Art of Magic

by Bethesda

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005B4BV
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 22, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,408 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

The first Magic & Mayhem was sort of a sleeper hit. It didn't have cutting-edge graphics or audio, but it played a deep amalgam of role-playing and real-time strategy, garnering critical praise and more than a few fans. Whether you played it or not is immaterial to enjoyment of this sequel. There are enough changes in Magic & Mayhem: The Art of Magic to make it an entirely new game, plus this one is more of a prequel, as it takes place a half century before the events in the first game.

The Art of Magic's story can at best be described as tried and true, and at worst clichéd. You play a magically inclined farm boy named Aurax who wakes up one morning to find his sister Nadia under attack by goblins and other monsters. The pair fights off the bad guys, heads to town, and finds it under siege by the fearsome Goblin King. During the battle to defend hearth and home, Nadia gets captured, and Aurax, as any good magically inclined farm boy inevitably must do, has to rescue his sister from the clutches of an evil wizard and steal back powerful magical orbs of power, thus saving the world. The story is well told through non-player character (NPC) conversations, and the designers made sure the missions in the campaign mode are varied and interesting (there are also skirmish and multiplayer modes). One mission involves the aforementioned Goblin King, another has you storming a troll fortress for an artifact, and others have you fighting various evil wizards, sometimes in tandem, for territory or artifacts.

All three play modes basically center on what the game calls Places of Power. You've got to stand on one of these, or summon a creature to stand there for you, and this helps your spell power recharge more quickly. Because conflicts against enemy wizards (especially in multiplayer or skirmish modes) generally devolve into battles of inches, taking and controlling these places is extremely important.

During the game you can recruit allies, like an archer or warrior, while looking for items to combine so you can access a whole host of spells. Picking which spells you want to use--and gathering the materials necessary to cast them--really affects your play style. You can spend your time and items creating defensive spells, or instead opt for an offensive strategy. The AI does a good job of learning your playing style and trying to counter it. By far your most important magic is summoning. You can summon weak creatures, like skeletons or wolves, or opt for more powerful minions like a fearsome giant. Your choice is basically one tough monster or several weaker ones, but these beasts gain experience as they go, so eventually your puny skeletal warrior may become a skeletal lord and gain new attacks and defenses. The experience track makes you take care of your creatures; they aren't just cannon fodder.

The Art of Magic also features a 3-D point of view and fairly good 3-D graphics. The spell effects are fantastic, even if the voice acting isn't so good. The gameplay is very involved but can at times bog you down with minutia, especially concerning the sheer amount of spells, items, and creatures. But fans of the first game, or fans of strategy gaming involving high fantasy, will find plenty of magic and mayhem to go around. --Bob Andrews

Pros:

• A full 3-D camera system and excellent graphics
• Plenty of options, spells, creatures, and gameplay

Cons:

• At times a bit too many options; complicated gaming
• The conflicts sometimes devolve into tedious battles of inches

Product Description

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Magician's Apprentice?, February 28, 2009

By 

Michael J. Tresca "Talien" (Fairfield, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Art of Magic (CD-ROM)

The real-time fantasy adventure The Art of Magic: Magic & Mayhem can be played as a campaign, individual battles, or multiplayer with up to eight human/computer players on a LAN or the Internet. Although the game is technically a sequel to Magic & Mayhem, the storyline takes place several centuries before the original title, and gameplay features several significant changes including a requirement for 3D acceleration.

Three powers, the Northern Elves, the Druids, and the Disciples of Chaos, each held an orb created to help balance power in the realm. Now with the destruction of the Druids' orb, they're susceptible to an attack by the Disciples of Chaos. In the campaign version, Aurax, the hero, is a pregenerated character, so there are no variations for looks or gender. Without a character creation factor, the game gets off to a quick start.

As Aurax gains experience points, his mana, hit points, and selection of spells increase. As a wizard, the protagonist has access to over 50 traditional and unique spells as he works his way through more than two dozen major conflicts during the course of the adventure. A total of 22 creatures, ranging from wolves to dragons, can be summoned, all instrumental in defeating enemies. While mana is the only truly important resource in the game, various objects strewn about the land affect recovery, discovery and general task accomplishment.

