Great balls of fire! (Eye of the Beholder 2)

Member Name: quirky

Product:	Eye of the Beholder 2
Date:	02/09/01 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Atmospheric locations, really engrossing, giant levels with loads to do

Disadvantages: Massive loading times, disk swapping a-go-go, rubbish baddie animation

Subtitled "The Legend of Darkmoon", Eye of the Beholder 2 doesn't try to hide its roots in the geekiest hobby in the world: Dungeons & Dragons. Luckily, that doesn't stop it from being a high-quality role-playing adventure.

Gameplay-wise it's almost identical to its predecessor (can you guess what that was called?) but the big important changes here are in plot and atmosphere.

Quite night in
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After loading the first of 4 disks, the game opens with a rather odd cut scene. Apparently you were settling in for a night by the fire before having a message given to you from a mate of yours, the suitably named magician "Khelben Blackstaff".

Kehlben has a much better fireplace than you, so you pop round to see him. He explains that the city is in danger and that a big old pile of trouble is brewing in a nearby temple. A pupil of his has gone missing after he sent her to scope the temple out, now he wants you to go and rescue her. Quite why he can't do this himself is never explained, but before you can argue he teleports you nearby, and the adventure begins.

Party on
~~~~~~~~~

The first thing to do after starting the game (and swapping a few disks - this really was the bane of later Amiga games) is create your party of 4 heroes. This is pretty good and you can waste a fair bit of time on this bit alone.

You choose each members race and gender, pick a suitable mug shot, edit their stats and give them a comedy name. Of course, if you had played through the first game, you could "import" your battle-hardened team into EOB2. A good feature, as they kept any treasure and gadgets that had been found in EOB1.

And so your team of four intrepid explorers find themselves in the woods outside Temple Darkmoon. This is a bit of a departure from EOB1 already; that game was set entirely underground. It doesn't last long though, as soon you are
inside the temple and there are no more outdoorsey bits.

Windows 91
~~~~~~~~~~~

Your view of the game world is given by a window about one third of the screen big. The rest of the screen contains the characters portraits, what they are currently holding, the compass, arrows for controlling movement and a 3-line text box for displaying in game messages. The mouse controls a pointer on screen and you can click on things in the main window to pick them up, click on your team's faces to view their inventory and other useful things.

Temple Darkmoon is labyrinthesque in design; it's very easy to get lost if you don't pay attention. I found it far simpler to move about using the keyboard, as then I didn't have to concentrate on clicking the correct movement arrow.

Disney animation it ain't
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Almost immediately after starting the game, you are attacked by a load of wolves in the woods. A furious battle ensues... well, you have to suspend your disbelief somewhat for this bit. What actually happens is you click on your characters weapons with the right mouse button and a load of numbers appear. This corresponds to "damage" on each wolf.

Meanwhile the wolves attack in juddery 3 frame movements, and red splodges with numbers in appear below your characters names. This is the damage they are taking. After a while the wolf flashes white and disappears. The battle is won! Hurrah!

Although hardly in the same league as modern RPGs, the fights start off fairly simple, but later require a fair deal of tactics. The wolves are a piece of cake compared to some of the later foes, which will attack with swords, tentacles and magic fireballs. All good stuff, if a bit hackneyed.

The Best Bits
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By far the best bit of this game is the atmosphere. The designers have gone to some length to draw you into the world of orcs and magician
s. Whilst exploring the levels you will encounter many non-player characters who might want to join your team, or kick seven shades out of them. Either way they often have something interesting to say. Well, interesting within the context of the game.

Your team too have much to say, describing their surroundings to you, or giving hints as to how to solve some of the puzzles. This makes them more than just a statistic; you really start to worry when Dave the Dwarf's health falls to just 7, as he is usually so helpful around traps. Yikes!

Another Good Bit is the plot, which develops well. Rarely are there huge bits of dull exploring with nothing much happening and this is credit to the level designers. Maps are well laid out and the pace is just about right.

Some Nintendo-like design ethos has been used too - there are certain bits of some levels that you can't access until you have a certain power or item. This means that the levels sometimes seem small, but after getting a new item, they reveal themselves to be massive. Very "Legend of Zelda".


The not so good bits
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The graphics are really good for an Amiga game - the mazes, temple and monsters all look the part. If you are going to be staring at a load of slime coloured walls for hours, at least it's nice to know they are drawn well. It's just a shame that the baddies only have a few animation frames. Still, graphics aren't what it's about, solving the temples many traps and puzzles is.

Sound is similarly disappointing, consisting of just a few squeaks and bloops when you fight. I must say though that the stone-door-scraping-open sound is fantastic. Good job too, it's used a lot. Every puzzle seems to involve some door somewhere slowly opening.

Loading times, as already mentioned, are the games biggest flaw. The designers have tried to minimise this, by keeping levels together sequent
ially on a disk. Sadly there are core files on different disks, so you have to swap every time you leave a level. I had mixed feelings on seeing the level exit stairs - it meant I had finished the level (yay!) but it meant an awful wait while the next one loaded (boo!)

I have 2 disk drives for my Amiga too, so the problem must be unbearable with just the single drive machines. The loading only occurs at the end of each level though, so they don't really ruin the flow of the game. If you are one of the few Amiga owners that has a hard drive then I imagine it would be a dream.

And finally...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I really love this game. I played through the first Eye Of The Beholder and when I finished it I wanted more of the same. This is exactly what this game is. It hardly changes the idea, save for a few more character interactions, but adds more of everything. More levels, more weapons, more magic spells and more puzzles. This game is definitely worth spending more than a few nights in by the fire for.

Summary: