Fans of the latter end of the Wizardry series (excluding VIII) know who D.W. Bradley is, having fallen in love with his wonderfully crafted work in Sir-Tech's Wizardry: Heart of the Maelstrom, Wizardry: Bane of the Cosmic Forge and Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant. Bradley also crafted Origin's obscure but fun cyber punk stylized first-person shooter CyberMage: Darklight Awakening (circa 1995-96) and his first full blown RPG Wizards & Warriors (which received both critical acclaim and disdain by critics). Bradley and his Georgia-based development studio, Heuristic Park, have been working on a combat focused role-playing game called Dungeon Lords since 2000, and while it may seem at first glance like a traditional role-playing game Bradley is famous for building, it is actually on the other end of the spectrum.

Dungeon Lords is a combat focused role-playing game that plays like a third-person action game, but also offers all the character development, loot gathering, and the traditional bestiary of baddies found in most RPG titles. When Bradley began designing Dungeon Lords he wanted to create a game that offered a more action focused experience that didn't depend on the roll of the dice, but rather on the way players utilized their movement, actions, and specific character skills in combat. Designing the game this way is supposed to make it easier for both novice gamers who may have never played a PC role-playing game before and seasoned veterans who have played every RPG that has come out since the beginning of the genre. The good news for those of us that are comfortable with action focused RPGs is that Bradley has accomplished what he set out to do.



Before we sink our teeth into the meat of Dungeon Lords, it should be pointed out that this particular build we're playing is missing quite a number of final features. For example not all of the playable races are included, you can't customize minor things (hair color, face etc.), many of the quests are not in place, and a number of other odds and ends need to be introduced into the game world. With that said let's have at the details.

Character Creation



The first thing we did when we began playing is set out to build a character. There will be around seven playable characters when the game is finished, but we were able to have our pick of five of them (with two female types included). There's the a-typical Human male & female, male Dwarf, male & female Elves and two humanoid unique races: the Urgoth (kind of like an Umber Hulk, but without all the nastiness) and homely looking cat-like folk called Wylvans. Humans feature the most even stats with females being a little bit faster and slight weaker than their male counterparts, while Dwarves tend to be short, stout and strong; Elves have an affinity towards intelligence; Urgoth are ultra strong and rugged but lacking much cunning; and Wyvlan have a nice mix of strength, dexterity and agility with a slight bonus to speed.

After choosing which race suited us the best, we chose from a selection of five classes (Mage, Fighter Thief and two specialists magic user types) and selected our skills. The great thing about classes in Dungeon Lords is that they don't restrict you in developing skills that would be considered outside your class. The advantage to choosing one means a slight bonus when taking on new skills that are useful to your character's class.



The other good thing about Dungeon Lords is that you know what skills are available in the game the minute you fire up a new game and start building a character. That's because they are all there right on the screen. Some skills do require prerequisite points in other skills first, but for the most part everything pretty unrestrictive.

There's the usual assortment of skills to choose from - armed and unarmed combat, armor and shield, athletics, various thieving skills (scouting, lockpicking, disarming traps, stealth, etc), various magic skills in the four schools as well as resistance skills, and some other useful stuff like parry, athletics, a a series of diabolic skills that let you do very mean things to your opponent in combat.



Once we selected our favorite skills and allotted points towards our base stats, we chose a Heraldry skill - there was only one included so we made the obvious choice - and named our character. And then we were off into the wilderness of the game world, standing by a roadside that said "Hargrove" and wondering why it was so dark everywhere...

Skills, Combat and Penalties



As we already mentioned, you can pick and choose what skills you want, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't use some common sense when doing so, because the first thing you'll realize when that first battle comes is that you should have put some points on some armed combat skills. Oops.

The other beautiful thing about Dungeon Lords is that, sure you can use that long sword or that fireball spell you picked up, but you won't be very damn effective with either if you don't have points allotted to those things. Most notably, the game uses a penalty system for weapons and armor that makes them pretty much useless if you don't have a proficiency. That proficiency can be just a skill in light weapons or could also include a strength requirement. The same goes for armor, shields and ranged weaponry - if you're not skilled enough to use it, then you might as well take it off because it's nothing but a promise of a quick and vicious beating. It's just something to keep in mind when equipping something new and exotic.

Speaking of equipment, you character has 16 slots that can be filled with weapons, armor and trinkets. These include a spot for boots, leggings, armor, helmet, four slots for rings, two slots for trinkets, shield, belt, shoulder, primary weapon and secondary weapon. The game allows for dual wielding, so the primary and secondary thing doesn't need any explanation, but one neat thing is that your shield can be worn no matter what weapons you are wielding. This allows you to fend off blows pretty easily and still have that secondary slot available for a less weapon like a small axe or a dagger. The secondary weapon can also be a ranged weapon like a bow or a throwing knives, which can be switched between using a hot key.

So after you've figured out what you can and can't use effectively, players can begin thinking about effective combat. Combat is pretty interesting because it's not just straightforward attack and defend. Movement direct combined with an attack produces different kinds of attacks, and changing together a series of attacks can result in some coup de grace knock-backs on your enemies. Players move with the WASD or Arrow keys on the keyboard and use the mouse to look. The left mouse button attacks and the right mouse button lets you block using your bare arm or a shield. Combing these actions with movements can give you different results like and overhand slice or a side-step, or even a defensive roll. At face value that might not seem all that thrilling, but the results in combat speak for themselves.

Schools of Magic



Magic, just like combat is more action focused than in traditional role-playing games because it's mostly object or component based. There's no mana in Dungeon Lords, but instead there's reagents, and crystals, and spellbooks that you collect that give you charges of a specific spell. That means that players won't have to worry about mana, but they will have to worry about running out of things, or waiting for things to charge. This lends to more conservative use depending on what kinds of magic you are using.