Atomic Punch!
Reviews
Codename: Outbreak (Windows)
WHERE arethey shooting from?
The Good
I think this game got a bad rap in the U.S. because it was released as a budget title and the developers were a little no-name group from Eastern Europe (who have since gone on to create S.T.A.L.K.E.R.). Strangely, it fared much better overseas where I believe it was released as a full-price game.
I bought this game on the cheap, not expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised. It had a lot more depth and features than a lot of games I've paid a lot more for.
You have a partner in your missions (you can jump back and forth between your two soldiers) that you can give simple orders to (Hold position, Cover Me, Hold Fire, Fire At Will). The AI is surprisingly good for your partner. I had an occasional hang up when I would climb a ladder and he wouldn't follow, but that was rare. For the most part, he will go up ladders, through doors, etc. with no problem.
The graphics themselves are very good. Not award winning, but they do a good job. Also, the graphics have this neat filter effect. When you get close to any texture (wall, grass, etc.) it becomes extra detailed.
The levels are pretty expansive, usually indoors and outdoors. I remember one of the early missions where I started on a mountain road. At the top of the mountain, far away you could see a neat domed building. I was surprised to find that in the course of the mission you actually work your way up to and inside the building. The only other game I remember with such big levels was Project: IGI.
You are relatively weak in this game. You aren't often going to charge in like Rambo machine-gunning ten guards. On those rare occasions where you and your partner are suddenly forced to mix it up with a group, it's a rush. Usually, sniping is where it's at. I never got tired of concealing myself in the branches of an evergreen and picking off passing guards. Be careful though. A dead body won't just be ignored by the next guy.
I like that they tried to rationalize the amount of weapons one person carries. You have a sort of 'Swiss-army gun' that has several different features. When you choose a new weapon, you hold the same gun, but the barrel rotates. It may not be realistic to assume that the same frame that holds shot-gun shells can also serve as a sniper rifle, but its no worse than being able to carry ten weapons on your back.
The Bad
I've mentioned the graphics and game-play already. I had to hold on to sounds for this section. The weapon sounds and ambiance are perfectly fine. It's the voice 'acting' that makes the sound category a bad one.
I believe I mentioned that this game has eastern European origins. It really shows when anybody talks. It's not that I have anything against accents. Just the first mission is set in Oregon. I never realized that Oregon had so many Croatian immigrants. To tell you the truth, it's more comical than terrible, but I sure got tired of hearing 'where ARE they', 'Isee no-one', 'Here h'is!' and 'WHERE arethey shooting from?'
One other complaint is that from time to time, I would be unable to switch control from one team-mate to the other. I wish they would release a patch for this, even though it's rare.
The Bottom Line
The game was twenty bucks when it was first released. Now you can probably find it for ten or less. I highly recommend you pick it up and am looking forward to further games from GSC.
Edit: I was checking out game-play videos on YouTube (yes, I do have that much time on my hands!) and noticed that that player's version had much better voice acting than my copy did. Well, English was these voice actor's primary language anyway. If you purchase a copy of the game at this late date, may you get the one with the better voices (though the Eastern European accents do have a kind of a charm).
By Atomic Punch! on February 25, 2011
Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza (Windows)
"Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."
The Good
Okay, if you don't already know Nakatomi Plaza turns the first Die Hard movie into a first person shooter. That right there belongs in the Good category.
The controls are your typical FPS controls. You can run, duck, strafe and jump. They've also included Garret's ability to lean and fire around corners. This is really helpful as (like in the movie) Mc Clane is a relatively fragile character.
In addition to watching your Health meter, you also have to worry about Stamina and Morale. If you choose 'Always Run' or leap from desk top to desk top, Mc Clane will start wheezing like a smoker. Stamina was a great addition, as it encourages a little stealth and keeps you more grounded in the real world. No always running and jumping everywhere, but you aren't stuck with the frustration of dying from one shot.
The developers have done a good job of bringing Nakatomi to life. The cut scenes are recreations of famous bits of the movie done with the game's LithTech engine. The building might be a bit gray over-all, but it is an eighties office building after all. There is a nice bit of variety in the levels though. There are stylish Japanese-inspired executive floors and more mundane cubicle rooms and elevator shafts, the roof and (of course) sewers. The levels are very detailed, down to spare change lying on desks and food safety warnings posted in the cafeteria.
