• Over 40 hours of fantasy-based gameplay, a 3D isometric view, real-time battles, upgradable weapons and armor, and a valuable Training mode..

Product description ------------------- Disc(s) only. Ships in generic case. Disc(s) are professoinally cleaned. Guaranteed functional or replacement. Review ------ Once upon a time, a little company called Blizzard created a little game called Diablo, where players blasted their way through hundreds and hundreds of creatures in a quest to destroy, well, Diablo himself. Console gamers now have a chance to do the same thing in Record of Lodoss War, a game that plays almost exactly like Diablo, but differently enough to make worth playing. Which isn't a bad thing -- after all, Diablo is a great game. The only think Lodoss is missing is online play. Even without it, though, the epic story and action-packed gameplay will surely appeal to anyone who enjoyed Blizzard's classic.Record of Lodoss War is based on the anime series of the same name, although the game takes place some time after the story in the series. Players control a mysterious hero who has been resurrected from the dead in order to fight evil and stomp the bad guys. The game is played from an isometric perspective, and controlling the hero is simplicity itself. A quick-access menu of all-important healing items is quick and easy to get to, although players can still open up a main display screen to play with stats and equip weapons and armor. The sheer a of variety when it comes to weapons and armor should be mentioned here. Players eventually get the chance to work with Artifacts -- inscriptions they can put on weapons to improve their abilities. Using a variety of Artifacts (which requires a pattern and special ore called Mithril) on a variety of weapons can yield a huge range of results. With enough patience and fore, players can create some of the most deadly weapons ever seen in a role-playing game of this type. And a role-playing game it is. There are plenty of stats for players to tinker with by equipping a variety of items. The main character has all the standards (strength, dexterity, intelligence), but there are others -- critical hit percentages, for example. Eventually, players will team up with other characters to defeat hordes of baddies. The AI for the computer-controlled players isn't too bad -- they tend to get into the action nicely, anyway. But it still feels very much like these are just non-player characters along for the ride, like smart weapons, rather than other players who go off and do their own thing. Magic is one of the more intriguing aspects of the game. In order to prepare a spell, players have to punch in a series of buttons on the controller to queue it up. That means that casting a spell in the middle of combat is a pain most players won't want to deal with, which is frustrating. But it makes sense -- after all, spells are complex. Throughout the game the storyline unfolds, and as players begin to realize who they are and what they're up against, the epic plot become more and more engrossing. While the graphics aren't anything to look twice at (we're talking pretty basic visuals here), the action-packed pace and hordes of enemies to destroy are fun in a purely visceral way, while the storyline adds a bit of intellect to the whole thing. The Bottom Line: It's a nicely done Diablo clone, which means that it takes all the good bits and adds quite a few twists to make an entertaining romp through some diverse dungeons. -- DailyRadar Review