Nox

The Good
First of all to mention, Nox comes on two compact discs (2CD) and by that, everyone (including me) would expect that second disc to be used. Well, you're wrong, everything's on first CD, and more, you do the installation from it, play the game, even multiplayer mode, and watch the animations. Well, the reason of second CD here is mainly for multiplayer purposes. You see, it has everything but the main game, so they included it so you could borrow it to your friend and play it over Internet or Network connection. I wish they did that to Firestorm, hehe. However, since CD has to be in for Nox Quest add-on, you can as well play it from the second CD (I mean, only use it to be present).

Let's start with the story for instance. Your name is Jack (which you can change when generating your characters, T-shirt color, pants, shoes, etc.), and you're a low-life scumm. Naaw, you're just an ordinary don't-wanna-be hero who lives in a trailer with his girlfriend. Just as you were watching the TV, and waiting Tina to get you something for dinner, in the land of Nox, evil queen & sorceress Hecubah is up to some magical mumbo-jumbo to get the power orb which she later plans to install on the ultimate legendary staff weapon, but you'll assemble that first, unlucky for her (unless you play as a wizzard :)). I dunno how much does it seem strange, but that orb is just on top of your TV in the living room (at least you called it a living room). Once she makes it work, you, the orb and your TV have been sucked in in the world of Nox. Lucky for you you fell on the zeppelin alike baloon ship, but it was still high enough. With your trading capabilities, you soon managed to exchange your TV for your life, but that's only one part of a deal.

Now you've brought up to select whadda ya want to become, a warrior (uses mainly brutal ways to achieve his goals, not likely to negotiate with Hecubah), a conjurer (using his ability to control, and later create, creatures and its accuracy lies in bow equipments), or a wizzard (using staff weapons mostly, but not as often as your magic pockets, wizard is the slowest, weakest, but most wicked in combat). After that, you'll start in the position according to the character you chose to become. The best thing in whole game is that with every character you experience completely different story, with different dialogues, places, tactics and foes. For example, when you play as a wizzard, you'll never get attacked by some hammer hacking guy with a shield so up you cannot even se his face. Nevertheless, for those meaner foes, when you play as a wizzard, only one hit will most of time be enough to end your life for good. And since most of characters has the ability to heal by themselves (including our Jack), it's not just enough to hit someone and then run far away for a longer time as that could be wasted hit.

The intro is the same, but the ending animation is different, according to the character you use. The weakest character will reward you with the best animation and vice versa. For example if you finish the game with a warrior, you see Jack being sucked back in his trailor, with a hair messed up, holding some skull in his hands, and missing your TV, as a conjurer you control the two ogres to save you and grab Hecubah, but when she kills them you entrap her in the orb, and as a wizzard, after exchanging some spells with her, you strike her with her own lightning bolt of a greater shock, and she turns into almost naked nice looking gal, with the final quotes; IHecubah: "You're not from around here?", Jack: "Nope, but I'm beginning to like it."I.

As Diablo was really something when it came out, same stands for Nox, and for those foolishly delusioned by Diablo II I can only say they have not the slightest idea what they're missin'. Now, let us mention some real things to look forward if playing the Nox. As you start from nowhere with some rather puny stick as a weapon, you'll get a few hints along the road as you read the signs, like discovering what walls you can break, use the magics, jumping over lava pits and such. Mainly the first thing to do is to join your selected guild, either by prooving youreself worthy by passing the gauntlet and becoming one of the fire knights, or if conjurer, first to learn the power to control creatures, and later even summon them, and if mage aka wizzard, you'll have to retrieve the stolen book for Horvath, the main wizzard (later rather easily killed by Hecubah). During your first few missions and exploration, word of Hecubah will be quite unknown as you wander the villages, wreck havoc upon the ogrish village, exploring the mines, or run through the forest. As you talk with the villagers, you can get some side-stories for which you'll mostly be rewarded by large bag of money or some weapons and stuff. On some points, which whomever you play, there'll be some rumours of Hecubah raising the army of the dead, and you'll be directed to do the sweep on the graveyard. There you'll find Hecubah in the middle of raising the zombies, but something will go wrong as she'll fire them out (here's a tip, they can only be killed by fire-power). As she'll see you, she will unleash her necromancer minion to stop you.

As you'll break the news to the world that Hecubah is really up to something, you'll be sent to assemble three-parted staff weapon as the ultimate weapon against her, and in the end, you'll get the power orb from your TV, mount it on your staff, and obliterate thee. Thus follows the mano-a-womano fight and the rewarding end scene.

