.
Good morning gamers and other software seekers!
I have another game for you today, called ArchMage. This is a great game of the overhead shooter genre, that has you take on the persona of a witch or a mage, riding either a dragon or a unicorn.
I expect that the game designer thought that all players would choose a specific character depending on their gender – though there’s nothing stopping the female player from choosing the mage and vice versa. Each of them has slightly differing abilities, though one doesn’t seem any stronger than the other.
Publisher: 300AD.com
Supported Languages: English
System Requirements: Windows 1GHz or – Mac 1GHz, OS X 10.3
Additional Requirements: OpenGL + 128MB
Tested on: Windows XP Pro.
While overhead shooters are far from original, I think you’ll find that there is enough originality and creativity in this game, to make it worth buying and playing.
Graphics:
The graphics are excellent, (though the colors are somewhat muted,) with animation that is almost flawless. However, I found that the unicorn didn’t quite match the skill of the graphics designer. Obviously the graphics are very professional and even beautiful with obvious attention to detail. As the player shoots and the explosions appear, it gives the gamer a lot of satisfaction to watch them happen, especially with the great explosive noises that accompany them.
Game Play:
Map: 
I do wish that the couple of pages explaining the storyline had an option to skip them when you return to the game each time. As it is, you have to wait for them to pass each time, before you can begin the game.
The game begins with the player choosing a path from the map and clicking on a red dot to start the game. This can be confusing to the first time player, as I happened to be last year.
You just have to realize that the player can choose from several start points on the map to go in any of several directions that the path may lead. Once you’ve chosen your direction, several small screens appear, which dutifully explain the power-ups and spells. The power-ups
are fairly fresh – not just a rehash of of the same old/same old from other similar games.
Cauldron:
This screen shows a number of runes that you can choose, which when mixed in the cauldron, create powerful spells. Certain power-ups collected during play are added to the runes table to create spells later, which you can use whenever you like. Very creative! A simple right click during play will bring you back to this screen, if you feel that you’re running out of fire power.
I haven’t very often enjoyed overhead shooters before as many of them use the keyboard only, however this ArchMage can alternatively be played with a mouse or game pad and doubly so for me because of the mouse controls. 
Options:
The options screen includes volume sliders for master, sound and music volumes and max/min window. There are surprisingly few options for a game of this caliber.
Help File:
There is no help file at all, other than the few screens that are shown to you at the beginning of the game to explain the power-ups etc. Apart from these, there really isn’t any need for a separate help file.
Features:
If you enjoy the game, you would find it of great benefit to join their forum and communicate with other players. There has always been some great topics in there (including location of hidden spells!) and actually, it’s now been split into the old forum and the new forum.
Once you exit the game, it does automatically save your score and the level you’re up to.
Great graphics and lots of action with explosions that are somehow very satisfying. Great to play if one is angry at something else, and need to vent one’s frustration or anger.
Seamless play, with no identifiable bugs.
Negatives:
There seems to be no way to have the power-ups explained to you again, once you have played the game for the first time. BIG flaw. 300AD need to address this, as there were many times that I wanted to do exactly this to identify certain power-ups and anti-bonuses.
So my advice at the moment, is to take a screen shot of the page when it appears the first time you play.
Points:
- Originality: 8/10
- Functionality: 8/10
- Intuitiveness: 8/10
- Fun Factor: 8/10
Price: USD$$12.95
(This is a reduction in price from USD$19.95)
ArchMage will be well accepted at the reduced price. It’s worth stands out and at the reduced price, it would be great to add to your child’s Christmas stocking, if it’s the kind of game they enjoy.
Summary:
I enjoy this game, (though I’m not known to like shooters in general,) else I wouldn’t have kept it for so long. It would interesting to see an optional game play; as a dual-play game, where one person is the witch and the other the magician and they could fight the enemies together as a team. There certainly are enough enemies to go around!
It would bring added variety to the game. Of course the options screen would need to include a choice of one of two players.
The game plays well and the story line is not excessive (like some games!) clouding the actual game play itself.
Recommendation:
I do recommend this game, especially since it can be enjoyed by a wide range of ages. The controls are easy, no matter if you use the mouse or game pad and could easily be understood by a child of 8 years old to adults of 99 years of age! 
While I definitely respect the individual choices of parents for their children, it’s my personal belief that this game is not harmful to children’s tender psyches. It’s just lots of good, fun, explosive action, blowing up giant ants and rocks that are hurled your way, along with similar other “baddies.” No blood is shown at any time.
This is your lucky day too! If you head on over to my good friends at Game Giveaway of the Day, you’ll actually be able to pick up a legal, fully licensed copy.
If you enjoy my reviews, please vote for this blog – votes are always appreciated and give more visibility to my clients and their products, which therefore obtains more work for me – thank you! Not to mention that it improves your own karma!
Well, another review completed! Have a great day everyone – play ArchMage!
~ Swan
All Content is Copyright © 2007 Swan-Reviews-Almost-Everything.blogspot.com
All Rights Reserved.
Developers, Software Houses and Web Designers:
Please contact Swan if you’d like to purchase a candid, constructive review, under privately agreed terms, of your software; games; or web site design.
Advertisers:
Please contact Swan, if you’d like to arrange for advertising your product on this web site.
Ahhh Agloco – I’m making money, are you?
“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)
Posted by ~ Swan 