Installation Issues:
Alright, for starters, this game gets -10 points (for whomever might be keeping score) for having a really crappy install program. Let's see, the installer asks you where you want to install the program to, and then blindly installs it to c:\program files\SSI\... anyway, regardless of what you said. But wait! There's a patch! That ought to do it! The patch asks you what drive/directory you want to install to, runs the install program, and then complains about insufficient space on drive C: regardless of what you said.To quote the README file:
"Note: the old installer still checks C Drive for adequate space even for installations onto other drives. You must have at least this space available on C Drive and the destination drive to be able to select the installation. In addition, the installation screen will say "C:\ Program Files\SSI\Pool of Radiance RoMD", however the program will install into the first destination location, which you selected (in step 4). Disregard the file path indicator that is displayed on the installation screens. "
Gee, dontcha think they coulda just done it right? Maybe we need a patch for the patch...
The next big hurdle is getting this beast to run under Windows XP. When executed, the game gives a splash screen and just exists -- no error messages -- nada. To paraphrase UbiSoft's WebPage: "It'd don't work wit XP unless we say it work wit XP". However, persistant as I am, I download and install the latest patch and viola! it works.
Okay, off to a bad start, but I still have the utmost confidence in the mission...
Getting Started:
The game starts out with a nice little intro. There's not much to say about it -- nothing fancy -- but no problems with it either. From here we proceed to character creation. There are some predefined characters, but it's always fun to create your own. You can start out with four characters.
There's lots of races and classes to choose from. It's unclear whether picking a race gets you anything really special or just applies a couple of stat modifiers. For classes, we have the usual fighter, mage, cleric, rogue as well as some interesting classes such as paladin, ranger, monk, barbarian, etc. I chose the follwing:
Human Fighter
Elf Sorcerer
Halfling Rogue
Half-Elf
Cleric
It seemed like a decent party, but I would have preferred a couple more slots to add a barbarian, paladin, or maybe a monk. As with most RPG's, you can dish out attribute points to increase various attributes and pick starting spells for the magic users.
Weird Combat System
The combat system is just plain weird. It's a turn based combat system, but it has a timeout bar that'll time out your character's actions if you do not select an action fast enough. The default is quite a large timeout, giving you plenty of time, unless you're learning the interface, in which case you might be upset that as you're pointing and clicking your time runs out and your character gets clobbered.
Left clicking on a location in combat will cause the character to move to that location. Left clicking on a monster will attack that monster with your weapon. To use a spell however, you need to use an odd combination of right clicking on your character (or using a hot key) to get the spell menu where you navigate a little popup menu. It's very strange. I'd much rather have a Baldur's Gate style icon bar of spells, or a M&M style spellbook. The last thing you want to be doing in combat is navigating pop-up menus.
The quirky pop-up menus also allow your character to defend himself and/or skip the round.
Slow Promotion:
When I started the game, my fledgling party was getting beat up pretty badly by the monsters in the initial area. They were simple low-level monsters (orcs?) that should have been easier to defeat. Perhaps it was due to poor party construction on my part, but most of my characters were easily knocked to negative hit points in a single blow by these very easy monsters. The only one that really stood a chance was the fighter.
Nevertheless, I managed to blast through these monsters. I figured after all that fighting it ought to be about due for some level-ups and get the characters in good fighting shape. However, as I brought up the character sheets, I noticed most of my party was around 30-50 XP and the required XP for level 1 promotion was 1000 XP! Hmmm.... perhaps it's time to go back and make a new party with more fighters that would handle better. Slow promotions are one of the curses of games with true AD&D rules, but this game in particular seemed slower getting started than others.
Under Construction.... My copy of Icewind Dale 2 showed up sooner than expected (see link below), so I'm currently playing that and will get back to POR when I finish.