The Bad
There's hardly anything I could add against, but mostly noticeable is a step backward in animations. How come? Why? They were always at the top of any kinda animations, and these are brilliant, but comparing to their older games, they're definitely a step backward. Guess that's the price when setting the game on only one CD.

The Bottom Line
This game is definitely worthy buying, as it is probably the best game ever made considering RPG genre. First installment of Diablo was good, Eidos' Revenant was something new, but as always, Westwood put standars on everything, especially when it has exceeding the limits inclueded. Maybe you'll finish this game in just two days, but there are three different ways to prolonge that time, and if you're not enough with it, you can always D/L the Nox Quest. This game definitely deserves to be at the top of RPG genre so far, as the enemies are so detailed and possess a nice scream of extinguishing, lol, you can move almost anything, if not, you can at least crash, kill, bang... destroy it. Take it, and you'll experience something really new in the world of Role-Playing Games.

The Good
I like Diablo. I'm not a HUGE fan, but for its time it was great. Nox takes what made Diablo great (the 3/4 top-down Isometric view), and incorporated a fantastic (although linear) storyline, great graphics, beautiful music, and an addicitive quality that keeps me up at night.

I'll say this right off the bat - Not many games hook me from the beginning of the game. Only three (Starflight, RollerCoaster Tycoon, and X-Wing) have hooked me from the beginning. Nox - right from the opening cinematics - is cool. Sure the game's premises is hokey. You are Jack Mower, a 20th century "good ol' boy" that is sucked into the world of Nox - via his TV set - and sets off to save the world from Hecubah (kooky name, but the opening cinema is so funny, you'll laugh).

You start off the game choosing a "profession", either a Warrior (skilled in weapons and armor), a Wizard (although weak, has a multitude fo spells and the ability to lay traps), or a Conjurer (having the ability to charm and/or summon monster and creatures to help him). Each profession has a separate game to play, with 11 chapters per profession (for a total of 33 levels). Unlike Diablo, Nox's dungeons and locales are all set in stone. The reason behind it is the fact that Westwood wanted to have a storyline behind what you were supposed to do while in Nox. Having the sceneries and dungeons change each time you play would be near impossible to program. So if you play the Warrior mode all the way through, and replay it, you'll play the exact game.

The control system is fairly intuitive. You use the mouse to turn your character around, and the right mouse button to move. The further away the mouse is from your character, the faster he runs. The left mouse button is your attack button.

The graphics are much more colorful that Diablo. Since you are traversing through swamps, temples, villages, inns, and other locales, the graphics are clean and crisp. Spell effects are great. Especially when the priests in the Temple of Ix summon the stone golems. Another great feature is the inventory. The inventory is stored off screen, so you just hit "I" to bring it down onto the screen. Inventory manipulation is simple, and is also used in transactions.

The TrueSight technique is pretty cool. Depending on where you are you can only see what can naturally be seen. In other words you can't see behind walls or around corners, until you go behind the wall or around the corner. It makes for great twitch play at times (especially in a room full of beholders).

As a side note to the graphics, the automap is not (thank God) overlayed on top of the screen like in Diablo. The automap (although small) is neatly tucked on the left hand side of the screen, with a green dot representing where you are.

The sound is very nice. The ambient sounds and background music is nicely done, but not intruding.

But the gameplay is where it shines. You task (in each of the professions) is to defeat Heacubah by combining the Halbred of Horrendus, the Heart of Nox, and the Weirdling to create the weapon to defeat Hecubah. I hate to sound like a TV ad, but you have to play it to see how the gameplay really shines.

The Bad
It's addictive. Much more addictive than Diablo and Tetris combined. It's a great game with a lot going for it.

The Bottom Line
Westwood Studios did a great job with this one. They could have taken a "me-too" approach to this game and knocked off a half-rate Diablo Clone. But instead, Westwood took a genre and made it better. They made a great game without making it a rip-off. My congradulations to Westwood studios.

Bottom Line: A fantastic game worth playing. If you love Diablo or Diablo II, then you'll love Nox.

The Good
I love the weaponry! Especially the fireball staff of recharge, that lets out one hell of a fireball. It has a very good story line and great classes makes a very good game indeed. The graphics are splendid and enhances the game greatly, it also makes the game more enjoyable in general.

The Bad
Perhaps a little TOO easy, I completed it within weeks!! Also the AI could generate other people like in multi-play skirmishes in C&C Tiberian Sun.

The Bottom Line
Fast paced and FUN. If you like fast paced action games, this is a must have for you.