QUEST FOR GLORY 2: TRIAL BY FIRE

 It has been quite a while since I was rewarded with the title of "Hero of
Spielburg" for returning the Baron's daughter safely in QUEST FOR GLORY I: SO
YOU WANT TO BE A HERO (previously named HERO'S QUEST). It was a wonderful
experience, so when the call came that a second quest was awaiting, it was with
great excitement and eagerness that I accepted the challenge.

 QUEST FOR GLORY 2: TRIAL BY FIRE (QFG2) is the much-anticipated sequel from
Sierra On-Line. Sierra labeled both editions as role-playing games, and QFG2
will be treated as such in this review (which is based on the IBM-PC version of
the game).

 When you come across an advertisement for a CRPG, you normally find one or more
of the following boasts: hundreds of hours of playing time; dozens of
continents, worlds, galaxies to explore; thousands of swords, maces, and phasers
to equip; separate spell books for your mages and priests; and more monsters
than you can shake a 2-handed hammer +3 at! Well, none of these "features" is
applicable to QFG2. QFG2 took a small segment of a typical RPG universe and
magnified it to the last detail. This game doesn't take hundreds of hours to
complete, yet you have a far greater variety of things to see and do in QFG2
than in a typical CRPG.

 The story picks up exactly where the first game left off. After you are
rewarded with the title "Hero of Spielburg," you decide to accompany Abdulla and
the Kattas back to their homeland, Shapeir, for some R and R. Shapeir is a
thriving city at the edge of a desert. It has a maze-like street system with
four major plazas where merchants and various shops are mostly found, not unlike
the outdoor malls of modern times.

 After spending some time sightseeing and chatting with the local folks, you
begin to realize that things are not going as well as they appear. It seems that
Shapeir has a sister city, Raseir, which is located on the other side of the
desert. The Emir of Raseir has apparently disappeared, and now the city is under
evil rule, with conditions worsening every day. There are strong rumors that
very soon Shapeir will begin to undergo the same fate. Of course, once again,
the fate of an entire city -- no, two cities this time -- rests on your lonely
shoulders. Can you repeat your heroic deeds and become the hero of Shapeir?

 At the start of the game, you need to create your game character by choosing
from among three professions: fighter, wizard, and thief. Choosing the
profession also defines the character's basic attributes and talents in various
skills. You have 50 additional skill points that you can assign to your
character to mold him further to your liking. Note that hybrid classes (for
example, a fighter who picks locks) can be created by assigning the skill points
appropriately. For those players who have successfully completed QFG1 and have
their favorite heroes saved on a disk, they can import those characters into
QFG2

 As your character explores the game world and carries out various actions to
get further into the game, he improves his attributes and skills, which in turn
allow him to get ready for the puzzles yet to come. Just as in QFG1, the
explorations of certain places, and the solutions to some puzzles, are dependent
on your character's profession and skills. If you finish the game with a
fighter, then replaying it with a thief is guaranteed to open up new areas in
the game previously unavailable to the fighter. Even some of the same puzzles
will now become a new challenge. This is a game that truly has replay value.

 The puzzles in this game are, by and large, easy and straightforward. Most of
them involve asking the right people the right questions. If you are thorough
and methodical in your conversations, you will often obtain very explicit
solutions to the puzzles. I'd rate the puzzle difficulty as average for a CRPG.
I found the puzzles to be fair, with plenty of clues. The parser performed very
nicely throughout, though I did have a bit of a problem toward the end of the
game, when traversing through a dark and windy cave.

 Most of the events in the story are triggered by the passage of time, and
therein lies my biggest complaint with the game. Playing the first game as a
fighter left me with nothing to do for quite a few days in Shapeir. The game
does allow you to sleep at the inn to pass time quickly (only in Shapeir
though). However, without prior knowledge of things to come, I was reluctant to
do that, fearing that I might miss out on some important events. I wound up
revisiting the same locales over and over again, looking for new conversations
and new puzzles to solve. This became very tedious after a while. A better way
might have been to allow time to speed up automatically after certain key
puzzles had been solved, but I imagine the RPG purists might be shocked to even
hear of such a proposal.

