The most unique aspect of Nethergate is the ability to choose sides. When you begin a new game, you select to play as a small unit of Roman soldiers or as a band of Celtic warriors. Your decision greatly affects the story and gameplay. Romans are well-trained and well-equipped, but know little of magic. Celtic warriors can't wear Roman armor, and have much less training. But they are more in touch with the world of magic. Finally, the story you experience differs depending on which side you choose. The stories overlap. Items you lose as Celts, you'll pick up as Romans. The same major events occur in both storylines, albeit with different implications. The other aspect that makes Netherworld a different is the tremendous amount of historical research game designer Jeff Vogel put into this effort. Of course, the goblins, giant rats, wraiths and other assorted nasty creatures you'll run into and do battle with aren't historically accurate. Nor are the magic spells some members of your party cast. But the game is filled with little historical scene-setting tidbits. As you play the game, you'll learn more than you realize about the Roman conquest of the British Isles and the Celtic resistance. Nethergate is not "edutainment," by any means, but it is an entertaining and educating experience. Starting out Whichever side you select, you start out guiding the fate of four inexperienced characters. You can start with the prepared party, or you can create new characters in the character editor. The prepared parties are well-balanced. The Celtic party has a couple of heavy hitting, melee-worthy fighters and a couple of magic-using Druids. The Roman party has three fighters and one sensitive type with the ability to cast spells. In both cases, your party is called to a remote village or fort (Nethergate for the Celts, Shadow Valley Fort for the Romans) for reasons unexplained. As you complete missions and progress through the game's six chapters, your ultimate goal will slowly be revealed. The interface is also somewhat of a throwback. Your character's faces fill up four panes in a window. Clicking on a face selects that character, making his or her inventory visible in another window and also making that character the lead. You'll want to watch that. Druids tend to be physically weaker. You don't usually want one of them taking the lead into hostile territory. Another window contains several buttons allowing several actions. You can rest, examine objects more closely, switch to combat mode, take objects, cast spells, make potions, fire missiles, parry and take other actions. Available buttons depend on the mode your party is in (outdoor, combat, or town). Other actions are also available from the action menu, which is somewhat confusing. If you have first aid kits, you can use them from the action menu. Or you can attempt to call a beast to your aid if one of your characters has the beastmaster advantage or a faerie if one of your characters has a faerie familiar advantage. The main window shows your party from the three-quarters, god's-eye perspective. As I mentioned before, the graphics are not state of the art. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish a dead body from a live giant rat. It's also sometimes hard to tell one character from another, which can be a problem when you want to shield a particularly vulnerable member of the party with a magic spell. Also irritating is the fact that, while the window is three-quarters perspective, the auto-map is not -- which means that the top of the screen is north in the map while the upper right corner is north in the main window. That gets confusing. Animation is nonexistent. When you move the characters in the screen using the mouse, they bop along without moving their limbs, kind of like the kids from South Park.  Battle!You needn't venture too far before your characters are put to the test of battle. If you encounter hostiles in the outdoors, you will often be given a chance to choose to fight or flee. You are given the same choice when encountering hostiles in a dungeon, but not through a dialogue box. If you see a goblin, a giant rat or some other hostile creature, you can back away and try to outrun it. If you choose to fight, get as close as you can and hit the combat button, which throws you into a standard RPG turn-based combat system. There are limitations to Nethergate's combat, some of which are quite galling. Fighting in narrow corridors should be avoided. While action points are a part of the process, any combat move (spell casting, missile tossing or blade use) exhausts all action points. You can't strike, then get out of the way. Unfortunately, there are plenty of narrow corridors in Nethergate's maps. You don't have to enter combat immediately upon encountering hostiles, but only your lead character will strike blows until you do. Also, you want to maneuver your spell-casters into visual range of the enemy to make best use of long range spells like the low-level Lance of Fire. Other than these limitations, battle can be quite satisfying. The sound effects, while not mind-blowing, do strike the right emotional chords (I cringe every time a right or a wolf chews on one of my characters). If one of your characters buys the farm -- which will happen quite often in the beginning -- you have a few options. You can revert to the last saved game (you have been taking advantage of the fact that Nethergate allows saves at any time, haven't you?). You can have the character resurrected, for a price, by the appropriate party (either a crone in a swamp or a Druid in Nethergate, depending on which side you choose). Or, finally, when back in the town you started from, you can recreate the character in the character editor, minus, naturally, any experience or equipment. What a Character Characters in Nethergate progress slightly differently than the RPGs I'm used to. Rather than gaining massive experience points that lead to higher levels, characters gain experience points that can be "sold" for different attributes, at different prices. This requires much more thought when it comes to training your characters, especially since some attributes, such as skill levels, depend upon others, such as your overall "Druid" level. Conclusion Some people are going to like Nethergate a lot more than I do. I found the interface and character advancement fussy and unrewarding. The cheap graphics bugged me, as did the combat limitations. The saving graces were the story and rich sense of history. Players who grew up throwing 10-sided dice will probably get a real thrill out of this game, though even they might be turned off by the arbitrary action point deductions. There is a novel's worth of story in the game, and I'm interested in exploring a lot of it. Unfortunately, the interface and graphics limitations prevent Nethergate from becoming a truly immersive experience. Pros • Terrific, involving plot • Choice of sides increases replay value • History lesson built into the game Cons • Borderline crude graphics • Irritating combat limitations • Map and main window don't match up
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