They brought back Reginald VelJohnson to play Sgt. Powell and the guy that does john Mc Clane does a pretty decent job. The sounds of bare feet on concrete, weapons firing and the rest are good if not great.
They didn't use much of the original movie's music, but since that music was almost all altered Christmas carols, I think it was a wise choice. The music they do use is good if not outstanding. I did like the way the music would change depending on your current situation.
The movie runs two hours and has a dozen or so bad guys. This wouldn't work for the game, so now there's hundreds of villains and there are extra tasks to accomplish.
Some of the extra tasks are great. You'll find Nakatomi's architect and have to escort him to safety while fighting a fire started by a dropped cigarette. Later, you'll find yourself entangled in a firefight between bad guys and a SWAT team in the sub-basement. You'll also get to go lend a hand to Argyle, the limo driver that brought you to the party.
Of course, there's also levels lifted straight out of the movie and that I think is Nakatomi Plaza's strongest selling point. Climbing around the ventilation shafts with your Zippo or jumping off the roof with a firehose are fun, fun, fun!
The Bad
Sadly all is not well.
The cutscenes are remakes of scenes from the movie, but except for Mc Clane and Powell, everybody else tends to be wooden and emotionless. Since the best bit about Nakatomi Plaza is that you are playing your way through the classic movie, there should have been more care taken with the quality of the performances. That may not seem like much, but subtracts A LOT from this particular gameplay experience.
While the Health and Stamina meters are cool, the Morale meter doesn't really seem to serve any purpose. At least none that I've noted.
Also, there's too many locked doors, which sometimes makes you feel you're being funneled to the end of the level. Since by their office-building nature, the floors aren't very big, I think they should have let you do a bit more exploring. Maybe throw a few health-packs or something in the 'extra' rooms. There are a couple of times where they do just that and those tend to be the best, most exciting levels, since you don't know for sure where the villains are hiding.
Lastly, this game is very much set in the real world, but you can't shoot bad guys hiding behind cardboard boxes. I enjoyed the game quite a bit, but it also seemed like it would have been more successful if they'd made it a bit more of a single player Counter-Strike.
The Bottom Line
Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza has it's share of problems, but I feel that it's much better than the ratings here suggest.
The cut scenes may not be as good as they could have been, but the game is great fun. In the end, it's great to step into Mc Clane's "shoes" (so to speak).
By Atomic Punch! on December 27, 2009
SAS: Secure Tomorrow (Windows)
Wolverine joins the SAS
The Good
SAS Secure Tomorrow is one of the best budget shooters I've played in a long while. The game uses F.E.A.R.'s Jupiter EX engine, so for a budget game, it is pretty to look at.
The levels are well designed with lots of destructible objects and side rooms to explore (which may or may not contain more bad guys) and enough scripted events to make you feel like you are part of a larger assault.
You are given two invulnerable computer controlled team mates who are actually able to pull their own weight. You are the junior member of the team, so you can't order these guys around (though I wish you could).
The weapons are all real world ones. You can pick up the weapons of fallen enemies, though you are restricted to four weapons at any one time (luckily, your primary weapon can be modified into a sniper weapon, so in a way you can carry five weapons).
Those well designed levels and realistic weapons (along with smart friendly and enemy A.I.) make combat a blast in this game. Everything I wrote above was just sort of a lead-in to say how much fun the protracted gun battles are in this game. Enemies (and friends) will dodge and use cover and toss grenades at you (well, your friends won't grenade you).
Occasionally your squad will 'stack up' outside a door to be breached. When the door is forced, a soldier will toss in a flash bang grenade and it is up to you to charge in and clear the room. (While the flash bang has stunned the bad guys everything moves in slow motion.)
I also want to give kudos to the game designers for willing to be so over the top. The battles are extremely violent with blood splashing everywhere and your soldiers will drop the F-bomb at any chance they have. For once, it was nice to see a game designer say 'Screw the T rating!'
Also, the dialog in the game is surprisingly well written. Though the story is sort of your standard 'Take down these terrorists' FPS fare, the dialog is pretty good.
