Rating: 
Summary: One of SSI's worst efforts.
Review: Ok, let me start by saying that it is extremely rare for me to return a computer game to the store, especially after owning it for less than a week, but this is not your average game. It is by far the worst RPG (if not worst game) i have ever played, and the the last time i saw this many bugs was AREA 51 for DOS. It hangs, it crashes, the gameplay slows to a crawl, then picks back up, etc...This game is a production nightmare. Seriously, didn't anyone beta test this thing? It takes literally about 45 minutes to install (even on a system that is about twice as fast as the RECOMMENDED specs). You could prepare a small meal in the time it takes to install. The thing takes up anywhere from 750MB to 1.5 G on harddrive space, a fact which completely baffles me. (granted I got about 1/30th of the way through the game). It must be the depth of the game cause it sure .... isnt' the sound (which sounds like it was recorded by Alvin and the Chipmunks in their bathroom) or the video (which is nice, but not that nice).
so back to production flaws. There is no setup utility to allow you to tinker with things like sound card specs, or resolution, or the like, and the in-game options menu is a joke as well. As many people have stated, if you are unlucky enough to have version 1.1, the thing wipes your system files when it uninstalls. Lucky for me i got version 1.2. woohoo. Onto gameplay, the real reason i am dumping this game.
THe game is so complicated difficult it just blows the mind. The first dungeon is ENOURMOUS, and nearly every enemy encountered is considerably stronger than you are. This leads to the drudgery of having to save every few minutes (especially annoying in a game without a quicksave feature. In probably about 20 hours of play, i just barely made it out of the first level of the first dungeon. After being annihilated 10 consecutive times on first encounter of the second level, i deceided to throw in the towell. ANother failure is the instruction manual, obviously geared toward people familiar with D&D which i am not. It makes no effort to give you even the slighest introduction to the actual mechanics of the game (dice rolls, etc.) The maps are so large that after having gone off on a side quest, it took me half an hour to find my way back to the level exit. Another really sad aspect of this game, particularly for RPG players, is that in a game that is so combat-oriented, any class other than barbarian, figher, or cleric is almost useless. Socercers and monks particularly gain good abilities at high levels, but it is next to impossible to even have them survive that long. Gamplay summed up: it is like trying to climb a mountain while dragging a piano tied to your waist.
When i think of the SSI games i enjoyed when i was younger such as Dungeon Hack, Pools of Darkness, and The Shattered Lands (still my favorite RPG of all time), Pool of radiance really stands out as a pitiful effort. On a side note, this game has more than the usuall number of problems encountered when trying to run older games on windows XP. I believe however, that this is mostly the fault of microsoft. Bottoms line? you are better off spending the money to see the latest Jennifer Lopez movie. [.......].
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, if you bother to save every three minutes.
Review: I will never buy another UBIsoft game. I expected an at least playable game. My state-of-the-art computer still crashes when I play the game, at least twice every hour. Crashes are minimized by turning the sound off. That helps, for what it's worth.I can't believe that I bought such a bug-ridden, crash-prone game. I spent at least 200 hours playing the original pool of radiance game. I wish this game had at least managed to give me 2 hours of fun. BTW, Ubisoft released a patch that was supposed to help with all of these complaints. I downloaded and installed it. It did not help. Steer clear, unless you can get it for three or four bucks.
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