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Master of Magic

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Name: Master of Magic
Year: 1995
Publisher: Microprose
Developer: Simtex
Platform: PC
Genre: Strategy
Total rating: 80.8% - rated 58 times
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Submitter: Res
Added: May 22 2004
Warez status: Abandonware



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Game review

Author: Res
Date: May 23 2004 - 09:50
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Short Introduction:
This game starts with a short intro movie where two wizards have a fight, one tries to destroy the other by the usage of "Magic", and that´s what this whole game is about. A lot of people call this game "just another Civilization clone", well you can say that but some people don´t think so, so I will take a neutral position, I think it has some aspects from Civilization but in the end the game is different in many ways. In Master of Magic you take part in a fight located in a fantasy world, in this world are cities, lots of creatures and wizards, to become powerful you have to expand your territory you do this simply by attacking a city and win the fight... sounds simple but it will take awhile before you have a strong army and will be able to win battles without losing too many men. To help you during the fights you can use magic, in the beginning you only have a couple of spells you can use but in the end you are able to choose between over two hundred different spells, and the good news is that every spell is different in many ways, like design, power and of course they all have different functions. Your main goal in this game is to destroy all bad wizards and let this "fantasy" world life in peace again.

Features:
Master of Magic offers a large archive of spells, a randomized fantasy world which means that you will always start in a new world when you start a new game, for the rest it offers many creatures, you can use them to get a stronger army or to defend a city so these "creatures" are very useful. For the rest MoM offers VGA graphics, acceptable music and sounds, a great gameplay and a nice story. MoM is a strategy game so you have to think of many things like... do I have to wait for the next turn to attack the enemy or do it now, sometimes this will be a hard decision, thank god that the developers included a save and load option to this game so when you win a battle just overwrite your save game or when you lose load your save game, ah damn now you know my strategy, well it´s a strategy and I can tell you "it works!".

The Graphics:
The graphics of this title are good for its age but they could be much better. Unless that in the year 1995 SVGA was a respected technology to display high quality graphics the developers decided to use VGA, I think this is because they used an out of date engine or because they wanted to give almost every strategy fan the possibility to run this game, this game namely even runs smoothly on a 386SX systems, unless this system was five years old when this game came on the market. The graphics are good enough to recognize cities, people, water and stuff like that but I can´t call it "clear", 320x200 pixels is not a lot to run a game like this but I have to confess that the developers did a great job, the game really gets everything out of "VGA" graphics cards.

Music and Sounds:
The music lets me think of another strategy game called "Colonization", but there is a reason for that, Microprose namely published this game so you can almost be for sure that this game consists of typical "Microprose" elements, like in this case the music. The music sounds simple and gets a little bit boring after awhile unless this game contains a lot of different tracks, the big point is that all of them sound almost the same. The sounds... hmmm well they are not impressive but I can´t say they suck so I will give it an average rating of seven out of ten, because they could be better but they are not bad too, a difficult decision.

The Gameplay:
One of the most important things is the gameplay, well I can tell you Master of Magic´s strongest point is the gameplay, it´s easy and next to that you can do a lot with just a couple of buttons on your keyboard and your mouse. To control your army you use the "num pad" buttons on your keyboard or your mouse and when you are in a fight you can use magic and other powerful things, you can click on buttons on your screen to have a look at available spells and possible actions, like walk, attack, defend, use, etc., some basic things which give you the possibility to do a lot. So the gameplay of this game is very good, it could be better of course but it´s good enough.

What do you have to do?
Like I said in my introduction you have to protect a "fantasy" world from bad wizards, you do this by taking over control of their cities and in the end kill them (sounds bloody... but its not), in the end you will be the winner or the loser, as loser the "bad wizards" will take over the world, and when you win... well you saved the world, what a wonderful story. For the rest you can build buildings in your cities, these buildings give you the possibility to expand your knowledge (which means that more spells will be available) and the buildings give you the possibility to build specific creatures to get a better defence of a city or just to get a stronger army.

Conclusion:
Master of Magic is a fantastic strategy game with a little bit out of dated graphics and a little bit boring music, but don´t let this be the point why you shouldn´t try this game because for the rest this game is good enough to keep you busy for hours. When you enjoy games like "Civilization" and "Colonization" you really have to try this game because it rocks, in the beginning it will be a little bit difficult because you don´t know how to control this game but in the end you will find out that this game is very good. Master of Magic is a must have for strategy fans!


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Comments

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By Rahlforge - Mar 31 2009 - 02:05
Having an issue. Have the most current DOSBox, but when I attempt to run, I just get a black screen, no game.

Been wanting to play this game for YEARS, but never have been able to. Solutions?
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By Chison_hsu - Sep 14 2008 - 16:35
Master of magic is a Civilization-styled game with a Heroes-styled combat system. I think that it is more interesting than the Civilization I. Unfortunately, there is no master of magic II.
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By Abe95 - Nov 09 2007 - 21:46
The uploader said the music reminds him of "Colonization". I play Colonization!
Colonization is on this site a place, just so U know it. XD
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By Tenth1 - Sep 12 2007 - 16:42
The latest dosbox will run this game fine. The biggest trouble I had with this title was that even with dosbox the game moved at a snails pace. To fix this, before you execute your magic.exe file, type cycles = max

That will make the game play quickly with no wasted time. (as long as your system can do that successfully)

I have AMD Athlon 2100 with 1 gig RAM.
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By Dark_drizzt3 - Sep 01 2006 - 05:33
you can play this if you don't have DOSbox as well you have to set the memory to where it has alot of expanded Memory..... then you can use VDM sound to use sound in it unless you have a Sound Blaster Audigy then it has a SB pro 1 included in it

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