Playing Wizards & Warriors in so many ways reminds me of my first viewing of Star Wars Episode I. This was George Lucas's big return after the trilogy, and I was ready to go. At the beginning of the movie, Lightsabers flare, the movie starts out with nice pacing and action, and then it happens, Jar Jar Binks comes into play. The movie has some brilliant moments, such as the pod racing scene and the final Jedi fight, but in the end you are left with a sense that it could have been a lot better. You go home asking yourself, "How could they have missed the fact that Jar Jar isn't funny? Didn't anyone watch the movie before releasing it?" You wonder why after initial fan feedback they didn't patch the movie and somehow kill Jar Jar in an unfortunate pod racing incident.

Upon booting Wizards & Warriors, there are decisions galore for character creation. What class to play, what race? Even sex of character will affect your statistics. D.W. Bradley had just written his first RPG in years after Wizardy 5, 6, and 7, and I was ready to go. I formed my party of 2 warriors, 2 mages, a thief, and a cleric. Good old role-playing goodness was on the way. We left town and after a short 42 and a half hour load, we were hacking at some very attractive skeletons. Combat is handled in a turn-based system like Might and Magic or Bards Tale or Wizardy. It works for the most part, although some monsters move around in real time while you are going through turns. You can also opt to play in Real Time Mode.

Soon we found a dungeon. Excitement flared through the party. At the beginning of the dungeon was a switch. We threw it, and then waited a couple more hours for the dungeon to load. Then all was good again—classic RPG puzzles galore, cool encounters. A dungeon master greeted us and described every room as we entered. This game was going to be an instant classic. Then we ran into Jar Jar Binks. I know that was not his name, but it was some gnome who dropped his keys in the water. I know he dropped his keys because he told me that approximately 87 times. He also liked rats, he told me that 90 times. His voice was annoying, and it was torture going through the conversation tree.

Finish the first dungeon, return to town. Towns are not in 3D, instead you side scroll to the shop you want to go into. This worked great. I clicked on the blacksmith and proceeded to ID the items I wanted to ID. Then I clicked on the mages guild where I was politely dumped to Windows 98. The game was rebooted. Now I decided to do some quests—might as well. I enlisted in the local guild. My fighter got a quest. I had to watch some dumb conversation and it took me about a minute before I could accept it. My fighter was on that quest, but my other fighter wasn't. I had to sit through the same dumb conversation for him. Later on, I had 4 players in the guild and had to sit through much longer and more boring quest setups to give each character their due.

The game went on. The plot was essentially set up at the beginning. Get a sword and kill the big bad guy. Some of the best dungeons ever to grace my computer screen were set in my path. Some of these dungeons, unfortunately, were filled with annoying 3-year-old monsters like the boogres. Apparently someone writing the game thought flatulence and snot from mentally retarded monsters would be a funny plot line. I suspect this was the guy who created Jar Jar Binks, but I digress. Other times, the dungeons were filled with vampires, hounds, and various forms of undead.

The game uses a 3D engine. I think the engine is wonderful for an RPG game. It accomplishes a sense of fantasy, and the Dungeon Master talking really adds life to the rooms. I like the engine, except the designers made two major mistakes with it. First, they put in a jump key and jumping puzzles. I think designers get all giddy when they can simulate a jumping action and make platforms to land on. I love jumping on platforms, don't get me wrong, but that’s why I have a Nintendo 64. Zelda, Donkey Kong, and even Mario can happily jump on platforms all day long, and it's fun. In a first-person game, it's annoying and not fun at all. The second major mistake is they put in ladders. I have tried and tried to go down a ladder in the game. After tons of practice, I finally perfected the technique of healing my party, falling, and then healing again. I don't think there is any other way down them.

As for sound, spells sound great. Dungeon effects sound great. Voice acting is horrible. Maybe the voice acting isn't that bad, but the scripts they work with are horrific. They repeat over and over again the same information. I decided I didn’t have to talk to a character once and didn’t sit all the way through a conversation. I couldn't fulfill a quest then because one of the repetitive keywords triggered the quest. I had to start over and listen to the same speeches all over. Oh, the pain.

This is such a difficult game to review. In a lot of ways, it's like passing a car accident. It's a terrible mess and you should just pass it up. I have heard that it probably won't get better soon because Activision is not letting the writers of the game patch it up. On the other hand, like the car accident, it draws us in and captivates us. There are some truly wonderful classic RPG moments here. The underlying stat system is grade "A". That sense of "one more level" is always present as you can change classes, gain new spells, and acquire new traits and characteristics. I couldn't put the game down despite its occasional crash, long load times, and horrendous scriptwriting. On the other hand, despite all its greatness, I have the same foreboding feeling I had at the end of Star Wars: Episode 1. This could have been great piece, why didn't anyone look at and edit the end product?