So what's in Champions that wasn't in Dark Alliance, exactly? The first thing we noticed after playing through a few levels was the sheer variety in the graphics. Dark Alliance didn't have crap visuals, of course, but they weren't kidding with the "dark" part -- the dungeons were rendered in every shade of brown and jet-black imaginable. Here, you've immediately got more variety. The treetop town of Kelethin where the game begins is a woodland warzone, replete with log floors and balls of flaming fire being thrown from catapults on the ground -- you have to dodge all this while fending off a horde of smelly goblins coming down upon the wood-elf town. Later levels spread out across desert lands, through spider-infested caves, and within the fey bits of grassland that occupy most of the EverQuest world -- a great deal of variety compared to similar games. The graphical effects on the spells you cast and such are also impressive: apply an ice element to a sword, and you can actually see bits of frost flying off of it in battle as it freezes enemies.