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The game looks and plays something like a mix of Diablo and Baldurs Gate. Start with an action oriented combat game, add some puzzles and people to interact with, and you’ve got a fair idea of how this game plays out. The controls are easily learned and mastered, and works really well within this type of game. At the start of the game you get a choice of either a Strongman, a Thief or a Thinker. All characters have 8 different stats describing them (physical & mental characteristics) and 1 skill. You can modify this starting character slightly. When you gain a Level you may increase a stat or skill or gain a new skill. There seems to be lots of skills and even though there are only 3 basic characters to start your game with the possibilities after a few hours of gameplay are enormous.
The game introduction builds around yourself and some friends swapping old war stories. You start telling yours, and we get drawn back to mid war France with germans everywhere. You, as an agent, have travelled to France to heed a call for help from a friend of yours. You are to meet him in a small village in France. After arriving at the village, with a driver and a car that won’t work anymore if not repaired, you start your part of the game.
After looking around the village, you do meet up with your friend and he starts telling you about his recent discovery. An artefact that could be a terrible weapon, if in the wrong hands. Just as he starts telling you how important it is that the germans never get hold of it, the two of you are arrested. Naturally, just before he actually tells you what or where his discovery was/is.
It’s fairly obvious that your task is to find out what your friends discovery was and keep it from the nazi regime. How you’re to go about this quest with no knowledge of what it is or where it is might not seem obvious, but lets start with the simple things in life, like getting out of the jail dungeon. To do this you need to enlist the aid of a drunken nazi soldier ”Johann” (I could not find any other way to escape without him). When you get other people to join your crusade, this character will follow you around and fights for you, but you can’t actually control them in battle. However, you get to decide how his or her experience is going to be used. Then you need to get the car running in order to leave. That’s basically it! There is a good-sized map of Europe so my guess is we’ll be doing a bit of travelling abroad. If you try this after escaping the dungeon, the game tells you quite correctly that you have no idea where to go, and a bit more subtly (although not a lot) that you have things left to do in this area.
After enlisting Johann, escaping the nazi dungeon and trying to find the French resistance, you’ve gotten a good look at the conversation part of the game. You get a number of possible responses and have to choose among them. For now the choices and consequences are a bit limited, but the system works. Your character is a tough guy who’s rarely without a witty response or statement. Apart from when talking to the barmaid in the village bar, the game’s conversation is riddled with humour and lots of references to movies and TV series like ”Allo, allo”. If this kind of humour rubs you the wrong way the game could cause quite at lot of irritation since it’s everywhere. If you on the other hand, like me, like this kind of humour, you’ll probably be playing the game over and over to check that you haven’t missed any of the little jokes.
The game’s graphics are very nice and the viewpoint reminds you of the two afore-mentioned games. Excellent looking graphical effects, not necessary to make this kind of game good, but always a plus. As an example, all your changes to the characters clothing and equipment carried shows on your characters. Each movement when using a weapon is nicely done, which is pretty much natural for this kind of weapon.
As a conclusion, I must say that playing this beta is one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had in quite a while. Many games that you look forward to playing, you also enjoy when they arrive, whether they meet your expectations or not. But rarely, a game you almost haven’t heard about, keep your eyes glued to the screen. After enjoying this taste of what’s to come, this will, for me at least, be one of the top games to wait for in 2002.
Dag Petersen, ToTheGame
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