Your thumbs will fall off playing this..
In Midway's latest preview build of Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows, we worked up a killer sweat playing with each of the four classic characters: the Warrior, the Wizard, the Elf and the Valkyrie. Despite the new story line which includes such hits as the Great Tree Rit'i' Malki and the Emperor Ghost, and an RPG upgrade system in which you purchase bigger and better combos, Seven Sorrows is Gauntlet at heart: button mashing.
The Warrior is a hulking brute that wields a giant axe and depends more on strength than magic ability. There's the Valkyrie, a smoking-hot Amazon that kicks tail with her falchion, an Elf that swashbuckles and shoots flaming purple arrows, and a Wizard who, well, you get the picture.
The leveling up-is nice as after each stage you can purchase new devastating combos with which to strike down the evil hoards of scorpions and warthogs and pirates and every other evil creature that Midway could think of. When it comes to evil, the gang's all here! Even Death himself, who pops his head in on occasion as a grim reaper.
As part of the leveling up system, you can also purchase more Mana maneuvers, Mana being magic spells that you can utilize with the D-pad. The Mana meter regenerates slowly and is more of an add-on to the button-mashing combo system.
We didn't get a chance to play online, but IGN editor-in-chief Doug Perry and I did use the Elf and the Warrior, respectively, to wreak havoc on the tree people of the Ancient Forest level in some serious multiplayer action. The four basic attack moves are a horizontal slash, a vertical slash, a launch attack which, well, launches enemies into the air, and a projectile attack. Our favorite combos came when using the launch button to send a bunch of trolls into the air. I finished them off by shooting arrows into their flying corpses. We did this over and over until our thumbs bled, just like in the original arcade classic.
The preview build took us through seven different levels: City Under Siege, Dungeon Passage, Plague Town, Shipbuilder Village, Sunken Harbor and Ancient Forest. In one level we got to take down a pretty feisty boss: an evil Scarecrow that used his scythe to whoop my tail. He provided the first real challenge as we had successfully fought our way through the regular enemies without much difficulty. Just like in the good old days, you restore health by eating turkey dinners. You can also find in barrels and wood boxes some giant hunks of Swiss cheese and sides of ham, food items renowned by wizards and elves everywhere, apparently.
On another level with the Valkyrie, I let the enemies surround me and then the quick little vixen spun in a circle and slashed her way to a 100-hit combo. Yes, 100. The crux of the gameplay remains the same as in past Gauntlet games. Enemies appear from a generator. You slash your way to the generator, destroy it, find a key and move on to the next level. Despite the numerous different locales you will visit in Seven Sorrows, this remains the same. It's a standard formula: fight your way to a treasure chest, grab the magic key, unlock the glowing blue force field and move forward.
The graphics and sound are both solid at this point and the control is excellent. Stay tuned for more coverage of Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows which is proving to be one of the more enjoyable Gauntlets yet. While gameplay is not particularly diverse, fighting your way through thousands of enemies with a friend is still a kick. Let's hope Midway keeps it that way.
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