The Bad
The biggest hurdle I had with the game was your health. There isn't any. Rather, your character has the Wolverine like ability to auto heal if he stays out of the action for thirty seconds or so. I didn't like this at all. It felt like it made the game less of a challenge (though some firefights are so intense, you will die regardless).
I mentioned above that you could often explore extra rooms. I wish they would have put health packs in some of those rooms and given me a health bar. That way I wouldn't go into every battle in tip-top shape.
Aside from that complaint, everything else is minor.
Your squad mates could get in your way during firefights.
Throwing grenades through an open door was kind of clunky and difficult.
The ending was sort of a let down. You track down one terrorist and take him down and then a couple of cutscenes play taking care of the rest of the story. Those cutscenes could easily have been turned into another location and a couple more levels.
The Bottom Line
The game is pretty short. You should be able to finish it within two or three hours. But then it is a budget game. You can now buy it for less than the cost of a movie ticket and man, what a couple of hours you will have.
These guys have put out a game that looks very similar called Armed Forces Corp (looks like I'll have to add that to MobyGames as well) that I will be picking up based on my experience with this one.
By Atomic Punch! on December 27, 2009
Rune (Windows)
Are you ready to Ragnarok?
The Good
Okay, sorry for the cheesy opening line. I couldn't help it. But it does fairly well describe Human Head's Rune.
Rune is based heavily on Nordic folklore. The developers did their homework and it shows. While it's not a great unwritten epic, the story is a pretty good one and gives more than a Hollywood treatment to Viking mythology.
The controls are well done and very easy to get used to, though there are some differences from your standard third person action game.
There are no ranged weapons in Rune. Everything is melee weapons and shields. While you don't have the flexibility Die By The Sword gave you planning your attack, Ragnar is still a pretty decent fighter.
Running down hallways lopping off zombie's heads/arms/legs with an axe is great, great fun. Finding yourself surrounded by Dark Vikings and hoping your shield lasts longer than their lives is a thrill. Combat in Rune is exhilarating.
As you play you will pick up Runestones scattered through levels. These are important, as each weapon you pick up (there are various weapons in the Sword, Mace and Axe categories) has a special charm on it. If you use your Rune 'mana', for a limited time your weapon will have special attacks. My favorite is the vampire sword that replenishes your health when you whack the bad guys. There's also a cool ice axe that will freeze bad guys then shatter them with a second hit.
As I'm sure you've heard before, Rune looks GREAT! At the time of this review, the game is three years old, but the texture work and Unreal engine have held up very well.
The characters are very well designed. The clockwork-man (so much for Norse mythology) looked especially cool. I also liked the Nibelung dwarves and the white shaggy Yeti-thing.
Ragnar himself is a 'business in the front, party in the back kind' of guy, sporting a mullet that would put Solid-Snake to shame.
The music is also very good, reminding me of the rousing soundtrack to
The level design (once you leave the underworld) is inspired with just the right mix of claustrophobic hallways that open into large arenas where you know you're going to duke it out that then lead you to scaling walls and jumping across chasms.
The Bad
Rune's biggest failing is that the first part is the worst part.
Ragnar is killed in the beginning. He's resurrected by Odin and has to escape the underworld. Unfortunately, this takes up the first quarter/first third of the game. Though the underworld levels are well done, there's only so much to work with and after a while you just get tired of seeing caves.
Rune wouldn't have gotten such a glowing review from me if it didn't do a HUGE turnaround once you're above ground.
The only other complaint I have is that once you earn the most powerful weapons you have to stop using your shield. This seemed to be a bad design choice to me as it detracts a little from what strategy there is in Rune's combat system. One two-handed weapon would have been cool. One in each category was too many.
Also, the ending was a little disappointing. I don't want to spoil it for you, but I thought there would be another battle or something after I slayed the ultimate baddie, because he was a little too easy.
At least the story doesn't leave you hanging for a never-to-be sequel. And it also nicely leads in to the Halls Of Valhalla expansion, without making you feel ripped off if you didn't purchase it.
The Bottom Line
If you like third person melee games like Blade Of Darkness or Die By The Sword, I strongly recommend Rune.
Getting past the beginning may not seem worth it, but keep a stiff upper lip and keep slaying those zombies. It'll be worth your time.
