Other touches from Diablo II abound. Weapons may be upgraded by adding gems
to their sockets, towns feature a stash where you can store excess inventory,
and you’ll gain an occasional computer-controlled ally to fight by your side.
Some of these features have been improved upon, such as the automap. Sacred
features two levels of automapping; a local map overlayed on the screen and a
detailed world map. The world map is a big help in the game as it shows you
where each quest originated and where you must go to complete its next step.
Towns and other features are clearly marked, which is a good thing since the map
drives home the size of Sacred’s world and it is easy to imagine getting lost
without it. To save you the time of switching back and forth to the map, Sacred
also provides a compass that points the way to your next quest related location.
It’s possible to have multiple open quests at a time in the game, and in this
case the compass seems biased towards the next quest related to the main
storyline of the game.
Another innovation in Sacred is the ability to ride horses. This is a godsend
when you need to cover some of the large distances in the game as travel is a
lot faster on horseback. You can fight while mounted as well, but this doesn’t
seem to work very well. Attacks are slow and too many clicks don’t even
register, so you’ll often find yourself surrounded by enemies pounding you and
your horse from all sides while you occasionally swing back. The horse is better
suited towards getting you past monsters that you’d rather not take the time to
fight at the moment. Fights are such a frequent occurrence in the game that
sometimes you just want to get where you want to go without being bothered.
Sacred supports multiplayer online play. The game provides an online game
service that will allow four players to play the campaign cooperatively or 16 to
battle each other in a big melee. The cooperative game is a lot more fun than
the melee, since it is more fun to click and kill monsters than to hang around
clicking on other players.
Graphically the game is on par with others in the genre. Resolution is locked
at 1024x768, but you do have the ability to zoom the camera in for a closer
look. My biggest complaint with the graphics is that the dungeons are
just too dark. There’s no brightness or gamma control in the game, so it is very
hard to locate doors and passages in the poorly lit dungeons with their dark,
translucent walls.
Sacred has its annoyances and quirks, but also has its strong points as well.
If you enjoy action-RPGs and have been discouraged by the general lack of
quality in all of the Diablo inspired games out there then you should give
Sacred a try.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
77%. If you're an action-RPG fan, Sacred is definitely worth a look.
System Requirements: Pentium III 800; 128 MB RAM; 32 MB
Video RAM; 1GB Hard disk space; 4x CD-ROM; Mouse.
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