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Bungie Software shattered real-time strategy norms with its 1997
release, Myth: The Fallen Lords. Eschewing the tried-and-true
formula pioneered by such classics as Command & Conquer and
WarCraft, Myth broke through the shackles of resource management
and unit creation and put strategy and combat at the forefront.
In fact, perhaps Myth erected its own genre--the real-time
game.
Myth: The Total Codex combines the original Myth: The Fallen
Lords with its sequel, Myth II: Soulblighter, and the expansion
pack Myth II: Chimera. Equipped with over 50 single-player
levels, dozens of multiplayer s, and nearly a CD full of
user-created levels, s, and modifications, Myth: The Total
Codex is a package that no strategy gamer should pass up.
The beauty of Myth lies in the interaction between its
well-balanced, fantasy-based units. For example, archers (bowmen
in Myth II) can shoot arrows with frightening speed and accuracy,
but get pummeled by melee units unless they're protected; dwarves
toss devastating bombs, but poor rate of fire and
unpredictability sometimes make them a liability; and the
powerful Trow Giant can eliminate nearly every unit in a single
blow, but is too slow to overcome a force of greater numbers.
Myth's intuitive interface, featuring a rotating camera system,
the ability to zoom in and out of battle, plus unit formation and
waypoints, allows for precise control of your army.
Though its single-player game never ceases to entertain, it's
Myth: The Total Codex's multiplayer game that shines. Players
trade for available units (the more powerful the unit, the more
expensive it is) and compete on vibrant, varied terrain in games
like Last Man on the Hill, King of the Hill, Territories, and
Capture the . If you've never experienced Bungie Software's
brilliant real-time game, Myth: The Fallen Lords or Myth
II: Soulblighter, do yourself a favor and plunge into its fantasy
world of strategic combat with the complete compilation, Myth:
The Total Codex. --Doug Radcliffe
Pros:
* Three full-length single-player campaigns
* Excellent multiplayer support on Bungie's free online service
* Intuitive and highly customizable interface
* Windows and Macintosh versions are included on the same CD
Cons:* If you already have Myth and Myth II, the expansion pack
might not justify the price
Review
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It doesn't take much to ruin someone's day in Bungie's newest
real-time strategy/tactics game, Myth: The Fallen Lords. For
example, an nent in a network game may spend a good three or
four minutes setting up the perfect fir'Bolg archer line along a
canyon rim, and along comes a pack of enemy ghols behind the
archers. The ghols toss a few pus packets and, after the
resulting explosions and paralysis, proceed to make short work of
the bowmen. Suddenly, it's a whole different game. That is the
essence of Myth - judicious use of the right kind of character to
face the enemy and the constant shifting of fortunes as troops
skirmish and fall. Oh, and the knowledge of when to stand your
ground and when to retreat. Retreating is very important.
In single-player Myth, a player controls troops from the armies
of light (warriors, archers, berserks, dwarves, and so on),
moving them about on the game and attacking enemies. As a
player works through the 24 included scenarios, a storyline about
the cycle of darkness and light emerges, with the player striving
to set things right through a series of battles. Sounds simple.
Well, it's not. Each character type in Myth has its own strengths
and weaknesses, and it's important to know those strengths and
weaknesses. The player who pits thralls against dwarves probably
is going to lose a lot of thralls, whereas the player who pits
berserks against the floating soulless will know victory. The
landscape in Myth also complicates matters, as the ground is
truly three-dimensional. Perch some archers and a couple of
dwarves on top of a hill, and those characters will gain a
tremendous advantage over an enemy trying to take the hill.
Characters also can use the landscape for cover, hiding behind
trees to avoid arrows, pus packets, or Molotov cocktails.
Control in Myth is easy. Just click on a character (or
characters), then click on a spot on the where the character
should end up. To initiate an attack, select a character, then
click on the enemy who should be attacked. The battlefield is
viewed from an unrestricted camera, which lets you rotate and
zoom around the scene of carnage, viewing it from all angles.
Myth would be a pretty good game as described, but the folks at
Bungie paid special attention to the little things, nudging Myth
just a notch higher into its own rarefied category. Soft, subtle
sounds immerse you in the Myth world. Arrows clatter when they
hit the ground, armor rattles among restless warriors who are
standing around, and water splashes as soldiers cross an icy
stream. Myth's audio uses stereo panning, making it louder in the
right speaker if the sound source is to the right of the camera,
or louder in the left speaker if the sound source is to the left
of the camera. Myth's physics model is accurate, too. Arrows
bounce off shields and trees, blood spatters the landscape, and
body parts fly through the air. These items don't disappear,
either. The debris of battle builds up on the field.
The single-player Myth scenarios are only half of what's great
about this game. After all, there's nothing like playing against
another human - or humans. Myth includes a network module that
lets players compete via an AppleTalk and TCP/IP network. Or
gamers can connect to Bungie.net (http://www.bungie.net) and
compete against Myth players anywhere. Bungie.net keeps track of
players' victories and defeats, and assigns a caste based on
these records. Up to 16 players can play in a network game at one
time. Teams of players can form orders, and these orders can
challenge others to network combat. Even better, players have the
rtunity to use units from both the light and dark sides.
(There's nothing like the thrill of a trio of trow stomping a
foe.) In the first weeks following Myth's release, Bungie's
servers have been hit hard, and it's not always easy to connect.
Hopefully, access will improve as time goes on.
