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GAME REVIEWED: Dark Vengance
RELEASED BY: GT Interactive
PRICE: £29.99
REVIEWED BY: G-String
REVIEW: -
This is an adventure fantasy game from GT Interactive. You are somebody who wants to get revenge on the 'dark elves', and so you have to kill a lot of them, and solve puzzles while doing so. Before I tell you what I think of it, here's the gist of the story.
There was a time when the moon slowly eclipsed the sun. Thousands were watching. Thousands were cheering and toasting. But after several hours, the moon did not move. Then, hordes of vile gray demons washed over the land, slaying and massacring. These dark elves had been banished some centuries ago as they were not very nice indeed. Over time, the story became a myth, and no one believed it, even though it was so rare that no one ever heard it, but anyway... There are three characters to chose from, Nanoc the Gladiator, Kite the Trickster and Jetrel the Warlock. All of which have their own story for getting revenge on the dark elves in one way or another. I won't bother getting into that.
The storyline is not really what I like because I am not a fantasy game kind of person, but I will not let that affect my judgement. The first thing I found with the game is that it is very hard to control what you're doing. It takes hours of practise to move smoothly. You see the characters a la Tomb Raider style. Which I'm not a fan of. The weapons though are fantastic. The Gladiator uses big, axes, hammers, claws, spears etc. The Trickster uses knives, cyclones, fire, ice, crosses, acid etc. The Warlock uses spells, vampire staffs, storms, lightning etc. The weapons are incredibly well detailed and are fun to use. Even though it is hard to do anything useful with them.
In Dark Vengeance, the graphics are very good. There are not the best I have seen, but they are up there near the top of the list. The characters are well drawn and move quite realistically. When you're hit by a dark elf, the part of the body that's hit becomes sore. You can see this on the character itself. Depending on where they were hit and how hard they were hit. It is very realistic, and this shows how good the graphics are.
The sound effects and music were up to scratch. The music is typical, as far as I know, and the sound effects are pretty scary with the sound turned up full. they make you jump cos they're so horrible. Ugh. The characters not only have weapons, but they have uniques as well. these can be weapons or spells depending on a lot of things that I won't bore you with. The weapons themselves can increase in power with 'mana'. This you find lying about just like health power ups etc. The enemies are amazingly clever. The AI (artificial intelligence) is up to a high standard, as we've seen with half-life. There are over 25 different enemies in this, not including the "bosses". Each is well detailed and incredible to watch.
The game's playability varies, depending on what mood you're in. You need to play this for a good few hours at a time. It's not a game that you can just play while you've got a spare ten minutes. This, in a way is a bad point, because not all of us gamers can sit down for two solid hours in front of one game (unless you're benefiting from it, like me!). The controls are fairly simple to master, but I prefer to use a joypad to play, rather than the keyboard. I used the ProPad 6 from Interact while playing this. Mainly because Dark Vengeance needed at least six buttons. I kept the keyboard out, just so I could open doors by hitting space.
To tell you the truth, I wasn't really impressed with the game. Although the graphics were good, the style of game and the characteristics of it were not so original. They crop up in quite a few games that I've seen. Nevertheless, the graphics do play an important part in creating an atmosphere. Overall, I'd say this is a must for fantasy adventure gamers, but it's not useful at all for the rest of us.
SCORE:
84%
MINIMUM HARDWARE REQUIRED:
CPU: 166+
RAM: 16MB
50MB HD Space
3D Card
Windows 98\95\NT
LINKS: www.gtgames.com www.dark-vengance.com