If anyone asks me I say "I don't play games, on my computer" but this one got me hooked quite quickly. I watched my children playing this and one day sitting here decided to have a go, it took me ages to work out what I was doing, although I soon managed to run around the beautiful world and kill the odd baddie monster.


This game is classed as a role play game/Adventure. It is so easy to navigate, but difficult to stay alive until the end.

At the begining you choose what you want your character to look like, and press next. Off you go.

Your character finds him/herself in a clearing with very little in the way of armour, weapons or money, to move them around you click the mouse on a spot and off they go. They can be set to move freely also. They will attack any monsters and collect any bounty that are dropped when these monsters die. This is the way that you get better armour, weapons and gold to buy even better things. There are also spells to collect or buy when you reach a shop.

As you fight and collect bounty, you gain:

STRENGTH
DEXTERITY
INTELLIGENCE

As you collect more powerful weapons and spells you can use them as your skills increase.

There are four different skills you can develop. You can switch from one to another thus increasing your skills in more than one area.

Melee Skill:
Using sword and axes you can develop you skill until you become a fighter.

Ranged Skill:
Using bows and arrows you increase your skill and become an archer

Nature Magic Skill:
My favourite, you start as an apprentice and can end up as a Nature Mage, casting the most powerful and beautiful spells.

Combat Magic Skill:
You increas your skill and can end the game as a Combat Mage.

So here you are, running around, killing all these monsters and gaining power and wealth along the way. There are also a series of quests to complete. And people to talk to on the way, some of them are shopkeepers, some of them ask you to find things or deliver things for them and some of them want to join you in your fight to free their land. Some of them just give you directions and are helpful.


The graphics for this game are truely beautiful, more like watching a film than a computer game, some of the scenery is stunning and you feel as if you are there looking up at the trees or down into a great canyon. There are different weather conditions as well, I really got a surprise the first time it started to rain on my character and the snow landscapes are lovely.

At the bottom right of the screen there are buttons that show you a map of the game, this unfolds as you progress, so you can check where you are and look to see if you really are lost or if you are just going round in circles. The map is very helpful to follow when in the dungeons to see which parts you have been along rather than randomly search and not know whether you have been in a particular spot before or not.
There are also buttons to change the way your characters act or where they stand in order to get the best fighting stance.

You can buy a donkey who will carry your excess weapons and armour, he/she will fight although you need to keep an eye on him because he isn't that strong, as time goes by the donkey increases in strength. This way you can carry loads of spare weapons so that as you gain strength you can switch to better ones, also you can sell your spares when you arrive at a shop. You also collect mana and health vials which you can use to top up your health and mana. You use health every time you get hit by monsters weapons and you use mana every time you cast a spell.

I don't want to go into too much detail of the gameplay and what to do and where to go because it would ruin it if you knew what it was all about. But the whole idea is to free the land of wickedness and let good rule, which is something we can all relate to. Like any game it is pure fantasy, but a most enjoyable way to waste time.

There is background music and sounds of fighting and casting spells which can make you lose yourself in the game entirely.These are controllable in the settings, turning the sounds up or down, having louder music or shooting sounds. There is also settings used to make it less real for if youngsters are playing, like turning the blood green instead of a realistic red or not showing blood at all.
Other settings give more complex graphics depending on what sort of card your computer has.
If you play the game for hours on end then sometimes it does freeze up but most of the time on my 1900+AMD Athlon running Windows XP it works fine.


Find below the official website, which will tell you all about it and includes a downloadable demo to try for anyone not sure whether they would get their moneys' worth or not.

http://www.gaspowered.com/dsloa/

You can travel alone or with the people you meet on the way. I travelled with three others and we kept to our specialised skills so gaining power and complimenting each other. I now have a hankering to try again and travel alone. I am told this can be done but it is very much more difficult.

Prices for this game were £34.00 but probably now you could buy one on Ebay for a lot less.


Thanks for reading