Reviews / previews
Dink SmallWood lives with his mother on the edge of
the woods. He dreams of battles with swords and
magic, even as he feeds the pigs. Thus beginneth the
saga of a young man with a big mouth and even
bigger dreams of glory.
As the title suggests, Dink is not a game that takes
the fantasy genre very seriously. Unlike Discworld II, it
does accept the genre's basic
conventions-humble-hero beginnings, maidens in
distress, powerful wizard mentors, and so on. But it
kids as it ambles along. Where else will you find a pet
duck, who's been scolded for running away, replying,
"Bite me"? Dink is a game with a heavy dose of
attitude.
It's also a hybrid: an RPG, real-time graphics
adventure with combat elements. It's not all action like
Ecstatica II-the interface and command set are
deliberately simple, and combat maneuvers require
nothing more than pressing Ctrl to attack and Shift to
cast. What you get is a balance of weapons-based
and magical combat with primitive problem-solving
that hearkens back to a spate of products issued in
the early '90s, of which SSI's The Awakening was the
most well received.
By keeping the number and variety of objects low for
any of Dink's 600-plus screens, the developers made
256 colors go a long way. Textures and coloring are
stylish, apart from a poor inventory screen. On the
other hand, the characters don't really walk across
the terrain: they skate over it. There are no voiceovers,
a real drawback considering the humorous dialogue;
but the music (which includes popular classical
selections by Schubert and Debussy, among others)
is well chosen.
My response to Dink's dialogue options was
decidedly chillier. They provoke the
complaint often lodged (with justification) at
computer-initiated dialogue trees: they're
only for show. Dink can accept a quest or
turn it down-but did you really buy the game
to turn down quests? A bunch of hidden
attitude meters among the NPCs based on
loyalties and antipathies would've gone a
long way toward offering some real variety.
More problematically, Dink's dialogue and
combat mechanisms are apparently
unrelated. On a few occasions, an NPC would show up for conversation while
Dink was being killed by monsters. Instead of helping out, the character would
completely ignore (and was ignored by) the critters as they dismembered poor
Dink. Thanks for the help, guy.
Fortunately, you don't have to speak to NPCs in
monster-laden surroundings, but this incident points
to the game's intolerance of attempting things outside
a single designated solution. There's only one way to
destroy the duck idol, for instance, and it seems more
than a bit farfetched. To make things more difficult,
save games are possible only at a few places.
I like Dink's combination of graphics adventure and
real-time combat. Its visuals are dated but attractive,
and its humor is infectious. But with Quest for Glory V
and other upcoming titles promising an identical mix
at a much higher level of involvement (more spells,
more attack/defense options, far better visuals and
sound, important branching, etc.), Dink SmallWood
seems more a pleasant and inexpensive stopgap than
a prime purchase. Still, with free add-on adventures
(along with a game demo) available at RTSoft's Web
site, you'll likely get a few good chuckles for your $20.-- Barry Brenesal / GamePro
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