Windows

Hero X

Avem in fata un joc haios, relaxant sau cum se mai spune, un joc de duminica. Nu e nevoie sa-ti stresezi neuronii decat o singura data cand trebuie sa iesi din sediul Politiei fara sa fii observat, si atunci nu deductia logica te scoate afara cat gasirea combinatiei corecte.

Hero X is bright, colorful and harmless entertainment. It does have challenge, and will take time to play through. It is too bad that the program crashes and graphical errors interrupt what is a nice program.

A linear plot takes you through the game in a specific order, though there are periods when you can go on patrol. As you progress through the game you gain extra powers - having the right combination can be critical. The environment is interactive to a degree. All of the citizens will talk to you, but the number of objects that can be picked up and moved is limited. Gameplay becomes somewhat repetitive and there's no multiplayer option. This game should, however, appeal to younger players.

Everything is overdone. The speech is overdone, the music is overdone, and the ambient sound is especially overdone. Multiply the speech bubble "BIFF!" by a million times, and you are getting close to how overdone the audio is. It's funny for the first 15 minutes, but after that it gets seriously irritating.

I might sound really negative about this game, and the fact is that in the start I thought this was one of the worst games I had ever played. But after I had played it for a while, I can see some positive things about the game. The feeling when everyone talks to you with help of comic book balloons is quite funny. The civilians you can chat with also have pretty funny comments, so that helps. The story itself is just as simple as they used to be in the comic books and like they should be. The bad guys are really cool I think. What is bugging me is that they could have made this so much better! They could have added some cooler super powers, much better graphics, more chance of making your Super Hero unique by making you able to choose body, hair length and style etc. There are so much more they could have done with it. It feels like they grew tired of the game while making it and decided to finish it as quick as possible, with as little effort as possible.

Hero X attempts to meld Freedom Force with more straight-forward action games, but it doesn't capture the spirit of the comics or the fun of the games that inspired it. In Freedom Force, the patriotic Minuteman would shout "For Freedom!" in a resounding voice. In Hero X, the eponymous hero says "For Justice!" with black, hard-to-read text on a yellow background. Like most everything in Hero X, it's just a pale imitation.

For every trendsetter, there’s always at least one abysmal copycat trying to leech from its success. The folks at Irrational Games should feel flattered: Hero X is Freedom Force’s very first coattail-rider, and yep, it’s pretty darn awful.