 If you play as a fighter or a mage, combat will be important; it provides
money, and trains you in various fighting and spellcasting skills (as well as
other attributes). When an enemy appears but is distant, you may throw stones or
daggers (if you have them). Once the enemy approaches to within arm's length,
the game switches to a combat screen, but maintains the third-person perspective
(unlike in QFG1). Fighting is carried out on a real-time basis. You may move
your character back and forth, attack with sword, and defend with the shield. If
you have spellcasting ability, you may also cast spells during combat. Finally,
if the battle seems hopeless, you may also choose to escape. Although the combat
sequences do appear a bit "arcade-ish," in reality, you can win pretty handily
if your statistics are high.

 There are a few arcade sequences in the game, but generally they are mercifully
short and painless. Again, the higher the stats of your character, the easier it
is to complete these sequences. Besides the main quest of saving Shapeir and
Raseir from impending evils, there are also a few side quests, most of which are
designed to earn money to buy the goodies that you may need to finish the game.
Interestingly enough, there is a bug in the program where it's possible to
obtain an unlimited amount of money simply by lying to the magic shop owner.
Unfortunately, this also significantly diminishes the fun and importance of the
side missions.

 QFG2 is filled with humorous dialogs, silly puns, and sight gags. They're
everywhere! Take your time and read all the game text carefully; I guarantee
that you will alternate between laughing and groaning throughout. I personally
enjoyed chatting with Keapon Laffin (indeed!), and bargaining with Ali Fakir
(Groucho incarnate).

 Graphically, the game supports 16-color VGA, EGA, CGA (B&W only), Hercules
Monochrome, and Tandy modes. Although the graphics look quite a bit outdated
when compared to the 256-color VGA KING'S QUEST V, they are nevertheless very
well done. Animations of the hero, monsters, and other supporting roles are
especially lifelike, with a lot of attention paid to details. As previously
described, the game employs a parser and an improved interface that Sierra has
been using since CODENAME: ICEMAN. A lot of the oft-used command words can be
called up by a single keystroke (when used with the CTRL key). I especially like
the ability to right-click the mouse on any object in order to LOOK AT it.

 QFG2 supports Roland MT-32, AdLib, Soundblaster, and other sound cards. Playing
the game with AdLib, there seems to be less music than in other Sierra games.
There are quite a few subtle sound effects that you really have to pay attention
to in order to notice, such as the fire clacking noise in the drugstore, and the
wind noise in the desert. The various music themes are quite pleasant, and do a
nice job of enhancing the atmosphere.

 The program runs on a 640K IBM or compatible. It did hang a few times with less
than 550K of usable memory, so you'll want to do some housecleaning and get rid
of a few TSRs before running the game. Both joystick and mouse are supported.
The game can be easily installed on a hard drive, and there is no on- or
off-disk copy protection (although it should be noted that a paper map of
Shapeir is included in the game, without which it'd be rather difficult to
play). The supplied disk formats are 3-1/2" (720K) and 5-1/4" high-density
(1.2Mb) floppies: As games keep getting larger and larger, a 5-1/4" high-density
drive will soon be an indispensable component of the true gamer's machine.

 QFG2 is a very nice sequel to its predecessor, and plays well on its own. With
its terrific graphics and sounds, fairytale story, and simple but fun puzzles,
this is a game that the entire family can enjoy. If not for some rather boring
wandering while waiting for the story to move on, I'd rate QFG2 as highly as
QFG1. Even so, I'm sure that new players -- along with diehard Sierra fans --
will be pleased by this new installment in a fine series.

 QUEST FOR GLORY 2: TRIAL BY FIRE is published and distributed by Sierra
On-Line.