~Magic Carpet 2 Review obtained from the Internet. Written by Jeff Rowe ~Magic Carpet 2 - First Impressions This is a preliminary review of Magic Carpet 2, from the perspective of someone who really enjoyed playing the original Magic Carpet. It is intended for those who know MC1 and details the differences between MC1 and MC2. If you want to discover all of this for yourself, read no further. If you have played MC1 and wonder if you should get MC2, read on. ~Review This is a very nice extension of the original Magic Carpet. It is more sophisticated in graphics and game play, but keeps enough of the original game elements to be similar. Note: I'm playing this on a Micron P5-133 in high-res mode and a Gateway 486-66 with 16 Megs in low-res mode. High res is far too slow to be fun on the 486. I'm also only on level 8 or so. I just got it yesterday, but I've spent 2 intense days playing it. First and best of all, you can save games in the middle of a level and go back to your savegame if you die. This feature was sorely missed in MC1. ~Pause Menu A very nice new feature is the pause menu. When paused, you can save or restore a game, adjust the video brightness, adjust the game speed, set the resolution mode, etc. Most of these functions are available as function keys but you don't have to be "live" when using them in pause mode. ~Game Help There is a lot of onboard help. Unless you turn the help feature off, you actually have boxes popping up all over your screen telling you what menu items mean, what items are being shown on the map, etc. This is happening WHILE you play, which can be a big help at first, but can get annoying later. (Example: A box pops up with a line pointing at a sheep that says "Kill this for its mana". When you do a box points at the mana and says "Possess this mana." Another box pops up and points at your "possess mana" spell icon at the top of the screen and says "Use this spell to possess mana." This can be very helpful for newbies, and very unnecessary for those of us familiar with the original Magic Carpet. ~Opening Menu The opening menu is cool. You'll have to see it because I can't really describe it. It allows you to save/restore games, configure your joystick, change your player name, play a network game, or exit. The graphics are vastly better than MC1. ~The Netherworlds Map Once you get past the opening menu, you enter a map level much like a 1600's map showing monsters, gargoyles, etc. The narrator tells you about the next level and a magic mirror appears at your next level. When you click on the mirror, a little carpet with a wizard on it flys from the previous level to the new location. It's a little hokey, but doesn't detract from the overall impression of the game. At least it gives you some idea of where you are and where you've been, which MC1 did not. ~Game Objectives Unlike MC1's simplistic "kill everything until you get enough mana" games, MC2 guides you through several sub-tasks in each level until you complete them all and then directs you to the exit point. Literally guides you. A narrator (the same voice as the original game) tells you what to do at the beginning of each level, and each time you complete a task, he tells you what to do next. It kind of annoyed me for a big red blinking arrow to show up on my seeing eye and point me to my targets, until I reached a level where I had to work through several other areas to get to the target. The arrow doesn't show you how to get somewhere, it just shows you the eventual target. ~Graphics and Game Locations The graphics are similar to MC1. However, MC2 adds things like caves and tunnels to fly through, and some of the worlds are in darkness and have glowing lava all over the place. There's more variety than just having land and water and sky, as in MC1. This makes the game play much more challenging and can be a bit confusing when your map shows a target but you can't get there because the underground grotto doesn't have a direct path to it. Note: Look for walls that open. :) ~Spell Menu The spell menu has been changed drastically. Holding down the Control key pops up the spell menu at the bottom of the screen. You select the spell you want by clicking on it. Each spells now has 3 levels. For instance, the fireball spell is the first one you get. Once you use it enough and advance through the levels, you get the level two version of fireball, which is rapid fireball. I don't know what level 3 is, since I haven't played that far. Possess mana is a level one spell, and mana magnet is level 2. You can still only use 2 spells at a time, but you can associate several spells with each button by holding down the Shift key (while holding down the Control key to access the spell menu) and clicking the appropriate button. Then you can cycle through the spells associated with a button by holding down the Shift key and pressing the appropriate button. I think I prefer MC1's method of allowing you to number 10 spells and call one directly by hitting the number key assigned to the spell, but the MC2 method does work very well. It just takes getting used to. Example: I associate fireball, meteor, shield and metamorph (neat but useless) to my joystick trigger. I can select one of them by holding down the Shift key and clicking the trigger until the desired spell is displayed. I release the Shift key and use the spell. I can do the same for my other joystick button. ~Monsters The monsters are either new to MC2 or have a completely new look. Worms and flying worms have recognizable heads and are different colors. Flying worms now dodge, too. There are fireflys (compare to birds), bees, worms, flying worms, spiders (which sound like crabs from MC1 but are easier to kill), etc. The other wizards fly around with billboards over their heads telling you who they are and the names are written in the color of the wizard. This can be turned off, but it makes identifying a wizard and its castle easier. The wizards are not all human either. ~Game Play Game play was one of the best features of MC1 and MC2 doesn't change it. The game seems a bit faster than MC1 and the joystick seems to control the game a little better, but the flight controls are the same as in MC1. The only thing I didn't like was the altitude control. In MC1 you could maintain the same altitude until you encountered an obstacle which forced you to the height of the obstacle. You could fly at a chosen level. I don't know if it's a bug in my sound card game port, my joystick, Magic Carpet, or is truly a feature of the game, but unless you hold back on the joystick constantly the game forces you to fly at ground level at all times, until you hit an obstacle which forces you upward. You have a small amount of up and down control like in MC1, but I want to maintain a constant altitude. I have to pull back on the joystick all the time to do it. ~Overall Overall, at this early stage in the game, Magic Carpet 2 is a solid improvement over the original without changing the things that made MC1 so much fun. As a reference, my top five favorite games are: 1. Doom2 (of course :) 2. Terminal Velocity 3. Magic Carpet 4. Virtual Pool 5. Myst If your tastes are similar to mine, MC2 will be a winner for you. Feel free to comment or disagree. :)