Pool of Radiance 2 is the first game to use the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition rules. Playable character classes are Fighter, Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, Sorcerer, Monk, and Rogue, while the races include Half-Orc, Human, Halfling, Dwarf, Elf, and Half-Elf. Characters advance from 1st to 16th levels, allowing spellcasters access to 8th-level spells.

As you explore the ancient ruins of Myth Drannor, the Dungeon Master will communicate all important events and findings. Combat is based on turns, just as in the tabletop game. With a great single-player campaign as well as multiplayer support, Pool of Radiance 2 is ready to carry on the legacy of the famous Gold Box games and lead D&D RPGs into the era of 3rd Edition rules.

Where to start... where to start. Well, I suppose we can talk about PoR's multiplay, which was supposed to be the next best thing in D&D. Random dungeons and plentiful treasure would make it as good as Diablo and Baldur's Gate combined. That would be all very wonderful, if it worked. Don't even try TCP/IP- it doesn't work at all. You also are unable to multitask, and the game has a habit of crashing violently when an instant message pops up.

Immediately obvious game problems include an incredibly boring beginning. If you've played Baldur's Gate, imagine wandering around killing rats in Candlekeep for about 10 hours. That's basically how the first dungeon of PoR is like, except that the 'rats' often get lucky and kill you. The Dungeon Master in this game is someone that I would really like to punch, if he/she were corporeal. After clearing out the entire dungeon, be prepared for the shock of your life when you realize you've gained a total of 1,500 experience. Divide by 4 and nobody has gotten even close to a level. By this time, you've probably been hacked up any number of ways, since a critical hit by even a stupid orc will probably kill a character.

There aren't enough classes in the game, and multiclassing is so unattractive as to be worthless. Just reading the manual can tell you that much- it's a choice between low levels all around or a character getting an experience percentage cut, as if the overall lack of available experience wasn't bad enough.

The game screen is too small. Your vision is so impaired that you'll often discover enemies not by seeing them, but by entering combat mode. On that note, enemies from an extreme distance will often join a melee. This doesn't make it hard- just annoying as you have to wait for that squad of skeletons to hobble over and swing at air. Enemies have an odd ability to materialize out of thin air in plain sight. You also can't divide your party up, since they must remain a certain distance from the leader. This makes it hard to plan an ambush or scout an area with a hidden thief.

Combat is both the best and worst aspect of this game. On one hand, you get to see some nice spells and full action swordplay. On the other hand, you can't retreat without letting your enemies put in a few extra swings (they get one no matter what), and the enemies you fight are boring and annoying. Since you'll be so low level for so long, you'll be missing left and right, so it'll take ages to end even an easy battle. The game's turn-based system makes this doubly tedious, and you'll find that battles that would be finished in seconds in Baldur's Gate can take minutes in Pool of Radiance.

Okay, so after hearing all this bad stuff, you must think that at LEAST the music has to be good. Bad news. It's the most boringly repetitive game soundtrack since Pong. The sound effects in general are very few and unimpressive, and the combat music has a tendency to make you even more sleepy than you already are from clicking on all those stupid orcs.

The only good thing about Pool of Radiance- and one that it really does shine at- is the graphics. They are on par with Baldur's Gate's artistically rendered backgrounds, except that these are 3-d. The miniatures and spells are quite impressive to look at, as are the enemies you meet. It's a pity there are so few of these, or the game might actually make it as a Diablo 2 wannabe.

Bottom line: This is one for the bargain bin. SSI has a history of putting out sloppy D&D titles since the original Pool of Radiance, and this only adds a new number to that legacy.


Baldur's Gate on Valium   February 14, 2003
 26 out of 28 found this review helpful

I wanted to like this game. I really did. I was so excited when I got it. It was one of the first games to use 3rd Edition Rules Ad&D, complete with an old-school turn based combat system. My excitement would quickly turn to disgust, though.

It becomes apparent that this game was rushed right when you first create your party. The characters look utterly bland and generic, and customizability is extremely limited (ooo, my mage can have either a blue robe or black robe). Conspicuously missing are the Druid, Bard, and Wizard classes. Why these were not included is beyond me, and takes away from the authenticity and depth of the game. Also, you are not able to choose your own feats. For those who are unfamiliar with 3rd edition rules, feats are special abilities that you gain upon leveling up that enhance your character. Normally, you can choose which feats to take, but in this game they're all chosen for you as you level up. Ridiculous.

