Well, one of the main reasons I bought a Playstation was because I don't
own a PC and I hoped to get many PC ports for the PSX. Being a Bullfrog fan
(Populous), I looked forward to Magic Carpet.

It's out, I bought it, and here's the scoop:

Intro: Very good! I didn't time it, but it seemed between 3-5 minutes long.
A nice 'story book' intro to give you background info, then it shows a
pre-rendered apprentice (you) on a magic carpet fighting a dragon. Very
nice, and not a lot of jpeg distortion like you usually see with PSX FMV.

The Game: I never played the PC version, so I didn't know what to expect. I
thought Magic Carpet would be 'Warhawk', except with a wizard on a carpet.
Boy, was I wrong!

If you shoot everything you see, you'll fail miserably. This game requires
a ton of strategy.

When the game first started, I flew over a tent village with many robed
civilians. My trigger finger went crazy and dusted them with a fireball
spell. At this point I'm thinking 'these are pretty stupid enemies.' Stupid
me didn't read the manual.

The villagers are actually potential allies-- cast a 'possession' spell on
their dwellings, and a white banner will appear on their tent. You will now
possess their mana, and the villagers will eventually rally to protect you
and your castle as they grow in power.

The enemies (the one's I've encountered so far, Worms and Vultures) seem
much more intelligent than those idiotic enemy ships in Warhawk. In Magic
Carpet, it seems like there is logic and thought behind enemy movement, not
just flying around mindlessly.

The flight engine is very good, but I'm not sure if I like it as much as
Warhawk's. It's realistic, but it's taking me some time to get used to it. 

This game is almost like Populous in a 3D world, with a heavy emphasis on
action/shooting. You must bring each world into 'equilibrium' by allying
with the natives, killing enemies, collecting mana (source of magic),
collecting new spells, kill opposing wizards, and building your castle.

All of the above comments are based from playing 15 minutes on the first
level. There are probably many things later on that I haven't discovered

Graphics: Very good. Up close, enemies look somewhat blocky but are still
impressive. The terrain is usually *stunning*-- very smooth. The ocean is
especially beautiful and well done with an undulating motion. The mana
spheres have a cool mirrored effect.

Music: I don't remember too much of it, but I liked what I heard.

Weapons/Spells: On the first level, I've only had access to 3 (fireball,
possess, & castle). Nicely done. The manual lists 24 different spells, but
there may be more.

Levels: People bitching about the lenght/replay value of Playstation games,
take note: there are at least 45 different levels listed in the manual, and
they hint at hidden worlds. The back of the box says 70 different worlds.
So there's a lot here to explore.

Enemies: At least 13 different enemy monsters, and seven listed opposing
wizards.

Options: Control pad configuration. Language (English, German, French,
Spanish, Swedish). Music and Sound effects level controls. Danger Music
(music will 'alert' you of approaching enemies). Magic Carpet also
recognizes BOTH memory card slots. Memory card save feature but no
passwords (that I know of).

Overall: At first I was somewhat disappointed-- if the game was a pure
shooter, it would be an average game with very good graphics and excellent
flight engine. But once you consider the amount of strategy, this game
could be a killer. A screen shot from the manual showed a 'World
Completion' screen that showed stats on # of enemies killed, mana
collected, etc... This screen showed that this particular level took 1hr 8
min's to finish. Granted, maybe Bullfrog's game tester sucked, but this
shows you how long and involved this game could be with 70 levels of play.

I would highly recommend Magic Carpet to anyone looking for a shooter with
some cool sim/strategy elements pepperd in.

I would appreciate any comparison of the PSX version to the PC version or
the Saturn version.

Happy Gaming,

Jay
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      / |  '     \           * Jay Swartzfeger Pittsburgh Pa *
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      \_/-, ,----'           *  Writer/Musician/Scatologist  *
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