The Down and Dirty

Gauntlet is back once again to, er… throw down the gauntlet? This time out Midway has assembled a strong team to bring Seven Sorrows to life including J.E. Sawyer, lead designer (previous from Black Isle), John Romero, creative director (come on, you know John?) for a start. We sat down with Midway's Hugh Falk, executive producer (previously led early Madden and NCAA titles for PS2) to discuss Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows and get a feel for where we're headed.

Gauntlet has traditionally served up fast-paced action-rpg fare for up to four-players and Seven Sorrows won't be any different. PC gamers will be able to synch up over the net to take part in, what has traditionally been a more console oriented title. Seven Sorrows leans a bit more toward delivering a mature story whereas in previous entries the story was typically throw-away. As the game opens our band of heroes – warrior, elf, wizard and valkyrie – find themselves at the mercy of an evil emperor whom they failed to defeat. Darkness looms across the land encroaching even on the emperor himself who soon finds himself releasing our heroes in exchange for their efforts to sovle the mystery of his seven sorrows and thus rid the land of the looming evil….or something like that J

The Goods

Gauntlet fans will feel right at home with Seven Sorrows. You can quickly pick up the controller and hop in the game. Learn a few of your basic moves and you're in business. Seven sorrows appears very simple on the surface but there's a lot going on underneath. For starters this version of Gauntlet has much more R in its PG than ever before but it's neatly hidden behind a simple panel representing each players in-game persona. Here you can monitor your magic power, health and experience, and with a few clicks you can even manage your equipment or swap weapon load outs all without slowing gameplay. Typically the entire game will drag to a halt when one player needs to manage their gear – this simple interface offers quick access to the character management tools while keeping the game moving. This is a very thoughtful addition but don't fret, if you enjoy full screen management panels they're in there.

Another major focus of gameplay is your combos and upgrade thereof. Each class has an upgrade tree which you'll climb as you progress through the game. This will add quite a bit of replayability in itself as Hugh explained, it would be almost impossible to unlock all the combos for any given character on a single play-through. The combos add a Mortal Kombat feel to the game with their quick taps of button codes to execute. It's easy to get the hang of but trust me, the list got harder as you got further into the game. Those who take the time to get this down will definitely excel.

Health can be absorbed by picking up the remaining orbs left behind by your fallen foes. The dev team added in another nice feature by not requiring you to play clean-up and run about the screen gathering up the orbs to regenerate your health. As you hold down the heal button the orbs will actually swarm to your character allowing for quick heal on the go. Just remember to leave some behind for your teammates!

Each character can also build up a series of class-based skills as they progress including the warriors 'retribution' which shoots blue flames at your enemies. Flock is another special class skill unique to the Valkyrie which brings in a Hitchcock-esque flock of birds which swarm your opponents on the field. The special attacks are very group oriented and seem best suited to moments when multiple targets are on-screen, which is often.

We're told that later in the game there are Junction Skills which can only be accomplished if multiple players work together. By working together players can invoke walls of fire, earthquakes, hail storms and more to assist in clearing the path ahead. This will help to motivate players to find a few willing friends as some of the most powerful cannot be pulled of without all four heroes in the game. Luckily the online option should help to find additional players when it's late and you have no friend nearby.

The Verdict

It's Gauntlet meets Mortal Kombat with a bit of Baldur's Gate thrown in to keep you RPGers happy! We only saw a few environments but what we saw so far got us excited. The game is currently in its first month of alpha and already looking great. Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows will offer over 30 levels of gameplay on PS2, Xbox and PC this Fall. We'll keep you posted on its progress towards launch.