Menzoberranzan

Overview

Menzoberranzan is a RPG dungeon crawler set in the Dungeons & Dragons world known as Forgotten Realms. Other games in the Forgotten Realms universe include the Baldurs Gate series, Icewind Dale, and Demon Stone. The title of the game, Menzoberranzan, is the name of a vast underground city inhabited by Dark Elves, or Drow. The underground world in general is referred to as The Underdark.

The game is based on the 2nd Edition AD&D ruleset.

Plot

Menzoberranzan's story begins with the player's character's village being attacked and destroyed by the Drow. The Drow were looking for their rogue kinsman, Drizzt Do'Urden, and your village got in their way. As a result, the player's friends are kidnapped and the player must partner with Drizzt and other companions to venture into the underdark and rescue them. As the player sets off to rescue your companions, they become entangled in a much larger struggle and find that things are more complex than they first seemed.

Drizzt Do'Urden

Drizzt is an extremely popular character in the Forgotten Realms universe, originally created by best-selling author R.A. Salvatore, who later went on to work for Curt Schilling's ill-fated 38 Studios. While the Drow are generally evil worshippers of the Spider Queen, an evil goddess referred to as "Lloth" or "Lolth," Drizzt has a good heart. Since he did not fit in among his people, he took up a self-inflicted exile from his homeland and race.

Gameplay

This game is a dungeon-crawling role playing game from a first person perspective, similar to games like Might and Magic and The Bard's Tale. Like classic early dungeon crawlers, the player does not have full freedom of movement, but rather when the forward button is clicked, the player moves one 'square' forward. When the left button is clicked, the player is rotated 90 degrees to the left, and so forth. The player gets to choose between the races of elf, dwarf, gnome, human, half-elf or halfling; the classes of cleric, fighter, mage, paladin, ranger, or thief; and alignment of good, evil or neutral. In addition the player can distribute points among many attributes (combat, magic, etc.) and these attributes and skills are upgradeable each time a player levels up. While the player starts out alone, as NPCs are encountered, the option to form a party (up to 4 characters) presents itself.