"A holy/unholy mess"

This is such a bad game, it defies description:

Graphics: Very good. My PC handled them pretty well, but there was some horrible slowdown at times, especially during creature battles.

Sound: Excellent. The game's best feature. The voice acting is superb and charming, and really gives the game a personal feel.

Control: Decent. A bit wacky, with the mouse controlling everything, but you'll get the hang of it soon enough. Once you do, it's actually quite good.

Play: This, sadly, is where the game earns its rank as a coaster. I've sold mine on Ebay because I couldn't take it any longer.

1. Only five levels? No. Absolutely not. That is absurd. You do not make an epic game, and just give it five levels. Never. They are short levels, too. The quests are interesting, but once they are through, there is nothing to hold your interest any longer.

2. Your job, in most instances, is to take over other towns. You can do this by beating on them, or helping them. Unfortunately, there are only a small number of ways to do this. After chucking your 914th fireball of the evening into a village, it loses the thrill. Believe me.

3. The creature. The gimmick to sell the game. The most amazing artificial intellignece that you'll never notice. Here's how this ''brilliant'' AI works. You cast a spell in front of the creature. The number over his head increases, meaning he's learning it. When it reaches 100, he knows it. I could have programmed that in Basic on a Commodore 64. This is the brilliant AI. Supposedly, they have all sort of wants and needs, but you'll never notice. For all I know, there are hundred of megabytes of clever coding here, but it must just all cancel out into nothing.

Even worse, the creature seems unrelated to the game. All he can do is mirror your actions. If your creature is defeated, nothing happens. He just respawns at your temple. This means that creature battles are irrelevant and don't change the game at all. You can defeat the enemy creautre a hundred times, and all it does is buy you two minutes until he can come attack your town again. This is frustrating, and keeps you from other godly duties.

4. The programming... oh my, what a mess. This is just shameless. There is no reason for this. Silly things... why do worshippers eat food at lighning pace? Why do my little advisor friends tell me irrelevant and/or incorrect information at every turn? Why does my creature forget everything he learns?

Supposedly, the patch would correct these things... but when there's so many things wrong, you wonder if play testing ever happened at all. And you also wonder if the programmers really cared about making a good game, or if they were just worried about taking their new AI program, and finding a way to sell it.

I'll confess.. the game starts out very addicting. You'll enjoy it for a week or so. And this is why it doesn't get a zero. But after that, you realize that you aren't accomplishing anything. Even in a no-goals god game (like Sim-whatever), the fun should be in seeing things develop and grow around you. But, in the end, your little villages are made of the exact same buildings they always were. And your creature, well, it gets big, but it never really changes. It just gets big.

Very often, games are underestimated. You'll see reviews saying how horrible they are, and then they aren't so bad. But this one reverses that trend. Never in my life have I played such an atrocious load of steaming dung, and seen it score such amazing reviews from every source. While I have great respect for what was attempted here, it almost never gels into anything resembling a cohesive game. The levels are boring (and often poorly designed). The character development is nil. The battles are lackluster and, ultimately, pointless. And the extremely short duration of the game rounds out the package.

Don't believe the hype. You've been warned. With all the great simulation games out there, there is no reason to own this.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/01, Updated 06/25/01