Every now and again, a game comes along that is so unique, so original, that it becomes entrenched in the gaming psyche forever. Gauntlet, the arcade classic, was one of these types of games. For the few who never played it, Gauntlet was a simple game where you and three other friends roamed around a dungeon hacking and slashing your way through hordes of monsters. It was a simple game, yet it quickly found its way into the hearts of arcade gamers everywhere, spawning multiple sequels and console releases.
So what does this have to do with Black Stone: Magic and Steel ? Well, Black Stone is pretty much a complete copy of Gauntlet, right down to the health power-ups and character classes. While it throws some original ideas into the game, it is for all intents and purposes a Gauntlet knock-off. If you like Gauntlet, you'll probably get some enjoyment from Black Stone, however, if you're tired of Gauntlet's style of gaming, you'll find very little in Black Stone to warrant the purchase. It's not that this is a terrible game, it's just that it offers almost nothing new to the genre.
Gameplay
Black Stone is about as simple as they come in regards to gameplay, you just pick a character type and dive into the dungeons. Each character type has special abilities and strengths. For example, the Pirate class is a good fighter, has great weaponry, and when he strikes someone on his own team, he can steal their gold ! Another example is the Fighter, which swings a mean sword and can fire arrows at distant enemies. All the characters can use magic, which makes me frequently wonder why they bothered with a Wizard character class.
As you move through the levels, you fight off ever-larger growing hordes of monsters while picking up keys, treasure and magic items. Keys are used to unlock treasure chests which of course hold more magic items or treasure. Magic items are either enhanced weapons, magic spells, or special creatures you can ride around the level for a short time. Of all these, the special creature is the most interesting as it allows you to tear up the enemy while taking little damage yourself. If you're into the magic aspect of the game, the spells will launch medium range attacks based on the four elements (earth, wind, fire, and ice/water) that instantly kill most enemies.
The enemies themselves are very generic and entirely mindless. Most of the bad guys, while graphically diverse, simply swarm you and swing away. In single player, it will become nearly impossible to defeat the huge swarms that appear in later levels. The boss monsters follow easy to discover attack/defense patterns, and will stop presenting a challenge after a few rounds.
The level designs in Black Stone are passable but not anything award-winning. Mostly based on maze layouts, they can be fun to explore in order to find the hidden areas, which in actuality, you must find if you hope to complete the level. Some of the levels switch from a top-down 3D view to a side-scrolling 3D'ish perspective, which tries to keep things interesting, but the repetitiveness of some levels can quickly become boring. There's actually one level in the game that once you finish it, you start right back over at the start of it again ! Talk about a controller-throwing moment !
One of the cooler aspects of Black Stone is its multiplayer functionality. Up to four players can start a game, each using the same or different characters. You'll need multiple players if you hope to get through the second half of the game. The problem with the mulitplayer option is the camera, which I'll discuss in the following section.
Graphics
The graphics, much like the gameplay, are pretty uninspired. The character models and dungeon textures look good, but there's nothing outstanding here. Also, the camera is an annoying fixed-angle monstrosity that cannot be controlled by the player. While it's simply annoying in single player, it becomes a travesty of gaming in multiplayer. When characters get too far apart, the camera just follows player 1, while players 2,3 and 4 must move back towards player 1 if they hope to keep playing. It would have been nice if the game would shift to split-screen in these circumstances, but it doesn't, making multiplayer mode a royal pain to play.
Sound
Right here is where Black Stone falls apart. The music is dreadful, at times infuriating. The soundtrack is a bizarre mix of Middle Eastern sounds and techno. The game sounds are limited to weapons swinging, arrows flying, magic blasting and the screams of the bad guys. The screams are really a problem as you can't tell if it was the bad guy screaming at times, or if it was you. The sound is just plain bad and will have you turning the volume down to zero pretty quickly.
Replayability
If you like this kind of title, you'll probably find some replayability in it by switching out characters and starting over. Everyone else will quickly get bored and exile Black Stone to the retired game shelf.
You might think from this review that I really hated Black Stone: Magic and Steel, but honestly, it's not that horrific of a game, it's just lacking anything that makes you say "Wow !". It's probably worth a rent if you're looking for a quick and dirty dungeon crawler title, but I wouldn't suggest purchasing it unless you really enjoy this type of game.
See screenshots at the Black Stone homepage