By Atomic Punch! on August 3, 2007
Anachronox (Windows)
Great, great game, but call the Orkin man before playing
The Good
My original title for this one was going to be 'Not much of an RPG, but a great adventure game'. I guess I've grown up on the Black Isle RPGs and was a little put off by any game where leveling up didn't include adjusting your strength, wisdom and what-not. Luckily, Anachronox has taught me different.
I have not had such a good time playing a game in years. Everything about Anachronox has so much humor and style. The game has so many unique little incidents that aren't part of the main story, but manage to build on the atmosphere.
The writing is smart and funny. Humor is always an iffy thing in PC games. For the most part designers don't spend much time on the scripts for these things and the 'jokes' are usually groan-inducing or downright painful. Not so here. If you enjoy humorous sci-fi like Red Dwarf or The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, you owe it to yourself to try Anachronox.
The story turns out to be pretty serious but for the first third of the game or so you're really just running on the good vibes the writers are able to supply through character interaction. Even though I've heard the beginning of the game is slow, I was having such a good time playing that I never considered dropping the game for something else.
All of the characters are unique and will elicit different responses from the NPCs you talk to. (Make sure to have Rho talk to the artistic door man! It's a hoot!) Even the in-game cursor/quest log is a character with it's own personality.
The graphics are fairly blocky since they used the Quake II engine, but the art design is great. Every area has such a unique look. Once you've played, if you look at a screen shot you can tell not only what planet they are on, but what subsection of what planet. Any game that can make corridors look unique has accomplished something.
Combat and spell effects are impressive. Whenever you upgrade your weapon or find a new 'spell' you can't wait to find a bad guy to try it out on.
I was a little worried about the turn-based combat as I prefer real-time. The game describes combat as 'turn-based real-time' which really sounded like some sort of middle ground that wouldn't please anybody. Anachronox manages to walk a middle line between turn-based and real-time and for the most part succeeds. I haven't enjoyed a turn-based game this much since Fallout.
Voice acting is never bad and is usually very good. Weapon sounds and spaceships blasting off are all cool to listen to. Even the incidental music when you pick up an item is neat. The background music is always appropriate to the setting and very nice to listen to. It was nice to play a game where there wasn't one cheesy heavy metal track.
Level design is also great. For the most part, you will know where to go next and can run straight through if you like. But there are so many little nooks and crannies to explore and you will usually wind up with a new item or sub-quest for your troubles.
The story manages to be interesting all the way through and none of your characters will ever become useless as you add new ones to your party.
The Bad
Bugs! Bugs, bugs, bugs! Before you play, make sure to download the second 'unofficial' patch put together by the development team working with a bunch of fans.
Even afterwards, not everything will be smooth. Random freezes still occur every so often. There are a few sub-quests that involve taking pictures of, say, Red Biparti that are scattered across the planets you visit. Unfortunately, Boots' camera would periodically wipe out all the pics stored in memory. After a while, this caused me to just give up on that quest.
Speaking of sub-quests, while Fatima is great at storing your main quests, remembering sub-quests like which monk to speak to or who needs the miner's bracelet are up to you. This seems like such a basic thing to forget. In practice it leads to a lot more running around or you forgetting that quest all together even though you have everything you need to complete it.
Also, even after patching (and patching and patching) the load times still take a while. Since many quests require you to cross several load zones, each taking twenty seconds or so to load, what would be a little annoying became frustrating enough for me to quit playing for the day.
Lastly, towards the end of the game you go from one boss fight to a cinematic showing the characters resting and then straight into the final boss fight. This may not sound that bad, but it gives you no chance to reconfigure your items. When I was playing this part I actually had to go back to an old save game, equip my party then and fight the first boss all over again. How did such an obvious goof slip through quality control?
The Bottom Line
Overall, Anachronox is one of the best games I ever played. The bugs got on my nerves, but never enough for me to chuck the game.
It manages to make the ho-hum task of saving the universe fun again and it does it all with real panache.
That this game isn't already a collector's item is a crime. I would advise any PC gamer to pick this one up. You'll be glad you did.
By Atomic Punch! on June 4, 2006
I was an Atomic Mutant! (Windows)
<moby game=Rampage>Rampage</moby> for the modern age
The Good
Remember Rampage, the old coin-op game where you were a giant monster knocking over buildings? Imagine it all in 3D and presented with a lot more style and you have I Was An Atomic Mutant!
