Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!rpi!bu.edu!m2c!umvlsi!dime!lee From: lee@quincy.cs.umass.edu (Peter Lee) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games Subject: PoR II: "Curse of the Azure Bonds" Message-ID: Date: 5 Dec 90 15:04:30 GMT Sender: news@dime.cs.umass.edu Distribution: comp Organization: The Software Development Lab at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Lines: 44 Well, I've been playing the sequel to "Pool Of Radiance" for about a week now, and I thought I'd share my impressions: First, as someone noted previously, the game is an OBVIOUS port from a non-mouse based system and almost no effort has been made to make it mac-like. Among the list of annoyances -- there is no way to turn off the sound (it ignores the sound settings in the control panel), you cannot choose the names of your saved game files (they are lettered A-J) and when you double-click on a saved game, it insists on taking you through the lengthy opening sequence (no shortcut that I can find to bypass it), then asks you which saved game to load anyway. As with its prequel, it pays attention to the arrow keys only sporadically, sometimes requiring to use the 7 and 1 keys on the numeric keypad to scroll with. Among the most annoying new features, also mentioned by the previous poster, is that it only allows one character of type-ahead, making it tedious even to use the keyboard at times. On the plus side, it's a cool adventure. As with PoR, the world is large and interesting (as a side note, while PoR came on 3 disks, compressed with StuffIt, CAB comes on only two, unstuffed disks. So far, however, it seems to have at least as much to explore as it's predecessor). Both games succeed in having the nicest mixture of plot/adventure with combat/hack'n'slash I have yet found in a computer game -- reminiscent (not surprisingly) of a well written TSR AD&D Module. Also, the combat algorithm has definitely been speeded up. On the bugs/"features" side -- the character importing and creation routines are not very well thought out. First, to import characters from PoR, you need to run PoR to remove the characters from the party (this is NOT the same as "dropping" them). Next, although your items and money aren't imported, if your PoR character had an attribute-enhancing magic item (such as Gauntlets of Ogre Power), the character will be brought into CAB with their stats permanently enhanced. Finally, if you roll up a new character in CAB and choose the "Modify" option, you can raise all of that character's stats to maximum. Oh the whole though, I found that I got over most of the interface annoyances fairly quickly (I now play with a pair of headphones lying next to the mac, plugged into the speaker jack to mute the sound) and I'm definitely hooked. -- |- Peter E. Lee, Staff Assistant -| | Software Development Lab at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst | | lee@cs.umass.edu or Fuligin@umass.bitnet or (413) 256-1329 | "When you expect whistles, it's flutes. When you expect flutes, it's whistles"