QB COLONY SITE IS DEFUNCT SO I'M PROVIDING THE TEXT OF THE ORIGINAL REVIEW ************************************************************************** Dark Quest: Secret of the North Lands is a unique QB game. You play as one person, and you have control over your other four men, (unless one of them dies course). You can tell them to follow you and attack, stay there and attack if someone comes near, or tell them to scout the land on their own. Whenever you kill someone yourself, you get points to buy spells, heal your men, or recharge their special attack. The story intro of the game has some nice pictures, though some need work on how they actually look, there was effort done because most of them are almost fullscreen pictures. This game can get pretty tough. The way you attack however could be better. The way to hurt them and have a good chance of not getting hit is to run at the enemy and when you get near then, tap the attack button and hit them, and instantly run away. Even the enemies AI does this(they still get hit though). The two player mode in this game is pretty cool, so you and a friend can fight. Graphics 6/10 This game's graphics are ok, but they could use some work. It has some nice little animation effects placed here and there, but there isn't enough of them. Some tiles also look too bland, at least the outside does. The inside castle levels look nice. It has nice little details like dead bodies on walls, and gold spilled on the floor. But it doesn't have much animation in it. The enemies are only animated with two frames, but those two frames look ok. There weren't enough different enemies, but then again, how many enemies can you cram into six levels? The split-screen mode is pretty cool. There's no slowdown in it, and it runs just fine. Though I'm not really a fan of the way the split-screen divider is a line of dirt tiles, but it's really not that much. The game could've used more animation, and more colorful tiles. It also had potential to make each of your men look different, and add more stuff to the spells. I don't like how the fire spell is just an animating(I think) sprite that just follows. The environment could've used more interaction as well. There was a switch that you could flip to go past a gap in the floor, but that was about it. Sounds 1/10 There is an option to turn on PC Speaker sounds. But that's about it, there it's not that good. In fact, I can hardly even remember if there was any. The PC Speaker just needed some more meat to it. Challenge 7/10 This game has a nice challenge level. Though the AI is just run after the player's location style, it still works pretty good, because there aren't many obstacles in the game for them to get stuck on. There are the normal soldiers, who just attack you when you get near. There is a helmeted soldier who runs after you faster. And there are some wizards, and mace weilding soldiers and blah blah blah. The game needs more enemies, but in order to do that, it would need to increase the game's length as well. The wizards are probably the hardest enemies because of that spell where they make blue mist(I can't really tell what it is, so I'll just say mist). It is so hard to avoid, and it's hard to tell when they're about to do it. They should've given more of the other enemies special skills. The attacking is weird on this game, but it works. You must run up to the enemy hit spacebar, and run away from them before they get close enough to hurt you It could've used blocking and stuff like that. Thankfully, it has spells, I found the fireball the most useful. I used it to kill the wizards, because I could just stand there and keep shooting them from a distance and they would just stand there and take it. This adds to the realism of the game because the wizards don't have eyes and they have a big cloak covering their face. But sadly, there is no realism category in this review, and it takes away from the challenge. So the enemies just need to react to what happens to them as well as when you get close to them. If this game gets too hard for you, you can play with a second player with you(or you could just use that second player as your extra life, because the people on your team get killed too easily, which I'll get to later). You and a friend can team up and plan real strategies so you can kill the enemies. One thing that bugged me through this game was the fact that the people on your team got killed too easily. Now, this would normally be ok since the game has only six levels, and you'd be expected to keep your men alive for only six levels, but they die waaaaaaaay too easily. There is also no way to revive them, after each level you can give the living ones full life, but they still die easily on the later levels. The game is still really challenging though, and you can beat it with skill but it just has it's little share of needed tweaking. If you're bored, you alone, or you and a friend can compete to see who can do the best on Sheepz Galore. You run around and kill all the sheep as quick as you can. Whoever kills them the fastest wins. While it's pretty simple, competing with a friend can stick you on the game for a while. Gameplay 6/10 This game has nice gameplay. There is a list at the bottom of the screen, and you hit the correct number that goes with the action you want your people to do and they will do it. You can tell them to stand, stand and guard, follow you, follow you and guard, explore on their own, and get their booties back to the start of the level. The only with this is that you can't tell one person in particular to do something. Whatever you select, is what the whole team does. This get's rid of some strategic options, like, "You come with me and cover me in case it's dangerous, oops, you died, I guess I won't be going that way!". It would've been nice if you could tell one person individually what to do so you didn't have the whole group following you. After completing each level, you are taken to a menu where you select things to buy with the points that you earned, the more people you kill, the more points you get to spend. Who knows what the others are doing with their points, whatever it is they're not helping you out. Some team. The game has you taking your men to go and kill the enemies. Once you kill all the enemies, you go to the next level. Story/Point 5/10 The game contains a nice story intro. It's all told through text. Though the pictures are very nice which is a pretty good thing. It would be better if the story progressed more throughout the actual game. I've never been much of a fan of a Story button on the main menu for you to press in order to play. It just doesn't seem woven with the game well enough. Fun 5/10 This game is fun enough, two player can have you on for a while, but one player mode can get a little boring after dying around the first ten times. This game has a nice fun level to it though, two player mode does it good! Replay/Game Randomness 6/10 After beating one player mode of this game, I honestly didn't want to go through again except for picture taking. But two player mode in sheepz galore will make you play again, and again, and again. Unless your friend says, "What's wrong with you? You're still playing DOS games you caveman. I'm never talking to you again, you're my worst enemy stupid head, DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!" Content When you hit the enemies, they kinda bleed on the ground, and then when you actually kill them, they sorta... burst into blood and guts, so that's sorta what got it an M rating... Reviewed by Rockuman(aka Megaman)