Evil Islands: Lost in Astral

[booyah_boy]

Reading over the Top 10 CRPGs of all time thread I noticed there are a few other fans of Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul haunting these forums and, as such, I wanted to inquire if anyone had heard any news as regards the sequel, Evil Islands: Lost in Astral?

For those of you unfamiliar with Evil Islands: CLS, you can stop by the English homepage:
http://www.evil-islands.com/
For those of you unfamiliar with the follow-up, Lost in Astral, or unaware of its existence, you may view some screenshots of such from Matilda Entertainment (developer of the "official" expansion with the aid of Nival Interactive):
http://www.gipatgroup.org/gallery/za
There is another add-on/expansion being made by the Gipat Group (the original team from which Matilda Entertainment splintered) without the aid of Nival. You can take a look at some screens from their expansion here:
http://www.gipatgroup.org/gallery/addon2

I was particularly curious if anyone was aware of an English release or plans for such? The first game was a bugger to get a copy of, and it appears as though the sequel is likely to follow it in that vein as well.

[Cormac]

I dont know about the sequel, but if anyone is looking for the older game it's 10$ on totalgaming.net (http://totalgaming.stardock.com/games/index.aspx?id=evl&c=1).

[magerette]

This game is definitely worth the ten bucks. I don't think I paid much more for it new, sadly.

This is the first I've heard of an expansion, and I haven't seen any U.S. coverage at all--which is not surprising since there wasn't a lot for the original game--but someone else here may have noticed something.

The screenies at the second site look a little closer to the original IMO--especially the desert--I remember wondering if I'd ever make it through that part of the game--:-/

Thanks for the info--with Nival having a hit with HOMMV and the related patches and expansions, plus whatever other irons they may have in the fire, there is probably better hopes for the second group to get something going. Look forward to seeing it.

[xSamhainx]

Was an interesting game with a cool as hell crafting system, but I never finished it. It was a bit before it's time, full 360 degree 3D, some fun tactical combat really kept me on it for a while. I had some problems with it however, tho I cant remember exactly what my beefs with the thing were. For the hours of fun I had it was worth a budget price!

It does also sport one of the coolest interfaces for a website Ive ever seen too: feed the little symbols to the demon for the info!

[Danicek]

I never finished the game. Played it for some time but gave up. Honestly I can not come up with why I did that at that time.

I've never heard about the sequel.

[booyah_boy]

No news? Ah well, thank you for chiming in anyways everyone. I'll update this myself if anything arises.
Oh, and a special thank you to Cormac for the link. As I said, I had some trouble acquiring a copy of Curse of the Lost Soul initially, and have long since broken such; thus, I'll be picking up a new copy from TotalGaming.

[mytgroo]

I think it did really well in Russia and they made a sequel for the Russian market Evil Islands: Lost In Astral, but Evil Islands: Curse of the Lost Soul didn't do as well here. I think if you read Russian you can get a nice copy. Otherwise forget it. I think it is very much oriented towards the russian market with the game play and interactions. It doesn't play or feel like a European or Us game.

[Hindukönig]

I never understood why people liked that game. Horrible story, shallow characters, boring gameplay.

[magerette]

I wouldn't say it was an earthshaking classic, but it was something you don't see very much--an old school, exploration and adventure oriented rpg with a few innovations(at the time.) The gameplay was challenging to me--as in die a lot. :) The generic story and cookie-cutter characters aren't very different from most rpgs these days. I thought it was pretty decent.