GATEWAY TO THE SAVAGE FRONTIER

 GATEWAY TO THE SAVAGE FRONTIER was programmed by Beyond Software for
Strategic Simulations, Inc. However, GATEWAY has the same look and feel of
the earlier SSI "gold box" games. (This review is based on the IBM version.)

 GATEWAY is Volume I in a new series set in TSR's AD&D "Forgotten Realms"
world. The locale is the northern Sword Coast far to the west of the first
series. Your characters start out with 3,000 experience points, which makes
them level 2 characters for most classes. The maximum levels are 6 to 8,
depending on the character class. The loot in this game is limited and of
low-level (unlike in POOL OF RADIANCE). Hopefully, this means the characters
can carry their loot over to the next game.

 As the game begins, your characters have been robbed of all but one small
purse of gold while celebrating a successful job of guarding a caravan. They
swear to find the thief and avenge themselves. After re-equipping as best
they can, the party meets Krevish, who gets them a new commission. In the
course of fulfilling this commission, they discover a threat to the Sword
Coast from the Zhentarim. It is up to the party to foil this threat. The
storyline is very typical of real AD&D adventures. There is no demi-god to
defeat as in a typical computer role-playing game.

 GATEWAY offers more interaction between the player characters, who exchange
humorous banter. While the descriptions and NPC dialogue are among the best
I've seen, the NPC interaction is rather simple. There is none of the
complexity found in Cadorna's shifting relationship with the party in POOL;
there are none of the moral choices found with Ohlo.

 Magic shops sell weapons now. Your characters also have a chance to
commission a +3 long sword. GATEWAY answers a major question, namely: Where
do all the magic arms and armor your character finds as loot come from? You
learn a little about how magic arms and armor are made.

 GATEWAY presents side missions to the player, but gives no indication when a
mission is complete. One example is the Neverwinter gardens. There are hints
of missions that do not seem to be possible to complete (as in Llorkh). This
is a major disappointment in an otherwise fine game.

 Initially the battles are challenging, but once your characters get above
level 3, combat becomes easy until the final confrontation. However, the
mazes are tough. You have to go back to POOL OF RADIANCE to find mazes as
tough as GATEWAY's, and the puzzles are equal to those in SECRET OF THE
SILVER BLADES (except there is no Well of Knowledge to give you the answers).
Nevertheless, neither the puzzles nor the mazes are insanely difficult. They
take a few minutes, not a few days, for the experienced player to solve.

 The ending is problematic. It is possible to kill the main villain, but the
end-game sequence ignores the fact that the party killed him. The final
battle is based on an original idea that makes it interesting and
challenging. However, there is a very legitimate trick that permits an easy
win. You can continue to play after end-game, but the overall situation
doesn't change in any way. The side effects of the Zhentarim plot continue.
This may be deliberate, as the overall plot of the series seems to be to foil
a Zhentarim master plan. This quest makes only a small dent in the plan.
Still, showing some effect of the defeat would have been more satisfying.
(E.g., the party could see increased commercial activity as they re-visit the
scenes of their adventure.)

 As with the previous gold box games, the user interface is a mixture of
improvements and unimprovements. The Fix command now also memorizes spells,
but the automatic joining of items from DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN and the scroll
bundles from SECRET OF THE SILVER BLADES is not available. The automatic
spell memorizing does _not_ allow you to memorize additional spells your
characters get when they advance a level. A separate Memorize is still needed
for that.

 GATEWAY is supplied on high density (1.2MB) 5.25" floppies, or 3.5" 720KB
floppies. Players who need 360KB floppies have to send in for them. The
program runs on PC, XT, AT, PS2, and Tandy 1000 machines.

 GATEWAY is the first gold box game to support 256-color VGA/MCGA (as well as
CGA, EGA, and TGA). The video is notable for its speed. With a speed setting
of 3, when the battles are handled automatically, the screen changes happened
so fast I couldn't follow them. The artwork is the most beautiful yet in the
gold box series. The giants, trolls, and ogres are not only more
realistically sized, but are much more menacing looking. There is one
exception: The lizardmen look like pot-bellied lounge lizards rather than
horrible monsters.

 The program uses a sound card for sound effects for the first time; it
supports AdLib, Sound Blaster, and Tandy. Unfortunately, that's made little
difference. The sound effects are limited, so they can be easily reproduced
on a PC speaker, and are crude compared to what's available in many other
games today.

 Copy protection is manual look-up. For the first time, the look-up
information is presented in the right order (page number, then line number,
with word number last). One major improvement in the copy protection is that
you're no longer randomly asked for the password during the game or when
saving the game. The password is needed only the first time you start.

 I found GATEWAY TO THE SAVAGE FRONTIER to be a fine game. However, several
significant flaws prevent it from being as good as the original two gold box
games (POOL OF RADIANCE and CURSE OF THE AZURE BONDS).

 GATEWAY TO THE SAVAGE FRONTIER is published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
and distributed by Electronic Arts.