Blade of Darkness

The Good
This game is full of content. The levels are huge and rather realistic castles, the musics are awesome and plentiful, there are over a hundred different weapons and several enemy types. The technology was also a few years ahead of the competition, with nice physics and realistic shadows years before Doom 3 or Max Payne 2. The gore effects are also very realistic. With good moves you can chop the enemy into pieces, painting the walls with dark red. Gore can also be turned off for the faint of the heart.

Blade of Darkness is also a very hard game, in fact one of the hardest I've played. Fights require precision and fast reflexes, and the rather good combat AI makes it a pleasure to boot. A couple of the boss monster fights were very memorable. There are also some puzzles, but none of them is so tough. They only make you more cautious, as a careless player can often run into an obvious trap and die at an instant.

Some RPG elements also are a big bonus. As you kill more, you gain experience, learn new moves and get more stamina. The set of moves becomes large by the end of the game, but as you've been learning them gradually, it's not so hard to master. This game made me feel that I really became a good swordsman by the end of the game, and that's an achievement! Even though it's set in a fantasy medieval world, there are no real magic users in the game. Well, those would've been a let-down in a melee combat game anyway.

The Bad
As much as I liked BoD, it has some problems. Sometimes the movement was awkward and you fell off a ledge too easily. Or some enemies were placed too cunningly, shooting arrows at you from a distance, so the situation was frustratingly hard to solve. A couple of monsters were so tough I had to load at least 20 times to make it. And the game starts as very hard, but gets a bit easier on the middle and latter parts of the game, which is a bit upside down from what I'd expect.

The story is also lame, but not very essential to an action game like this so I didn't care. Had it been more involving though, maybe I wouldn't have become bored at the middle part of the game. Yup, at times it feels like there's just too many ogres to be slain and the game feels like it'll never end. But towards the end it got more intense again and made me hooked to my seat until it was over.

The movement takes a while to master but it's pretty intuitive once you get it, allowing you to fight efficiently.

The Bottom Line
Blade of Darkness is a pleasant experience for players who enjoy melee combat games (even such games that have only duels, like Tekken or Mortal Combat), some adventure, and who think of themselves as good players. Many of my friends didn't like it because they couldn't get past the first few maps without dying all the time.

Overall I though this was game of the year material.

The Good
The first and most striking thing about Blade is that its light and shadow effects are way ahead of its time; in fact, they evoke games such as Doom 3 released four years later, an eternity in gaming. Not only do the player character and his enemies cast realistic, detailed shadows that spread across every surface, but objects as small as fragments of wood and hunks of meat also do. This real-time shadowing is merged almost seamlessly with the lightmaps (pre-determined light and shadow), and at times the game looks almost as fancy as Doom 3 or Thief: Deadly Shadows.

Of course, 80% of the game is combat, and Blade could have visual effects decades ahead of its time but still fail if the combat wasn't entertaining. Luckily, it is; not so much because it's fluid or intuitive, but because it's so visceral. Blood sprays over surfaces when you strike an enemy in close combat or throw a weapon at them, splattering over walls and dripping on the floor, and whole limbs will fly off, spraying blood around them; if you strike right an enemy's head will topple from his body as he dies. Gratuitous? definitely. Entertaining? Hell yes. There are plenty of weapons to perform these attacks with, which can be used in conjunction with an assortment of shields. Also sprucing up the game's combat is a wide variety of combo moves and special attacks, although they don't play as large a role in the game as it seems the developers aimed at.

Another thing the game had ahead of its time was physics effects. In most games when you break a barrel apart it will splinter into little shards that will explode into the air, fall to the ground while clipping into each other, and slowly fade into nothing; in Blade, a barrel breaks into properly sized pieces which fall naturally to the ground, rolling and knocking into one another realistically. Modern games have far better physics, but Blade was definitely ahead of its time. This comes into play in combat when throwing weapons, where it's actually possible to bank shots and do other fun tricks once you're skilled enough.

Some other high points include a few rare colorful game environments, and some of the game's generally bland sound.

The Bad
Ironically Blade's two strongest points are also its two greatest failings. While it has great visual effects, it lacks great art to showcase it. The four player characters and the enemies you will face are mediocre, lacking in detail; and while the game world is filled with fairly detailed textures, the level designers failed to really show this off, keeping ninety percent of the game confined to close spaces and chains of identical rooms. The character animation was supposedly motion captured, and at times it seems to work, but generally character movement is jerky and uneven. Worst of all, the mediocre animations often impose upon the gameplay, as the sluggish movement of the player puts him at unnecessary vulnerability during a fight.