Choose to play as a mutant brain, an alien robot, a giant lizard or a 50ft woman and then go smash stuff. That kind of gameplay never goes out of style.
This budget game has style to burn. The menus are presented in the overblown style of movie posters. You can play in black and white or color. You can even display the game on a drive in screen or on a theatre screen if you'd like. When you choose a monster, you can watch a great movie trailer explaining the monster's origin (full of well placed stock footage and 'classic' dialogue like "No bonds can contain this savage beauty with a primal lust for vengeance!"). If you look at the people and vehicles, they bounce as you stomp by. It's all these little details that elevate this game from the much of its' budget competitors.
You get to stomp through desert towns eating cows, tossing tanks, blowing up nuclear power-plants and smashing mobile homes. All the while you're harassed by soldiers, tanks, turrets and various planes.
You have to keep an eye on your health and your atomic energy. This is needed for your most powerful attacks.
Each monster has five basic attacks: fire, punch, stomp, throw and super. They vary a little depending on which monster you choose (Reptomicus can eat the people he picks up, for instance), but they all serve the same functions.
There are various power-ups hidden in buildings. You should have no problem finding them, since you have to level everything to move on to the next area.
Graphics are pretty good. Not cutting edge in any way, but the monsters are very detailed.
The music is fantastic throughout. Like every good 50's sci-fi theme there's over-the-top orchestral arrangements mixed with plenty of Theremin "WooOooOoo" sounds. People running on the ground say funnily appropriate things and blame science for the monster's attack.
The people at Canopy Games are big fans of 50's sci-fi movies and it shows everywhere.
The Bad
I highly enjoyed this game, but I wish there were more. Like the old Rampage game, you have three lives and play until they are gone. This essentially makes the game never ending. Given the movie-style presentation of everything else, I wish they would have given each monster their own story mode. Even just a few lines of text in the load screen and a final showdown of some type would have been enough to give you the sense that you were moving forward with more of a purpose than just to level an area.
My second problem is tied a little bit to the first: I think it would have been fun if every few levels you got to fight one of the other monsters. I loved kicking the stuffing out of the military base, but wished I could test my skills as Invader From Dimension X by taking on the She Beast while doing it. How such an obvious gameplay element was left out is beyond me.
Also, I would have liked a multiplayer option for the same reasons as those listed above. That omission isn't a game killer though.
The Bottom Line
I originally picked this one up on the strength of Canopy Games' last budget game, the terrific Desert Rats. I'm glad I did.
While it's easy to see how a few improvements could have been made, for an old fashioned arcade-type experience, I Was An Atomic Mutant! delivers the goods.
By Atomic Punch! on April 3, 2004
The Hobbit (Windows)
Hobbit Raider
The Good
First off, the Hobbit has been my favorite book since childhood, so this game was a no-brainer for me. Happily, the game is a good game on its' own merit.
The game plays much like a fantasy version of Tomb Raider or Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver as Bilbo Baggins helps thirteen dwarves to reach their former home by pushing blocks and climbing vines.
He can pick locked chests (he's being sold as a burglar after all) and collect 'courage points' (those are gemstones to you and me) by slaying bad guys.
The Hobbit is fairly linear and the designers have remained faithful to the book, but they also remembered that game play makes or breaks a game. While the meat and potatoes of Mr. Baggins quest are present, there's plenty of extra side quests to keep you busy. Sure they take a little license with the story from time to time, but never too badly. Some things happen out of order (Bilbo names his sword Sting as soon as he gets it and he doesn't meet Beorn until the Battle Of The Five Armies), but at least they're all there.
The graphics are beautiful. Not state of the art, but very artistic, with detailed environments and intricate design on the characters. Running around a fully 3D Shire at the beginning of the game is a childhood dream come true. That's also about the point you realize that the designers haven't totally screwed-up a story you've cherished forever.
Voices were very well done. Thankfully, everyone in the game has a British accent. No American actors trying out accents here! The music is also good and appropriate to what's happening around you.
The controls are very smooth. Bilbo generally has no problem hopping around, climbing ropes, pushing boxes and fighting with his sword/walking stick/stones.
Special mention should also go to the Fizz Factor who did an outstanding job on the PC port. The Hobbit runs smoothly on my mid-level PC with all the details maxed out.
