Veil of Darkness (1993) is one of my all time favourite games. Even back in the good old early '90s a game as good as this was rare! It combines adventure, action and great puzzles.
The game feels very much like a classic mystery/horror film with emphasis on atmosphere and suggestiveness with lots of interesting characters, suspense, action, humour, mystery and romance.
It uses an isometric engine giving it a semi 3D feel with great graphics and music.
If I were to add a few words of criticism it would first of all be the "Evil Incarnate" idea. I suppose the designers wanted to derive a little from the good versus evil theme, something I don't think was preferable, I am all for good against evil. And to release a universal evil in order to defeat a local evil seemed meaningless. But this is a minor point and (for those who know the game) the clue in question would have been the same by only changing the magical book into being, for instance, Lord Nicolae's diary instead.
On a completely different note, by using the map you could jump from place to place almost whenever you wanted. This sometimes felt a little like cheating. When for instance you were deep in the dark forest and became low on health all you had to do was to click on the Gypsy camp on the map and go to the healer woman. I would have preferred to have to move between locations. But since the game was primarily aimed at adventure gamers I suppose they didn't want to make it too difficult to stay alive.
Lastly I would have preferred the final battle with the main villain to be interactive.
But these few and small complaints apart, this is one of the most entertaining games I have ever played.
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Wed Oct 31, 2007 5:39 am