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Terracide (PS)
by Hannard Flash Gordon, Luke Skywalker, Earthworm Jim - just some of the supposed super-heroes credited with saving the universe from destruction. Yet there is one little-known hero, whose praises have gone unsung - a man whose universe-saving exploits have, admittedly, come about due to general incompetence rather than any concerted effort on his ... part - a man by the name of Shoddy Bob. Who? Well, Shoddy Bob is owner and manager of Shoddy Bob's Intergalactic Building Co. - suppliers of battlestations and heavy weaponry to the breathlessly evil. His company has been responsible for building all manner of death-dealing machinery - except that these supposedly indestructible craft always end up with some fatal flaw or other. Take one of Bob's most infamous construction to date - the Death Star. As Bob put it - 'Okay, I could reinforce that exhaust port for yer, but it'd put the cost right up - it weren't in me original estimate. Sounds like you've got a nasty case of asthma there - I'd see a doctor about that if I were you.' The rest is history. Now once again, Shoddy Bob's handiwork is in evidence, this time in - Terracide. A horde of cybernetically altered ex-colonists have returned to Earth in a fleet of huge heavily armed ships. Things don't look good - but all is not lost. Thanks to Bob's corner-cutting and slightly dodgy design, each ship in the invading fleet can be destroyed of in one particular way - by flying a small fighter into each ship, and shutting it down from the inside. Trouble is, there's only one fighter fast enough and well armed enough to do this - and you're the one who gets to fly it. Terracide bears more than a passing resemblance to the Descent games - each level has you flying through the corridors of the ships, triggering switches and blowing away the robotic baddies who get in your way. Initially armed with only a slow firing laser gun, you pick up more powerful weapons as you go along, along with other power-ups. One of Terracide's interesting features, is that your craft has three gun mountings, each of which can hold a different weapon. Unfortunately, you can't fire them all at once, as you'd expect to be able to. Instead, you can only fire each weapon separately, which makes the triple gun arrangement pretty much useless. You'll probably spend most of the game using just the one weapon. Another flaw is that all the weapons except the laser gun use the same ammo pool. Therefore you're not forced to use any particular weapon sparingly - something that definitely doesn't do Terracide's playability any good. Infestation of horses The levels themselves are pretty similar - there's not much variety between them, which is definitely not a good thing. It's a case of flying along one long corridor, flicking a switch, flying along another long corridor and so on. Trouble is, there's no real tension in the game at all - you seldom run into more than two slowly moving baddies at a time. Descent 2, filled with not only corridors, caverns, rivers and more, is quite happy to throw huge numbers of baddies at you at a time. Plus Descent 2 has a clever way of pouring on the tension - at the end of each level, when you blow up the level's reactor or destroy a boss, the self destruct sequence is initiated - you then have about thirty seconds to make your way to the exit before the mines go critical. In Terracide, there's a bit where you shut down a ship's reactors and a message appears warning you that you have to escape before the reactor blows. Except there's no countdown so you can go as slowly as you want - you can grab a drink, watch telly, go out, and when you come back, nothing will have happened at all. This lack of action or excitement is typical of Terracide - making it a very dull game indeed. The collision detection in Terracide is also suspect - sometimes rockets travel through walls, and the actual ship collision detection is dodgy too. You can be sure that you've got enough room to clear an obstacle but no, you somehow mysteriously hit it. One case in point is a bit where there are three laser barriers - if you switch to the external view, you can pilot your ship through them - you can see that you clear them by miles. But the program can't see that - you still take damage. This is one major cock-up, and one that crops up quite a bit. This is the final nail in Terracide's coffin - a game that's incredibly mediocre, boring, and generally pointless. The Descent games beat it hands down in virtually every department. (review by me, originally posted on GamesDomain) Read the complete review |
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H.E.D.Z. (PS)
by Hannard 'Originality - what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.' That appears to be the view of many programming teams and software companies, who seem content to latch onto successful games releases and then churn out clones of the aforementioned quality games, adding little to the genre. And then they actually manage to be surprised when their ... games fail to make a splash. It seems that software companies just aren't prepared to risk investing in original concepts - even some big name programming houses, previously known for their innovation (you know who you are), seem to be taking the 'safe' route and producing sequels to their previous releases. The industry is becoming stale and lifeless and colourless - we're doomed I tell you, Or are we? Because, having played Hedz from Hasbro (of Go-Bots fame) and Vis Interactive, it has proved originality