Published by Shrapnel Games, Scallywag - In the Lair of the Medusa created by Chronic Reality is a fun filled, action packed romp through a subterranean labyrinth full of monsters and treasure. At least, that's what you get from the sales pitch. How does the game really roll?

Similar to the successful Diablo franchise, Scallywag's dungeons are randomly generated each time you play the game giving you a fresh experience with each venture into the cavernous dungeon. While this can definitely extend the amount of layouts and encounters, it can also backfire at times. While on the hardest "nightmare" difficulty setting for example, there was a few times that I didn't come across a single monster until the second or third level into the dungeon.

Then there's the oil. You really can't do a proper review of this game without at least mentioning the oil. In Ultima I, Lord British had structured the game around trying to create "realism" when it came to food and water. However, for the first few levels of the game, the *only* focus of the player was on dashing from location to location to secure food and water resources for bare survival, let alone a proper exploration of Sosaria. In some ways, Scallywag feels similar to this type of "panic focus", as it uses your mainstay of oil as your primary motivator for pressing through each level of the dungeon, rather than enjoying the process of exploration itself. With that said, kudos to Chronic Reality for resisting the urge to use the "kidnapped princess" as your only motivation for risking death. Another interesting facet of using oil as your core resource is that you have to be quite good at juggling the balance between increasing your range of vision with the rate at which your oil is consumed. Sure you can crank up your field of vision to give you a much clearer view of what lies ahead, but you pay for it in terms of oil consumption.

Once you do have enough of an oil repository to enjoy the game, it is quite an enjoyable play. Presented in a type of 3D-isometric view, you can swing, rotate and pan the camera around while you progress through the dungeon controlling your avatar (named Rapius). There is a "fog of war" effect created by your lantern, which results in only the viewing of the immediate vicinity of the player. The main benefit of this approach seems to create an overall effect of claustrophobia, as if you were miles deep into some subterranean passages on the hunt for fortune and glory.

My only critique of this presentation is that the sound effects don't match this carefully crafted mood quite so well. For example, there is no sound of dripping water or other environmental effects that you might hear in a dungeon. The sound of your own footsteps is fairly stock and could be done slightly differently to add to the overall "creepy" mood the graphics aim to generate.

Movement consists of clicking on the floor of where you want your avatar to venture, along with some keyboard bindings to rotate or swing the camera around. While there's nothing wrong with this approach it does mean that in certain dungeon layout configurations, the only way progression is possible is if you manipulate the camera. It would have been a bit nice to allow the arrow keys (or whatever) to move your player as well.

The combat system is quite basic, which is a good thing in a game populated by endless rolls on the "Random Monster Encounter" tables. You simply point-n-click on the enemy and the game will takeover the combat (including defense!), thus freeing the player from needing to engage in a click frenzy.

Graphics:
I think the work put into the graphics was well done. The animations are decent, and the claustrophobia of being miles underground in subterranean dungeons is well presented with the "fog of war" the player has. I think the user interface presented to the player could be slightly "cleaner" and take advantage of well known graphics texture manipulation to create a UI that's more "blended".

Sound:
Apart from some of the background music, the sound effects were fairly stock and standard RPG-ish type of fare. That being said, I think we could be at a point in RPG gaming where we only subconsciously accept the standard sword swooshes and shield bonks because they've become so ingrained. I think a few more environmental effects would've really pushed this one far though. Having some creepy water dripping sound effect or occasional echo would go a long way to establishing the mood.

Gameplay:
While most of us have seen similar games to this before, the "hack n' slash" gameplay still provides us with some entertainment value and satisfies that basic need we sometimes crave.

Concept:
While the overall presentation of the game can be summarized with "enter dungeon, kill baddies, repeat" there is a bit more to it than that. The game allows you to instantly jump into a dungeon and kill things. The importance of this simple approach cannot be overlooked. There's no 10 minute introduction to wade through. No city to walk around and explore before being able to enter a dungeon. No ability to select your character class. You start the game dropped immediately in the dungeon.

Value:
Similar to the approach taken by game companies such as Id Software which really use their Doom/Quake series to push licenses for their engine technology, Scallywag is merely the default mod of the game engine itself. However, there are no additional components or tools that the player needs to buy to activate the ability to create some real complex mods. Right out of the box, the player has access to a wealth of things that can be changed / tweaked. Indeed, Chronic Reality's website offers a free zombie mod that can be downloaded.

Overall:
If you want to enjoy the occasional romp through a dungeon of some kind without the "fluff" of a backstory, complex mythology or time consuming battles, then this game is at least worth a look.