Games boasting to be “years in the making” typically look and feel so far behind the curve that they need walkers and pacemakers just to get to retail shelves. Here, then, is Wizardry 8, five years in development — and worth every moment of the wait.
This first-person 3D RPG lets you create six party members, and allocate “personality types” to your individual characters (drawn from 15 professions and 11 races). The results are fantastic. I created a Samurai Felpurr (an anthropomorphic cat race) with a heavy Neapolitan accent, who exclaims angrily upon seeing a group of foes, “I killa them all!” You’ll also be able to accept up to two NPCs into your party at any time, each interjecting his own quirky views and actions. The writing and voice-acting are top-notch throughout.
The tradition behind the Wizardry series is hardcore roleplaying, so expect to examine and allocate party characters’ growth points across a range of several dozen statistics and skills. You build (or ruin) relations with each of the races on Dominus, the planet you’re tromping around on. Friendly races will give you important information and goods, but since some races hate each other, you can’t befriend everyone. That means considerable replayability as you try out different classes and side with various inhabitants.
The huge 3D world you wander through pixelates when you get close to objects, but otherwise presents an attractive, colorful view, with 24-hour-cycling skies. Sir-Tech makes bold use of scale, including a towering multi-limbed tree that houses a complete race.
Combat is deeper than in the usual RPG fare. You can use objects like hillsides to defend your rear members or block spell-casts and arrows. Some areas employ extensive lighting and translucency effects. Spells, especially ones that administer area damage, look uniformly fantastic. I do have a quibble with the soundtrack, which offers hackneyed “B-movie” tones and repetitive riffs.
Opponent AI is excellent. Groups of enemies will mutually reinforce one another, as I discovered when a sorceress cast Enchanted Blade on a bunch of Higardi highwaymen. You can play in turn-based or continuous mode. Game balance remains good, as it always has been in this series, though the skills can create some problems: pickpocketing seems far too easy, and since skill points increase with use, a thief can max out this skill by repeatedly working an easy mark early in the game.
Wizardry 8 slowly pulls together the threads of many different missions and NPC personalities over time, masterfully building a taut, suspenseful plot. The end result is an engrossing game that outdoes its strong but rambling predecessors. It’s the crown of a groundbreaking series (Wizardry was the first PC game I ever played, in 1984), and a game that every RPGer will want to play.
This first-person 3D RPG lets you create six party members, and allocate “personality types” to your individual characters (drawn from 15 professions and 11 races). The results are fantastic. I created a Samurai Felpurr (an anthropomorphic cat race) with a heavy Neapolitan accent, who exclaims angrily upon seeing a group of foes, “I killa them all!” You’ll also be able to accept up to two NPCs into your party at any time, each interjecting his own quirky views and actions. The writing and voice-acting are top-notch throughout.
The tradition behind the Wizardry series is hardcore roleplaying, so expect to examine and allocate party characters’ growth points across a range of several dozen statistics and skills. You build (or ruin) relations with each of the races on Dominus, the planet you’re tromping around on. Friendly races will give you important information and goods, but since some races hate each other, you can’t befriend everyone. That means considerable replayability as you try out different classes and side with various inhabitants.
The huge 3D world you wander through pixelates when you get close to objects, but otherwise presents an attractive, colorful view, with 24-hour-cycling skies. Sir-Tech makes bold use of scale, including a towering multi-limbed tree that houses a complete race.
Combat is deeper than in the usual RPG fare. You can use objects like hillsides to defend your rear members or block spell-casts and arrows. Some areas employ extensive lighting and translucency effects. Spells, especially ones that administer area damage, look uniformly fantastic. I do have a quibble with the soundtrack, which offers hackneyed “B-movie” tones and repetitive riffs.
Opponent AI is excellent. Groups of enemies will mutually reinforce one another, as I discovered when a sorceress cast Enchanted Blade on a bunch of Higardi highwaymen. You can play in turn-based or continuous mode. Game balance remains good, as it always has been in this series, though the skills can create some problems: pickpocketing seems far too easy, and since skill points increase with use, a thief can max out this skill by repeatedly working an easy mark early in the game.
Wizardry 8 slowly pulls together the threads of many different missions and NPC personalities over time, masterfully building a taut, suspenseful plot. The end result is an engrossing game that outdoes its strong but rambling predecessors. It’s the crown of a groundbreaking series (Wizardry was the first PC game I ever played, in 1984), and a game that every RPGer will want to play.