Amazon Maximum Age: 240 months
Amazon Minimum Age: 204 months
Batteries Included: 0
Binding: Video Game
Brand: Atari
EAN: 0742725275850
ESRB Age Rating: Mature
Format: DVD-ROM
Is Autographed: 0
Is Memorabilia: 0
Height: 1 inches
Length: 7.5 inches
Weight: 100 hundredths-pounds
Width: 5.25 inches
Label: Atari
Manufacturer: Atari
Packaged Height: 120 hundredths-inches
Packaged Length: 740 hundredths-inches
Packaged Weight: 40 hundredths-pounds
Packaged Width: 620 hundredths-inches
Platform: Windows 98
Platform: Windows 2000
Platform: Windows XP
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: 2007-10-16
Studio: Atari
Feature:
- Classic Action-RPG set in a huge 3D world
- More than 600 NPCs to find and 1500 weapons and pieces of armor to equip
- Vast spell system with over a dozen schools of magic and 96 combinable spells
- Highly detailed character models that change dependent on the magic school chosen
- Multiplayer battles support up to 16 players via LAN or internet
Product Description:
he Absolute is a place greater and grander than the most fantastical dream. It is a place incomprehensible to mortals, as all earthly desires are discarded along with the flesh. Filled with beauty and thought, the denizens of the Absolute have unlimited ability to do any wondrous thing they conceive of, usually for the purpose of harmony and further enlightenment. Nevertheless, there are still rules of conduct that must be followed. Modo was a long-time resident of the Absolute, last being on Earth over a thousand years ago. Even though his memories of that time were long gone, there was one earthly desire that he could not seem to rid himself of - the desire for power.
An immortal named Modo has been sent to live a full mortal life on earth as punishment for his crimes in the Absolute, the realm of the afterlife. Angered by this humiliation, the mortal Modo is determined to not only reclaim all his previous power, but gain enough strength to destroy the Earth once and for all, so that he may never be punished in such a base way again. As the story's hero, the player must stop Modo's heinous plans and ultimately destroy him, or aid Modo in his quest to annihilate the Earth.
The world map is divided into two key types of areas, Towns and Outlands. Towns consist of various buildings, monuments and shops where the player may buy and sell items. Towns are generally where the player will encounter friendly NPC characters, though some may be found in the Outlands in certain circumstances. Although combat is possible while in a Town, it is generally unadvisable; if the player character attacks an innocent townsperson or merchant, the town guards will immediately run to the scene and attack the player character. The exception to this rule is when attacking a not-so-innocent townsperson; the town guards will thank the player character for taking care of the problem for them. This being said, the player can usually
Customer Reviews:
6 of 6 customers found the following review helpful:
 Absolute waste, 2008-01-25
I'd love to say that the makers of this game took their time creating and rendering an impressive array of complex and interesting monsters to populate a challenging and engaging story filled with exciting adventures. I know that such can be done, because several other games have managed to do just that in the past few years, so why "Dawn of Magic" failed to live up to the ordinary standards of the modern `Hack-`n'-Slash' RPG is beyond explanation.
The game commits virtually every cardinal sin in terms of its gameplay value. For an adventure in which your brave hero battles hordes of monsters, seizes treasures, and boldly saves the day, the developers evidently thought that `excitement' was much overrated. Battles are not just a largely mundane series of madly clicking on enemies which flit around the battlefield in an unorganized fashion, they are also maddeningly repetitive - so repetitive that not infrequently did I become so bored that I saved the game and closed it, mid-battle. Treasures are not only sometimes bizarre, but frequently ill-conceived (for instance, my character received as an early reward a magical weapon - which unfortunately happened to be an umbrella).
Enemy monsters themselves are well-rendered, three-dimensionally. It's truly a pity that nobody took the time to ensure that their models weren't quite so ridiculous-looking (goblins, anyone?). Monsters that aren't quite so ridiculous looking are universally annoying to deal with. Many maps have an abundance of `fire beetles,' which fall over and play dead after taking a single hit with a decent-damage spell. During this period, they cannot take damage, leaving the hero to stand idly by and wait until they decide to upright themselves so that he can finish the battle and move on.
Rather than having full life-bars that decrease when attacked, enemies have a damage bar (which, of course, isn't labeled as such) which fills as they take damage. For reasons still unclear, the developers opted to make the bar fill from zero damage on the right to dead on the left end of the bar.
Adding a bit of flavor to the `annoying enemies' list is an unusual addition to the standard `Hack-`n'-`Slash' RPG genre game: looters. Looters are special enemies who will trail along behind you and rush into the battle to pick up loot that's dropped from enemy monsters before you can get to it. If you try to kill them, they'll surround themselves with magical shields, teleport just out of spell-range, or run directly into packs of monsters (who unnaturally enough, don't seem at all interested in attacking the looter who's come into their midst). Yes, that's right - read it again. The fine developers of "Dawn of Magic" were sitting around a conference table one afternoon when a lone voice of reason spoke up... "You know what a good single player RPG needs, that to date only MMORPG's have? Ninja-looters." Killing the looters can usually only be accomplished by chasing them into the corners of the zones, or by waiting until the rest of the zone has been cleared of all enemies.
Camera control is a further aggravation. At no time can a player see what is in front of him more than a short distance unless the camera is zoomed in to it's maximum, at which point, the player (which does not become transparent) blocks much of the view.
Frequently, the game's voice-acting leaves much to be desired, and the dialogue is strangely abrupt, ill-translated, and confusingly enough, frequently wrong. Wrong? Yes, that's right, if you trust what comes out of your speakers, you will find yourself frequently at a loss to figure out what to do. During the tutorial (a tutorial so riddled with errors that a map behind one of the NPC's is unmistakably a map of Earth, and in which the NPC training you calmly tells you to break open containers whenever you find them - an act which will get you arrested in town), the voice-actor informs you that by pressing the `tab' key, the game map can be displayed in various forms. Unfortunately, the text on-screen reveals that a different key entirely controls the mini-map.
Finally, just in case the shoddy combat system, aggravating enemies, terrible dialogue, and continuity errors don't bother you, the developers apparently decided that quests and zone-crossing movement should be as counter-intuitive as possible. Early in the game, a quest given by an NPC in the main town tells you to find a person who is "north of a miner's village." After traveling to the miner's village East of the main town, the miners again tell you that the person you are searching for is north of their village. Curiously, the object of your quest is not only not north of the miner's village (it is in fact due west of the miner's village in a completely different zone that is WEST of the main town), but to get to the zone in which the object of your quest is located, you must use a zone-teleporter which is due South of the miner's village. As a further example, the main town for the first part of the game contains zone-teleporters which will take you to the countryside to the South and East of the city. In keeping with the counter-intuitive theme of the game, the zone-teleporter to the `south outlands' is at the north end of the city, and the teleporter to the `east outlands' is on the west end of the city.
Frankly, when I spend thirty dollars on a game, I expect the game to be well-made, generally free from glaring errors, and something worthy to come out under the auspices of a major gaming label. "Dawn of Magic" fails to live up to my expectations in virtually every way possible - and that's pretty hard to do.
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