Daikatana

Rating:
Summary: Installed the Game then Uninstalled the Game...
Review: Dont ever, ever buy this game! I knew it was going to be bad. So far this game beat the record for the shortest stay in my hard drive, even beating Trespasser by 2 days. A game that took 4 years to develop, well, you know something's not right. Lets start with the graphics. Really very dated OpenGL graphics. If this game came out 2 years ago, it would've been awesome. Interface: No In-Game save. Only way to say your progress is by picking up Save Gems. No Gems, no save. Control: Ok, so it's like any other first person shooter which is why I gave this game it's one and only star. AI: very very bad. Talk about having your AI teammates to back you up. You'll be saving them most of the time instead of them helping you. Also, there is a tendency that your artifical teammates to hit you by mistake. Story: just watch the old TV series "Time Tunnel". Overall: spend your money on another game.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding...2 years ago...
Review: Excelent weapons, nice graphics (yeah! I like DK graphics), good sound but poor sidekicks and low ingame originality.

Rating:
Summary: I've Got to Warn You...
Review: I wouldn't be a responsible person if I didn't warn you about this piece of trash. The game industry has obviously passed John Romero by and left him in the dust.

The graphics are primitive, though not awful. Water looks squarish and unrealistic. The color palette of most levels focuses too heavily on the monochromatic. There is a lot of variety in monsters and weapons, none of which are memorable or impressive.

But who cares what it looks like as long as the gameplay is fun? Unfortunately, this is the game's weakest point, as the developers at Ion Storm obviously mistook pointless frustration for fun.

Let's start with the save game system. Gone are the days of being able to save your game where you want. In Daikatana you must find "save crystals" to save your game. No crystal, no save. What this adds up to is tediously replaying the same boring parts of the game, or simply losing your progress when you need to leave the game and attend to other matters.

The inability to save anywhere might not have been so bad, but in Daikatana you'll find yourself dying frequently and pointlessly. Sidekicks walk right into danger, getting squished by closing doors, falling off cliffs, wandering into your line of fire, refusing to pick up health... If one of these braindead sidekicks dies, the game's over.

Some people applaud John Romero's attempt to add some story to the game. This would be better deserved if the story were any good. What we're given is instead a meandering string of overused clichés acted out by stereotypical (and often racially demeaning) characters that make those B-movie flops look like Oscar material. That's not a story.

Luckily there are good action games out there that DO succeed in telling original and gripping stories. My recommendations would be Half-Life or, my personal favorite, System Shock 2.

I've been playing computer games religiously for the past 20 years. Daikatana is the purchase I have most regretted during all that time.

Please listen, and don't waste your money!

Rating:
Summary: Save your money
Review: After all the years and all the hype I expected that this game would have *something* to recommend it. Sure, I realized it wasn't going to be the GAME TO END ALL GAMES. I always make sure to discount 25% for hype. But, my gods, what a poor showing this is!

There is next to no innovation. The graphics look like they were salvaged from Quake, the puzzles are of the annoying "find the panel that opens the door way the hell over there and backtrack, etc" style. The sense of immersion is zero. The sounds are poorly choosen. The enemies are, for the most part, utterly uninspired. The load times between segments (which uses the Half-Life formula) are ridiculously long. It's also utterly unstable and prone to crashing at any given moment.

Well, you get the point. If this were just another generic first person shooter that was being sold from $20 on the discount rack, maybe I wouldn't feel so annoyed. As it was, I went back and exchanged it for "Soldier of Fortune" which, well also not ground breaking, is solidly entertaining and, at least, mildly innovative.

Please, folks, don't get sucked in by the hype. Save your money for something better. In the meanwhile, I'll be hoping that Ion Storms next big product, Deus Ex, does a better job of living up to its reputation.

Rating:
Summary: The biggest gaming dissopointment ever?
Review: OK, this game was meant to be out 2 and a half years ago but what ever way you look at it, even if it had came out when it did it would still have struggled to be competitive back then.

What the creators have tried to do is take a new approach by putting 4 games together in one through the different ages played by the lead character. All of them are as bad as one another. It plays like doom did and the AI is possibly the worst ever, in an age when AI is as good as Theif and SS2. I think Pong had more intelligent coding then Daikatana. Unlike games where you injure someone and he runs to find his mate. Shoot a baddy in Daikatana and his mate will stand lifelifeless next to him watching the world go by.

I was hugehly dissopointed as I thought this would be a rival to Half Life and would easily be the best first person shooter of the year (to which Soldier Of Fortune holds the crown so far for me). This game rivals Doom but I think you'll find Doom is 10 times better! Still, it gets a star for the 4 ages idea and em... a star for the logo and nice box!

I cant wait til Duke Nukem Forever, if its as bad as this I'll cry!

Rating:
Summary: A review unbaised by "The Hype."
Review: Hype? What hype? I didn't even know about this game until I downloaded the demo! I haven't been exposed to "The Hype," so my review is going to be completely unbaised. So, what do I think of this game?

In many aspects, simply vanilla.

