Nox [Game review]

The beginning of the 2000s, the new millennium, the world is developing technologically at the speed of sound, and genres are still being invented and formed in the gaming industry. It’s time for the greatest number of experiments and bold projects. The time when they made nondescript 3D projects and got very good at drawing sprites. It is this time that I want to remember using the example of the game Nox.

What is it all about?? At the time of its release, many called it a clone of the great and terrible Diablo. In fact, the similarity with the “Blizzard” series turns out to be very indirect and there are enough differences not to call the game a clone. It is about them, and something else, that will be discussed further.

From dream to release

The person who came up with the idea for the Nox game was Michael Booth. And this happened in 1995. And it was developed until 1997 on pure enthusiasm, caffeine and the desire to create a game about dueling magicians. The original idea was to convey the feelings and images that you get from reading about the mutual casting of spells by different kinds of wizards. Michael and his friend stubbornly followed their first concept until 1997. In the same year, Booth went to the Game Developers Conference, where he met John Hight, who at that time was an executive producer at Westwood Studios. He invited him to look at the game that he had with him on his laptop and was a duel of magicians on a split screen, controlled using gamepads.

John Hight was interested in this spectacle, which is where their fruitful collaboration began. Already in 1998, Westwood bought the rights to the game, hired a group of developers (which consisted of 4 people including Booth and Hight) and sent them to work in sunny California at the Virgine Irvine studio.

Also in 1998, a significant event happened for the Westwood company – it was absorbed by Electronic Arts. Virgin Irvine turned into Westwood Pacific with a flick of the wrist. For the development of the game, this meant a change in concept. In addition to the originally planned online battles, they wanted to add a single-player campaign and increase the number of classes. You could even say that this benefited the project, although it limited the developers’ time.

The game first appeared before the eyes of the general public at E3 1999. Unfortunately, she was not awarded any awards. But interesting ideas embedded in it were noted. From the presentation at E3 until the release, the studio carried out an impressive marketing campaign in the United States: a toolkit for creating a fan site was released and a competition was announced for the best fan site, a lot of meetings were held with fans in different parts of the United States, videos, demo versions and other joys for fans of the not yet released game.

Finally, the game was released in 2000, February 16 in the USA and February 19 worldwide.
It is worth noting that in addition to the game disc, the kit included a “disc for a friend”, with which you could participate exclusively in online battles.

And yes, localization is a question that still arises for many games. Here it is decided sharply and categorically – there is no official Russian localization. But there are plenty of pirated translations of varying degrees of quality, and therefore, do not be afraid of not understanding something. Besides, there isn’t much dialogue in the game.

Dilemmas of the magical renaissance

As in many other fantasy stories, we are gradually handed the fate of an entire world, in this case it is called Nox.

The developers took the same creative approach to telling the backstory of the conflict into which our hero is drawn as they did to the entire game. They embedded it in the game installer itself, so that the player of those years would not be bored watching the loading bar move towards the finish line.

We are told that https://sportiumcasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ in this magical world, the inhabitants of the peaceful south suffered from the necromancers of the north, who killed people in order to increase their own power and replenish their army of the dead. But the fearless hero Jandor and his army went to fight them! He used the Rod of Oblivion, a weapon crafted from Nox’s most prized possessions. The hero stole their souls from the necromancers and locked them in a magical sphere. The armies of the dead were completely defeated, but the Rod of Oblivion acquired such terrifying power that people could no longer be trusted with it. People by that time were divided into three factions: warriors – able to handle many types of weapons, sorcerers – capable of subjugating other creatures to their will, and magicians – initiated into all the mysteries of magic. And, as usually happens, parts of the rod were divided between them. And the most important part is that the sphere ended up in another time and place. And for several decades peace reigned in Knox. But Jandor had one secret – during the battle he spared one little girl born by necromancers. He did not see any evil in her and gave her to be raised by ogres, in the hope that she would not learn anything dangerous..

This girl was named Hecate. And at the beginning of the game itself, the matured Hecate tries to pull out the main artifact – the sphere, in order to free the souls of necromancers and rule Nox. It is in our world, and stands on the TV of an unremarkable young man named Jack Mauer. Due to Jandor’s good nature and imprudence, great danger looms over the magical world.

Actually, our adventure begins from the moment when Jack is transferred along with the sphere to Nox. In Knox, he ends up on an airship, the captain of which lands us on the ground, demanding for this that we leave him the TV. After this, we are given the opportunity to become a student of one of the factions mentioned above, and ultimately defeat Hecate, becoming a new hero.

In general, the plot develops quite linearly and, in some places, banal. But that doesn’t make the game any worse. There are also small side quests, skipping which you will not lose anything except a small amount of experience or money.

