Chaser

Rating:
Summary: Chasing Greatness
Review: As you might expect, I love great computer games-especially shooters. Games like Unreal and Quake II have taken me to amazing worlds that I love to visit time and again. Sadly, the great games seem to be getting scarce. Sure, the newer games never looked better, but they just seem to be bogged down by problems like poor save systems and "innovative" gameplay that is more annoying than refreshingly different.

Last fall I thought I finally found a new game that I could call great-Chaser. Few will deny that Chaser is a great looking shooter with good weapons and some awesome levels. It resembles Half-Life in many ways and often betters it in a lot of places. I really loved this games in the earlier parts, but as it wore on, the warts started to show and left me frustrated.

Perhaps the part of the game that really made me aware that pursuing greatness for this game amounted to chasing its tail (forgive the pun) was the underwater level. In this level you pilot a small sub through a sunken shipwreck. Your way is lighted by yellow lights that change to blue as you pass through them. The level looks very nice, buy you have no way to renew your health or armor which is repeatedly worn away by turrets that fire at you. You can destroy the turrets with your weapons, but I found that the alternate fire is almost useless, and if you don't rely solely on your primary fire, then get ready to look at that load screen! But even worse is that this level is huge and very difficult to navigate. Once you get through it you breathe a sigh of relief only to realize that the next level is more of the same. Uggh!

Another problem is that Chaser requires you to crawl through some tight places in which you need to find just the right combination of jumping, crouching, and forward movement. You can end up spending many frustrating minutes that seem like hours trying to get through these places. Why Chaser's developers seem to think such ordeals are fun is beyond me.

Chaser's combat seems to have been developed so as not to be too easy, and it seems to be well balanced in the first half of the game or so. However, from there it gets very difficult. In many places you get killed by being hit just once! It's as if the developers decided after finishing half of the game that it was too easy and decided to make up for it in the latter half by making it much more difficult.

Finally, Chaser seems to be a bit of a resource hog. It often locked up on me, and my computer is no wimp. I'm using a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB RAM and a 128 MB Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card. I believe the problem might result from the CD. The "hiccups" I experienced often seemed to coincide with the CD audibly spinning in the drive.

You don't know how much I wanted to give this game a higher score. There's no doubt that it truly excels in many places, but the sore spots simply drag it down. I almost wish somebody would "modify" the game by taking all that crap out. However, that doesn't seem likely, and Chaser ends up as the great game that wasn't.

Rating:
Summary: Chasing Greatness
Review: As you might expect, I love great computer games-especially shooters. Games like Unreal and Quake II have taken me to amazing worlds that I love to visit time and again. Sadly, the great games seem to be getting scarce. Sure, the newer games never looked better, but they just seem to be bogged down by problems like poor save systems and "innovative" gameplay that is more annoying than refreshingly different.

Last fall I thought I finally found a new game that I could call great-Chaser. Few will deny that Chaser is a great looking shooter with good weapons and some awesome levels. It resembles Half-Life in many ways and often betters it in a lot of places. I really loved this games in the earlier parts, but as it wore on, the warts started to show and left me frustrated.

Perhaps the part of the game that really made me aware that pursuing greatness for this game amounted to chasing its tail (forgive the pun) was the underwater level. In this level you pilot a small sub through a sunken shipwreck. Your way is lighted by yellow lights that change to blue as you pass through them. The level looks very nice, buy you have no way to renew your health or armor which is repeatedly worn away by turrets that fire at you. You can destroy the turrets with your weapons, but I found that the alternate fire is almost useless, and if you don't rely solely on your primary fire, then get ready to look at that load screen! But even worse is that this level is huge and very difficult to navigate. Once you get through it you breathe a sigh of relief only to realize that the next level is more of the same. Uggh!

Another problem is that Chaser requires you to crawl through some tight places in which you need to find just the right combination of jumping, crouching, and forward movement. You can end up spending many frustrating minutes that seem like hours trying to get through these places. Why Chaser's developers seem to think such ordeals are fun is beyond me.

Chaser's combat seems to have been developed so as not to be too easy, and it seems to be well balanced in the first half of the game or so. However, from there it gets very difficult. In many places you get killed by being hit just once! It's as if the developers decided after finishing half of the game that it was too easy and decided to make up for it in the latter half by making it much more difficult.

Finally, Chaser seems to be a bit of a resource hog. It often locked up on me, and my computer is no wimp. I'm using a 3 GHz Pentium 4 with 512 MB RAM and a 128 MB Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card. I believe the problem might result from the CD. The "hiccups" I experienced often seemed to coincide with the CD audibly spinning in the drive.