I don't care what engine a 3D game use, as long as I enjoy the game. Just as the realistic gore and fun seperated Soldier of Fortune from the rest, Daikatana's storyline set it apart. Plus, in Daikatana, you can "level-up" and alter your stats as you kill more enemies. You can increase your weaon's damage, speed, your jumping height, maximum health, and your running speed.

The weapons are innovative, to say the least, with 6 unique weapons in each of the four episodes. along with the Daikatana itself. When you use the Daikatana at first, it's a slow as crap. But as you kill more enemies with it, the sword becomes more powerful, until it reaches level 5, at which point a flick of the wrist can kill anything. The downside to this is that YOU don't get level-ups. Oh well, you've got to break a few eggs to make an omelette, I guess.

Also, the locales are especially unique. You travel through four time periods, and in each one, there is unique architecture that really sets the mood of the level, from the icy lands of 560 A.D. Norway to the temples of ancient Rome. Unfortunately, those are the ONLY things that set Daikatana apart. The rest of the game is the usual "find key/switch/artifact, open a door, repeat" formula.

Now, for the BAD part of the review - the AI! In the game, you'll get two sidekicks that help you. A few levels later though, you'll want to call them "groinkicks," because they will impede your progress so much that you'll want to give them just that! The sidekicks get in the way of your aim, they shoot YOU when you get in THEIR aim, they fall off ledges to their deaths, and they'll go after an enemy, even if they have no weapons! And guess what? If they die, so do you! Most of the time, you'll order them to stay put and finish the level yourself. And the enemies? They're cannon fodder. No brains at all. With the exception of the civilians, all they do is rush you. Believe it or not, the smartest enemies are...the doors! I'd swear that they have the minds of sadistic killers! They just LOVE to ambush hapless heros - they stay open until either you or a sidekick walks through the doorway, and then they suddenly close, crushing all that are in the way! Enemies know well enough to avoid them, so I guess in a certain respect, they ARE smart!

Overall, as I mentioned before, Daikatana is vanilla. There are new innovations, but when you get down to the gameplay, it's more of the same thing.

Rating:
Summary: Would've, Could've, Should've Been Great
Review: As an avid fan of the FPS genre for the past few years, I have been eagerly waiting for Daikatana to reach the retailer's shelves. For the most part I have been patient with Ion Storm hoping that every time it was delayed would just mean that the programers were continuing to find ways to improve on its design. Since the popular thing to do these days is to make multiplayer-only games I had hoped that Daikatana would be the perfect compliment to games such as Q3A and UT. Unfortunatly, I was mistaken. The first problem I had was with my Voodoo 3 3000 video card. Apparently, Daikatana will not run with any video card in the Voodoo family unless you rewrite 4 lines of code in the .cfg files. Now, I understand that because evry computer is different it is impossible to ship a game without any bugs; however, Voodoo cards are some the most widely used video cards around and after putting $35 I felt that having to tweak the code is unexceptable. As gameplay, graphics, sound, etc. go it is a mixed bag. The gameplay is decent,not revelutionary, but it does not try to be. Your sidekicks add an extra demension but their fun and usefulness wear off quickly as they do not always do as you order and often get in your way in the heat of battle. The graphics are exceptable, but certainly not up to par with today's games. This of course shoud have been expected with the use of the Quake II engine and the many delays. The biggest problem with the visuals is at the start of the game. When shooting flying enemies I often got turned around and in a sense "lost". This was due to the fact that in the marsh level the colors and backgorunds are almost exactly the same through out; however, this does not pose a problem in the later levels. There really is not too much to comment on about the sound, it is simply run of the mill. Daikatana really shines in two places. The first, is the the single player game. In a time where games continue to move toward being singuraly multiplayer Daikatana is a breath of fresh air with its solid story and interesting characters. The second place that it shines in is in its uniqueness. The odd locales and weaponry somewhat makeup for the game's plentiful shortcomings. Since, to this point, I have mainly played the single player missions i feel that i have not given enough time to review the multiplayer portion of the game, but from what i have seen and heard so far I believe that it is adequete. Many gamer may blame the time that it took to finish Daikatana for its uninspired gameplay and dated graphics. i believe that this is somewhat true, but when you look at Blizzard's classics like Starcraft and Diablo which took forever to come out and where great this argument loses some of its merit. John Romero may have lost some of his golden touch; however I am not ready to write him off. No ne is perfect and i believe that he has many great games left in him just not this one.

Rating:
Summary: One Word: WOW!
Review: Believe the hype on this one. Daikaitaina truly lives up to the pre-release hype. Not perfect, but as the first release from fledgling developer Ion Storm, and developed by this came-out-of-nowhere wunderkind Joe Romero - I am only left asking, "how long until Daikaitaina 2? "

Rating:
Summary: the box lies
Review: its made out to be a kung fu,meets super space intelligence meets d and d type stuff kinda vid.its just dark and not nearly exiting as all that.theres zero martial arts.the enemies are monsters not space age.its very hard to see what youre fighting.its extremely easy to beat.me and the ol lady took it out in a weekend.