For centuries, would-be heroes have been pitting their skills against the Crypt of the Ancients. Controlled by the seemingly ageless arch-mage Alaric, it is believed to have been built over five thousands years ago as a resting place for 'The Ancients' - Demigods who created the world. Now, the Crypt is a way to earn money, as Alaric offers a prize of 50000 gold coins for anybody who enters the Crypt and lives to tell the tale.

In the history of the challenge, just two people have ever emerged from its mysterious confines - Alaric himself, and Jetraal the Heroic. But Jetraal was last seen 300 years ago, before he mysteriously died.

Until now. Jetraal's ghost has returned, warning people of impending doom unless Alaric is stopped.

But stopped from doing what....

Graphics 13/20

This game looks somewhat similar to Diablo. It's a 3 quarter overhead camera angle like Diablo and line of sight follows along the same lines as Diablo. No D3D or 3DFX, just plain old normal graphics. The backgrounds and shadowing effects are well done. They seem very sharp. However, the lower you go, the darker it gets. I don't really understand this concept, since by the time I got down to level 7 or so I could barely make out walls much less anything else. The detail level is pretty good though your character and the monsters are undistinguished. The interface is bland and easily could have been improved. Some items in my inventory I had a hard time seeing (eg: used torches).

Sound 5/15

The sound is one of the major low points of the game. The footstep noise is annoying and the sound is for the most part unappealing. (Cool Tip: if you hate the footstep sounds (or anything else) all the sounds are in wav format so it makes it easy to blank 'em out or edit them)

Gameplay 12/25

Not too bad on the RPG level. It feels a lot like those old text based games (which no matter how simple they seemed, they still held my attention back in the early 80's). You kill monsters, look for traps, collect gold, cast spells, so your basic Dungeon Hack. It is point and click like Diablo for the most part except spells and attacking are done with a right mouse click which allows you to move and attack at the same time (though I can't really see a major benefit to this). Spellcasting has one major flaw. When you switch to CAST, you no longer have your torch. That's just stupid, so you can't hold a torch and cast a spell at the same time and it's pretty hard to see in the dark! I did get frustrated on occasion by getting stuck in rooms and sitting there clicking away trying to get out of the rooms which usually ended up with me closing the door twenty times before I was able to get out of the room. It also gets a little cumbersome when you're trying to use or drop items since the buttons look similar, but after a couple minutes you should get used to it.

Fun Factor 14/20

Hey I like a decent Dungeon Hack every now and then. This one's pretty good for someone to go get lost in for a few hours. It's simple, it's not too hard and it even has SAVE. If the control was a little better this game wouldn't be too bad. It just irritated me now and again, but yet I still played. Takes a little time to get used to the controls and how to operate things. (Like switches.. you need to walk over to them before you can use them, because if you click on them from across the room it just gives you the big red X). I also couldn't tell too much of a difference between the different classes. You look the same no matter if you're a Mage, Ranger, Warrior, or Thief.

Multiplayer 0/5

Packaging 5/5

Overall Impression 6/10

Not overly interesting, but it's a Dungeon Hack and we haven't seen one of these in quite awhile (Diablo was the last noteworthy one). This IS NOT Diablo however. Some aspects are the same, but it's more like comparing assorted candy. They come in the same bag, but they don't taste the same. The magic use sucks, but I prefer the blow by blow method anyways. A few flaws keep this game from standing out (too dark, poor sound, and a shoddy console), but if you're bored and need to blow off some time or if you liked those old text based rpgs (LONG LIVE MORDOR!) check this game out.

Total Rating: 55%

Bug(s) I found:
1. You can't use the torch with the Ranger. It brings up an error message about not being able to load a file, then GPF's the game.

I tested this game on a:
PII 300 w/ 128mg RAM and a 8 mg Hercules Stingray (voodoo rush) under Windows 95