RPG engine and the game's overall approach are very "old school," a phrase which I hate, but for some reason I find myself using anyway. How old school? When you talk to the NPCs, in addition to asking them about places and people from a menu, there's a typing interface so you can talk about specific topics.

You can generate a character for each of the six slots in your party, and you can recruit two more in game. For those of you who have the faith and patience of a monk, the game will allow you to import your old characters from Wizardry VII and Gold. I have to confess that I didn't have old characters, and neither did any of my pals, so I couldn't test the effectiveness of this. However, if you are a person who has your original Wizardry VII characters stored, you should be saluted on general principle alone.

You can create characters for your starting party, or you can pick from some pregenerated ones. Character generation is pretty thorough, though it should be noted that the game is a little more traditional than more recent open-ended RPGs--you pick a class and profession at the outset. Not that there's anything wrong with this, and besides, you can change your profession in-game when you level up, if you wish. There are 15 classes and they cover some traditional and non-traditional RPG types--Rangers, Fighters, Alchemists, and Gadgeteers. Yep, Gadgeteers. Technology exists in this game, a little like Arcanum.

Combat gives you a choice of a turn-based variety similar to other Wizardry games, and that old classic Betrayal at Krondor. Each round you chose targets or actions (take a swing at monster, cast a spell, equip an item) and then you end the round. You execute your moves, hopefully successfully, and then the monsters make their moves. You play it out round by round until one side is left standing.

Wizardry 8 is a very combat-heavy game. To some extent I like that because I am masochist at heart, and the game gets challenging very fast. Even at the start, the monsters aren't all that wussy, and what's more, the game ain't afraid to hit you with a lot of them. Like more than a dozen. There's a little radar on your interface to indicate the position of nearby items and monsters, and there are times it was so covered in red dots I thought I was flying a Spitfire over a German airfield. You must have patience for this sort of thing, because there is a lot of combat, and it takes time to play things out round by round. There is a quicker "continuous" mode, but I preferred the total control of the turn-based mode.

It's been a long time since I did an old school (ugh, that phrase again) hack n' slash romp, and it felt good. However, Wizardry has problems in its interface. There's a lot you can do in this game, and even relatively straightforward things such as picking locks and disarming traps is more complex than usual. There's nothing wrong with that, but sometimes the interface just isn't smooth, and I feel like a few clicks and menus could be taken out or combined. Even veterans can't get the full grasp of play by experimentation--you'll be reading the manual for some parts. Here's where old school isn't a good thing, as it feels like a sophisticated 1993 RPG interface, before developers got really good at streamlining them.

Here are two examples which, though relatively small, illustrate what I'm talking about. Normally in a PC game, hitting Escape brings up the options menu. In Wizardry 8, it simply brings up the option to quit or not. Not save, not the audio options, these things are reserved for another screen. Second, the arrow keys are your default movement controls, not WASD. These things did not cause me hours of lost gameplay and they did not melt down my computer, but the WASD thing is so basic that it gives you an idea of what era the game is living in.

My other big beef with Wizardry 8 is that it feels like they could have used some more imagination. You're landing on another planet here. Think of the opportunities for bizarre cultures and monsters! But the world of Dominus seems too much like any other RPG world. And it takes a long time to find someone to talk to. Those of you who like the social interaction aspect of RPGs will be disappointed.

However, there are things about Wizardry 8 that you probably would add to your shopping cart when putting together the ultimate RPG. Virtually everything your characters do causes them to learn. Casting a spell, surviving a fight, even dropping something into your inventory can make a character better at a certain skill.

The game also gives you more than your standard RPG races--there's a race of cat-like creatures you can play, Lizardmen, and even a half-human, half-dragon breed. Wizardry has been at this sort of thing for awhile, but even most modern super-sexy RPGs don't stray too far from traditional races.

Wizardry 8 is a decent, if unspectacular first person hack n' slash. It doesn't have the ease of use and richness of a Baldur's Gate, but it's a nice reminder of where CRPGs came from. More recent RPG fans might not see the charm. If you were one of the ones that sobbed every time Return to Krondor was delayed, you'll go through Wizardry like an adult going through their childhood home. In some ways, it's a piece of living history.

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