Which leads us to the game's second great failing, its combat. While it is extremely fun at times, it's ridiculously frustrating at others - do to the aforementioned slow and stuttering animations, simply stepping forward at the wrong time can cost you your life in a fight. A third-person action game's combat should be smooth and focused on timing and combinations, but in Blade you end up thinking about your footwork and dumb luck more.

Finally, the game is just quite repetitive. Its major innovations, in the fields of lighting and physics, don't really affect the game at all. While the copious quantities of blood and guts keep the combat interesting enough for third-person combat fans, anyone looking for a complex or even fair gameplay experience will be disappointed.

The Bottom Line
Blade is worth playing for action-RPG and combat fans, especially those who like games in a fantasy environment. It's not really worth picking up for anyone else, despite its high points; the clunky combat and dull gameplay hold it back from being anything great.

The Good
Levels:
The levels are HUGE, and the game seems never ending (untill you reach the end). I don't know haw many hours it takes to finish the game, but it can't be done in one day. The levels are so big they feel like real castles and caves and more castles with some caves and mines underneath. Level objects are huge, it makes your character look so really small.

The Graphics:
It's some of the best I've seen in the level design. The water looks like water, not Quake style water. The fire looks good, and the lighting is so good it looks almost real. The lighting is good because of the real shadows, it's not just a black dot under the character, it's a real shodow. the only funny thing about it is the fact that even the smallest candle in the game can made an awesome shadow. Other game makes can learn from the lighting in this game.

The Combat:
It's hard in the beginning, but it gets better as the game goes on. The main thing is to fight smart. The first few levels I beat the orcs by throwing my weapons at them, running around, getting my weapons back and throwing some more at the orc. It's not all run in and start hacking away in the beginning. The thing that makes the game so hard in the beginning is the fact that the character doesn't have the energy to even use the basic weapons. After two slashes the my character's out of energy and the enemy chops his head off. That makes for some creative fighting tricks to fool the enemy AI. Like they won't go past certain points on the map so you reach that point and make the enemy turn back and that's when I run up and hit him while his back is turned. This tactic won't always work, but in the beginning of the game I use every trick I can think of.

Now later on in the game it's gets beter. The character will have enough energy to use a good weapon. I kept a weapon I found in the second level the whole game. At first I could only swing it once and be out of energy, but later on I could keep swinging it as long as I needed to. But for characters like the Barbarian you need the biggest and baddest weapon to win the day.

Characters have different fighting styles. The slow Barbarian uses combos and big weapons. The short and fast Dwarf is more a open style fighting guy and uses light weapons. The Knight is good for speed and has some good combos. The Amazon is fast.

The barbarian sucks against groups of enemies, but can take any single enemy out easy. The dwarf is a hard target for the bigger and slower enemies, and the dwarf is also good at dodging enemy atacks, using dwarf can get real crazy (I like the Dwarf). The Knight fights with style, he's fast and uses good moves.

The gore is off the wall, sometimes all over the walls. One of the first kills I saw was with the Dwarf, this huge door opens (lifting up), a single goblin comes charging through. I told my friend to try and throw the axe, he did, and it decapitated the goblin. Or one a threw an axe it bounced and chopped an orc's foot off. Later on when you start fighting multiple enemies at once using combos that can chop orcs in to a bunch of peaces it gets messy. There's also a matrix cheat, so you can see the parts fly in super slow motion while the camera pans around the fight.

It is possible to finish the game, my friend did it with the barbarian. I got far, but Lightning took care of his computer, so now I have to do it on my computer with IRQ conflicts, on board video, and all.

Even though my computer has allot of problems that makes Half-Life run slow, Blade of Darkness runs OK (playable).

The Bad
The AI was predictable. Some clipping problems, like fighting through thin walls. And I fell half way into the floor once and died jumping down 5 feet. The character was doing it's falling to death animation on the ground LOL. Enemy only has a few death animations they get old really fast and if you take their legs their bodies float in the air, and stays there, bodies and parts do vanish after a while. So, you won't see floating ones all over the place.

The Bottom Line
It's hard but possible to beat. Has the same kind of action feel as Serious Sam. It keeps getting better the more the game progresses.

