textfiles/games/REVIEWS/rings.rev

 RINGS OF MEDUSA

 RINGS OF MEDUSA is a role-playing game written by Starbyte Software (of
Germany) and published by Star Games. This huge program offers excellent
graphics, smooth animation, digitized sound and voices, land and sea battles,
treasures, note pad editor, mouse control, save option, and copy protection. The
Atari ST version is the basis of this review, for which you'll need 512K, a
color monitor, and a 720K drive. The game disks can be read by a single-sided
drive -- a trend these days -- but certain data (presumably the digitized sounds
and voices) will be unavailable.

 Despite a few problems, RINGS is an epic program that, for the most part, is
acceptable. It looks good, the mouse works fine as a controller, and the note
pad is an especially handy feature that lets you keep track of important
information. Like most CRPGs, RINGS is at bottom a quest: Find the five rings.
Unfortunately -- and this is another trend -- there's too much reality: RINGS is
less a strategy/adventure game and more a job game. Star Games, the distributor,
estimates that the average player will be able to complete RINGS in only three
months. This is good news for shut-ins.

 The land of Morenor, which is 33 cities scattered over a wide landscape, is
under the evil spell of the goddess Medusa. As Cirion, Crown Prince of Morenor,
your goal is to travel the kingdom (which includes a couple of islands), raise
money through trade or theft or both, and hire armies. The quest around which
your job revolves is a search for five rings. When you've found all of them, you
must put them in the temple of the Athenians: Medusa sends evil out from the
Underworld, and only the rings can draw her out for the final battle.

 The ST screen display consists of a landscape surrounded by seas. When your
player-icon reaches a screen edge, the landscape scrolls in the appropriate
direction, one screenful at a time. Above the landscape is an information bar:
latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates; the type of landscape (open plains,
mountains, swamps, forests, rivers); and a calendar.

 Below the landscape is an icon bar from which the following functions can be
controlled: save/load; town information; buy/sell; attack/retreat; negotiation;
search; open a mine; and note pad. Invoking the note pad calls up a separate
screen on which you can jot down important landscape coordinates, general game
information, and whatever else you think is relevant. Certain functions of the
icon bar are available only as needed. In the middle of the icon bar is a
revolving options field: music and sound toggles; 50/60Hz screen sync; and
restart. The options field is always active.

 Enter a city and the landscape is replaced by a generic city screen. Enter a
city building (Pub, Bank, Barracks, Temple, Palace, Stable, Jeweler) and the
city screen is replaced by a text screen whose information and possibilities
depend on the service: In Banks, you'll deal with money; Temples usually provide
game info, although you might learn of treasures; in Stores, you'll buy food; in
Stables, you can buy horses and wagons; and in the Pub, you can play cards.

 The note pad and filenames for saved games require keyboard entry, but all else
in RINGS is mouse-controlled. Screen movement is invoked by clicking on the
landscape; assuming there are no obstacles, your player-icon will move. Clicking
on the icon bar invokes the desired function; clicking on arrows raises/lowers
numerical figures.

 The RINGS OF MEDUSA package comes with two 720K disks that are copy-protected,
and an instruction manual. As noted earlier, the disks can be read by a
single-sided drive. The screen saver feature is undocumented but useful: The
screen blanks out if you haven't used the mouse or the keyboard for a few
minutes, which will prevent screen burn-in during the next three months.

 The graphics of RINGS OF MEDUSA are excellent. The landscape is similar to that
of IRON LORD; the basic look is different, of course, and Morenor covers a lot
more area, but if you've seen LORD, you're already familiar with RINGS. The
mouse works fine and the game is easy to control. The 33 cities come in
different sizes and populations, and are scattered here and there on the
finely-detailed landscape. Volcanos belch smoke, and ocean- and river-bound
ships sail in and out of view.

 Besides the misspellings in the game, a manual that's not fun to read, and pubs
named "Wendy's Hamburgers," RINGS has a few problems. Sound samples and
digitized voices pop up here and there, but if you toggle sound off from the
options field, general game sounds (such as the hoofbeats during movement)
vanish. Toggling sound on does not toggle sound on, and the sounds and voices
arise only to herald important events, such as an attack. Enter the city of,
say, Great Plains, click on the Town Info icon, and you'll be informed that
"This is the city of Wengo."

 When the game starts, all you have is a handful of money with which to purchase
food, horses, and wagons. When you've hired armies, you'll have to pay them
every month. You have to search the landscape for raw materials, build
storehouses, open mines, and make a lot business deals to keep the cash flowing,
all of which adds up to a job.

 What's more, it's certain that you'll be attacked early on. Losing an initial
battle is virtually automatic; many times you'll lose even before the trumpet
fanfare announcing the attack has finished playing. A screen message then
provides wrong information, and a digitized voice laughs at you. There is no
opportunity to negotiate with an attacker, at least until you have money and
soldiers.

 Glitches notwithstanding, RINGS OF MEDUSA is large and involved, good-looking,
and easy to play. If you're big on CRPGs, RINGS will definitely keep you busy.
If your attitude toward epic strategy/adventures is more casual than fanatic,
avoid RINGS: It will keep you too busy.

 RINGS OF MEDUSA is published and distributed by Star Games.

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