The Bad
My biggest disappointment is the way the story is told. When you aren't in a playable section, there are a few well done CGI scenes, but much of the story is told through static drawings in a story book. Many of my favorite scenes (the showdown with the goblin king and the riddle game with Gollum) are just sort of glossed over. If you haven't read the book before playing the game, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. More CGI scenes would have solved this I think.
Also, a lot of the depth of the book disappears. This isn't the designers fault. How do you describe the inner feelings of a character in a video game? Still, Bilbo's hardly out of the Shire before he's knee deep in man-eating (hobbit-eating?) plants and hungry wolves. These are gripes about the conversion of book to game and not necessarily about the game itself.
My other problems have to do with it being a console port. Instead of saving where you want, you are cursed with save points. Confusticate and bebother save points!
I do wish everybody who creates third-person games would be forced to sit down and play Rune to see how to get camera movement done right. Even all these years later, the Hobbit had an occasional (very occasional, I'll admit) problem with the camera zooming way in or way out. Why are console third person games so far behind their PC brothers on this?
Also, there's no option for full time mouse look. To look up or down, you have to hold down Caps Lock while moving the mouse.
The Bottom Line
Overall the Hobbit is a very well done lite-RPG action/adventure game. Highly recommended.
By Atomic Punch! on December 28, 2003
WWII: Desert Rats (Windows)
A good game from ValuSoft? Yes!
The Good
WWII: Desert Rats is a surprisingly fun budget game that reminds me of a 3D version of the coin-op classic Top Gunner.
The graphics are decent, but not outstanding. Nice explosions though.
There are 12 missions to blast through. Though each mission is set in the deserts of north Africa, there's a surprising amount of variety. One mission has you driving through a severe sandstorm (nice effects on the sandstorm by the way) ambushing a few heavily guarded fuel trucks. Another has you creeping through an occupied town at night, avoiding spotlights (I guess the Jeep has a really good muffler, because you don't have to worry about being heard), while in a third you are driving along a narrow set of cliffs assaulting artillery emplacements.
All the while you'll be shooting very angry sounding German soldiers, bunkers, armored vehicles and tanks. From time to time you'll have to take down Stukas making strafing runs at you. Things get pretty hectic, but it's very exhilirating.
You arm yourself from a small set of weapons including three different mounted guns for your Jeep along with grenades, a machine gun, a bazooka or a sniper rifle.
You can also choose from five different gunners each of which is better in some areas and worse in others. One my have especially good aim, but not be proficient with the bazooka while another may be great at lobbing grenades, but not to hot at aiming the tail gun.
The Bad
This is a budget game and it does have some minor shortcomings.
Some people may find the game too short at only twelve missions. I was able to finish the game in three days of moderate play time.
Also, there are cutscenes after each mission, mostly showing German command's reaction to your last mission. It doesn't exactly tell a story. It was more like watching an episode of a television series where at the end the bad guy says 'And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those pesky kids!'
Speaking of the bad guys saying anything, the voice acting is pretty bad. To me it was so bad it was humorous, but others may just be annoyed.
The Bottom Line
Considering the limited theme of the game (two man jeep team in the desert), Canopy did a great job on this one.
While twelve missions may seem short, it was enough to warrant my purchase without the game wearing out its welcome.
WWII: Desert Rats is what it is. It's a short, nice looking budget game that is a whole lot of fun to play. I recommend picking it up for some simple shoot-em-up fun.
By Atomic Punch! on July 16, 2003
KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child (Windows)
Better than I thought...
The Good
Let me begin this review with full disclosure: I picked the collector's edition up new for $1.99, so I didn't have any big financial investment in the game.
That having been said, I've been having a blast with this game. It's the first game I've played in a while that I've actually missed when I wasn't playing it. It's managed to kick Deus Ex and Arabian Nights to the side to become the main game I'm playing.
Don't get me wrong, this game is NOT better than Deus Ex. But it's a nice, simple shoot-'em-up that you don't have to invest a lot of time or brain power in.
The game installs flawlessly and runs smooth.
Psycho Circus is all about running around creepy environments mowing down freakish bad guys with outlandish weaponry.
The AI in this game is non-existent, but it manages to throw tons of enemies at you without noticeable slowdown. Also, there are monster generators like those in Gauntlet or Get Medieval. These puppies spit out an endless stream of baddies until you blow them up.
