John Romero's Daikatana

The Good
The gigantic levels are very well designed and there are lots of puzzles to solve in them. The weapons are very creative, and the game can be considered an First-Person RPG, because you can level up your stats, such as Speed, Acro, Power and Attack, and even your Daikatana. The story is so great that the game can be turned into a book (there is a rare comic book by TopCow, released with the game), or even a movie (if Uwe Boll don't direct it). You are a martial arts trainer called Hiro Miyamoto, and you receive a visit from an unknown guy called Toshiro Ebihara, that says you have a mission to save his daughter Mikiko and a mystic sword called Daikatana, forged by the ancestors of Hiro. I really should say it's at least epic and creative!

The Bad
Even if the Sidekicks help you to not being alone while playing the game, they are annoying because of their defective A.I. Seriously, the A.I. is so bad that the sidekicks can get stuck in lots of spots, specially in stairs, they just keep going up-down-up-down, that really pissed me off. There are some slight graphics slowdowns, they happen most frequently when you're exposed into a fog effect or light. Also, if you're playing the game in the Windows Xp or later (I play it on Seven) you have to patch the game to version 1.2, because the game keeps crashing very often.

The Bottom Line
Don't let the critics let you down. Even if there are problems with the game, it is an underrated gem of the PC. It is very fun to play it and soon you feel in the story. One more thing: play the Windows version, not the N64 one, which is bad, ugly and slow.

The Good
This game's developer was involved in the creation of Wolfenstein 3D (a classic first person shooter). The bad news is that he seemed to forget how it became so popular. Daikatana is pretty dark and creepy like it's supposed be. There is a range of 25 weapons, 64 monsters, four different time periods, all of which are shared within 24 levels.

The Bad
When I said the game was dark, it really is dark, I have to keep squinting sometimes just in order to see what's in front of me (usually in a dark place). Another problem I have with this game is that it was a delayed release. The developer John Romero believed that the entire game could be finished in just seven months, intending to release it in 1997. The game was eventually released in 2000 and many people said that it was using the "old fashioned" 3D engine used for Quake 2.

The Bottom Line
Overall, this game is satisfactory and playable. John Romero's Daikatana is a pretty creepy and amusing first person shooter. While summing up this game, it has proven to be pretty original and creative.

The Good
Intersting storyline. The nod to Nintendo's founder. Weapons are varied in certain levels, the ad campaign ION Storm ran (even though it killed this game), Romero's hair .

The Bad
Graphics, repetitive level design, cliched and rather racist side-kick characters, the insects and frogs, the hype.

The Bottom Line
This game would have been just as bad, that is to say it's par for the shooter course, had it not taken nearly half a decade to produce. Romero may have tried to re-invent the shooter, but came up well short of his mark. It's still the same find key, open door, shoot anything that moves gameplay from other mindless shooters. But not as good as more recent titles.

The hype surrounding this game didn't help either. No game could live up to the "do all end-all of gaming" moniker this game had going for it. Romero should have stayed with id. At least no one hated their lackluster titles (Quake2).