Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor

"The most expensive commercial virus out there!"

First, I would like to thank Ubi-Soft for relieving Bethesda Softworks for releasing the most bug-ridden game ever. You simply cannot do a fair review of Pool of Radiance II without first addressing the technical issues, and, brother, are there ever technical issues. We're not talking the minor graphics and sound glitches common in other games (though they are still present.)

No, we're talking such things as losing save games, losing data files, and, worst of all, possibly even wiping out your Windows itself! Yes, the uninstall program can, if you've installed the game anywhere other than the default directory, eradicate your Windows directory! As the title says, this is the most expensive virus you can pick up from Babbages.

If you're able to get the game running, you'll discover that Pools of Radiance is a mediocre game. The story is dull. The pacing is slow. In lieu of a decent artificial intelligence, the game engine actually cheats for the monsters and NPCs that you'll encounter. Game design wasn't very high on the priorities list of the designers either.

Lastly, then, we hit the question of 'How true to D&D is the game'. Sadly, even here, the game fails abysmally. Several core character classes are missing. The ability to customize feats is gone. Character advancement is automatic, with no customization whatsoever. The dice-rolling is actually stacked against the player, so that the higher the level of the character, the more likely that they'll suffer 'critical failures'.

But if you slug through the slow pacing, the bad rules-implementation, and the niggling bugs here and there, about eight hours into the game, you suddenly lose /all/ your save games thanks to yet another critical bug. It can't go understated just how frustrating this particular bug can be, as it makes actually solving the game nigh impossible.

Aside from the most critical bugs, Pools of Radiance II would be an extremely weak game, easily the worst of the D&D conversions to have appeared over the years. When you throw in the fact that the game, thanks to the critical file and OS bugs, is essentially a glorified Trojan virus, you have one of the biggest RPG disasters of all time.

Avoid this game, at all costs. If you already have it, you may want to see if there's a class-action lawsuit against Ubi-Soft that you can join into. The '1' that I've given this game, honestly, is one point too generous.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/01, Updated 10/03/01