by J. Andrew Carmody

Created on: June 16, 2008   Last Updated: June 23, 2008

Score: 1.5 out of 5

Eschalon: Book 1 is a role-playing game from Basilisk Games. In it, you create a character that wakes up in a deserted and destroyed village with no memory of who you are or how you got there. All you have is a letter telling you to go to a nearby village and seek out a man who is holding some things for you. Thus begins your adventure in Eschalon: Book 1. Before you start the game, you have the opportunity to create a character. A lot of the character creation process is very standard. You can pick your character's race, alignment, class, and look. This is all handled in a very standard way. You can pick classes such as a ranger, a warrior, or a wizard, and the type of race and alignment you pick may give you some bonuses and penalties. You can also adjust your characters attributes such as strength, wisdom and dexterity and pick a few skills for him to start the game with. You can also pick the look of your character, but the faces you can choose from are very limited. There are only a few, and none of them are particularly noteworthy. Once you've finished creating your character, you're launched into the game, where you wake up in a deserted village with no memory of how you got there. There first task that you need to complete is to head to a nearby village to the northeast to seek out a man that is supposedly holding some things for you. Along the way, a few creatures attack your character, but you won't have much trouble fighting them off. All in all, I found Eschalon: Book 1 to be a very generic role-playing game with nothing really to make it stand out above other entries in the genre.

The graphics and sound in the game are also very generic. There's nothing new or noteworthy here, and the game is also a bit tricky to control in that moving your character can sometimes be harder than it needs to be. Combat is handled in a very standard way; you see a monster or an enemy, you walk up and either start swinging your sword or shooting with your bow.

Playing through the 60-minute demo of the game, I didn't see anything that inspired me to keep playing. The story of the game didn't hold my interest, and there wasn't anything in the game play that made me want to keep going after the hour was up. There certainly wasn't anything in the game that made me want to pay the 28-dollar asking price.

Eschalon: Book 1 just isn't worth the money. For the same amount, you can buy any one of a number of games that are much better and give you a lot more value for your dollar.

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