The graphics aren't mind boggling, but they never look poor. This was one of the first games (THE first I believe) to use the LithTech 2.0 engine. When it was new, the graphics were probably great.
Enemy design can be a bit repulsive (GasBags) and downright creepy (ArachniClown) but they always look great. Little details like the overflowing razor teeth of the hellhounds (Stump), the blood-spattered claws of the Headless and the sewn-shut eyes and sphincter like mouth of the GasBags make these things memorable.
The weapons themselves are cool looking and fit right in with the KISS 'look'. I personally like the 'shot gun'. A hulking rusted out piece of piping with chains running down the side and wicked looking spikes. Sure, it makes no sense, but it's wicked looking.
Sounds work. They aren't the best I've ever heard, but they aren't bad either. The gypsy narrator sounds decent. The characters themselves are sort of canned. Luckily they don't speak often.
I liked the in-game music, but see below for the rest of this story...
The Bad
Psycho Circus does have its' share of problems, though to me, none of them are major.
One, is that this game really does have a story to it. Not a great one but a story none the less. Sadly, you only know this if you read the story in the booklet. The game itself gives a confusing introduction that establishes mood but explains nothing.
Speaking of the game booklet, it doesn't explain ANYTHING. You grab pieces of armor through the game that give you different enhancements. The only way to see what these enhancements are is to play the game and try to notice what's changed.
Also, there are items in the game ala Duke Nukem, Blood or Soldier Of Fortune. Again, the manual tells you nothing about them. I still don't know what the black crystals do.
There are pamphlet pages you pick up through the game that add a page to a book you carry. This is supposed to take the place of information in the booklet and explain what things are for. This wouldn't be such a bad idea, as you'd get to learn what these mysterious objects are for as your character does. But the pamphlets are few and far between and they're so scattered they can be easy to miss. Also, the game doesn't seem to remember that you've picked pages up. Though I have so far picked up ten, for instance, my book might only have eight listings. Those will disappear from your pamphlet as you move on.
Another thing is that there's very little KISS music in the game. I'm not a KISS fan and I liked the in game music well enough, but it is funny that a game based on the lore of an over-the-top heavy metal band has so little of that band's music. (One cool touch though, is that you can turn on jukeboxes or radios throughout the game and KISS will play you a song.)
One last critique and for me it's the worst one. The game has a habit of spawning bad guys behind you. I don't mind the monster generators I mentioned above (in fact, in a game like this I kind of like them), but I've noticed that when you approach one of these, there will suddenly be bad guys attacking you from behind, even though there was nothing there a second ago. So you wind up swamped in the bad guys from the generator, think you're doing okay only to be killed from behind. (Also, the bad guys that show up from behind tend to be more powerful than the bad guys the generator makes.)
The Bottom Line
Overall, this is a rock solid game that was maybe a little ahead of its' time. It wasn't trying to change the face of PC gaming, just deliver a good, old school shoot-'em-up. Thing is, the story shooter (Half-Life, Deus Ex and Thief 2) was the hot property of the moment and people weren't ready for nostalgia.
A year later Serious Sam came along doing the same thing to much acclaim.
Though they are similar, I liked Psycho Circus more.
By Atomic Punch! on June 8, 2003
Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Comet (DOS)
The BEST H.P. Lovecraft game (so far...)
The Good
Shadow Of The Comet would have been a pretty standard point and click adventure game ala the old Sierra King's Quest line. What makes it stand out is the atmosphere. It perfectly creates the sense of creepy tension that the best Lovecraft stories convey.
There's all sorts of things going on 'just beneath the surface' of the story. When you talk to most of the characters in town, you'll see a nicely rendered portrait of them. In a nice little throwaway touch, most of these townsfolk are based on people from old scary movies. In the course of your adventure, you'll run across cameos by Vincent Price, Jack Nicholson (watch out for him!) and even H.P. Lovecraft himself. There's many others. I just can't remember them all now.
The voice acting for Parker is very good. The rest of the cast is at least decent. (Except for that nurse. Most wooden voice acting ever.) They did a very good job of making you feel that they were hiding something without making it too obvious or over the top. Everybody oozed the sense that they were thinking 'You've found what you want. Now leave!' while being polite to your face.
