Total Chaos! (The Chaos Engine (PC))

Member Name: kylecoare

Product:	The Chaos Engine (PC)
Date:	23/10/03 (176 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good action , old school blasting, quite big

Disadvantages: bit dated, quite difficult

CHAOS ENGINE
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Well here we go again with some more old school gaming.
This game was made my The Bitmap Brothers, the people behind the classic Speedball series of games, along with others. It was first released on the Amiga and the 16bit consoles, this version was released shortly afterwards, in 1993, and doesn't offer anything new over the Amiga version.

This is a action game in the style of Gauntlet and Alien Breed, in the respect that you view the action from above and you shoot a lot of things with big guns!
But this does seem to have more depth than Gauntlet.

The story goes that some scientist has caused a bit of a problem by sending a computer into the past, this computer then turned against its maker and wants to kill everything on the planet!
Typical, computers are such bad things, I would never use one!
Anyway, luckily for the human race there is a group of mercenaries that don't have anything else to do, so they offer to take on the might of the CHAOS ENGINE!

Okay so its a cheesy plotline, but you cant have everything.

GAMEPLAY
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When you first start the game you are given the choice of a 1 or 2 player game.
So for the sake of arguments we are playing a 1 player game, after this you are given the choice of 6 mercenaries, each with different skills and abilities.
Here you must pick two of these, as you will be partnered on your mission by a computer controlled mercenary as well!

When picking your character, you will notice that each one has different stats for certain abilities, now this isn't an rpg, but it has got a bit of upgrading your character.

The different abilities are Skill, Stamina, Speed and Wisdom.
So if you want a strong hero, with more energy at the start then choose one with high stamina, if you want a fast hero that will dodge all the bullets then pick the one with high speed stats.
Simple really.


Each hero also has different weapons and extras, and when you start these will be quite weak, but as you progress through the game you will get opportunities to upgrade your kit.

So once you've picked your hero, then you should pick one for the computer, its a good idea to look at the Wisdom stat here, as this shows how clever the guy is going to be.

Once you've picked your two players its into the game, the first thing you will notice is how fast it feels, at first it does seem too fast, but after a few goes it is just about right.

The idea of the game is to get from one end of a map to a door at the other end, along the way you need to activate some special nodes, this is simply done by shooting them, each level has a certain number of these that need activating.

The action is viewed from above the players, this helps to actually see where all the enemies are, and you will need to see them because there are loads, and they are quite quick.

As you run around you notice that the computer controlled player really is helping you, just like a friend would if they were playing, this makes a change for a game to have a well controlled computer good guy.

Sometimes your computer will kill the enemies and let you collect the loot or sometimes it will stand back a bit and let you get on with it, its quite a nice touch.

Whenever you kill a monster, they drop some treasure, which stays on screen for about 5 seconds, and you really want to try to collect as much of this as possible.

Along the way their are lots of secret areas, these can be found by collecting gold keys, or by picking up a ring.
Sometimes these areas lead to a different node, which gives you a secret exit to the level.
Or sometimes they just lead to power-ups, etc.

The levels all have a fair amount of power-ups, such as energy and guns, but there is also your special ability, to top this up you must collect
little bottles.
This ability is different for each person and depending on your skill level.
There is one person that can bring up a map, one that can heal people, one carries explosives etc.
These abilities, and all of the secrets make this a much detailed game than Gauntlet.

After every two levels, you get a chance to cash in the treasure that you have collected, you can buy extra lives. Or you can upgrade your player, by adding to your stats.
Or you can buy a better gun.
You can only get better if you increase you skill stat first, else your character wont know what to do when you give him a great big gun!

This is one of the best ideas I've seen in a game of this type, it gives so much more depth and atmosphere, as you have to spend your money wisely to get your player into a good condition to take on the enemy.

The difficulty of the levels is a bit high though, and as you only get a password every 4th level, you find yourself replaying the first few levels, a lot of times before you get the hang of the game.

The game has four worlds, each world has four levels, so in total there are 16 levels, which doesn't sound like many but they are very well sized and will take quite a while to complete.

As well as the one player mode, there is also a two player game, which is pretty much the same.
But obviously it is a lot of fun playing with a friend, and it has quite a competitive nature as your both trying to get the treasure and power ups as only one of you can have them.


GRAPHICS
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As this was released in 1993 they are not going to be as good as what we are used to in this day and age.
That doesn't mean they are bad though, in fact they offer a nice bit of atmosphere, with a lot of metallic colours and futuristic looking environments.

But in the end of the day, if graphics is all you want from a game then you probably wont want this.
r>OVERALL
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This is one of those games that really is hard to put down, you will find yourself saying "one more go" on so many occasions.

Because there are 6 different characters the game is still quite playable even if you've finished it.
Because you can play with more of a challenge.

A must try. This is also being released for the Gameboy Advanced, so even if you cant find the PC version then at least its out for the handheld Nintendo.

The game should be available from certain abandonware sites, or for sale at the Bitmap Brothers web site.
Should be fairly cheap.

Thanks for reading.
Kyle