With some games, a player just gets a feeling when he says the title out loud. The title of a game can be creepy, silly, exciting, gloomy or even exhausting to try to pronounce. Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager is a title that instills a feeling of dread and doom, and rightfully so. This middle nineties release is a dark fantasy from Strategic Simulations Incorporated (SSI) and features a grim mood from start to finish. It is a role playing game, a genre in which SSI is well noted for, and is the direct sequel to Dark Sun: The Shattered Lands…another sinister but classic medieval RPG.
It is a turn based game.
Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager plays out very similarly to its predecessor and actually uses an identical gaming engine. The improvements to the game are obvious within minutes of play, however. The character sprites feature larger and more detailed designs. The interface is still the same user-friendly display, but it has been made more colorful. The map features some nicely done terrain, which is a great bonus, especially since the battles take place on the same map as exploration and the user doesn’t have any bonus videos to look forward to. For the adventurer in everyone, there are also more weapons and items to find and buy, and also more and more advanced spells to learn.
The
story of Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager takes place in the city of Tyr on the barren, desert-like planet of Athas. Fans of Dark Sun: The Shattered Lands will likely recognize these, as well as many other locations in the game. Tyr was recently freed from the oppressive rule of its sorcerer king, but this freedom has come with a price. The city now lies completely defenseless and at the mercy of an evil general and a powerful dragon, who are planning to overrun the city. A rebellious faction known as the Veiled Alliance is trying to thwart the coming of the dragon and the Lord Warrior. The opening sequence of the game shows the assassination of one of the faction’s leaders, and the user decides to join the Veiled Alliance and fight against the Lord Warrior and the mighty dragon.
Players will build a party of between one and four characters, developed through simple creation. Users may also import characters from the initial game in this series. The game also comes standard with some pregenerated characters, for those of us who want to skip the creativity and get right to the game play. Overall, Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager is a good play, filled with dark landscaping, unique monsters and an interesting story line. It should present an adequate challenge to most gamers, and is…as a whole….a satisfying play.
