Dragon Games

Drakan: Order of the Flame is an action-adventure game that seamlessly blends aerial and ground-based gameplay in a beautiful 3D world. As the player, you are Rynn, a warrior- heroine with a savvy attitude and a quick sword arm who teams up with a powerful, fire-breathing dragon named Arokh.Leaving her small village behind, Rynn and Arokh embark on an epic journey across the massive and dangerous world of Drakan in a desperate quest to save Rynn's kidnapped younger brother - and quite possibly all of Drakan - from a fate worse than death.

Played in third-person perspective, Drakan combines hand-to-hand combat using over 50 different weapons with a unique flight engine that allows you to battle it out against other dragons for supremacy of the skies. Six different dragon attacks and seven magical spells round out your arsenal. In addition to blood curdling battle situations, Rynn and Arokh will explore their mysterious world, solve puzzles, and interact with more than 25 unique characters through Drakan's real-time, in-game cinematic system.

Finally, the game also features Internet and LAN support where up to eight players engage in non-stop, head-to-head combat on the ground in the skies high above Drakan.

See why PC Gamer says "It looks like Drakan is going to be a technical tour de force with it's unique gameplay, superb character designs, and copious special effects."

This game has a big advantage over many other games; you get to control a dragon! The graphics are impressive, as is the exclusive use of speech. Although the controls take a bit of getting used to for some people, it is ultimately an excellent game for Dragon Lovers and/or Hardcore Gamers. Drakan: Order Of The Flame is well worth the $14.99 that it costs. I highly recommend this game!

Platform:PC
Published By: Psygnosis
Developed By: Surreal Software
# Of Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: Mature
Content suitable for ages 17 or older.
System Requirements:
-166 MHz Pentium (233 MHz Pentium recommended)
-Microsoft Windows 95 or 98
-32 MB RAM
-2x CD-ROM drive (4x recommended)
-Direct Sound compatible sound card (Sound Blaster SB16 or better recommmended)
-3-D accelerator card (2nd Generation 3D accelerator card or recommended)

If there's one thing that Surreal Software president Alan Patmore wants to make clear about the first Drakan game for the PlayStation 2, it's that it's "a true sequel to the original Drakan and is absolutely, positively, not a port."

It's hard to tell where the rumors--which stated, somewhat illogically, that Drakan II was to be a PlayStation 2 version of the Sony-published Drakan for the PC--first began, but Patmore wants to lay them to rest for good. "Let me assure you," says Patmore, "we've spent two years developing this game, and it is completely original. There seems to have been a lot of confusion about this, and seeing someone refer to it as a port can be very frustrating to the team who have all been working extremely hard building the entirely new worlds of Drakan II."

That said, anyone needing further proof need only spend a few minutes with the game to see that much has changed.If the environments in the first game seemed like they'd make ideal vacation spots, then you'll love the environments in Drakan II: They look good enough that you'd consider setting up more permanent residence. It's a staggeringly pretty landscape with snowcapped mountains and deep valleys, marred only by roaming packs of monsters and the occasional burning building. Even then though, you can see the smoke rising up into the sky, partially blocking out the sun in thin, wispy strands. This is one of the best-looking visual effects.

The game, of course, focuses on the female lead character from the original game, Rynn, and her dragon companion, Arohk. The two characters share a bond, and if one dies, the other will follow soon afterward. The storyline for the game picks up immediately after the end of Drakan. Now that Rynn has reestablished the Order of the Flame, she and Arokh are called to release the immortal Spirit Dragons from captivity and free the land of its oppressors, an alien race called the Desert Lords who are overrunning the populace.

Both character models have undergone drastic upgrades, with Rynn looking much more realistic and Arohk looking much more fantastic. Patmore says that the character model for Rynn in the original Drakan was composed of 300 polygons, while her model in Drakan II is made up of 4400 polygons. Arohk has experienced a similar jump--from 320 polygons to 4200. And it shows. One immediately noticeable change was that the skin that stretches between the "fingers" of your dragon's wings is now a thin almost translucent membrane. If that sounds impressive, that's because it is. Arohk looks great and animates well.

Drakan II will also have cities full of nonplayer characters for you to interact with, another big change from before. "There are actually good people in the game," says Patmore. "There weren't any good people in the original Drakan. Everyone you ran into was evil."

The combat system for Drakan II has at the same time been changed and stayed the same. The hand-to-hand combat appears to have remained similar to that of the original Drakan, although many new weapon types and a dozen spells have been added. Since many nice things were said about the ground combat in the first game, this is good news. The main changes to the combat system seem most noticeable when you're on your dragon's back. Besides Drakan II's having 60 percent more aerial combat, there's now a lock-on system similar to Zone of Enders (or a 360-degree version of that seen in Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time). Once you lock on an enemy, your movement is centered on the creature until you tap the lock-on button again or destroy it. You'll now be able to get into firefights with four or five dragons at a time, several more than you could fight simultaneously before. And leaving the sky will no longer necessarily mean ending your interaction with your dragon in Drakan II. If you're having a particularly hard time in a fight on the ground, you can call in Arohk to firebomb your enemies for you.

Simply put, there will be a lot more Drakan in Drakan II. Or, as Patmore likes to explain it, it'll be much more epic. "The PlayStation 2 has allowed me to do as a designer what I wanted to do with the original Drakan," he says. "To make a game on a truly epic scale."

The first game to publicize the Persistant Online World. Ultima Online is a highly addictive online rpg world that borrows it's story from the Ultima series of games. Gamers create their virtual citizens of Britannia to follow a multitude of paths. The game is open-ended to provide all flavors of an RPG, whether it be a warrior, mage, or merchant. The game is presented top-down, and the game world is broken up of a huge mainland, and a number of islands. Just like in most RPG's, characters are advanced through skill, gained by fighting monsters in dungeons, or practicing a craft (or both).

Magic is done by collecting 'regents'. The mage's skill determines what level of spell he/she can cast. A huge variety of spells and potions are available.

Items and weapons of almost every kind populate the land. The game uses gold currency to carry out transactions. Trades can also be conducted between players.

The game cost $10 a month to play unless you play on a Free Shard, which I recomend. There are many free shards out there, but I have included the link to the Free Shard I curently play on, which I think is one of the best out there. Constant updates are made available to further enhance the product.

There are also a few versions of this game. UO: Lord Blackthorn's Realm being the newest of these, and UO: Renaissance and UO: Third Dawn being the most popular and most used on Free Shards at the moment. If you decide to buy this game for your first time, I recomend buying Ultima Online: Third Dawn because it also comes with the ability to install Ultima Online: Renaissance as well.