You don't know how much I wanted to give this game a higher score. There's no doubt that it truly excels in many places, but the sore spots simply drag it down. I almost wish somebody would "modify" the game by taking all that crap out. However, that doesn't seem likely, and Chaser ends up as the great game that wasn't.

Rating:
Summary: Great Shooter
Review: Chaser is a great shooter without numerous flaws. It boasts good graphics, an engaging storyline and authentic weapons. All of those are true. The 1 player mode has 23 differnet levels and 73 different types of enemies to kill. The game also has online multiplyer capabilites. Different mods such as Counter-Strike, Shock Troopers, Deathmatch and Capture the flag are waiting to be played. I believe that there are about 15 differnt weapons, most with seconary fire modes. The only flaw in this game is that it was rushed, therefore there are a few glitches. There are a few walls that can be passed through, although it is harder to ge into them than it might seem. Also, very very few hacks are there. Some hacks allow you to fly (my favorite).

Graphics: 4.5 / 5
1 Player Depth: 5 /5
Online Features: 4.5 / 5
Gameplay: 4.5 / 5

OVERALL: 4.5 / 5

Rating:
Summary: Bargain bin only
Review: Chaser is a pretty ordinary shooter that borrows heavily from lots of other shooters. VERY heavily. It's about as original as the no-name brand Cheerios ripoffs that you find at Krogers, and it sometimes almost collapses under the weight of its many cliches. It also has a handful of huge, long, mind-numbingly repetitive levels that are a chore to play through. Nevertheless, it manages to be a decent game, largely because it has a great engine, huge levels, lots of gameplay, some cool scenery, a decent story, and lots of powerful and cool-looking weapons.

Within the first two hours of playing the game, you will recognize every standard FPS convention in the book. Scripted enemies popping through doors as you approach them, conveniently-located vents to get around locked doors, amnesia as a storyline, and even bullet-time (called "adrenaline mode" here, it actually works pretty good). Enemies have pretty simple routines for attacking you -- they either rush right at you or duck back and forth behind cover. Enemy voice samples are pretty bad, and they repeat themselves ad nauseum (lowlife thugs and Mafia suits have the same "Woooeee" yell -- it's pretty bad). The game relies heavily on scripted "ambushes" to add difficulty to the game, and that gets quite annoying or downright frustrating. But the game's biggest fault by far are the horribly bland design of some of the early levels, which drag on for as much as an hour, but throw no variety at you. Picture the Halo library over and over again.

But Chaser rewards you if you stick with it, because the levels start getting a lot better about halfway through. There is a "defend the base" mission, a sniper cover mission, and a couple of other wildcards that help change the pace a bit. The game's Russia missions and Mars missions look very impressive -- the Cloak Engine is quite an acheivement and it has the ability to create massive outdoor areas as well as large indoor areas with cool lighting. And when the shootouts are good, they are really great. The weapons look and sound excellent, and every room seems to have glass breaking all over the place. There are about 20 big levels in the game, and that gives it a lot of value for an FPS.

Chaser can keep you occupied, but it never totally captivates you. Chaser is definitely not a bad game, but it's probably one that you want to pick up in the bargain bin.

Rating:
Summary: boring
Review: Chaser was boring enough that I stopped playing after a few hours. The whole thing is all the same... run and gun, run and gun, run and gun. Which in itself isn't all that bad, but the game is marred by several technical and design flaws.

Although the graphics are nice enough, they suffer from occasional clipping. Also, I don't know why games don't make better use of "curved" polygons... they've been around since Quake 3, and in this game, seeing, for example, cars with polygon wheels is really just an eyesore.

Gameplay is mostly clean and simple, but sometimes getting from one place to another is irritating, because the jump control is somehow badly designed. So, you often jitter around and get stuck when trying to jump from one place small area to another. I managed to get completely stuck once, so that I have to reload from a savegame. There's an adrenaline feature, similar to bullet time in Max Payne, but not as fun. There's a few twists and puzzles here and there, but they're just an excuse to make the game longer, and end up being more irritating than fun.

Perhaps the most irritating thing about the game is the long, drawn out, and ultimately useless cutscenes. I often got the feeling that the designers were using the cutscenes to show off the graphics engine. Except, it's really not nice enough to show off, so it just got boring.

As far as gameplay is concerned, Chaser would have been a decent game to play... five years ago. These days, one expects more from an FPS.

