Is it really worth it? (Daikatana (PC))

Member Name: Mechman68

Product:	Daikatana (PC)
Date:	18/08/01 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 24 weapons, Later levels bearable, Has a quit option

Disadvantages: AI abysmal, Anchent Engine, Early levels Annoying, + many more

Over the last few months of 1997, there was a disturbing amount of hype and information regarding a game called Daikatana. It was the centre of attention for a few months because it was being developed by John Romero, the main person behind the legandary DOOM series. But as time went on, more and more information began to come under the heading 'Slippage'. The game seemed to never arrive. Then it did. After reading the reviews of the game and noting the awful scores I installed the demo, and actually quite liked the game. I then purchaced the registered version. Hmm.. somethings not right here?

The games plot runs something like this. You play 'Hiro Myamoto' a normal guy who teaches kids to sword fight and you are aproached by an old bloke who tells you about a magical time-traveling sword (getting the pattern here) which was graphted by your ancestors. Unfortunately the sword has been found by someone evil, Karge Mishima, who has used the swords power for personal gain. You are given the charge of retreving the sword and using its powers to defeat the EVIL Mishima.

The game itself is split into 4 time zones or episodes which carry on after one another, and each episode has its own unique collection of 6 weapons and unique enemies.
On the surface the game has some apealling qualities. The later levels are well constructed and fun to play and there is a dissying amount of weapons avalible, 24 thoughout the game. The diversety of some of the enemies is good, and the level of difficulty is well balanced at different levels.

There are however a few too many negative things about this game. Please bear in mind I am only listing the very worst things here, as if i was to list them all this opinion would run into several large libraries. The engine this game is based on is VERY old. Being based on Quake 2 technology it is dated and really shows it. The Quake 2 engine has done us proud in the past but here and
now it should be in a grave somewhere. If the game had not been shipped so late it would have been acceptable but compaired to the engines it was compeating with (Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament) it lookes old and clumsy. And whats more, the engine being as old as it is you would think that would solve lots of system requirement problems, but the game runs slowly on a Pentium 2 450 with a 16 MB voodoo 3!!!

The AI of the enemies is right out of DOOM, where by the enemies will run straight at you until they can attack at the slightest provacation. The later levels are pretty good but the first few levels are SO irritating that I would be suprised if there are more than 10 people who had got to the later levels in the country. The enemies are small, hard to hit and the weapons almost always hurt you at close range. The dragonfly type robots are even more irriting and they fly at you in huge numbers and cause LOADS of damage. The loading junctions are also evily placed. Other FPS games give you an air lock or a 2 doored corridor for the loading. This game does them practically in the middle of combat. What is worse is that, more often than not, there are loads of enemies just after one, so you naturally walk backwards while fighting and enter the loading warp again.

You may think that that is the end, but oh no. The developers have added 2 things to the game in an attempt to advance the genre. The first is the SAVE CRYSTAL system. It is obviously an attempt to make players think about when to save and to take risks. But the crystals are SO rare for the first half of the game that you rely on the auto save made at level junctions. This system is suited to console games with limited save space, but it is just an annoyance on PC games.

The other big addition is that of SIDEKIKS. These are a pair of characters that acompany you for the most part of the game and you can interact with like NPCs in any good RPG game. However, th
e level of interaction is limited to say the least. You can give about 4 different orders (follow, attack, stop, get item) and the AI that controlles them is below that of an ameiba. They only follow orders after being asked about 10 times, they will sometimes attack with bezerker rage running into combat against insane odds, and other times will run away and hide in a bushel, they frequently get stuck on the celing or on eachothers heads, they cannot negotiate the simplest terrain deviations, they will stand still while some freezing nitrogen merrily sucks the life out of them when one step foward would releave the agonny. Worst of all they must be present at every loading warp and if one dies, game over man! They excibit the intellegence of an inebreated plancton, who has got a want to make friends with a large shark.

I believe that if this game had been released when it should have, it would have been better recieved. The engine would have been acceptable, the AI forgivable and the irritating early levels would be the most serious downfall. As it is, there is little way to say how bad this game really is, and I think it would be more senseble to go out and spend several million pounds buying a race horse, and then shooting it. It would be more fun, and a slightly better waste of money.

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