Nox™

The skillsystem and slick combat was way ahead of it's time. Mixing all sorts of spells, magic and alchemy grenades, potions, wands, even crowd controll made the game better in PvP than Diablo 2 was. Coop was more accessible, too, but not as rich as Diablo 2's campaign. If you have friends to play with: Nox is a wonderfull sparetime multiplayer gem with no restrictions on how tricky or brutal to beat your opponents ass next respawn. Singleplayer was mediocre hack & slay imho.

Okay, first things first: You can make your character run around in nothing but a pair of tighty-whitey briefs. For that reason alone, buy this game. Still not convinced? Well Nox is a fun, fast-paced action RPG that is just overflowing with detail and humor. Nox is more in the spirit of Guantlet rather than Baldur's Gate. Sure there's a decent story here, but there is no thinking required. Just kill everything! Aside from its jaggy edged sprites and limited video/screen size options, this game has aged remarkably well. The pre-rendered graphics still look lovely and the physics of the world give the environments a nice tactile feel. As far as game-play goes, I especially like the simple keystroke triggered spell system and the overall character control is simple and intuitive. Make sure you have a comfortable mouse because you will be holding down buttons for long periods of time which can cause some hand-strain. If you can get a LAN set up, multiplayer is a blast.

I played countless hours of this game online. The Multiplayer for this type of game is the absolute best experience. Extremely fun and addictive. You can still download the westwood online installer and play online! I really hope that another game like this (with the type of online NoX has) is made in the future. NoX 2 anyone?

This game is a true classic but I dont know that I could recommend it today now that multiplayer support for it is all but dead. The multiplayer hack and slash pvp was fantastic and played out something akin to Quake or Unreal Tournament except with swords and sorcery. The single player story mode is overly short and nothing special really but at 5.99, it might be worth a purchase anyway.

Humor, gameplay, story, what else can you desire? Among the best balanced games I played in my childhood, Nox was never too hard to be fun, but neither too easy to be boring. Also, the interwoven storylines you get from all three classes makes replaying the game to see all the different storylines a must. Even today worth the price!