Gameplay, Combat and Controls
Mmmmm, health! | One thing I would like to make clear is that this game has no save function, but rather, a checkpoint system. If you heroically fight through a mass of enemies, only to fall down a flight of stairs and die, you will have to start over unless you find save marker. Often times, accompanying these markers are healing pools, or rather glowing puddles that your character will stick his sword into, and is magically healed.
There is a little bit of physics in the game; shooting a hanging body makes it swing and such. However, it does not get any better than that; running through heavy foliage with a burning torch does nothing. I also noticed something very alarming. Every monster that I killed, their bodies would suddenly be pulled through the ground (the model looks almost as if it were stretched as it went downward), leaving no trace of their existence. I do not know whether this was to spare themselves extra coding for dead bodies on the floor or if it is I swear I didn't take your wallet! | merely a bug. One thing is for sure; this is very sloppy looking. When being attacked by monsters, it gets pretty interesting. Sometimes they leap out of sarcophaguses, are just in plain sight, or teleport into the area with an orange glow, a la Doom 3.
The controls are pretty horrible. When fighting enemies that seem to know what they are doing, combat is quite frustrating. With the sword, it swings in a certain way whenever you click your attack key. Combined with the directional keys, the attack you do differs. Also, as you progress in the game, you are granted more combos for your sword. These take some practice to use. So in a sense, this game is sort of like Oni, the action-packed martial arts Hard to be stealthy with this glowing sword... | game where more and more combos are learned. However, the controls make combat quite frustrating. When attacking an enemy, it is very clumsy. Doing a seemingly well-timed combo to finish off an opponent can suddenly get interrupted. Fighting multiple enemies is usually a disaster, and is best resolved by taking advantage of the bad AI and its path-finding to fight them one by one. Other times, when on the defensive, blocking is clunky. For instance, once I was cornered by two knights, and I was hit by one of them. As I saw a second attack coming, I had time to get ready to block, but my character was unresponsive, and was pummeled to a bloody pulp.
Wish I had a jetpack... | Luckily, and as I mentioned before, there are guns in this game. Aiming is pretty straight forward, in which you are given a cross-hair in first-person view or an over-the-shoulder aim for third-person view. Guns are decently powerful; usually dropping monsters after a few shots. It is easy to reload, as all it requires is a simple right-click. However, one major downside I noticed was that you cannot shoot while running. Once I was retreating and decided to use my pistol to kill my pursuers. Unfortunately, it required me to stop to shoot, and the third-person over the shoulder view (in which your character takes up a bit of your screen) did not help me coordinate, and I became a pincushion.
Pushing boxes is so fun! Not. | Now that I have mentioned there being melee and ranged weapons, there is also another way of combat. Your character can turn into a demon (after the first few levels) and it is quite strong. It is both melee and ranged. Its melee attack is very strong, and usually kills enemy grunts in one or two hits. The demon can also hurl fireballs at the enemy. In addition, throughout the game there are glowing orbs to pick up that are accumulated, and eventually you will be able to â??spendâ?? these orbs on magic skills, which range from a wall of fire or temporary immortality for your demon. Now, the downside to all this power is that you gradually lose mana while in demon form, and once it hits rock bottom, you turn back into your human form. Attacking while in demon form speeds up this process. Also, the demon cannot jump. The funny thing is, there is yet another use for the demon. The game will require you to change into your demon form to...yes...push boxes and such that your human form cannot (and let me tell you, there is A LOT of box pushing).
My character suddenly wanting to bungee jump...without the bungee. | You can also take advantage of your environments, as walking near a ledge or jumping to a certain edge makes your character hang there. This is done automatically to your advantage, or in some cases, your disadvantage. For instance, I was fighting on a narrow bridge, with guard rails that were knee high. Upon entering combat with a foe, I was backed against such a rail, and my character decided it was a good idea to hop onto the rail and leap toward a career of being a pancake (see picture). In another instance, I was taking fire from a skeleton bowman, and when I ran toward cover and crouched, my super smart character decided to climb up onto my cover, defeating the whole purpose. |
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