isn't dead - just a little poorly. Vis have taken the 3D shoot-em-up genre, covered it in brightly coloured paint and plied it with huge quantities of mind-altering substances to produce this bizarre game. The basic premise of Hedz is that a race of purple aliens, the Hedz, with grins wider than the Joker, have discovered a new sport - Head-hunting. This entails heading (pun very much intended) off to earth in their B-movie style saucers, and kidnapping a variety of people and creatures throughout time, stealing their heads. They then don these heads, acquiring any special abilities the abductees may have possessed, using them to battle other Hedz in a series of specially built arenas - nothing in the least bit strange about that. Unusually, you don't play a rogue human who has escaped from the Hedz' clutches and is trying to escape to safety, as you would in any other game. Instead, you're cast as one of the alien Hedz, with the aim of beating all the other Hedz to with the grand prize in the Hedz' tournament. The game can be loosely described as a platform shoot-em-up since you have to make your way through a variety of 3D platform-filled arenas blowing away your foes. But to dismiss Hedz as just another Mario clone would be selling the game short. There's a big strategy element involved in the game - you have to decide which head to wear in which situation, and how best to use the heads at your disposal to kick your enemies stupid purple faces in. Should you have any qualms about using human heads in your quest to become number one, don't - it's all in the name of sport. You start the game with five free heads, which you can switch between at any time, and each of which endows you with a special ability. Donning a head may give you the ability to throw axes, zoom around in a mini tank, ice skate, or blow away your opponents with a pair of uzis. Unfortunately for you, the enemy Hedz have access to the same abilities and stand between you and the end of the level, and will do their best to remove your heads from your shoulders. The heads that you carry can only take a certain amount of damage before they become 'deadheads', fly off you, and can no longer be used. If you lose all your heads then you're beamed out of the level and you have to start all over again. If you manage to rid your opponents of their heads, they will be beamed out, and if you can stop them stealing back their deadheads before they leave the arena, you can claim these new heads for your own personal use. These heads are stored in your backpack and can be reactivated by the use of 'zedz', the Hedz money. Zedz are earned by picking up the zed tokens scattered around the levels or by picking up a duplicate of a head that you already have in your inventory. Even if you consider yourself a top notch gamesplayer, it's still worth keeping a good few zedz around just in case you get ganged up on by a whole mob of Hedz (something that does happen from time to time). There are a huge number of heads to be collected, far more than I can be bothered to count, and any heads in your backpack at the end of a level are stored in your headcase from which you can select the five heads you take into a level. I generally choose the Uzi Head, who can blow away most of the hedz in the game; the Bomb Head who fires mortars high into the air (useful for taking out enemies at a distance); the Gangster or German trooper heads, giving me plenty of spare firepower in case I lose the Uzi head; the Stupid G.I. head, whose shield is handy for seeing off long range enemy attacks; and finally, the Doctor head, handy for undoing any battle damage my heads might take. As you progress through the game, you get access to other more powerful heads - one of the most useful, in a pre-emptive sense, is the Mad Scientist head which comes complete with the ability to guide a camera remotely around the level, spying on enemy positions. But if you were planning on just picking the Uzi Trooper or any other head with a big gun, charging in and mowing down the opposition, I've got news for you, because in Hedz, things don't work that way. The thing is, each head, as well as having a life 'bar' (I say bar, but it's more of a circle), has an energy meter which ticks away when you use that head's ability - so you'll need to pause to recharge your energy meter. The enemy Hedz abilities are subject to this restriction too, although there is a strange quirk here in the game - the heads' energy meter only recharges once all its energy has been used up, so you can't half use the energy of a head and then have it recharge while you use another head. The level design in Hedz is rather funky - the levels look good, hold plenty of secrets, and get progressively tougher as you go through the game. Each level contains (it says here) a powerful head which can only be found by using one of your existing heads in a special way. On top of that, there are secret zedz to be found which will come in handy when you're taking on your opponents. The levels are pretty varied, and you'll find yourself making your way through all manner of areas including a city, a military training camp and a kids playground. You do have to wipe out most of the enemy Hedz to make your way through the level since some carry special star power-ups which, when collected, open doors allowing you to progress deeper into the level. The downside to this, and number two in the 'Annoying Quirks' series is that while this is happening the camera is focused on the opening door - this shows you where the door is, but it also gives the enemy Hedz time