Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor

Other products by UBI Soft

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005KANS
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 27, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (170 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #27,179 in Video Games (See Bestsellers in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC

Amazon.com Product Description

This collector's edition takes you even deeper into the mystery of Myth Drannor with the included Pool of Radiance novel written by Carrie Bebris, as well as the Pool of Radiance 3rd Edition adventure module, full-game CD soundtrack, and a complete set of seven polyhedral dice with a Pool of Radiance dice bag.

Return to the pool that spawned the golden age of computer role-playing games in this limited collector's edition of Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. The sequel carries on the story of the first PC advanced Dungeons & Dragons title, Pool of Radiance. Deep underneath the city of New Phlan, the Pool resurfaces and renders everything it touches undead. You must create a party of six adventurers to explore the haunted elven ruins of Myth Drannor and bring an end to its evil influence.

Pool of Radiance 2 is the first game to use D&D's 3rd Edition rules. Playable character classes include fighter, barbarian, paladin, ranger, cleric, sorcerer, monk, and rogue, while the races are 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 and dangerous ruins of Myth Drannor, the Dungeon Master communicates all important events and findings. Just as in the tabletop game, combat is based on turns. With its intense single-player campaign and multiplayer support, Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor is ready to carry on the legacy of the famous Gold Box games and lead D&D role-playing games into the era of 3rd Edition rules.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The bigger the hype, the harder they fall, October 9, 2001

By	Yu-jin Chia "Yu-Jin Chia" (Cupertino, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are some games that everyone has been waiting for that just don't quite meet expectations. Notables in this category are X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Arcanum, and Dune 2000. Then there are titles that fall far short of what they were expected to be. Force Commander, for instance. And then you have the titles that are so sloppily done you run a virus check on the discs- just in case. Enter Pool of Radiance: The Ruins of Myth Drannor.

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.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst gameplay ever?, October 22, 2002

By	Terence P Hutt (Running Springs, CA United States) - See all my reviews

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.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Long awaited, huge disappointment, September 28, 2001

By	passtheboards (CT) - See all my reviews

Having seen the advance screen shots of the game 2 years ago at E3 in L.A., I have long awaited the release of Pool of Radiance. I am an avid fan of the original game and series that took us to the Forgotten Realms. To say the graphics aren't stunning would be an understatement for they truly are. That is about the only thing I can say good about the game itself.

To describe it best would be Diablo on SLOW MOTION! Everything moves at a snails pace, including combat which is more tedious than it is worth - to boot, the game is mostly combat, little story told within and what is told is rarely spoken and hard to read. To bring up a menu for ANYTHING requires right clicking, then clicking on a subheading, then on the final choice and FINALLY on the monster, character or object you want to do the ability on. Ease of controls is something this game is not. Reading your characters health requires another sub command within a command, etc. Anyone who has played these games before knows that ease of controls is key to enjoying any game.

Characters walk slowly everywhere except in combat. You cannot move one character ahead of the party to scout around since you cannot be 10' from the rest it seems. Scrolling on a map only goes as far as the size of your monitor, no farther, despite having uncovered the area from the 'fog' previously. All in all, the controls are horrible.

Character generation is extremely limiting despite what the reviews say. There are no bards, no true wizards (only sorcerer), no subclasses within the class like the Third Ed. rules offer (not to mention Baldur's Gate II), no gnomes, no female characters unless an elf-human-or half-elf, lack of a good spell list (only the basics are covered), the average weapons, no ammo to buy for ranged weapons (unlimited supply? Realism counts to some degree now), etc.

It is a poor adaptation of the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Do not be fooled by the graphics alone. The third edition rules are touched on here and there but it is clearly not what any gamers would like or expect. For the first attempt by SSI, UbiSoft and Prima games to enter the D&D universe, it is a poor one at best. Stick with Baldur's Gate II and wait for the expansions in that series. Otherwise, there is Neverwinter Nights next year to look for. What an extreme disappointment this was. After just one day, I am already returning the software. Sad and a true disappointment..

2115|R1YJEJDJ5I0WHK;2115|R1LP08R2NJYZDW;2115|R20YI2R6Z62MUW;