Savage Empire is rushed. You will feel this budget/time crunch problem from the moment the frozen-in-motion Raptor in the intro pointlessly blinks at you. The game world is very empty and unfinished. You will explore a lot of completely empty caves with no enemies or loot. Most loot/equipment you will find for free in towns. The graphics are uneven, some portraits look awesome, some environments are a sloppy mess. You can never visually tell what plants you can walk across and which plants count as walls until after you bump them. Combat is few and far between, you will fight mostly one monster at a time: 1 cougar, or 1 tiger, or 1 dinosaur, or 1 snake. And the ONLY monster in the game that drops loot are parrots (...????). Only Emeralds out of the MANY currency types in the game have implemented in-game purpose. Diamonds, Rubies, Gold, and Crystals (Kotl) are pointless to carry and heavy. Also there is only ONE shop in the entire game to spend your Emeralds. Intelligence has no in game purpose so don't waist any level ups on raising it. Ultima games have every person in the world as an individual characters with names and stories (except city guards) Savage Empire only has a Chief or Shaman in town, then a bunch of generic Female/Males who only indicate that you need to talk to the Chief/Shaman. (in the first couple of towns every generic Female/Male has individual names... then the later half of the game the designers stopped naming people) The most fun I had in the game was the Spider Cave, its the only part of the game where it feels like someone actually bothered to finish the section with monsters, a puzzle, and loot. Everything else in this game is so shallow and empty. Savage Empire is only OK at best by generic RPG standards. Go play a REAL Ultima (or Martian Dreams)
Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos was Westwood Studio's private venture after creating the first two wonderful Eye of the Beholder games for SSI. The first installment in the LOL series is fantastic, Westwood studios was the king of pixel art and intro cut-scenes from the golden renaissance of RPGs on PC from 1984-1994. But LOL 2 was delayed for a very VERY long time because Westwood studio had a difficult time internally adjusting to more modern ways of gaming. 3D graphics and environments proved too difficult for Westwood Studio and this shows in how terrible the game play and graphics are in LOL 2 (and LOL 3). Confusion with including awful FMV of employees dressed up in ren-fest outfits and acting poorly in front of the camera makes LOL 2 feel more like a joke than a game. Its a shame Westwood didn't just stick with what they excelled in. Play and enjoy the first installment of Lands of Lore, but don't bother with any more. LOL 2 & 3 are an embarrassment .
Fred Ford and Paul Reiche made Star Control 1 & 2 the greats that they are. Both of these amazing game designers were NOT included in the creation of Star Control 3. I remember the sinking feeling in my heart when I picked up the box to this game and saw "Based on characters created by Fred Ford and Paul Reiche". This is a terrible video game that never should have happened and it killed Star Control as an IP. Fred Ford and Paul Reiche recently created the Skylanders game that is winning the hearts of children everywhere. Skylanders features numerous references to Star Control 2 in its dialog and characters. I hope that Toys for Bob finally has the money to purchase back the rights to Star Control and finally scrub the pathetic Star Control 3 from history.
