Wizardry 8

List Price: $29.99

Features:

• Fantasy role-playing game
• Fight other factions for a powerful artifact that holds the secret of life
• 11 races and 15 character classes
• More than 100 types of monsters, more than 100 different animated spells
• For 1 player

Accessories:
PC Gamer (1-year)	Games for Windows: The Official Magazine

Customer Reviews:

Great RPG [Posted on 2004-03-23]
This one is a real winner.

Character creation is fun, with a whole stack of races and classes to choose from, plus a decent selection of voices and charcter portraits. The game world is huge - I played the game for about three months and still didn't see everything there was to see. The plot is fairly engaging - not novel quality, or even as interesting as Fallout, but interesting enough to keep you going. There are multiple endings, and the choices you make can have a major effect on the plot.

Combat is where the game really shines, which is good, because you'll be doing a lot of it. It's not uncommon to have one tough battle after another after another in this game, and you'll have to make creative use of terrain, party formation, and the wide variety of weapons, spells and magical/technological items available to you to survive. Seriously - if you don't like very frequent, very hard battles, you should look at another game.

Though the graphics are a mixed bag (a lot of ugly polygons), the designers made good use of 3D, making it quite a bit of fun to explore the maps, and see what's around the next corner. The music is all right - atmospheric, but not very good. The voice acting is so-so, but almost every character has a voice, which is neat.

Best Game in the Wizardry Series! [Posted on 2004-04-29]
Sirtech really outdid themselves with this one. So 6 and 7 were a little lackluster. So what. Sirtech proved that they were more than on the ball with this one. This is absolutely the best-playing, turn-based RPG I have seen in a LONG time. There are many who have tried, and failed, to make a realistic, 3-D, yet still turn-based combat system. They almost always fall short in some way, such as not being able to move around very much during combat, or having a lackluster magic system, and too few special abilities. This is not something you will have to worry about in this game. The combat system runs smoothly, is extremely intuitive in its setup, and has so many options, that you could literally play through the game more than a hundred times, and not even end up with the same character combinations any of those times, let alone to solve all the secrets, and hear all the voiceover lines, and such. This game is MASSIVE, and it was designed to be played forever. There are 15 classes, and 12 character races. The character creation system is the best ever in a Wizardry game, and is in fact better than many other character creation systems out there, as well. It's based on what you want to play, not what you roll on random dice, to create your character with. The areas are huge, and there are over 100 spells, and a myriad of items and monster types, that will keep even the most seasoned RPGer busy for a while. This game is a MUST HAVE for any true RPGer. I would give it more than 5 stars, if that was an option, this game is just THAT GOOD.

A Welcome Trip in the Wayback Machine [Posted on 2004-06-17]
I played Wiz 6 & 7 and I've been playing CRPG's since Might & Magic 1 was released on a single 5" floppy. So that's where I'm coming from.

This game is a labor of love from people who also played and enjoyed the Ulitma, Might & Magic, and Wizardry series way back when.

What does that mean? It means: party play - lots of stats & numbers - oodles of badies to kill - an interesting story (that's mostly an excuse to kill even more bad guys but interesting) - quirky classes - uniques skills - odd humor - wide open fields of exploration.

If you love games - well remember the people who made this game love them just as much as you do. It's a steal at this price.

Three and a Half Stars, Actually... [Posted on 2005-03-22]
I just finished Wizardry 8 this weekend after playing it for about six weeks. There were several marathon days of game-playing in that time, and the purchase of the game was certainly well worth it. I could not bring myself to give the game four stars, however, and I wish the rating bar would allow me to give it a 3 1/2 star grade. 3 is just too low.

First of all, let me begin by saying that I played and loved the original Wizardy, which I played like a madman on my Nintendo back in the late eighties. I actually remembered the characters names that I'd used back then and incorporated them into this game! Many of the things I liked about the original game could be found in this one; turn-based gameplay with myriad strategic possibilities, good (not ideal, but good) D&D character ability progression, and some fantastic -- if not epic -- battles.

Fighting in this game was, in my opinion, terrific. It wasn't just hack & slash... you benefitted from thinking about the situation, the formation of your party, what creatures you were fighting, what spells you should use early on in a fight and what spells to use later, and which weapons you wanted to select. Still, if you wanted to get your fighters in there and slice & dice, you could do that. But I must say here that the actual combat was much better than in my favorite all-time RPG, Morrowind (GOTY Edition), which is a first person, one-player (non-party), live combat game.

Character creation was honestly mediocre. Again, compared to Morrowind, the pros and cons of choosing a particular species wasn't particularly exciting, especially when you're hoping to create a specialized character with an excellent "long-term growth potential" for what he/she does. I created a ranger that I was excited about at first, but the class never really mattered much, aside from finding objects a little more easily, and the ability to use a special bow. As I went through the game, I realized that if I'd created a bard or a ninja, I'd have discovered some interesting armor and weapons for them along the way! The non-player characters that you meet in gameplay will never advance to your level if they join you too late.

You have a limited number of character faces to choose from for each species, but dozens and dozens of different voices. I had a hilarious dragon-like character in my party who spoke snobbishly, and a blue tinkerbellish sprite who spoke with a Pakistani accent. They all kept me entertained throughout the game with their dialogue.

Some of the quests in "W8" seemed to go on forever in the same landscapes, and they were a little obtuse at best. I was frustrated many times over when I came upon a door or an altar where I new I'd find a new "area" and I'd read the message "a certain object is needed here." In other words, imagine standing at your front door in the darkness and rain and having to fumble through the 40 keys on your keychain... and then realizing the key you need isn't there. You're getting tired of seeing the same old things, and sure would like to travel somewhere new! Happened a lot.

One thing I liked a lot with W8 was how many different varieties of creature there were to fight. There always seemed to be something new, and the AI of the game kept things challenging for the most part. There were plenty of push-over brawls, where your party just demolished a group of creatures that you'd seen 50 times before, but only in areas you'd seen at the very beginning of the game. As you went to new places, things got tougher, and eventually, things got tougher in most of the places you frequently traveled. There were two or three times in the game where a battle might go on for a half an hour or more real-time, when your party was outnumbered 6-to-1. Fun stuff.

Pretty good magic selection... lots of spells to buy and lots of spells that just come with experience for the magic-users. Like I hinted upon earlier, you're not always going with the same spells in all situations; you have a limited amount of spell points in 6 different categories of spell, and some creatures have natural defenses against certain kinds of magic, so you have to be creative. Instead of always pulling out the "big gun" spells, you might want to try to paralyze or frighten large groups of hungry monsters first.

The endgame, like many RPGs, wasn't as thrilling as I'd hoped. I won't give any spoilers here, but one day, someone will script something that blows me away. This one really didn't; it just kind of signified that the game was over.

To sum up, I would certainly recommend W8 for someone looking for a good turn-based, D&D style party adventure. By the time you've grown accustomed to the controls, the fighting rocks. If Morrowind (GOTY Edition) wasn't a first-person adventure, I'd say go with it instead (and I still feel that every gamer should play it if not own it!) but W8 does offer a lot that Morrowind doesn't. Wizardry 8 really did entertain me for the month and a half I enjoyably envested in it.

Great Fun [Posted on 2007-06-28]
I loved Wizardry 7 and this final sequel did not disappoint. I was sorry to see the series end. It is a great first person, party based game. If I remember right, this came out around the same time as Baldur's Gate and I enjoyed this one so much more. I actually finished it whereas in BG I only got about halfway through before I got so annoyed with the 3rd person view I could not play it any more.



Some may call the Wizardry series old school, but it is the way I like to play. Highly recommended.

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