The Bad
While the gameplay is pretty straightforward and the puzzles are amazingly logical for an adventure game, there's one point at which EVERY player WILL GET STUCK.
There's a part where Parker receives a map (if I remember correctly) and needs to look at it to move on. Simple enough. Unfortunately the only way to look at the map is to head back to your rented room, sit at the desk and view the map. There are no clues suggesting you should head back to your room or any good reason that that should be the only place to view it.
Simply having Parker saying he didn't feel safe viewing the map in public or something along those lines would have been a huge help.
Also, the maze full of monsters, while not terrible or even out of place wasn't quite as good as the rest of the game.
The Bottom Line
Aside from the one TERRIBLE 'puzzle', Shadow Of The Comet is a great adventure game. The puzzles are logical and the atmosphere is fantastic.
If you're a Lovecraft fan, you owe it to yourself to pick it up.
Followed up by Prisoner Of Ice, though it isn't as highly recommended as Shadow Of The Comet.
By Atomic Punch! on May 23, 2003
Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (Windows)
About as good as a Dragon's Lair remake can be.
The Good
The story is simple enough. Daphne was kidnapped by the dragon Singe. Now incompetent but loyal Dirk the Daring will risk life and limb in a trap-filled castle to rescue her.
Dragon's Lair 3D- Return To The Lair isn't so much a sequel to the previous Dragon's Lair games as it is a remake.
The original was immensely popular in its' time, but really it was only because the game was so beautiful. Actual play wasn't much more than hitting the right joystick combo at EXACTLY the right instant.
This new game improves on the original greatly by remaking the castle in full 3D. You have the option to have a free floating camera controlled by the mouse ala MDK or Rune or a 'Console Camera' where the game controls the camera movement. I never use the console camera, but it's nice to be given a choice.
The timed puzzles are (for the most part) gone and you can move about freely and do what you want.
Dirk is pretty nimble. He can run, roll, climb, etc. He can also pick up objects and weapons so he doesn't always have to rely on his sword. Overall, I'd say the game play is similar to Eidos' Deathrap Dungeon.
All of the characters and several of the objects are cel-shaded to keep the original Dragon's Lair 'look' and it works beautifully.
The sound effects work. They aren't fantastic, but most are lifted from the original, so I can't rightly label this as bad.
The Bad
My one major complaint is the lack of skill settings. There is no easy/hard choice at the beginning of the game and overall the game is just too easy. You hit a Giddy Goon with your sword once and he stands there dazed while you take him out with chop number two.
In a room where several armored bad guys teleport in and rush you, you can tell that this should be an adrenaline filled moment, but the knights are bested so easily that the overall effect is boredom.
While the sound effects go from being great to just serviceable, I do HATE Daphne's breathy-but annoying voice. In the original game, her husky voice came off as comically sexy because she only spoke a few lines. Unfortunately, in Dragon's Lair 3D, you have an amulet that communicates with her constantly. Let me tell you, her voice gets pretty irritating pretty quick.
She also gives you hints, but it would have worked better if the game allowed you to access the amulet to request a hint. Or maybe a chime could let you know hints are available for the area you're in. As it is, Daphne sometimes spells out exactly what you have to do to move on, destroying any small semblance of adventure or puzzle solving that might have been present.
There are a few rooms that are exact recreations of rooms from the original (the burning rope swing and the knight with the electrified floor for example) and at these times the game will take away the free floating camera in favor of a stationary camera to make the game feel like the original. This wasn't terrible, but it did get me killed a few times.
One last little niggle is that while the characters are all cel-shaded and beautiful, the rest of the graphics are just standard polygon fare. I personally would have liked to see every wall/floor/object cel-shaded. The only time this is really a bad thing is when a statue comes to life. First, he's just an object in the room. Then when he starts to move, he's suddenly cel-shaded, with no real transition in between. It's pretty distracting.
The Bottom Line
I see my cons are longer than my pros, but overall I like this game.
If you remember blowing all your money on the coin-op version, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. The nostalgia factor is pretty high.
For other, younger gamers, the game is pretty and it's not a bad third-person dungeon-crawl, but there are lots of better ones available.
Bring on Space Ace 3D!
By Atomic Punch! on May 18, 2003