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Now that Diablo and Baldur's Gate have proven that the market for roleplaying titles is larger than ever - provided the content is top-notch - software companies have been waking up to the potentially huge rewards of creating a "household name" RPG. If anyone outside of Blizzard or Black Isle has the pedigree to produce a worthy RPG for the masses, it's Westwood Studios, and the buzz surrounding the long-awaited Nox has been steadily building as the company worked around the clock to get it out the door before Diablo II arrives. Blizzard's mammoth sequel will, of course, be the only game in town once it finally ships, but in the meantime, Westwood has served up a very satisfying alternative.
In Nox, you play the role of Jack Mower, a simple American fella who loves cars, women, and pro wrestling. One night, he's banging on his broken television set when a pan-dimensional wormhole announces itself in his living room. And behaving precisely the way all living room dimensional portals behave, this one quickly sucks Jack and his TV into its maw. This makes Jack somewhat discontent, because he's now forced to do battle with the evil Hecubah, Queen of the Necromancers, and save the good people of Nox.
Starting off from this Army of Darkness-style springboard, you'll choose one of the game's three classes: Conjuror, Warrior, or Wizard. Nox has a very simple character creation system; there are no dice rolls or stat manipulation prior to play. You'll be dungeon-crawling around Nox in less than a minute, and your stats will improve automatically as you gain experience and advance in levels.
Each class has its own campaign, which you'll play through in a series of chapters. As you progress through these chapters, you'll find or buy power items, weapons, and spells to aid you in each chapter's main quest - not to mention several mini-quests, which are rewarding in themselves but don't need to be completed in order to finish the central campaigns. The quests range from simple bug hunts to capturing dangerous criminals for cash rewards. While the majority of the quests are excellent, there are a few that will drive you nuts (like the one in which you spend an hour tracking down Key #271).
The best thing about Nox is its spellcasting system. The game adheres to a tried-and-true menu of spells that has more or less been around since the early days of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but takes it a step forward by adding a dynamic "hot-key-and-mouse-wheel" casting system. First, you arrange your spells into sets of five, and then cycle through and cast the spells with the use of mouse-wheel and hot keys. This system comes in extremely handy given that Nox has more than 100 spells to learn and manipulate. In multiplayer mode, the system lets you cast spells with the ease of pushing a Run button, and makes for some frenetic running spellcasting battles.
Nox's breakthrough spellcasting system and class balancing both seem to exist primarily to serve the multiplayer portion of the game. You can choose from five different multiplayer games: Capture the Flag, Arena, Elimination, King of the Realm, and Flag Ball. Arena is your standard deathmatch. Elimination is a "last man standing" match. King of the Realm is a race to find a hidden crown and wear it longer then anyone else, and Flag Ball is a bout where the team to throw the most balls at the opposing team's flag wins. A host can also open a Quake-style console to input server commands during a match.
In the long run, Nox isnt going to be remembered for its slightly better-than-average graphics, sound, or single-player mode. It's the awesome spellcasting system and addictive multiplayer feature that are going to endure - I have a feeling Nox will be played online for a long time to come.