the Mage Wars and placed them under the protection of his minions. The four remaining Mageslayer clans have joined forces and sent their leaders to fight their way through the dominions of the Lore Thane's allies in order to recover the relics. Scribes, named Archivists, have foretold a coming conflict with a powerful and evil undead Lore Thane named Wyark, who has been growing in terrible strength with the aim of complete conquest of the world. The archivists have determined that the retrieval of the five special relics will enable the Mageslayer forces of good to defeat the evil Wyark. The players takes on the role of the Mageslayer tasked with retrieving the artifacts and ultimately defeat Wyark. Gameplay The game is a 3D top-down hack-and-slash dungeon-type game, utilizing four different character classes with differing spells and abilities. The game offers a single-player campaign and different multiplayer options. The player journeys through 30 levels of dungeons, sewers, rivers of death, lava pits, and monster rooms across five realms in order to defeat each realm's ruler and gain its relic; learning and upgrading magic spells, and acquiring artifacts to help the player succeed the quest. Utilizing the same Vampire engine as Take No Prisoners, MageSlayer was Raven's tribute to top-down action games. The main inspiration for MageSlayer was Atari's game Gauntlet. Reception The game received above-average reviews. Next Generation concluded, "Overall, the game's action, level design, and multiplayer modes (which include a Capture the Relic team option) make this game stand out from most other shooters on the block. For those players who possess the benefit of 3D acceleration, this title could be quite a nice one to showcase your shiny new hardware." The game won the award for "Action Coaster" in Computer Gaming Worlds 1998 Premier Awards. References External links MageSlayer at ravengames.com via Internet Archive MageSlayer at ravensoft.com via Internet Archive 1997 video games Fantasy video games GT Interactive games Raven Software games Third-person shooters Video games developed in the United States Windows games Windows-only games Multiplayer and single-player video games