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Name: FairyWBO

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Product:	Gauntlet Dark Legacy (GC)
Date:	26.08.03 (427 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to play, upto 4 players

Disadvantages: graphics

I had to have this game! I remember my days spent down at Southend playing Gauntlet on the arcades. Then I got hold of commodore and played it for many hours in my bed-sit..... then I borrowed my nieces PS2 version of this game and kept it way too long last Christmas, and now I seem to spend too long playing the new game on my GameCube!

I got the GameCube version mainly because there is the four player option without having to get a multitap and because it was £14.99 rather than £30 odd for the PS2 version!

Right that's the preamble out the way.. on with the game....

It is your basic run around and shoot baddies type stuff..... only with swords, bows, magic and big hammers rather than machine guns and rocket launchers as this is set in a land of fantasy! You are on a quest for a good wizard called Sumner..... who's booming voice can be heard from all over the place.... especially when you are about to die... "Red Sorceress needs food badly!"

The basic story is that years ago a evil mage called Garm unleashed a demon called Scorne, but Scorne rather than obey him trapped him in a citadel and called up all his little demons to cover the realms.

Both of these need to be banished back to the underworld, but you can only do this by doing all the tasks set you as you go along!

You need to find 13 rune stones that are hidden in the levels to reach Garm, and 8 shards of a stained glass window to get to Scorne, which you can get after you have defeated each of the 8 realm bosses!

The story sort of unfolds as you go along, but that is basically all you need to know about it! I mean, do you really need a reason to kill all these things! Its a game, not a film after all :oP

You have to start in the Forsaken Province Realm, the first level of which is a graveyard! Then it's up to you to battle your way past zombies and giant maggots and general nice stuff like that, to collect crystal
s to unlock other realms, and treasure to make you rich, and collect special items to help you fight better, and food to help you stay alive. You can only carry on to the next level once you have completed the level you are in (unless you have cheats on, but I don't do that!).

You get a choice of characters to be, in different colours! There is the basic warrior, a valkyrie, a dwarf, an archer, a wizard, a jester and my favourite, a sorceress. The clever thing is it isn't just their clothes that change colour (yellow, green, blue and of course red) their whole appearance changes, so it isn't just the same character running about with different clothes on! More characters can be unlocked as you go about, as there are hidden levels within each realm that you need to collect all the coins in to unlock them before the time runs out. And there are special codes to be unlocked to give you even more characters!

Each player starts their new character (not colour) from scratch, so if you have finished the game as the sorceress you can start again as the archer without the need to make a new save on the memory card, which I think is very good as I hate having memory cards full of bits of nothing much!

Of course each character has their own special abilities, and as your experience level goes up so do the abilities! At level 30 for example, my red sorceress got her own little bat that follows her about and shoots at baddies every time she does :o)

Also besides having the basic weapons there are power ups to found all over the place... in this the GameCube version is different from the PS2 one... there are more different ones.... I found a pumpkin that gives you a giant Jack Pumpkinhhead type thing that just stands there and a hand that points to where Death is waiting to take some health or experience levels away! Another thing that is different with GameCube power ups, is that you chose when you want to use them, on the PS2 th
ey were in use as soon as you found them and you couldn't save them for later... this is a much better idea :o)

It was a bit difficult getting used to the different controls from the PS2 to the GameCube, but I soon picked it up and if you haven't played the PS2 version then the controls are easy.

As a multiplayer game it is good the way that your special attack can turn into a double team, as this will get rid of even more baddies. The one disadvantage to playing with two or more players, is that some characters can get stuck at the bottom of the screen while another is fighting away at the top...... it just takes a bit of team work to sort out this problem, but some people just don't want to play fair as they go and nick all your treasure and food as they storm past you! :oP

It does say also that it is for 15 year olds up on the cover, as it is medium level animated violence, but in my view it isn't that gory as the graphics aren't vivid so I think it is a bit less violent than they think! And besides that my 7 year old boy loves this game, as does my 9 year old niece, but like all things it depends on the child.... I just happen to come from a family of bloodthirsty nut cases! :oP

There are also 3 different levels of difficulty to play this on. The one I pick is Easy as this means that your shots only hurt the baddies not your team mates when playing on multiplayer. Medium will stun your team mates and Hard will actually take away life from them, when you accidentally whack them again with your mace :o)

Unlike the old arcade or console version you can't shot the food.... so you don't get to hear Sumnor saying "Red Sorceress has shot the food!", which is a shame..... but you can still poison the food if you shoot a poison barrel :o)

I used to love the birds eye view of the old game as you battled through the dungeons, but the new 3-D layout and backgrounds are much easier o
n the eyes..... even if the graphics aren't that great! And you aren't just in dungeons this time, as the realms are scattered all over the place. There is 5 levels and a boss to each of the 8 realms..... then there is realm for Garm and one for Skorne.... so there is plenty to do and keep you coming back for more.

I think I have covered just about everything! Time for me to go back and slap some baddies silly I think :oP

Happy playing!

Red Sorceress aka Sarah :o)

p.s. It lost a star because of the graphics

Summary: