Callash is a thoughtful soul unswervingly diplomatic, kind to his citizens, potty about his beautiful wife and deferential to his overbearing mum.
You play the mighty - although newly-elected and not yet proven - Callash, King of Gran Callahach. No, that's not really what I mean: it's almost, oh I don't know, too 'nice'. Combined with the lush graphics and gorgeous pastel colours, this does make it feel a bit 'girly' - see I can patronise women too. There's a bit of attacking and carving up to be done but this is purely your 12 certificate rating game no bad language, no unnecessary violence and only a pinch of being patronising to women. More akin to a child's novella, Dragonsphere places you in a magical kingdom filled with fairy (spelt faerie in that quaint 'Olde English' way) kings, mystical sprites, giant toads, Prince Of Persia-esque turbaned Shamen and, naturally, dragons. Give the Ores a chanceĭespite the d&d type title, Dragonsphere is not all about slaying Ores and casting runes. All non-interactive sequences are beautifully fluid, feature-length and cartoon-like (try jumping down the well to see what I mean). All sprites are scaled, which looks impressive when your sprite walks across the great expanse of desert going from 'jolly big fella' to 'indistinguishable blot on the horizon'. Dragonsphere portrays some of the smoothest sprite movement I've ever seen on a pc game.
MicroProse does, however, call its animation style Cinemagraphics, and I can't complain at that. Good thing too.Īll game producers should currently avoid this, as the real interactive movie (non-linear, full motion video of real actors) is an awfully long way off. MicroProse calls its new generation of puzzle-solving romps AGAs (Animated Graphic Adventures), which the company informs us have been compared to interactive movies, tv shows and books, although they like to avoid this type of comparison. The graphics surpass even Phantom's high standards - all pastel colours, rich in texture -and the animation is luxuriously smooth. At first sight, Dragonsphere for cd-rom has moved beyond even this with its sumptuous packaging, including disc and manual in a hard-backed, children's bedtime book.
It all started with the graphically gorgeous Phantom Of The Opera: a fun but money-wastingly simple game which MicroProse marketed as an 'atmospheric' beginners' adventure, relying more heavily on 'look' and 'feel' than on game-play. Not because it is French (which it certainly isn't) and starts with the letter 'M', but because, over the last year, it has been painting its broad games canvas with Impressionist flair. At the risk of sounding flighty if computer graphics are the artistic media of the late 20th Century, MicroProse is Monet.
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