Nox spells relief.

Finally something interesting to play with!

The story behind Nox goes something like this: Blah blah blah blah blabbity blah blah blah. Guys, whatever 30 seconds you spent lying awake in bed coming up with this plot was completely wasted. Seriously. Don't get all pissy about it though, I don't really count this as a strike against Nox as I wouldn't even consider it to be a true RPG. There are no character attributes, level-ups are all but irrelevant, and the game flow is about as linear as you can get. You can take your pick from three different classes - warrior, conjurer, and wizard after which you name the little guy and pick the colour of his shoelaces and collar (no really!).

The Nox engine is an interesting piece of work. Instead of background objects being welded to the floor or painted on the walls, you can actually move around most items in the game. Everything from weapons to benches and crates can be pushed around. While some of this is purely pointless, at times you will need to arrange items a certain way to complete a puzzle. The same effect is also used to set the mood in the tombs as you break through a secret wall only to have a pile of human bones come pouring out on top of you. Veeeery spoooooky! You have your pick of 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 resolutions as well as a number of other GFX switches. The visuals are very detailed and colourful although they are a little on the small side in hi-res mode. One minor bitch about the graphics: Westwood your artists need a lesson in perspective. A lot of items just look plain wrong the way they are drawn in the 3/4 isometric view. Also, shadows are very inconsistent; some items have them while others don't. I think the solution to this would have been a 3d engine with dynamic lighting. As well, the action bogs down a few times during the course of the single player campaign (and no, don't email me telling me I'm smoking crack because it works fine on your system - you obviously haven't built the staff of oblivion yet). One cool feature that takes some getting used to is the line of sight. You see only what your character would see while everything else is blacked out. Sounds stupidly simple but you really have to see it in action to appreciate it.

Normally the way I rate sound and music is this: If it doesn't annoy me after 10 minutes, then it's half decent. So I was happy as a pig in shit when I heard the Nox audio. The FX are solid. From the crunch of disintegrating bones as mace strikes skeleton, to the *STOMP* *STOMP* *STOMP* of a mechanical golem bearing down on you, you will not be disappointed. The voice acting is enthusiastic and at times even funny. But it's the music that really takes the cake. Brilliant mood setting tracks are used throughout the game and it really does add a lot to the overall experience. Westwood hang on to this sound crew!

One of the major complaints with Nox is the lack of a multiplayer co-op mode. In Westwood's defence I can see how this would have been difficult to implement. This game is not like Diablo where you just run around in random dungeons fighting off clouds of baddies, it is more quest driven and the focus is not on jacking up your characters stats. Don't worry though, what's missing in co-op is more than made up for with other game modes. Nox borrows a few of the popular FPS multiplayer game types like capture the flag and team deathmatch as well as adding some fresh ideas such as king of the realm and powerball. Thankfully Westwood has revamped their online service since the last time I used it so now it resembles Blizzard's Battle.net rather than that old reeking pile of shit called Wchat. I would have preferred a simple text server browser rather than the fancy-pants graphical listing because you have to click on each server one at a time to see what game options are set (if anyone knows otherwise, drop me a line). Hosting your own game is pretty simple; there is a detailed menu system to control all the options from minimum ping time to what spells and items are banned. You can see there was a great deal of work put into the multiplayers aspects of Nox. So is it fun? Helllllll yeah! Out of all the gameplay modes, I like CTF the best. Setting traps and summoning all sorts of creatures to guard your flag adds an element of strategy that seems to be missing from a lot of FPS games. The more I play online the more I am amazed how Westwood managed to balance all three player classes. There is no single class that dominates all the servers.

I'll warn you in advance - the way the control is laid out takes some getting used to. You hold down a button to move while you steer with your mouse. Right off the bat I remapped "walk" to space bar so I could use my mouse buttons for other functions. Spell control is very accessible. You build up spell sets by dragging spells from your Big book o' Spells onto your spell belt. Then from there you press hotkeys to fire off your magic in battle. Traps are also created in a similar manner except you get to stack spells and customize your evil little killing creations. You have a wide variety of spells at your disposal. They don't have quite the flash of the Diablo spells but at least you get a good variety. Personally I like playing as conjurer - there's nothing more satisfying than summoning armies of hellish little creatures to do your dirty work. Although the warriors can't use magic, they aren't totally left in the cold as they have the ability to use special skills such as "berzerker charge" which dishes out massive amounts of damage and "war cry" which stuns spellcasters temporarily. If you take a look in your inventory you will also notice an extra weapon slot. You can use the 'v' key to quickly swap back and forth between your two main weapons during the heat of battle. This is a great feature particularly with the warrior; slap a sword or axe in his hand and then a shuriken in his auxiliary slot and you are ready to slice and dice both pesky wizzards and gear-headed golems.

