Crusader: No Remorse

The Good
I never was a fan of Origin’s games, not only because they were RPG-centric, with the company churning out Ultima this and Wing Commander that. In the mid-Nineties, they produced some really good action titles, such as System Shock, Cybermage, and Crusader: No Remorse.

In No Remorse, you play the role of a Silencer, an employee for the World Economic Consortium, sent to hunt down the Resistance, a group working to expose the corruption of the WEC. That all changed when your fellow team members were killed by one of WEC's mech patrol while navigating one of the consortium's tunnels, and for this reason, you decide to jump ship and work against the WEC for once. Those working for the Resistance are hostile toward you, considering that you were responsible for the deaths of several of their own. So you have to prove your worth by completing a series of missions in order to thwart the WEC’s ultimate objective.

No Remorse requires a VESA-compatible card, and this should be obvious if you try to run the installation program without one. You select certain settings to be used in the game such as installation type, sound card, and movie size. Once you are done with that, the program gives you a taste on the type of music you will hear during the game, and gives you a chance to look over your settings in case you happen to select the wrong thing. The music continues until the installation finishes and you are booted back to DOS.

Like a lot of games around the time, No Remorse uses Full-Motion Video to add depth to the game. Each of the 15 missions begin with your superiors giving you your objectives before you are teleported into the respective levels of WEC headquarters. Some of the missions involve you destroying the thermal coupler, eavesdropping on a board meeting, and deactivating a laser aimed at cities that refuse to bow to the WEC’s brutal regime. They also involve you doing a range of things like killing guards, finding keycards to unlock doors, and using stealth to avoid detection by the many security cameras planted around the facility. You can waste a bit of time destroying the environment around you.

Once your mission has been accomplished, Troy “Wizard” Reeves (played by Taylor Gibbler) activates a certain teleporter that takes you back to Central, a hangout for other Resistance members on their break. There, you enter a lounge area where you get to watch the evening's edition of WEC News, talk to fellow troops, deal with someone named the Weasel (Marco Perella), or access your video mail. After this, you can get your next mission briefing and begin getting back into action again.

You begin the game with a pistol, but by taking down guards and enforcers, you are able to get credits that can be used to buy weapons from the Weasel. You can get ammunition for them either from their dead bodies or from inside crates scattered around the level. You can also pick up detenators and grenades required to complete some of the missions. The highlight of the game is accessing certain video terminals that allow you to control a variety of killer mechs and take down hundreds of guards without even doing it yourself, saving ammo in the process.

The graphics are excellent, with my favorite being those during the final mission, where you are on board the Vigilance Platform. Wherever you walk, each area is littered with objects, some of them animated. The game uses an isometric viewpoint, meaning that you are able to see more stuff on the screen than any other viewpoint.

The music also in other Origin games uses the standard MIDI format, but when it was time for No Remorse to be made, they got legendary scene composer Andrew Sega to compose the soundtrack for it. Each piece of music he created in stored in encrypted .MOD files known as Asylum Music Format (AMF), meaning that you can’t play the files outside the game. Each piece blends with the mission you’re on, but if you get sick of listening to the same tune, you can always press [CTRL + M] to change it. (Just don’t expect it to be the same if you load up the mission from a save.) Each soundtrack blends in with certain missions, and my favorite is the soundtrack for the first and sixth missions.

The Bad*
The requirements for No Remorse were quite high at a time when people still had low-end 486 machines. I was able to run the game on my 486SX/33. The movies and other stuff played fine, but it took a minute to load up each mission.

The Silencer has the tendency to get out his guns when you don't want him to, which is usually what happens if you fire for more than a minute.

The Bottom Line
Crusader: No Remorse is an isometric action game where you must complete a number of missions and wreak havoc on WEC headquarters. The highlights of this game is destroying equipment that won't disrupt your mission as a result, and controlling mech patrols and use them to go on a rampage through the complex. While completing missions, you have to deal with guards and robots with your weapons. You also have to read computer terminals and obtain keycards to get into restricted areas. The graphics are futuristic, especially those in later missions, and the music is excellent. This game will have you playing for hours.