Things don't get any better after that. You're immediately thrust into a battle upon starting the game. Battles are full-turn based, with one character taking an action, then the next, etc, etc. Combat is excruciatingly long. Character animations are slow...prepare to be bored to tears while waiting for fifteen zombies to slowly lurch across the playfield before you can take any action (and wait again the next time around). The most frustrating aspect of combat, though, is the miss rate of your physical combatants. It's not uncommon to go a few rounds with all of your party memebers hitting absolutely NOTHING. In a real-time game like Baldur's Gate, this isn't so bad, since everything is happening at once, but in a game like this, it can make what should be simple and quick battles take FOREVER. After about ten minutes of both sides swinging at each other like they were playing pinata, I finally kill the three or four orcs at the beginning of the game and am rewarded with about 20xp for each of my party members. It takes 1000 to reach level 2. Needless to say, leveling is painfully slow. Expect to play for hours and hours without advancing a single level, even early on when leveling should be relatively quick. In addition, to make things quite lopsided, you'll find troves of uber equipment, often in the first dungeon. My level 3 Barbarian was wielding a +3 Axe at one point, which is analogous to giving an Uzi to a kindergartener, and a practice any self-respecting DM would stay far away from.

My biggest gripe with this game is magic and magic-based classes. As I stated before, the Wizard class is completely absent from the game. While the Sorcerer is a great class in its own right, the Wizard adds an old school and authentic feel, and it's sorely missed in this game. Aside from that, what IS there isn't much to write home about, either. Upon looking at my game's manual, I was appalled at the paltry collection of spells available to spellcasters. NO level 9 spells, and few higher level spells, with no creative or innovative spells whatsoever. Spellcasters themselves also leave a lot to be desired. In short, don't pick a Sorcerer for your party unless you want to be lugging around a dead weight xp hog with the durability of tissue paper for a very good portion of the game. Early on, your caster will start with at the very most 6 hit points, and cannot wear any sort of armor. This means that if an orc decides to turn his axe on our robed buddy, he won't last much longer than a round or two. The said orc while also laugh mockingly with when the sorcerer tries to defend himself by shooting a pretty little red bolt at him which scratches the orc for 2 damage. The sorcerer can cast this same little red bolt 4 times before exhausting his spell reserves, making him even more helpless. He could always try attacking with his equipped weapon, but he may as well be firing a musket at a penny 100 yards away, while blindfolded. I know mages are supposed to be weak when starting out and come into their own at higher levels, but as I mentioned before, levels comes extremely slowly, so it will be a long an arduous path before your mage can actually do anything other than die. This was one of the main reasons I stopped playing in disgust, since I'm a big fan of magic users and they're practically useless for a good portion of this game.

In conclusion, an overhyped game that deserves to be forgotten. [Money] wasted that I'll never get back.


Game play issues   October 10, 2001
 24 out of 27 found this review helpful

The graphics are decent and all but the interface / game play issues are pretty ugly and sad in my book.

Navigation just stinks. Even after mapping out an entire dungeon, you have to click every single screenful to move around. Waypoints or some other form of vast-distance travel would be SO helpful.

Combat - here I am with a couple of Lvl 2 and 3 weenies and I'm surrounded by a bunch of Arracat's and a Guard Arracat. I'm supposed to defeat these things?! Not fricking likely! I'm completely stuck and haven't been able to play the game. I can't kill 'em and I can't flee. Game over and I'm not about to start the whole fricking thing over.

Combat - I try to cast any of my touch-based spells such as Harm and my opponant is given an Attack of Opportunity and next thing I know my cleric/enchanter is spead eagled on the dirt.

Sneaking around - characters can't travel too far from the party leader. How's my rogue supposed to scout ahead and check things out for me? Answer=He doesn't! He's picks locks and finds traps and that's all. No sneaking, no backstabbing, no doing things that makes rogues a rogue and not a glorified lock smith.

Combat - it's SO easy to mis-click and next thing you know your Cleric, who is supposed to be healing your 2hp fighter is firing her sling at a Master Shadow. Jee, there's a swell idea. You can't save during combat and one mis-click can change the entire outcome. Combat is so damned slow so if you mis-click towards the middle or end of 20 minute skirmish, screw up the entire battle, you gotta reload and start over. Do this a few times and I'm ready to break my fist on my monitor.