Bungie pushes real-time gaming into a new realm with Myth. The
game's amazing rotating 3D camera, the realistic landscape, the
gore, the physics, the attention to minute details, and a great
network component make Myth one of the most inspired games for
the Mac in the past year. We've come to expect nothing less from
Bungie, makers of fine titles such as the Marathon series. If you
enjoyed games such as Westwood Studios' Command & Conquer and
Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft, you will positively love Myth.
- David Reynolds
Good News: Challenging scenarios. Beautiful 3D graphics viewable
from any angle. Realistic physics and gore. Amazing attention to
detail. Great network play, even over a modem.
Bad News: Supports only 3Dfx acceleration. Dwarves are
exceedingly stupid and will destroy their own troops if not
watched very carefully.
Rating:4/4
©1999 MacAddict -- From MacAddict -- Subscribe now!
( https://secure.imaginemedia.com/group/maca/8VPX.html )
Myth II: Soulblighter
It would have been easy for Bungie to just leave things alone
after Myth: The Fallen Lords. The game was a huge hit, met with
critical accl at nearly every turn, and continues to be one of
the most popular multiplayer games on the Internet. But
thankfully for gamers, Bungie went back to the drawing board to
craft a bigger, better Myth.
The game takes players to a time 60 years after the events of
the original Myth, when peace reigns and the once busy Legion has
very little to worry about. But this pleasant state of affairs is
about to change. Responding to reports of brigands terrorizing a
small village, a small group of warriors stumbles across a much
bigger problem: Undead creatures are popping up all over and,
even worse, the Fallen Lord named Soulblighter is behind it all.
The single-player campaign comprises 25 missions, each of which
is remarkably well designed and - on the harder difficulty levels
especially - enormously challenging. Scenarios range from simple
skirmishes and NPC escorts to the infiltration of a massive keep
and even some indoor missions. Fans of the original game's Shadow
of the ain level will love Myth II's The Great Library and
Redemption levels, along with a number of other great defensive
missions. The coolest (and creepiest) level in the game is one in
which you must make your way through a haunted dungeon, where
friendly and hostile ghosts appear and disappear without warning.
Bridge? Keep? Yes, Myth II makes extensive use of large
buildings and interactive terrain to liven up the 3D battlefield.
During the game, you'll run across massive fortifications,
destructible bridges, a working drawbridge, a ship, a windmill,
and a slew of other eye-popping items. The enhanced 3D engine
also supports a number of other new features, colored lighting
and shadows, and an underlying terrain mesh that's four times
finer than the one used by Myth. The result is a smoother-looking
game with more realistic settings.
Other, more subtle features like the increased ambient life also
help to create a more realistic environment. Chickens peck around
in the villages, deer bound through the forest, and various birds
soar overhead on most s. Of course, you're not limited to
looking at these creatures, you can interact with them as well
(meaning that you can blow up most of them). The ambient sounds
are also enhanced in Myth II. Between the sounds of wildlife in
the background and Dwarven bottles exploding, there was never a
moment of silence in the game.
Although the animated cutscenes in Myth looked good, they were
too brief and cryptic to convey much of a story. The Bungie
developers must have agreed, because they went out and hired a
new animation studio to do the Myth II cinematics. The results
are astounding. The cutscenes are still brief, but they look
fantastic, and you can always tell what the heck is happening -
or at least what is being implied.
The AI and pathfinding for all units has been improved, so your
troops don't mill about endlessly when they can't reach their
initial destinations. There are some glitches with Myth II's
pathfinding, such as the ludicrous conga line your warriors form
while chasing down an enemy unit, but for the most part, units
move and behave much more intelligently than in Myth.
Myth II's interface and controls are also more intelligent than
those we saw in the original Myth. Players who found the keyboard
camera controls confusing in Myth can now move and rotate the
camera angle simply by moving the mouse. I personally found this
more confusing than the old method (which you can still use), but
there are undoubtedly some gamers who will welcome the mouse
option. A handy control bar now runs alongside the bottom of the
screen, providing easy access to commonly used commands and unit
formations. Also, you can tell a unit's status simply by
passing the mouse over it. Formation facing is much, much simpler
than that clunky "gesture click" system - you can either turn
your troops with the left and right arrow keys, or hold the mouse
button to turn your troops at will (an arrow appears on the
screen to help you line up the troops properly).
For those who found some of the levels in the original game far
too difficult, Myth II features a vastly improved set of
difficulty levels. These are well stepped and let gamers of any
talent and interest level jump in and enjoy the world of Myth II.
Kudos to Bungie for making the game so approachable for novice
players without sacrificing the challenge hard-core gamers crave
(and those higher difficulty settings can be pretty damn hard).
Hard-core Myth fans will also appreciate the improved
multiplayer support in Myth II. The game offers a ton of new
multiplayer features (such as player alliances) and scenarios
(several of which involve the aforementioned ambient life in
strange and unusual roles). Bungie.net has also been updated, and
the performance of games over Bungie's free service seems faster
and more reliable in general.
Rounding out this epic game are two of the tools Bungie used to
create the game. Fear and Loathing are powerful editors that
players can use to craft their own missions and s. Though
you'll need some practice to master these complex utilities, they
can be used to create and modify Myth II levels in just about any
way imaginable. These tools should certainly prove popular to the
thousands of devoted Bungie.net users, as the service lets
players easily exchange custom s.
Bungie basically improved all the good features in Myth; added a
number of gameplay, multiplayer, and graphical enhancements; and
then threw in some slick and powerful editing tools to boot. The
end result is one of the best games to be released this year, and
one that should easily find a home in any serious gamer's
library. --Michael E. Ryan
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review