Game:

Nox (2000)

Category:

Review

Duration: 2:43:04

85,220 views

2,205

A retrospective review of Westwood Pacific's isometric action-RPG/multiplayer deathmatch title, published by Electronic Arts in February 2000. Covers the game's evolution from Michael Booth's wizard-dueling passion project to Westwood's "Diablo killer", then looks at the singleplayer game, art and audio, fan updates and modern ports, and finally the story & writing. Check the timestamps below for chapters. Had to paper over a couple of errors in the background information as I tried re-recording them but couldn't get my voice to sound right - sorry about that! I repeat a couple of lines by accident ("appeal lies") near the start and end of the gameplay section because I was sleepy lol Finally, there were some discrepancies between one or two accounts of Nox's development, such as an old French preview claiming it was Brett Sperry, not John Hight, who discovered Booth at CGDC, another European preview stating some of Nox's programming was outsourced to an Eastern European dev house, and conflicting accounts over the origin of the art assets. As noted in the video, this is probably my last upload for the year due to the problems I mentioned in my last community update, but I'll be (slowly) working on the Myth 3 video in the background. Enjoy!

edit: Thanks to @ksenolog for identifying the cartoon Hecubah - Hecubah Cartoon - "poster from "Game World Navigator" russian PC game magazine, dated around 2005. Artist name is DAHR - Daniil Kuzmichev"

00:00 Opening
01:40 Chapter 1 - Introduction and Overview
11:08 Chapter 2 - Behind the Scenes
11:29 2:1 - Michael Booth and the origin of Nox
18:56 2:2 - Westwood, Virgin and Heuristic Park
24:19 2:3 - Electronic Arts purchase and Westwood Pacific
30:26 2:4 - E3 1999 and Diablo II
41:12 2:5 - Release and Aftermath
47:56 Chapter 3 - Gameplay
48:13 3:1 - Gameplay Basics
1:04:44 3:2 - Gameplay Analysis
1:31:39 Chapter 4 - Art and Sound
1:32:02 4:1 - Visuals
1:50:01 4:2 - Audio
1:59:10 4:3 - Playing on modern systems & fan content
2:07:40 Chapter 5 - Story and Writing
2:08:07 5:1 - Story Overview
2:20:51 5:2 - Story Analysis
2:34:57 Final Thoughts
2:40:27 Acknowledgements

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