Creature Shock

aka: Creature Shock: Special Edition
Moby ID: 2122
DOS Specs
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Included in

Description official descriptions

The earth is overpopulated and mankind must find a second home. The spaceship Amazon is sent to investigate Saturn and Jupiter for possible colonization. Near the end of its mission, all contact is lost with the ship except for a distress beacon. The player is part of the crew sent to the Amazon's last known location to find out what happened.

Creature Shock is a first-person shooter with Full Motion Video and arcade-like elements. Aliens of all sizes and types will try to destroy the team, but each one has a weak point that can be exploited. The fighting takes place on the surface of asteroids and within mazes of passageways underground.

There are also two 3D sections where the player gets to pilot the ship.

Spellings

  • クリーチャー・ショック - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

28 People (25 developers, 3 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 69% (based on 18 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 32 ratings with 5 reviews)

Shoot 'em up with thrilling creepy atmosphere

The Good
The game features some of the most spectacular graphics of its time.

Most of the name giving creatures are really creepy and a challenge to defeat. Discovering their weaknesses while trying to survive the attacks is quite demanding in regard to timing and aiming.

I especially liked the suspense-packed atmosphere provided by the scary environments that threaten to hide horrible surprises around every corner.

The Bad
I really detest the gameplay of the two flight sequences in the game. It's even worse than the one of Rebel Assault. It seems to be almost impossible to avoid collisions and aiming is a game of chance. Additionally these sequences' graphics are far inferior to the rest of the game.

The constraint to redo the whole mission on failure is very frustrating as well as the possibility to run into literally dead ends.

Despite the great overall graphics the human character models look disproportionate and poorly animated.

The Bottom Line
Creature Shock is a first person shoot 'em up with control model similar to Myst. You can only choose from a set of predefined directions to advance without direct control of the movement. Equipped with a single gun and a protective energy shield only, the player must be prepared to encounter face to face combat after every new direction chosen.

The Story doesn't really matter. It's about the usual encounter with an unknown alien race. First the player has to save a captured sexy chick space ship captain and then the whole solar system by shooting anything that gets in the way.

The alien fiends cover a variety of different shapes and sizes. The rather small ones include arthropods, bat like creatures, or insect forms. There are some humanoids too but the major threats come as big worms and spiders or a combination of both. Most of them can only be killed by hitting weak spots that may be really small or are just revealed by certain movements. So timing is crucial during the fight sequences, especially because you cannot shoot and activate your energy shield at the same time. Also using the shield too long or to often will deplete your power supply which also charges your gun.

Besides these challenging fight sequences the exploration of the labyrinth like alien facilities is one of the major gameplay ingredients I feel comfortable with. Sadly the intermediate flight sequence missions are a real nuisance and don't fit in by their look and feel.

After-all Creature Shock is a real scary game with great graphics and an exiting atmosphere. A large part of the game is demanding in a positive kind of way, though it can be unduly frustrating too.

DOS · by Zerobrain (3052) · 2011

A cool arcade game!

The Good
This game features great atmosphere and breath-taking action scenes.It's also very difficult to complete because you cannot save your game wherever you want.However the game autosaves your position every time you accomplish each mission.This is good in my opinion,because if you could save wherever you wanted the game would be fairly easy

The Bad
As stated in the review,a couple of missions take place in space where you pilot a space-craft.These missions are very difficult and really annoying because you have to shoot around the screen without actually stopping for a second.

The Bottom Line
Overall,creature shock is a great arcade game which is recommended to everyone who wishes an action-packed game(but not an easy one...)

DOS · by Gabriel (116) · 2001

Love the story and gameplay, graphics are second nature!

The Good
What a wonderful game, it's extremely fun to play. I am totally stuck in the alien ship now because the difficulty level of this game (to me) is quite high even in the EASY mode. The graphics are ahead of its time, a shame they don't make games like this anymore. This game has gotten horrible reviews I am shocked that people treat this game so badly. So far I'm loving it and don't see what people speak of. I bought it off eBay not too long ago. I just can't wait to move on this stage and see the rest!

The Bad
The difficulty level is high (even on easy mode). Otherwise nothing. I love this game!

The Bottom Line
Don't pay too much attention to other reviews, try the game yourself. The game so far is great to me. It's difficult, no doubt, that doesn't take away the fact that it's a great game.

DOS · by molokaicreeper (63) · 2010

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Uh... GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) Nov 7, 2011

Trivia

Cancelled port

Atari was working on a port for their Jaguar CD, but cancelled it.

Development

The movie sequences were all rendered on 486 DX/2 66 [Mhz] workstations, which marked high end computing power at the time of development.

Manual

The game's manual had its own ideas of what useful tips can be:

"For maximum atmosphere turn down the lights and use headphones instead of speakers."

Localization

The German localization features the voice of Rolf Schult as the player's briefing officer and narrator in the intro sequence. At the time Creature Shock was released that specific voice had been especially renowned as the German dubbing voice of actor Patrick Stewart in his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the TV series Star Trek: TNG who in turn sports a similar hairdo like the briefing officer.

Though the original multi language UK DOS release features no credits of any particular voice talent.

Awards

  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1995 – Best Render Graphics in 1994
    • Issue 02/1995 – Best Cutscenes in 1994

Information also contributed by Eric Rushford

Analytics

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2122
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Pix.

CD-i added by Corn Popper. SEGA Saturn added by fooziex. PlayStation added by Alaka. 3DO added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Isdaron, ケヴィン, me3D31337, Patrick Bregger, Zerobrain.

Game added August 12, 2000. Last modified March 6, 2024.