Review

Drakan: Order of the Flame

If you like role-playing games (RPG) with a few brainteasers thrown in for good measure, Drakan: Order of the Flame by Psygnosis is right up your alley. This Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game offers an assortment of quests to complete in its visually stunning, highly complex world. The player character is Rynn, a young female warrior who displays the "uncommon" mixture of both brains and beauty. Although amply endowed, she doesn't bounce around the planet in a g-string like most of the female characters in another current RPG, EverQuest. Women can play her without wondering where her sports bra is. Parents concerned with the levels of violence in video games will also appreciate the included "gore-lockout" feature included with the game.

Rynn's main goal is to locate her younger brother, Delon, who has been captured by the forces of Darkness and dragged off to await a fate that remains unspecified for the first half of the game. She encounters Arokh, one of the last dragons on the planet and an original Guardian of the Flame, and they team up after Rynn proves herself worthy. Rynn can definitely take care of herself, and she is given ample opportunity to do so with her brains, weapons and spells. In another nice twist, Arokh's usefulness is not limited to aerial battles. He provides powerful backup when the stakes are high and the player is smart enough to utilize his skills.

Probably the best and most unusual aspect of game play in Drakan is the vantage offered by flying on Arokh's back. The two engage in numerous aerial battles, acquiring different "breaths" along the way as the obstacles (and opponents) become tougher and tougher. Game play is exceedingly smooth, given the complexity of the images--transparency in Arokh's wings, for example, and in the rain, lightning, and snow effects. Obvious love and care were also lavished on 10 or so real-time rendered scenes that explain more of the story. Drakan stuns you with visuals and then forces you to put your brain to work against various characters and situations, making you glad you saved "early and often."

All the time and effort involved can make certain aspects of the game more frustrating. Rynn has a definite problem picking up objects­­more clearly defined key commands would have helped in this area. Another issue, more content-related, is the lack of development of the initially strong relationship between Rynn and Arokh. After a certain point, he seems to be little more than transportation, instead of her noble guardian. Perhaps the biggest frustration is the end of the game, left wide-open for a sequel, but in such a way that some players might be left wondering, "I came all this way for that?"

Still, these flaws are small. Drakan is definitely worth picking up and playing. Women especially will enjoy the strong female lead, and players in general will love exploring the world and its multitude of unique characters and experiences.

Hardware requirements: DRAKAN requires 3D acceleration using Voodoo 1-based 3D card (or one with similar performance) as a minimum spec. Optimized for AMD 3D. Mature audiences ages 17+ recommended.

By S.D. Scattergood.
Stacie Scattergood has just recently started to learn the joys of computer games, mainly due to her husband's non-stop exploits in the online role-playing adventure EverQuest. She currently works for the local technology monopoly as a software test engineer. She lives in Bellevue, Washington with two extremely demanding cats and her husband, a software development engineer. See more of Stacie's work.