Classic Game For Free (The Lords of Midnight (PC))

Member Name: DavidJWest

Product:	The Lords of Midnight (PC)
Date:	13/04/02 (252 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Atmosphere, Depth, Story

Disadvantages: Addiction

Midnight is a fantasy realm where wizards, dragons and trolls come to life. Added into this medieval land are two warring factions, the Free Lords of the South versus the evil hordes of Doomdark in the North.

I first played this epic game way back in 1984 when it first came out on the ZX Spectrum. Happily it has stood the test of time and is now available to download, free of charge on the internet. I think it is the best game I ever played simply as I still play it today, not bad 18 years later! The official website for it is www.icemark.com

The Lords of Midnight is an epic game in every respect. It is a wargame which incorporates a strong element of adventure game, as you explore the lands of Midnight and learn your way around. Add to that hint of role playing game with strategy you can see that the game has quite wide appeal for what is in essence a wargame.

Anyone who has read fantasy books will be familiar with the plot, it isn't exactly original, you can see that the programmer Mike Singleton has been influence by Tolkien which isn't a bad thing in my book! The plot is that the evil Doomdark has begun an invasion of the southern lands of Midnight, held by the Free peoples.

It is the classic story of hordes of bad guys trying to wipe out the peace loving and heavily outnumbered good guys. The added twist comes as you control the heroic Luxor the Moonprice and his secret weapon, the Moonring. With this ring Luxor can see the world through the eyes of his recruits and move them at will, it makes the game more believable as you directly control Luxor and the men he recruits.

The entire game is played from a first person perspective, immersing you in the goings on in the land of Midnight.

Recruiting other Lords and characters is the key to the game. At the start you have just four characters, none of which have an army. Pretty tough to win when you consider there are 100,000 or so enemy troops. The
initial aim, once you have explored the map which takes several games to do, is to try to put up some kind of defence against the northern invaders.

Sending your leaders across the map trying to recruit as many of the Free lords as possible is the best way to do this. There are also other characters who will aid you, the Fey being most notable. The Fey are like Tolkiens Elves (Elfs), woodland dwellers who are rather reticent and hard to recruit, but put up a good fight against the Doomdarks forces if you do.

LOM was a revolutionary game in that it introduced the concept of landscaping. This meant that while you walked around the lands you saw the scenery from the perspective of the characters involved. Rather than having some kind of birds eye or map view you were stuck at ground level as it were. If you wanted to know what lay beyond that range of mountains or deep within a forest you had to walk or ride there and see for yourself! If you saw an army on the horizon you had to walk to see who it was, friend or foe. The new version, rewritten for the PC does include a map but diehard fans don't bother with such niceties, the graphics have also been brought up to date.

You can see moutain ranges rising in the distance and great forests carpeting the lands. Hills are dotted around the landscape and evidence of man is there in the form of villages, keeps and great citadels.

Of course while you are moving around trying desperately to recruit the Free and Fey lords to your banner the forces of Doomdark are not tarrying. It is a turn based game, not realtime but it has to be that way so you can control all the different forces, up to 32 characters can be recruited. As you move around time passes, an hour each move generally and you can see the sun rise and set as time moves on. Once night has fallen for all your forces you can move no more and so you must signal the end of your turn and then the forces of evil get their turn! <
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The real plus to the game is the atmosphere it generates. Whilst you are exploring the map and running from one keep to another you really feel as though you are in the middle of a desperate battle for freedom. The enemy has a secret weapon, the Ice Crown which has the effect of making your leaders afraid as it's powers grow, it gets more powerful the more success the enemy has. So you can't afford to let Doomdark's men win too many battles.

There is a subquest, to keep the adventure/role playing fraternity happy whilst the wargamers struggle to contain the foe.

Luxor's long lost son, Morkin can be sent to try to destroy the Ice-Crown. Morkin is half Fey, half Free and as such the only person who cannot be harmed by the Ice-Fear. I wont spoil the plot by telling you how he does this but it isn't too dissimilar to The Lord Of The Rings and Sam/Frodo's quest to destroy the One Ring. You have to visit the wise men who live in towers which dot the landscape for information about how to destroy the Ice-Crown, amongst other things.

You win the game by either destroying the Ice-Crown or by defeating Doomdark by capturing his stronghold at the Citadel of Ushgarak. You lose if both Morkin and Luxor are killed, or if the Free stronghold at the Citadel of Xajorkith is captured.

A typical game will take about four hours to play as the pendulum of the war swings between victory and defeat. A typical game starts with a frantic rush to recuit as many armies as you can to your banner whilst holding back the hordes of darkness with your meagre forces.

As you fall back, trying to husband your men, you send reinforcements to the front line, as Doomdark will try to outflank through one of the many routes to your capital. Eventually he will either break through and rout your men, or if you have played well you will have the strentgth to counter attack and drive them all the way back to their lair, Ushgara
k!

It then boils down to if you have enough men to take on the indomitable fortress in the North. If not it's a stalemate and all for nought, but still entertaining! There's always the Ice Crown to destroy.

Really you must try this game, if you are a wargamer, adventure or RPG fan or simply enjoy a good fantasy epic. For the princely sum of zero pounds you can download the game and immerse yourself in this classic, not recommended if you have an addictive personality though! I dread to think how many hours I spent playing this when I was younger.

www.icemark.com - the website for Chris Wild, who wrote the PC version of the game
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midnight - A discussion group for the game

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