Sacred Gold – PC – Review

You know, there is a lot of
competition for your gaming dollar when it comes to RPGs. And when one catches
on, it almost is a given that, in order to keep you adventuring in these
fantasy world’s, an expansion pack (or two) will inevitably come out. Followed
closely by the always popular "Gold" edition, that typically has all of these
expansions and maybe a little something extra.

For those of you who may have
missed it, Sacred came out last year to generally decent reviews. The game,
while firmly rooted in the fantasy realm, featured a selection of six
characters like the Mage, the Gladiator and the Dark Elf. Players selected a
character and went forth on various missions. What made this a little
different from the similar Diablo, was that the game was truly open ended. You
could choose to go on one mission, or go somewhere completely different and
find other missions. Sure there are lots of RPGs out there with non-linear
gameplay, but this one really had that feeling of freedom that some other,
ahem …  titles seemed to miss.

The gameplay that Sacred features
is fairly nifty as far as the leveling up of characters goes. Each character
has a ton of unique attacks that boost up as the characters level up. And of
course the items and weapons that only some classes can use. The upgrading of
skills can be a bit long in the tooth sometimes and using these newly acquired
skills requires that you use additional skill points if you plan on using your
new abilities with any sort of frequency. My favorite character is easily the
Daemon with her shape-shifting abilities, once you become really powerful you
literally start changing colors as related to your new attack. Nothing like a
blue-haired electrified Daemon laying waste to the enemy to get your blood
pumping.. Plus there is an awful lot of NPCs to talk to and if you play your
cards right you can darn near have an entourage following you around as you
quest for items and more experience.

The game is not what I would call
graphically demanding, and it will certainly gain favor with you folks who are
trying to avoid spending $300 bucks on a new graphics card. But still, the
game has decent visuals. The game is viewed from a distant 3/4 view, although
that view can be zoomed in or out. Now, making the best of the graphics, the
locales that this title features make sure to look wildly different and
surprising. Enticing the player to get out there and really explore. With it’s
non-linear design, the game practically begs you to stray off the beaten path
and start completing some of the hundreds of side quests. And with the
Underworld expansion you can add around 300 more quests.

Since the anchor on this title is
the Underworld expansion, the game now includes two new character classes, the
Daemon, a demon driven from hell and charged with doing good deeds despite the
horrific appearance. And the Dwarf, the short-in-stature, big-in-heavy-hitting
character we all know. Like the other six classes, these characters possess
unique attributes that help in their battles and adventuring. It’s these
unique abilities that are somewhat surprising and lend some original weight to
the game. Plus, as I was enticed to explore, adding the Underworld expansion
now adds 40% more world to the game. For those of you out there that may have
missed Sacred last year, that means for a nominal price, you are potentially
getting a hundred hours of gaming here.

Now it’s only fair that I give
this review a good overview and that includes talking about the game’s weakest
feature. The hit-and-miss combat system. You see, while playing, you kind of
have to pay a bit more attention to the little things than what you are used
to in an RPG. Characters feel almost uninterested in fighting as it appears
they are swinging at thin air. And in some cases they are since combat on
horseback raises all sorts of other problems.

Since online games are all the
rage now, you can also hop online and adventure with others who want to roam
the vast areas with co-op gaming in mind. There is a mode for player fighting
for those who feel the need to do battle against other human players. I
personally like the co-op mode as it reminded me of a evolutionary version of
the old arcade game Gauntlet. Plus this is the kind of game I can play with my
father who’s 700 miles away since it has some qualities that both he and I
like in our games.

Gameplay: 7.0
It’s nifty moving around all those
wildly different locations, but I’m still not 100% on the combat.

Sound: 6.0
I can’t say that I was thrilled to
death about the voice acting. It’s a bit on the drab side. And the action
sounds aren’t much to write home about. Let me say this, I was playing and the
sound was off and it didn’t mean a darn thing to me.

Difficulty: Medium/Hard
I always give games that are as
long as this one a bit more of a hard score because quite frankly you need to
put some time into it. Characters should be around level 25 before attempting
to invade the Underworld expansion. Plan on playing for a long time if you
really want to see the end.

Concept: 7.0
It’s clearly borrowed from other
games. The hack and slash of Diablo, the open endedness of Gothic, with a
generous splash of Baldur’s Gate thrown in. It works, in some places better
than others, but it works.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Yes, I like the multiplayer
functionality of this title. There is a lot of fun to be had playing the co-op
portions of the game and I feel it’s one of the game’s selling points.

Overall: 7.4
Sacred Gold is actually a pretty
good purchase. You get a lot of game for your money and quite frankly there
are some really good features, namely the strong character development that
can be had and the multiplayer aspect; you just need to weather the couple of
bad ones.