It is an epic quest, and only the smartest and bravest dare attempt it… well that's the bit about getting Lands of Lore III to load, such are its temperamental reactions to our video cards and its ludicrous demands for 500MB of disk space. What of the game itself? If you've played the two previous games you'll know about the magical land of Gladstone and its wars with Draconia. If not, prepare yourself for every cod-Mediaeval fantasy genre cliché in the book as you seek to establish yourself as the heir to the Gladstone throne. The styling is similar to so many other games and the interface hasn't really developed much since the Dungeon Master games of the late Eighties, although the number of discs keeps getting larger.
Lands of Lore III uses a 3-D engine, and the game really demands a graphics card, but visually it's not very accomplished. Towns and interiors are very angular and lacking in atmosphere, while outdoor and dungeon areas look unrealistic, though they are quite detailed. The creatures look awful, possibly because they are low-resolution flat sprites, moving with very limited animation. The level of presentation shows there is still some way to go before adventures can presume themselves to be as visually sophisticated as arcade-focussed games.
The documentation boasts of its ease of play, but the interface, if anything seems needlessly complicated. Spells are arranged on one set of keys, objects on the other and equipped items are viewed through the inventory. But the game is not very instinctive if you want to change an item in mid-battle, involving a combination of keys and mouse. The live combat is not very satisfying, feeling imprecise and messy.
Fair enough, but these kind of games still have their fans. What we cannot stick is the total lack of originality in plot and language that ruins the consistency of the world. An attack from another evil dimension via a portal is absolutely the cheesiest and most overused plotline going. Why do American designers feel the need to add wisecracks and characters from our time and century when they are supposedly evoking a far-off mystical world? Kill a pig and you are sometimes greeted with 'Hey! I like Barbecue! Ha, bloody ha. Maybe the writers are embarrassed by the phoniness of their own creation and want to subvert it knowingly. Whatever, but it doesn't enhance Lands of Lore III.