to nick the deadheads before being beamed out. Speaking of annoying things, there's something that Hedz has in abundance, as well as originality, that detracts from the game somewhat. I'm talking about bugs. Hedz has been in development for quite some time so I was surprised to find that it was rather buggy. But while Hedz may have its fair share of bugs, it certainly says something about the game that the bugs weren't enough to put me off playing it. It's refreshing to see an original game once in a while, rather than the endless stream of clones that the software industry currently seems to favour. It looks rather funky too, although a 3D card is really needed to get it running at a decent rate. Hedz is extremely entertaining, and the various secrets which you can uncover and huge number of hedz you get to play with, as well as a multiplayer mode make it a game which you could find yourself coming back to again and again. Hedz is original and highly playable; as long as you can put up with the odd crash and buggy quirk, then you'll actually enjoy yourself. (review by me, originally posted on GamesDomain) Read the complete review |
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Surface Tension (PS)
by Hannard Before I get started, I'd like to make a few points about the use of video footage in games. First of all, it should be used sparingly, either inbetween missions, or in the case of an adventure game, whenever you perform certain actions. Secondly, it should never be used in place of gameplay as seen in Star Trek: Borg. Using FMV 'just ... because you can' is neither big nor clever. And finally, if you are using FMV footage, make sure you get some decent professional actors in, because if you insist on using your gran's cousin's daughter's sister, who can't act for toffee, you end up taking away rather than adding to the game's atmosphere. And the same applies to voice-overs. This lesson should be taken to heart by the folks at Compro. Why? Well, because their game, Surface Tension uses a fair amount of video footage, both in the intro sequence, and within the game itself, as well as giving you mission updates in the form of voice-overs. And they are, in general, cack. A quick glance at the credits section of the manual reveals that some folks credited with things like 'management', and 'sound tracks' also appear in the 'actors' section of the credits. Oh dear. For all I know, they may have had acting experience, but they must have had one hell of a off day. Even the girl who briefs you in the game sounds thoroughly bored with the whole affair. Not a good sign. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'd better explain a little about the plot first, which is particularly unremarkable. There is a particularly nasty virus doing the rounds on Earth, killing people off, and things aren't looking good. There is a cure, but it's on some far off moon, and is being monopolized by a big corporation. Funny that; by my estimation there must be about 951 of these giant corporations in the future, each intent on opressing, destroying, or controlling the entire universe in some way. Similarly, there has to be about 104 different 'lone pilots' ready to strap themselves into their experimental fighter-craft, and rise against these corporations. Why they never actually band together is a mystery to me. You of course play one of these pilots, attempting to ensure the safe passage of the cure to earth. 'I never wanted to be in this game, anyway.. I wanted to be a lumberjack..' This involves low-level flying around the surface of various planets, destroying enemy craft and bases, and gathering the odd pick-up. You have various weapons at your disposal, and your craft is protected by a shield system, which gradually recharges, but loses energy when you're hit. Take enough damage and you're toast. You also have at your disposal, a small probe which can be dropped and used to collect information and extra ammo.Complete your mission objectives, and it's on to the next level, where you do the same thing again. There's a slight problem, though. You see, Surface Tension is complete and utter rubbish. For a start, things are so repetitive. Shoot this, fly here, shoot this, fly here. Drop your probe, shoot this, fly here. That's if your probe actually works. Half of the time the game won't let you drop it because you are told you are 'too high'. Except that you can be sitting on the ground, and still get that same message. And that's on top of the whole repetiveness of the game. Then there's the graphics. The graphics are horifically blocky and blotchy. It's almost impossible to tell what an object is, until you're almost touching it, and even then it's not always clear. And you don't want to have to fly straight up to an enemy aircraft to identify it. Even the 'buildings' look like big brown hills, for flip's sake! And it's not just that this an old game - other games of the time had far better graphics. And the sound effects are no better. Apart from the aforementioned dodgy voice-overs, the sound effects are grating; hitting a ship results in a noise like someone slapping their hand against a pan. Not the game's best feature. The game doesn't have any redeeming features at all. This is the worst game I've played for quite a while. I could go on for ages about the game's faults, but I'll just say that Surface Tension is boring, repetitive, appalling dross, and you shouldn't even think about it. Next! (review by me, originally posted on GamesDomain) Read the complete review |
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