Although the campaign begins quickly, frustration soon sets in due to the increase in difficulty as you advance in scenarios. Aurax initially learns how to use menus, items, and spells before taking on any enemies, but the deceptively easy start doesn't prepare you for the very first enemy encounter, which proves to be a real challenge and quite a leap from the benign simple beginning tasks. Despite the high level of challenge, though, The Art of Magic: Magic & Mayhem offers a solid experience in developing character skills and ability, as your choices throughout gameplay, based on the types of items discovered, determine whether he focuses magic in a neutral, chaotic or lawful manner.

You can expect to play some scenarios repeatedly before getting the upper hand on the monsters. At times, replay is necessary simply to discover the weaknesses of the bosses and scout out the lay of the land so you can use it to advantage. A few scenarios are less about fighting and center more on plot and character development, which is a welcome change.

Spells are acquired by the use of components, each with three types of properties (chaotic, neutral or good), collected during the campaign. The components are stylized to look different from one another and offer a dizzying selection from which to choose. Spells also have unique and appropriate sounds that coincide with their casting, such as fireballs reverberating like mini-explosions and stone skin sounding like the grating of rock.

While gameplay differs in style, developer Climax Group manages to hold the line on the environment and overall fantasy feel of the original title developed by Mythos Games, Ltd.. The interface is simple and intuitive, with many gameplay options including occlusion of objects, zoom features, and full 360-degree camera movement.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars my views on the art of magic, March 18, 2005

By 

Joshuamarcus J. Pierce "Joshman" (Huntley, Il USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Art of Magic (CD-ROM)

I admit that I didnt try a multiplayer game nor did I finish the campaign and it has been a while since I played this game.

I have come online to find and purchase the game and I have. I like the game because of the spellcasting options, graphics, overall fighting mechanics, and the large worlds. I concur that the AI characters become extremely difficult very quickly in the campaign but I recommend playing the skirmish on the easiest levels to learn how to play and discover which spells you want to use. there is a bug that becomes a cheat if you use it... If you purchace this game, during a skirmish use the vampire with a heal spell. make sure one of your vampires stays alive for a long time and kills many weak enemies. when it becomes a lord it can raise the dead. a few run-ins with the enemy and you have a horde of zombies for free. because it is not you who casts the spell the vampire lord can raise more creatures than you can summon alone therefore exceeding the creature limit.

well I love this game, please try it if you are buying a lot of items and can get a bundle discount. I only paid 29 cents for the program and I know its worth 29 cents.
it ended up being 5 something after shipping.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Quick Thrill, January 4, 2002

By 

Brian Edson Fenn (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Art of Magic (CD-ROM)

Art of Magic sits in a very precarious position--there is a lot to like about this game, but it has some definite flaws to overcome.

Art of Magic is basically a real-time strategy game with a fantasy role-playing game feel. You play as a wizard with an array of summoning, damaging, and supporting spells to aid your army of summoned creatures against one or more opposing wizards' armies of the same.

It hardly sounds like a novel premise, but the gameplay is far from traditional. Spells are divided into three categories: chaos, neutral, and law, and before every combat, all players are given an assortment of reagents to allot. Every type of reagent will yield a different type of spell based upon what sphere it is allocated to, but no reagents are doubled. You'll have to decide if your quicksilver is better spent in law giving you some nice elven archers or in neutral for the elusive haste spell.

This ability to alter one's spellbook before every fight applies both to the campaign and the single-match bouts for single and multi-player, and breathes a heafty breath of fresh air into this game. No two fights will prove to be exactly the same if you don't let them.

Unfortunately, though, while this novel approach to war in a fantasy world will prove interesting to many people, there are a few problems with the game that make it seem akin to unrealized potential.

Players will quickly find that the AI very repetitive--despite a maximum of 18 spells being available per fight, a computer opponent will select either three or four of them to cast and there will be little or more likely no variation on that point. The AI's tactics will get tired very quickly.

The game is furthermore exceedingly difficult in the campaign--the difficulty thrown at players as they are attempting to learn the slightly confusing controls will turn off many people from wanting to see it through. You'll quicly find that the computer's ability to think on its feet and command so many creatures independently will dwarf human skill, and this advantage is pressed mercilessly as you struggle to learn the game.

The controls, while only a little confusing, will fail to help the situation, as their explanation in the manual is very confusing and unforgivably lackluster. The manual also fails to provide descriptions of the spells' effects--which are sometimes obvious, in the case of the heal spell, but often times ambiguous without knowing for certain.

All things considered, though, Art of Magic should entertain most fans of both fantasy games and strategy games for at least a good romp or two. It's most likley worth your time, so long as you don't expect great things. Just some nice things.