If you jump into Nox expecting the usual action RPG stuff, you just won't find it. Nox has an entirely different focus. I like to think of it as a fusion of Diablo and Quake. Single player is half-decent although the campaign is too short but multi is where the real action is at! Nox is certainly good enough to hold you over until Diablo 2 so go sharpen your sword, lace up your leather boots and I'll see you online.

Highs: Great multiplayer options, variety of spells, music is phenomenal

Lows: No co-op mode, single player game is too short, some slowdown when things get crowded

P.S. It has become apparent the more and more I play on Westwoods servers that the game has a tendency to lag. Even when you host your own game you experience lag (unbelievable!). It's really too bad because multiplayer is a hell of a lot of fun. I'm subtracting 8 points from gameplay to reflect this issue.

You are drawn into this title even before you begin playing. While the game is installing, you are treated to the story of Nox, which is presented with beautiful artwork and speech. It would appear that at one time, Nox had two distinct cultures: the humans of the south lands and the necromancers of the north. These two cultures had existed in an uneasy peace for hundreds of years until the necromancers invaded the south land. The humans of the south managed to drive back the necromancers but at a considerable loss of life. Knowing that the necromancers had unlocked the power to reanimate the dead, the southern people constructed the Staff of Oblivion, a weapon which would literally seal the souls of the fallen forever, preventing their return. The great wizard, Jandor, led an army against the North, killing and capturing their souls. The north quickly fell and its prized capitol was frozen over by a powerful curse. None were spared, save for a small girl, which Jandor did to appease his guilty conscience. Jandor paid Ogres to look after the child. The souls of the rest of the necromancers were sealed in an Orb and with the combined efforts of Nox' greatest mages it was banished to another time/space.

There is a rather prevalent element of humour throughout the entire introduction, which spices the game up immediately. It would seem that the avatar of Nox is none other than (drum roll) some guy named Jack. The intro shows Hecubah, the Queen of the Undead (the child that Jandor spared) performing a ritual that will release the Orb from it's imprisonment in another time/space, which just happens to be in the 20th century, perched atop this guy Jack's television. When a vortex opens to engulf the Orb, Jack is sucked into it as well.

Innovation is not a strongpoint of Nox in any way, shape or form. Upon entering the world of Nox, you are given the opportunity to select the character-class that you'd like to play as. The usual ho-hum Warrior and Wizard are present, with the usual inversely proportional strength and magical abilities. As opposed to a Thief class character as your third option though, you are given the opportunity to play as a Conjurer. The Conjurer is interesting in that he has (as with all Thief characters) a good mixture of physical and magical strengths, but also the ability to charm and control creatures. Though the game doesn't boast a massive beastiary that you can possess, it is still an interesting function.

Nox sports 33 levels for Jack to complete; or 11 for each character. As you advance from level to level, you are issued quests of varying difficulty as well as improved abilities. The quests are not all that impressive and, though the game revolves around a rather solid storyline, everything progresses in an extremely linear fashion, making this a shameful attempt at being an RPG (though the genre is Action-RPG, it fails in the latter category). Nox is more reasonably suited to the action genre since most of the "questing" you do involves bashing things or magically blasting things; not many puzzles to tackle.

The visuals are far from sub-par. Spells are beautifully animated and creatures range from barely detailed to large and hideous. The level of detail isn't as high as certain other games, though it does rival those of Diablo in certain instances. Nox is however a rather dark title, though this seems appropriate being that the term Nox is itself the Latin for "dark". Large buildings are beautifully drawn and strewn about the game, background art adds an air of gloomyness to the dungeons and vibrant colours fly from Jack's hands when spells are invoked.

Voice acting accompanies all character-to-character interaction. Unlike certain titles where the actors try too hard to accomplish a stereotypical sounding voice for a character, Nox' actually compliment the visual persona that it accompanies. Ambient background music is enjoyable, as are the eerie sound effects that accompany you throughout your forays into the dungeons.

Nox is both mouse and keyboard driven. Hotkeys are used to access spells and items, inventory and stats. The spell belts that hold five spells each and are accessible via keyboard allow for a certain amount of customization, creating a certain element of control over spell strategy. Aside from that though, you move and attack, use items and talk to NPCs.

The multiplayer portion of Nox is one aspect of this review that I have left up to my partner in crime. I won't be touching on the multiplayer area, rather focusing on the single player aspect in my review. If you wish to learn more about the multiplayer features I suggest you scroll back up and re-read the other review.

In my opinion, Nox is basically a Diablo-clone, toned down to appeal to a more novice Action-RTS crowd. The level of difficulty and learning curve are both rather low, making this game rather tedious after a few hours. Nox is not by any stretch of the imagination a bad game, it boasts magnificent landscapes, spells and characters and revolves around an extremely well scripted storyline. Personally though, I'll be putting it aside to clear up hard disk space and continue waiting in anticipation for Diablo II.