As the savior of the world
The player is given three classes to choose from. Oddly enough, Warrior, Sorcerer and Mage is practically a classic.
The gameplay for each varies greatly, in addition, each has its own three starting locations and a personal final battle.

The simplest class in terms of managing and destroying monsters, but extremely expensive to repair, not to mention purchasing any items from merchants. He has at his disposal 5 active abilities and almost the entire arsenal of pieces of iron with the exception of magic staves, bows and crossbows. Swords, axes, shields, shurikens, chakrams, plate armor and other joys of medieval warfare.

Suddenly, not a pure robber with little magical help, but rather a mage with a limited supply of means of killing, who also has crossbows and bows at his disposal. And also the possibility of luring creatures to your side, but only if you found a scroll and read about this type of adversary. In addition, it is possible to use the spells at the player’s disposal to create kamikaze traps that explode with the spells contained in them when meeting an enemy. As for the bows themselves, you won’t have to shoot much, and you’ll just need to use magic, live with it at least in the first half of the game.

Perhaps the strongest hero in the game if you have mana. At his disposal is an incredibly wide range of spells, both extremely useful and not extremely useful, or even of dubious use. He also knows how to make traps out of spells, only this time they are static.

Let’s touch on pumping. Increasing levels only gives increases in stats such as mana, speed, health and strength. With the exception of the warrior, until the sixth level he receives a new skill each time. For other classes, magical skills appear and are upgraded through volumes of spells scattered around the world. Somewhat vaguely similar to the system that was in the first Diablo.

The heart of the mechanism
What was remarkable about the game mechanics?? And the fact that the game implements a field of view system and, suddenly, physics.

Thanks to the limited field of view, the game is moving further away from Diablo-like and getting closer to action games. Because you can’t cast spells into dark areas, and until you see the enemy, you won’t blow him away at the maximum distance with a massive spell, and a certain effect of surprise appears, you never know what awaits you around the next corner.

Physics is implemented surprisingly well. Even in some modern games, with the stated physics of objects, this is not used much in the construction of gameplay. Here, not only does physics come up quite often in simple tasks like putting out a fire with barrels of water or placing boxes on platforms, but it is also involved in the mechanics of some weapons and spells.

Add-ons, expansions and other multiplayer

Why we love hack & slash RPG? Perhaps, for the variability of leveling, the relaxed extermination of crowds of opponents, and especially for the fact that you can show your berserker tendencies in the company of friends. Alas, Nox does not have a co-op mode in the form we are used to – co-op through the story campaign. The entire cooperative was introduced in the so-called Nox Quest(e) – an additional multiplayer mode, which was a kind of labyrinth of tests in which you can kill monsters together, find secrets and move on, and that’s all. It was not in the release version of the game, and it came with the update of the same name.

There is also an unusual multiplayer for games of this genre, which in its essence and spirit is reminiscent of Quake, Unreal and other multiplayer obscenities of that and our time.
Modes included: – classic deathmatch which is called Arena
– capture the flag
– king of the hill, a variation on the deathmatch(a) theme, only the player who picked up the crown scored points – a special item that appears in a certain place on the map.
– frugball – a kind of variation on the theme of football: players need to grab and bring the ball to the enemy flag.
— chat — for true pacifists or those who like to communicate more than compete with people online.

Since Westwood primarily relied on multiplayer, they became very involved in its support, development and popularization. American and world tournaments were held.

Michael’s Dreams

Michael Booth noted in an interview that there was not enough time, as always, to bring the game to perfection. And the possibilities of playing as a female character, auto-generation of maps and cooperative passage of the story campaign were not realized.
A sequel was even thought about, the plans were very ambitious, but Westwood at that time was developing its legendary Command & Conquer series. And in 2003 the division was liquidated and, unfortunately, support for the game by Electronic Arts ceased.

The magic of music

The musical accompaniment is not a masterpiece and is very memorable, but it doesn’t hurt the ear and fits perfectly into the surroundings. Especially considering the environment in which Frank Klepacki worked on it. This task came to him quite suddenly and, while working on other projects, he simply heroically coped with the task assigned to him.

Resolution on awarding a rating.

For those ancient times the game was great, but in some moments it was just a little lacking. What was missing was the plot twist, the cooperative mode, and the length of the campaign. Now few people know about it, it is mired in a pit of comparisons with Diablo, because the second part of the diabolical epic was released six months after the release of Nox and turned out to be simpler, more fun and more varied.
But for those who are not afraid of difficulties, outdated graphics and a short adventure duration, this thing is recommended for at least a one-time run. Or you just like fantasy, spells and battles of magicians, then there would be no shame in joining.

Grade :
“Commendable” for a fresh approach to mechanics and perseverance in implementing his idea.

Thank you for reading. And if you disagree or want to argue, or you even liked it and wanted to suggest the game for review, then you are welcome to comment.