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Rhino Home Video, 2003
Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books we read as kids, when we first discovered fantasy rpgs? TSR produced some titles like Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons, The Pillars of Pentegarn, andThe Mountain of Mirrors during the 80's. Then there were the second generation books, like Deathtrap Dungeon, where you actually created a simple character, and rolled six sided dice to determine the outcome of fights. Man, those were great, eh?
Well, thanks to the ever-onward march of technology (which I'm sure will eventually produce sentient robots so sophisticated that they'll soon realize humans are idiots and try to kill us all, but thanks to the inherent tendency of technology to never friggin' work the way it's supposed to, we'll survive in the end because the warranty will expire on the giant intelligent killer robot terminator units and they'll shut down after displaying some infuriatingly retarded message like "The file you're attempting to read has a Cryptic 704 output failure error! Or has been eaten by gila monsters! Reboot!"), you can now relive the glory days of such classics as Revolt of the Dwarves on your TV!
How, you ask? Via the Scourge of Worlds! This is an interactive DVD based on the wildly popular Dungeons and Dragons game. You follow the exploits of Regdar the bulky fighter, Lidda the halfling thief, and Mialee, the elf exhibitionist. Uh, I mean, magic user.
These three stumble upon Regdar's old cleric mentor, Barathien, who's been visited by what he believes is an avatar of his god. This avatar has given him the location of the Scourge, a potent and mysterious weapon. Barathien believes that finding the Scourge will allow his clerics to use it to defend justice and goodness and stuff like that… but there is a band of druids pursuing the cleric who believe the Scourge is a dangerous and evil thing that should stay just where it is. Wherever it is that it is.
As the mini-movie progresses, there are points where you're asked to make decisions that will guide the characters through the next few scenes. You use your DVD remote to choose their course of action, then watch as your decisions play out in colorfully animated big-screen fun! For example, at the inn, do you let Lidda steal money with her pickpockets skill to pay for your meal, or does Regdar arm wrestle some punk barbarians for coins, or does Mialee take off the four square inches of material covering her elven boobies to rake in some cash? You decide!
(No, you perv, that last choice wasn't real. Although I personally believe Mialee would be up for it…)
Anyway, the animation is cool, the dialog is entertaining, and the story is simple yet worthy of twenty minutes of your time. The box claims there are almost 1,000 variations of the story which you can enjoy (although they all lead to only four endings). Some of the decisions you'll make are important to the progression of the plot, while some just seem to add flavor to the action.
Now, while my friend, who bought the DVD, had no problems watching it in his player, I must say that my guests and I encountered a glitch when watching it here in the kobold cave. During one major scene, when it came time to make an important decision, the DVD kept skipping right over the menu of our decision choices, and jumping us into the middle of a totally unrelated plotline elsewhere on the DVD. No matter how many times we went back to this same spot in the "game", we couldn't complete our original viewing because of this DVD error. I don't know what caused it, and it only happened in this one spot, but simply be forewarned that there may be problems like this with your own viewing of the DVD.
So anyway, check this out. It's a fun way to kill an hour or so with your gaming buddies when taking a break from rolling the dice or tossing the cards. I don't know that I'd shell out the $22 in copper pieces that they're asking, but wait for it to go on sale or show up on eBay.
This review brought to you by the Penderyn Campaign Group. Please visit our website for more reviews and cool game stuff.
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