Rating:
Summary: What an awesome looking FPS game !!!!!
Review: First of all, those who are claiming that this game is either boring or not entertaining probably aren't true FPS gamers.In addition these people really need to take their meds. Finding myself at the electronics store I decided to pick this game up to try...and low and behold when I finally did try it....man was I blown away....I've tried a handful of FPS games and I can honestly say that Chaser has without a doubt the best graphics and playability of any I've seen. Character movement is smooth, clean with only an occassional minor glitch( who cares? ) and the game definitely has an immersive story line to boot. In my oppinion, where this game really shines in the multiplayer arena.
Weapons are numerous,lifelike and just plain awesome!!! One of my favorite aspects of the game is your ability to choose from an assortment of cool looking characters to play in addition to various multiplayer modes. Don't believe the negative commments, for a true good old fashioned frag fest in stunning realistic ggraphics, CHASER is simply exciting !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: OMG its 2003 get with it
Review: From the get go, this game really stinks. First of all we had to take this game back TWO times to get a working version. Finally we got one that worked. After the install it was very boring and very cliche.
Problems:
--Its the same Scenery or 'tiles' for the whole entire level your on, like they just copied and pasted all the hallways, objects etc.
--AI is horrible
--You CANNOT lean! sorry you must play like your a box, most FPS especially MPs have this function, why run around a dangerous corner when you can peek, why walk out in the open when you can lean out from some cover? Bad bad

You can best sum this game up by digging up some very low budget and ancient FPS and give a little- and I mean little better graphics and there you have this game. Dont waste your money on this one guys.
I enjoy Battlefield 1942, SOF1, SOF2, HalfLife - Chaser does not even come close to enjoyment. Save your money or wait a few weeks for this one to go into the bargain bin.

Rating:
Summary: Great Shooter
Review: Here is a small list of what is wrong with this game and what fun awaits you in you play it:

The graphics are out of date.
The textures repeat so often it feels like the game is set in one location.
The mood of the game is as much fun as a empty warehouse.
The story is a mess and feels like a 14 year old watched Total Recall a few too many times.
The voice acting will make you giggle and roll your eyes.
Your name in the game is "Chaser"?!
The wepons are boring and we have seen them all before.
The in game movies are boring and too long at times.
The level design is crap with death waiting at every ladder, hole or tiny little crevass.
Many times you will get stuck becuase you have not triggered the next part of the map.
Maps are long, boring and as lifeless.
Eneimes all say the same things, in the same voice, on every level.
You face the same enimies on almost evey map.
Bad guys can pop into any level wherever it suited the game designers.

Perhaps the wost part is the game is no fun at all. Clearing a map has no sense of satifaction. After 5 maps you could care less about the story as you trudge thru this boring game.

If your smart, avoid this game. Unless your a 14 year old fan of Total Recall.

Rating:
Summary: As exciting as a box of bricks
Review: Here is a small list of what is wrong with this game and what fun awaits you in you play it:

The graphics are out of date.
The textures repeat so often it feels like the game is set in one location.
The mood of the game is as much fun as a empty warehouse.
The story is a mess and feels like a 14 year old watched Total Recall a few too many times.
The voice acting will make you giggle and roll your eyes.
Your name in the game is "Chaser"?!
The wepons are boring and we have seen them all before.
The in game movies are boring and too long at times.
The level design is crap with death waiting at every ladder, hole or tiny little crevass.
Many times you will get stuck becuase you have not triggered the next part of the map.
Maps are long, boring and as lifeless.
Eneimes all say the same things, in the same voice, on every level.
You face the same enimies on almost evey map.
Bad guys can pop into any level wherever it suited the game designers.

Perhaps the wost part is the game is no fun at all. Clearing a map has no sense of satifaction. After 5 maps you could care less about the story as you trudge thru this boring game.

If your smart, avoid this game. Unless your a 14 year old fan of Total Recall.

Rating:
Summary: Old school FPS, in a shiny new wrapper.
Review: I got my hands a beta full version. Playing single player is very entertaining. I am running a Radeon 9800 Pro and can say that this is one the most visually pleasing games I have ever played. In our LAN's, the people running GF2 cards have had no trouble running it.

In multiplayer, I have only played "ShockTroops" which is nearly a carbon copy of CounterStrike with the missions, earning of money, and the purchasing of weapons. I have been sharing this beta in our LAN's and it has been well received. This is one of the few games that I own where the singleplayer and multiplayer gameplay are equally fun.

I think I will be buying this when it is released so that I can get a manual. Easily worth the [$$].

If FPS is your game, then don't pass this one up.

~Falcon~