Wages of War introduced a new icon based interface to the series, replacing the text parser with a mouse-driven icon-based menu. No more typing GET ROCK… now all the player had to do was choose a hand cursor and click it on a convenient rock. To complement the new interface, Sierra took a major step upswards in graphic quality, displaying 256 glorious colors instead of the limiting palette of 16.

This game was produced by Tammy Dargan, who later designed the popular Police Quest: SWAT. Buried in the credits, you will also find the humble beginnings of another Sierra designer, Lorelei Shannon, who was a mere manual writer for Wages of War, but went on to script games of her own, such as Pepper's Adventures in Time and Phantasmagoria II.

Wages of War included digitally sampled sounds for the new DAC soundcards of the day, allowing the user to hear sound effects. To accommodate the extra files, the game was one of the first to be shipped on high-density 3 1/2 inch diskettes (although low-density disks were still available via a mail-in form).

This game also had another nifty new feature - the map. Once the player had visited a location, and their character would walk there automatically without input from the player. Considering that Shapeir was a virtual maze, this was a welcome innovation!

The death of the powerful Wizard, Ad Avis, affected the planes of magic. This caused a rift between worlds when a Demon Wizard broke the bonds to this one. You were sent by magic southward to the kingdom of Tarna with Rakeesh and Uhura. Tarna was a kingdom of Liontaurs of which Rakeesh had once been the ruler. He had walked away from the throne to become a Paladin.

A war was starting between Uhura’s people, the Simbani, and the shapechangers known as the Leopardmen. This war would bring much death, and by those deaths, the barrier between worlds would be broken, and demons would enter the world in armies. You had to stop this war, and drive the Demon Wizard back to its own plane. This was not something you could do alone.

Rakeesh and Uhura guarded and protected you. The Simbani Warrior Yesufu, the Leopardwoman Johari, the monkey Manu, and Rakeesh’s daughter, Reeshaka, fought at your side. Together, you faced evil, distorted versions of yourselves. The battle was long and hard, and you might have been defeated by your own double. Then a thief you befriended in Tarna came to your side, and took your place in the battle. You raced ahead to confront the Demon Wizard directly.

The world gate had almost opened between the demon world and this one. There was little time, and you had to act. You attacked the demon and shattered the orb that held the world gate. The Demon Wizard was destroyed, and the link between worlds was broken.

State of the Art System
386 PC; 8 meg RAM; SVGA; Dual speed CD-ROM Drive; 16 bit-Sound Card