Combat - experience comes *very* slowly. No, I don't want a five minute Superhero but I *do* want to be rewarded appropriately. Having a group of Lvl 1 and 2 characters take down two Orcs, an Orc Leader, AND a Spectre or whatever that thing is at the entrance of Myth Drannor is a damn fine trick but the congratulations, the rewards for performing this feat, is so incredibly minimal! 3e rules?! Bah! I sure ain't getting no 3e experience....

No, I haven't been able to exit Myth Drannor yet so I don't know what the rest of the game is like but so far the Game Play and Interface are pretty sucky in my book. If I had the option I would return this game and exchange it for something else, AFTER checking the game reviews.

No more will I listen to media hype and false promises. If I do then I deserve to have my 40 some odd dollars stolen from my wallet.


Worst gameplay ever?   October 23, 2002
 24 out of 25 found this review helpful

Pool of Radiance shows every sign of being rushed to market despite obvious problems in the user interface and serious bugs. It's only redeeming feature is a turn-based combat system that is deeply flawed and the ability to save at any time which is very important.

Let's start with the boring and repetitive dungeons which look like they were expressly designed to antagonize the players. Long detours are required to travel between nearby locations. The automap is almost useless as it consistently shows openings where none exist.

... Frequently characters fail to take anything close to the obvious, direct route to their targets and consequently arrive there too late to take any further action. Often a character would walk through a cloud of death rather than take a shorter, clear route. However, the bad guys were just as stupid so I guess it evens up.

The targeting algorithm is equally bad. All the characters are animated (wings flapping, etc) and even when the cursor is stationary they will move in and out of the target zone of an arrow or spell depending on which frame of the animation is being shown. Not only does this cause a problem when trying to target the character, but it causes problems when trying to target nearby characters, too. The angle of view also prevents you from targeting characters when there is a larger character in front (from the viewer's point of view, not the character's point of view)...

The non-combat part of the targeting algorithm is also flawed. Quite frequently it was impossible to persuade the group to move to the desired location because of the angle of view (which cannot be changed). There are also artificial restrictions on how far characters can look and travel both in and out of combat.

You can arrange your party to travel in a particular formation. This feature doesn't work. I had my fighters up front, thieves and clerics next, and my magic-user at the back. So why is it my magic user always seemed to walk into a room first? I couldn't get my fighters into combat until the bad guys had killed the magic-user because the silly sod was blocking the door. I wish there was a way for my fighters to kill the magic-user first.

I lost several turns in each fight because the computer has a habit of ending your turns prematurely.

It's also unstable. During about 100 hours of play the system crashed or hung about a dozen times. It also pauses for up to five seconds at a time with annoying regularity. I would expect this from a FPS game, but not an isometric view. Diablo never hung once.

All in all, this loses to Diablo in every way except the turn based combat (in theory, anyway) and the ability to save at any time (which I really like).

Two thumbs down.


Gameplay lacking but entertaining   October 3, 2001
 20 out of 29 found this review helpful

I must have been lucky so far...I haven't suffered the crashes and installation horror stories I've been reading about.

Like most people, I have been looking forward to the first 3E D&D rules-based game... While I'm not crestfallen after having played the game for a day, I'm not blown away or very impressed. Character generation is a bore...while I almost agree with a point-based stat generator (keeps you from sitting there for an hour trying to get 3 or 4 '18s'), the lack of customizing in terms of feats and skills takes away the great versatility of the new rules. Why would my Monk need the Iron Will feat of all the other good ones available? The set skills are okay, considering that in most of these types of games you're only going to use certain ones anyway...at least you can multiclass...

Combat is tedious and the game lacks a decent hotkey system despite being able to map character actions to the F2-F12 keys and selecting options in combat is a frustrating affair... I'm really surprised that after all the complaints about movement in Baldur's Gate, ANOTHER D&D game would come out where you can't move directly and quickly from one explored area to another...there is absolutely no reason that you should have to walk ALL THE WAY BACK after exploring an area. This just wastes your time and makes exploring the huge dungeons more of a pain.

The writing is okay and the story is just like all other "role-playing" games out there...GO GET THE THING. GO GET THE OTHER THING. BRING THE THING BACK TO ME. KILL THE THING...and so on, ad nauseum.

I give the game 4 stars, reluctantly, because it is the first 3E game and from what I understand, they switched engines mid-development. But I'm appalled at the installation horrors that I've heard about, companies should be ashamed to do that to people.

With all its problems, I'm still enjoying the game, despite the poor interface and geologic level-advancement (nothing is worse than fighting for your life and gaining negligible experience). Perhaps with some patches the gameplay will improve and give this game some more credibility.