The Good
This game presents an excellent gameplay based in combo-moves.As a result there are numerous moves for each of the 4 fighters.Graphics and audio are pretty good,and both create an appropriate epic atmosphere.

The Bad
The gameplay is a bit complicated for beginners.Blood and gore which may irritate some can be easily turned off.Generally,there's nothing bad in the game.

The Bottom Line
Blade Of Darkness is a really addictive action game which features many weapons,4 characters to choose from and loads of blood!It is also a quite big and hard game,so it promises many hours of gameplay.Graphics and audio of the game are pretty good and fortunately it will play good on low-end systems too.Highly recommended to action-lover's.

The Good
This game is one of the best action/adventure games ever in my opinion. I would be just another average game, but the cool weapon selection, large number of enemy types, and large maps is where Blade of Darkness shines. I thought a cool feature was that after you hack off an enemy limb, you can then use it as a weapon (even the heads)!

The Bad
This game can be quite difficult at times, and I never fully completed it, but other than that, this game stands as a terrific game.

The Bottom Line
If you like medieval fantasy gaming, and are looking for a change of pace from the typical Forgotten Realms game, this is for you. Some players may be scared off by the incredible amounts of blood and gore (when you slice off an enemy limb, blood squirts out and realistically pools on the ground), but I did not find this to be a setback in any way. If you liked RUNE, you should definately try this game.

The Good
The levels in this game are quite large and give a lot of feeling as to what was once here, what is here, or what lead to its destruction. Many levels require you to climb through ruined buildings or castle walls to reach other locations, and can bring you to a height where you can get a good view of the entire level - it can be quite a sight. And you might fall off, and that's fun to watch, too.

The game is hard. Really hard. Not just because the puzzles are too tough, but because the enemy in battle is smart, and you'll have to use your wits to defeat him. Running into a fight with your sword swinging madly isn't going to work on every monster. The monsters will dodge your attacks by parrying or blocking it with their shield, or they might stand back and wait for you to attack first, which they'll usually be prepared for. To aid you, you can target a monster so that your view and stance always stays on him. Along with your view and stance, your movement will work in relation to him - if you side-step, you'll circle him, rather than just walk to the side.

You have four characters to choose from and a variety of weapons to use in your adventure - some very unique and vicious. From bows to swords to chopped off limbs, each weapon is more suited to a specific character, but each is able to use any weapon. You can also retrieve your arrows from walls, the ground, or enemies for later use.

As your character grows in levels, you'll notice the difference in battle. Not only because your character suddenly has more life, but because you'll have more energy to swing your weapon, and can swing larger weapons with more ease.

There are many monsters to deal with, and with each one of them you're able to deal some pretty hefty damage to them. From a simple final blow that knocks them to the ground in a bloody heap to an ultra-violent end with missing limbs or a head or maybe even their entire body cut in half! You're even able to pick up a limb or head and use it as a weapon (though I can't see why you'd want to except for a laugh). Your own body can take this kind of damage as well. If your last breath is on the start of an enemy's combo, you can expect to watch him sever your head, arms, legs until he's finished. Sometimes the enemy will also kill one of his own during a wide swing. Now that's a funny sight.

Shields will smash if taken too much damage, as will two-handed weapons if you block the enemy's attacks too often.

The physics in this game are some of the best I've ever seen. Gravity seems very realistic here with the objects in the game. I've knocked a stool with a stray sword swing and watched it go tumbling across the room and then spin on one of its three legs until it finally fell to the ground - very realistic. Knock something down the stairs and you'll see it gain speed as it tumbles downward, twirling and twirling faster with each bounce.

The shadows are, without a second thought, the most realistic in any game I've seen. Not only do they realistically follow your character around, they obey the light sources, unlike most games. If the light is directly above you, your shadow will be directly below you. If the light is coming from the side, you'll see your shadow to the opposite side. The closer to the light source you are, the larger your shadow becomes. You can cast a very ghastly shadow on the opposite wall like some old Hollywood horror flick if you get bored, heheh.

The Bad
The game is hard. I actually was not able to beat it. I can blame a lot of why I couldn't beat it on game bugs, poor controls, annoying menus, but they'd just be excuses. In reality, I simply wasn't good enough. It takes a lot of skill and patience to beat this game, because it's not all fun.

For one, there's no cursor in the game. Anywhere. You can't even use a mouse in the menu. Okay, maybe a small annoyance, but in this day in age we expect to see cursors on our menus.

