|
Total Chaos The best strategy game of all times:
It takes place in a fantasy world of magicians and monsters. The gameplay variations of this turn based strategy game are unlimited. And the most important thing: the fight is open till the end of the game, anybody can win. One of the most sweetest feature of Total Chaos is Play by Email (PBEM), so friends far away from each other aren't out of the fight of orcs, dragons, wizards and other creatures. With this option the gameplay feels like a chessgame played via mail. Moreover Total Chaos is translated to Hungarian by eager Amiga fans, thus players with weak English knowledge can play it easily.
Aim of the game: The game is divided into three phases: After this introduction let's start to set up the game parameters. It is possible in 3(!) screens.
On the first one we can set up the number of players from 1 to 8, simply check the box next to their names. When the "Human" option is checked it means this wizard will be controlled by a human player, otherwise it is controlled by the computer. In the "Team" row we can set the wizard's team. With this feature arbitrary human, computer or mixed teams can be created. The basic setup is all wizards are on different teams, so we can play the classical "everybody against everybody" game. Each wizard can be renamed.
On the second setup screen the number of turns can be set. After the turn limit is reached, the winner will be the one who still lives and has the most points. Setting 0 turns means no turn limit. We can set up the number of independent generators. Generators randomly create independent monsters. If you set up many generators it might happen that the independents kill all the wizards. Below this we can set up the starting amount of random spells. Also the scrolls laying around in the board can be set up here. Scrolls can be collected and used by the wizards. You may choose to allow artifacts (war machines eg. bolter walls) to be randomly setup on the board. An artifact can be controlled by standing creatures next to it. The wizard with more creatures standing next to an artifact controls it. When the number of different team's creatures are equal then nobody controls it. These war machines are deadly effective! Dead bodies can be set up as well. This can be useful to cast Raise Dead at the beginning of the combat. Swedonian power points give unique bonuses (additional combat, life points, etc) to creatures when standing on them. Be aware that those bonuses aren't active when the creature moves away from the point. Archonian power points salute the old 8 bit computer game Archon (1983). Those who were lucky enough to have played with it on Spectrum or Commodore 64 will remember 5 points have to be captured to win the game. In exploration mode the whole board is not visible (enemies too), so our monsters must be used to explore it. You hear the sounds of enemy creatures, just don't know where they are :) Impurities randomly dismiss dead bodies and monsters from the board. It also creates randomness in the combat by introducing massive critical hits. Agent casting is probably one of the most interesting parts of the game. Your wizard can cast small magicians, djinns. With this option these creatures can cast some easy spells. They cast spells independently. You don't have the ability to control what spells they cast.
On the third screen, much more fine-tuning of parameters is possible, but the above mentioned options are the most important ones. Dungeon wars option deserves a few special words. Killing is happening here in a random generated dungeon. Walls are strong but not unbeatable. You can get important tactical benefit by destroying certain parts of the dungeon. Flying creatures are extremely effective in dungeon wars. After this let's start to play! Click on the start button you'll get a similar screen like this. On the left side is the battlefield, on the right is your spellbook. The first 20 spells are visible. When you use up one the next one slips in at the end of the book. Spells can be divided into two main groups:
Creatures:
Next to the name of creature there is the spell availability number (percent). (Those who grew up on Speccy it's important to know that percent does not mean the probability of the success of a certain spell. In Total Chaos every spell succeeds.) Negative availability means that spell is not available at the beginning of the game. It can only be acquired by way of meditation (magic wood, dark citadel, etc) or by destroying powerful monsters (dragons, giants, hydras).
Range shows how far you can cast the spell. In most of the cases it's one, but there are exceptions. LoS - Line Of Sight - indicates that the wizard has to "See" the square where he wants to cast the spell. The chosen square cannot be covered by other monsters, rocks or walls. In the "Cast on" row there is a precise rule list where the spell can be cast: empty spaces, dead bodies (those are marked with green), but on other objects not (scrolls, growths, etc). In the "Cannot cast" row those objects are listed where casting is forbidden. Other Spells:
There is the description of the magic castle in the picture. It comes up that our wizard can hide from his rivals inside it. When the castle is demolished the wizard gets a bonus spell.
After the casting phase comes the movement phase. With the question mark, information can be gathered about creatures, wizards and objects on the board. At the picture there are the statistics of one of Shreck's relatives. :)
Life: The life bar indicates the maximum and actual life force of a creature (12). If it goes to 0 the creature dies. It's body remains on the board. The bar next to it is the recovery rate. (In every turn the actual life value changes with that). In this case it is 1, so every turn the ogre recovers one hit point. Magic Resistance: Indicates how protected the monster is against magic attacks. If it goes to 0, the creature is dismissed from the game. Magic attacks are: justice, dark power, etc. These are most effective against creatures with high life points but low magic resistance. Maneuver: Important parameter. If two enemies are standing next to each other they engage each other ('E' letter). They cannot move further and have to fight. The manouver value describes how big a chance they have to walk away. Higher value means higher chance. Intelligence: Creatures with higher intelligence are more resistant against subversion and protected against "Brain Drain" spells. Combat: Melee strength parameter. The attacked creature loses this value from its life points. Ranged combat: Some creatures can shoot. This indicates the strength of shooting. Range: The distance of shooting attack. Special combat: At the end of the turn some monsters can attack or heal it's neighbouring squares. This value shows the attack / heal strength. If it's negative then it's heal. All eight neighbouring squares are affected. Movement: How many steps available in one turn. Next screen are special abilities:
Attack living / undead indicates whom can the creature attack. Undeads are special creatures (zombies, ghosts, skeletons, etc). Those cannot be damaged by normal "living" creatures (e.g. ogre). Mostly these undeads are weak, but few monsters can attack them. Weak undead creatures are useful to hold up the charge of an enemy horde. Undeads can be attacked by other undeads, wizards with magic weapons (knife, sword, bow, etc) and magic attacks. Very effective is the Exorcist against the undead. Raised deads become undead too. Having an undead dragon gives a huge advantage. The graphics of the game are simple and animated. There are certain creatures and wizards which are animated with raytraced softwares. Most probably the best one is the falcon! The details and smoothness of it's animation reminds me of the hawk from the famous Psygnosis game Agony. And there are more creatures which are made with this technique. Some other creatures are handdrawn. It'd be a nice feature to have all creature's graphics in both versions (handdrawn and raytraced) and having the possibility to choose one of them. The sounds are digitized. The games says the enemy wizard's spell through a male and female voice. Musics are great, since there are more than 50 modules available. One music from the writer of these lines intoning, which was composed more than 15 years ago. :-)
Killed creatures are worth points. The scores can be displayed at the end of every turn.
Fun factor: Well, I think this is the biggest feature of the game. It's simple fun to play with it alone against the computer and more fun against friends! During the battles of wizards and monsers you can easily forget that evening you have sat down to play with your Amiga. The next perception from the real life is the sunrise shining through your window. It's deep variety, simple handling and "easy-to-learn but hard-to-master" capability make this game evergreen and easily puts it in my list of top 10 games ever. This game is strongly recommended to everybody aged from 9 to 99. .
Bebe ^ AMIGARuleZ!
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
