Oolon
Reviewer - OolonSitting around waiting for the end of day on friday was hard, would the game arrive? Would it be Show Jumping with Barbie? Fortunately my better half was home in the afternoon, so she called me to tell me what the game was. I have to admit to be very pleased with the result, the game in question has been widely advertised on the as a header for a TV show. It looked interesting but being a contraian in nature I try to actively resist advertising. Now I don't have to! I do now have to resist looking up anything able the game online fortunately the only thing I know about this one is from the TV ads.
After a fight to install the game, I fired it up and was thrown into the prelude, where you are a man on a jetpack, I was bouncing off invisible walls and into the side of cannons hitting nothing and dying lots. At that point I thought, no way was I going to enjoy 3 hours of this and it seemed utterly unplayable. Fortunately for me that section seems to be time limited so it moved on after a while. I might still have been there otherwise. The first first land missions are a bit dull as you have to find out the "right way" to do things. Mostly they are there to train the player, and they do a good job, later on the player gets to choice how to do things, jet-pack or climb. This can make the game some what of a slow burner. Its good Zak33 put a 3 hour mininum on the game as I can see why people would abandon it early on.
Good Points
* Upgradable weapons, tech points mean the player picks which to upgrade, these tech points are quote hard to get the required number meaning the user has to think about what to upgrade.
* Some fun mini-games, I particularly like the boarding saucer mini-game, that gets a controllable flying ship!
* Cover functions and climbing under objects is rather good, hover and float work rather well allowing for large jumps to be made.
* Some of the protection missions can be very hard as there is an effective time limit on them, requiring the player to go on an all out attack rather thn hiding and waiting.
* Missions are very varied fly/ground exploration/killing the boss(es). Protecting the Ark from the Arcons is particularly challenging being a time limited, 3 boss killing flying mission.
* I like the "style" of the game being fast past-alternative future genre works well for me.
* Have to choice your weapons you can only carry 2 of 6.
* Game works well at 1920x1200, on a i7 with a 4890 graphics card, so should work well on most people hardware pairings.
* No bugs so far in the game making it impossible to continue, rock solid in coding, a credit to the developers. (it is all to common to release buggy games that require updating).
Click for larger imageBad Points
* The installer (copied the files off using linux and installed from the network).
* Mission based play, limits the amount of playable time in the game having played a day I have already completed over 2/3rds of the game.
* Human weapsons are special interest, as ammo is not dropped for them (via kills), and you can only carry two weapons so its best to stick to the enemy ones.
* Linear structure to missions, particularly object traversal where you need to work out the right way to do a mission.
* Jet Pack too fast to control on small maps, only has three speeds fast, very fasts and ouch I hit the wall again.
* Saving the game check points and autosaves in episodes, making it impossible to go back an repeat things that have been performed badly, upgraded the wrong weapon etc.
* There are some "Tech Point" cheats in flying episodes, where repeating episodes can get you as many tech points as you like.
* Possible to complete some missions by running past everything to get to the checkpoint, rather than taking on the enemies.
* No onscreen heath level, and you "heal" to easily, only requiring a few seconds to recover full health.
* Some of the cut screen animations are a bit wooden remaining me of my days playing privateer. (These are only story related).
Conclusion
I am still playing the game and want to complete is it cannot be bad! This is not a game I would have normally gone as I normally go for free form games, so its nice to play a mission based one once in a while. I am not sure I would pay full price for this game due to the limited playtime (thats probably just me), however it will provide a solid "Gaming" weekend of fun (and frustration). Sadly a few of my annoyances, means I can only give it a 6 out of 10, it so easily could have been higher. Perhaps in Dark Void II?
Oolon scores - 6/10