Publisher: Games Workshop
Price: £7.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Sinclair, Kempston
The lightning powers of the black arts crackle brightly through the astral atmosphere, hurling toward their intended victim in Chaos.
In this new fantasy game you take on the mantle of a wizard and pit your wits against up to eight others which can either be controlled by human players or the computer.
Cast your spells of attack or protection and destroy the other mages to become a master of magic. Magic is death to all but the strongest, on the Chaos plane of Limbo.
Once you have chosen the number of wizards with which you want to do battle you can select their stance and colour. Be careful to choose one which is facing in the correct direction. Nothing dents a wizard's ego more than having to throw spells backward.
There are 50 spells within Chaos and you will have only a random selection of 10, some of which could be duplicates. Spells include fighting figures such as unicorns, elves and golden dragons. You can also conjure fires, castles and magic forests.
All spells are either Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral. When chaotic spells are cast players will find it more difficult to cast Lawful or Neutral spells.
The state of the magical universe is also classed as Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral. A Chaotic universe is one in which there is no order. A Lawful universe is one in which evil is punished and structure can be seen in everything.
Each spell has a chance of success. The manual gives some examples of conjurations with their success factors shown as a percentage of chance. A Giant Rat spell will be 100 percent effective but your wizardly powers will only give you a ten percent chance of conjuring a Golden Dragon.
The movement of spell creatures and your wizard character is ordered under cursor control. The number of spaces which they can be moved depends upon the spells which you have created. Wizards on foot may only move one space but if they are mounted on a spell creature they can move a maximum of six spaces.
Chaos is a fast moving and colourful game. The animation is good enough for a strategy game but the character-square graphics are simple and functional.
The game is sufficiently complex to appeal to dungeons and dragons fans and to strategy game players. So, if you've ever fancied the role of a wizard, give it a go.
Label: Firebird
Author: Julian Glossop
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: None
Reviewer: Tony Dillon
I'm all for simple games concepts, and Chaos, the Battle of Wizards has one of the simplest yet. To summarise, take a black square (eg a burnt field), and stick in it a number of wizards, between say 2 and 8. Give each wizard different ratings for attack, defence, you know, all the usual Games Workshop sort of stuff. On top of all this, each wizard has a number of spells with which to destroy all the other wizards. That is it.
Since as I am as good at games as a deranged goat, I like games that make it easy, and Chaos is very easy to play. You cycle through a couple of menus to select your spell and when told to move your character(s) just position the cursor over the piece you wish to move and move it. Why characters? Some of the spells allow you to create magical and mythical beasts, like manticores end gryphons, to aid you in your fight.
To put it simply, Chaos is great. It's colourful, it's very easy to play, and above all it's probably the most fun you've had since you pickled your granny.
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