| Whack a Wizard... Overall, I must say that Art of Magic does an excellent job of providing a fairly unique gaming experience, and should more than live up to the expectations of Magic & Mayhem fans. The game looks great, plays great, requires quite a bit of strategy and thought, and should keep anyone busy for quite some time. As a word of warning, though, you should be fully aware of what you're getting into before you buy it, so I highly reccomend trying the demo first. It's completely unlike any other game, so it may be wise to figure out if you like the overall gameplay of AOM first.
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| Graphics
- Sound - Gameplay - Depth
- Multiplayer | Reviewed
by John Del Percio |
GRAPHICS
97 % |
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The game engine and in-game graphics are truly exceptional and the engine sports some of the absolute best particle effects I've ever seen in a game. What brings the score down a bit is the interface. What in the world were they thinking when they let that go out the door? The worst part is that you must always see the interface, so it's a constant reminder that "this feels wrong, it could have been better."
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SOUND
95 % |
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The sound, overall, is just great. The spell effects, background sounds, the music, and the lead character voice-overs are all superb. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, some of the voices were truly painful to hear. Fortunately, it isn't bad enough to ruin the game.
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GAMEPLAY
98 % |
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The gameplay in Art of Magic is excellent overall. The movement interface is easy to use, there are no control problems, the strategies employed truly make you think. Unfortunately, a few points were lost for the inflexiblity of the AI. I like being able to use any combination of tactics to beat an AI, and in most maps, you're left with only one option, and re-loading until you find it. Still, it doesn't kill the fun too much.
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DEPTH
89 % |
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There's nothing exceptionally deep about AOM. The story is primarily there to give some form of purpose to hunting a bunch of evil wizards and the gameplay is fairly simplistic, despite its taxing strategies.
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MULTIPLAYER
92 % |
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The multiplayer gameplay itself is actually very good. Where a few points were cut off is that it only supports the usage of GameSpy Arcade (something I prefer to avoid at all possible costs), and even with that there are some difficulties in the GS Arcade support, though that will be patched.
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Personally, I never played the original Magic & Mayhem, though it freqnently managed to come up in conversation. That being said, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from Art of Magic. Initially it was a bit of a let-down because I was expecting it to be very different from what it is. After putting it down for a few days, though, I managed to get into it a lot more the second time around after figuring out exactly what it is. It's certainly an interesting play if you're in the mood for something a bit different.
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