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REVIEWS<br />
FATE<br />
Choose your own adventure(r)<br />
DID You<br />
KNOW?<br />
Alex St. John, founder of<br />
Wild Tangent, was the<br />
original creator of<br />
Microsoft’s DirectX<br />
platform. Thanks, Alex!<br />
PUBLISHER: Wild Tangent DEVELOPER: Wild Tangent GENRE: Action-RPG ESRB RATING: E10+ REQUIRED: Pentium III 800, 128MB RAM (256MB for Windows XP), 100MB install,<br />
Internet connection for downloading/unlocking game RECOMMENDED: 32MB videocard, 233MB install MULTIPLAYER: None<br />
FATE IS A HACK-N-SLASH DIABLO-STYLE<br />
game just a few lush cut-scenes and a few<br />
dozen “Stay awhile…and listen!’s” away from<br />
outright copyright infringement. This is not to<br />
say Fate is a bad game. It’s not. It’s chock-full<br />
of action, loaded with cool loot, packed with<br />
spells, swarming with packs of vicious monsters,<br />
and so on…just like Diablo.<br />
So, for the purposes of this review, just close<br />
your eyes and think about Diablo. Got that<br />
mental picture? Good. Now here are the ways<br />
Fate differs.<br />
CLASS DISTINCTIONS<br />
The biggest difference in Fate is that there are<br />
no character classes, just a couple dozen stats<br />
that you tweak whenever you level. This lets you<br />
THE FICKLE FINGER OF FATE<br />
create a really personalized character, free from<br />
the rigidity of a barbarian, necromancer, etc. If<br />
you’ve always wanted to play as some weird<br />
scout/wizard hybrid, here’s your chance. As you<br />
level, you gain fame, which lets you wield more<br />
powerful items as well as allocate more skill<br />
points. You can also pay a bard to sing your<br />
praises for higher fame, thus effectively giving<br />
you a way to pay your way to power.<br />
In fact, gold is a huge part of this game. You’re<br />
constantly shuttling from the endlessly generated<br />
random dungeons to the town to sell off<br />
items, buy crucial healing charms, and maybe<br />
buy a new weapon or piece of armor. Carrying<br />
around a balance in excess of 3 million gold<br />
pieces is not unusual in Fate, and needing<br />
3 million gold for something isn’t unusual, either.<br />
AS BEFITS A GAME NAMED FATE, YOUR CHARACTER’S destiny<br />
hits a number of crossroads, some more profound than<br />
others. Here’s a list of the points where your adventure can<br />
potentially change course.<br />
DEATH: This is the big one. You have three choices every time<br />
you die: You can resurrect right then and there and lose some<br />
XP and fame, return somewhere nearby (maybe deeper in the<br />
dungeon) and surrender some gold, or spawn three levels<br />
above, forcing you to slog back down to where all of your gold waits in a pile.<br />
GAMBLING: You can get great items from the gambler in town. Or you may get crap.<br />
But you won’t know until you’ve already given up the money.<br />
FATE STATUES: Random statues in dungeons may surrender gems…or summon<br />
bosses. Do you feel lucky, punk?<br />
ENCHANTMENTS: That nice little fella in the town graveyard may upgrade your items<br />
for a fee. Or he may utterly ruin or curse them—for the same fee.<br />
FORGES: Magic forges in the dungeons may upgrade your items. Or utterly ruin them.<br />
68 > COMPUTER GAMING WORLD<br />
While Fate is solely a single-player game,<br />
you’re not alone. Every character gets a pet,<br />
a scrappy dog or cat, that can be altered into<br />
a beast from the game by feeding it fish you<br />
catch in town or the dungeon. With every<br />
enemy having different weaknesses and<br />
strengths, you might want to keep a variety<br />
of fish to transform your sidekick into the<br />
best possible adversary for the situation. Or<br />
you could just have it transform into one<br />
critter permanently.<br />
The game has a bright, cartoonish quality<br />
and is fully 3D. There are very few one-on-one<br />
battles—fights in Fate generally have you dealing<br />
with hordes of baddies, always in tight,<br />
subterranean dungeons (there are no outside<br />
levels). The game looks good enough, but the<br />
levels get dully repetitive about halfway<br />
through. Also tiresome: the inevitability of being<br />
poisoned. I have never been poisoned so<br />
much, so often, in a game. If you’re not shouting,<br />
“Of course I am!” every time the narrator<br />
announces, “You’ve been poisoned,” you’re<br />
made of sterner stuff than me.<br />
Fate isn’t going to glue new brain cells inside<br />
your skull, but it isn’t going to murder the ones<br />
you have. It’s a good time, it really never reaches<br />
an end, and it may be the best way to while<br />
away the lifetime between now and Diablo III.<br />
/ Robert Coffey<br />
We remember back when this was<br />
called Diablo. But we like it anyway.<br />
VERDICT
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