The controls are funky. I had some problems with the mouse in that, the default sensitivity was far too slow, but if I upped the sensitivity, it would make it so that if I moved the mouse a little, it'd move the screen a lot, but if I moved the mouse quickly, it would move the screen barely. Fighting enemies with a mouse that's too slow, or a mouse that screams in speed with the slightest twitch makes battles all the more difficult. Every mouse click will also be queued in battle. So if you click three times in the heat of battle, your character will attack three times. Three times, even if he's not facing the enemy. Three times, even if the attack was a weak one. Three times, even if he's out of energy and must heave his weapon forward. Those three attacks will always cost you the fight. And sometimes you're not able to rotate your character, or he won't rotate quick enough to fight after you've attacked, leaving you wide open for the enemy to cut you down from the side.

Your character is also unbelievably slow in battle. When he gets in a combo, oh, he'll be fast. But once he's finished a combo or a single attack, there's a pause that's inexcusably long, and that's when the enemy will get you. This may be because I was using the strongest character meant for two-handed swords (using one of the lighter characters may have been quicker, but I'm not sure of this) but either way, most of my battles were one on luck, rather than skill. Sometimes, your jaw will drop and you'll just be speechless watching the enemy cut you down in a split second. Where once you could take down an enemy with ease, he'll suddenly take you down just as quickly. This may boast the idea that you'll always have to be on alert, but often times it's caused by your character bumbling around and not doing what you tell him. Also, once you're caught in an enemy's combo, you're screwed. You can block his attack, but in the time it takes you to recover from blocking, the enemy is always at you again.

Save and load times are horrendous! Saving can take as long as ten seconds, and loading can take twenty to thirty seconds! Considering how often you'll be dying and loading back in this game, that's a huge pain in the ass.

While the physics in the game are pretty neat for miscellaneous objects, the physics for your character is stupid. You fall slower than dirt, and sometimes have a lot of trouble just running up stairs. If you fall a quarter inch, your character falls to his knees and lets out a heavy grunt, as if he'd just leapt off a cliff. When you're running from an enemy and you step on a pebble and fall to your knees heaving, allowing the enemy to kill you right there, you'll want to have one of those stress-dolls ready.

Using the bow is annoying, since you have no crosshair and no real way to aim. You would think the arrow would fly in the direction you're aiming, but instead, the arrow will fly to whatever direction your left elbow is facing! And even then it's not entirely clear. Your arrow will always arc in the same way, but there's no reference point other than a large bulky elbow. So much for marksmanship.

The game is hideously repetitive. It's not necessarily a "bad" thing when a game is created in this way, since that was sort of the purpose. Kill bad guys, move on, kill more, move on, get weapon, move on, etc. But since the bad guys are so damned hard, this IS a bad thing. There's never a creative way to kill an enemy. Never an opportunity to fool the enemy into a pit of spikes or anything like that. There is one part where a boulder runs over one of them, and sometimes you can get to a point where the enemy cannot get to you and you can fire arrows down at him, but in almost every battle it comes down to a fight. And after that, another fight. And after that, another. And after battle after battle after battle, you'll find yourself with almost no health and facing one of those sons of bitches whom you know will kill you the second your character does something stupid. So you save...and wait. Then die. Then load...and wait. Then die. Then load...and so on and so forth.

Also, some enemies carry with them special keys you need to progress, and sometimes you'll fight them on a bridge overlooking a giant chasm. If that monster falls off the bridge, you're screwed.

The Bottom Line
It's a hard game. Not every aspect of the game is bad, though. If you've got the patience and the skill to deal with buggy controls, extreme save/load times, insubordinate characters and psycho-difficult monsters, you'll definitely love this game.

The Good
I like its graphics, story, environments, environmental effects, weapon scheming and the fight battles.

The Bad
It's takes too long to load a game even on my Pentium IV.

The Bottom Line
Play this game, you will really enjoy to playing it. First you will find it really very very difficult. But later you will be expert.

The Good
This game is totally super fine with respect to its glorious graphics special effects story and the movement of characters, The character is so fine that it looks like real. I never seen this type of game before, The fighting action is very good and the enemies are too dangerous .I hereby give 100% .

The Bad
No

The Bottom Line
Supreme graphics, Best story, Fighting actions, ferocious faces of Enemies ,Special lighting effects, Character movement is so real,Finally the music of this game is very harmonious with game.