Harbinger

Rating:
Summary: Mediocrity in it's truest state
Review: "Mediocrity - it takes alot less time and most people won't know the difference until it's too late" ~ www.despair.com

Sadly, the game fits a bit too well.

I grabbed the game when I saw it, since it looked good, and really, who wouldn't like diablo2 in space?

...Apparantly people who don't like glitches, poor performance, poor gameplay, and an overall "bleh" feel to the game mechanics.

The plot's good though... whot I saw of it anyways. It had a good start, and apparantly the 3 classes (yeah, only 3, compared to 7 on diablo 2: LoD) have unique story paths which intertwine in parts. Unfortunately, that's whot was seen of it. The overall battlemechanics are... well lacking isn't a strong enough term. Nonexistant seems better fitting.

Basically, they took a diablo 2 like engine, put all the time into plot (yay!) and graphics/voice acting (fairly yay?), and then had no time left over to do any sort of programming on the actual game. So it's very pretty, descent voice acting, and nice plot... but oh how the gameplay is AWFUL. Think back to the original diablo, and then notch the quality back a few points and yeu're almost there.

Enemies are boring, repetitive, yeu don't really learn any new abilities, and most items are about the same, just with slightly different stats. The manual constantly tries to say the game rewards smart playing, such as using an EMP weapon against mechanical stuff, but the effects are so weak it's hard to really notice any difference anyways. The abilities of the characters are bland, uninteresting, and yeu get hardly any. Yeu basically get melee attack and ranged attack for spells in most cases, with the collumbine getting a nova-like spell.

There's really not much too the game except running back and forth and firing at range at stuff, which isn't all that amazing because it's about as repetitive a gameplay as I've ever seen.

Next, is the glitch. Well there's a moderate amount of them, probably fixed in patches, but none outshine this one... it runs slow. Sure that's not a glitch yeu'd think, but it's kind of a pretty game, but it's nowheres near pretty enough to give rediculous lag on a 2400mhz system with a radion 8500le. Not the most top notch system ever maybe, but there's no way this game should suffer such painfully obvious strain upon it since it's really not that amazingly pretty or anything.

But the worst part about the lag... is that yeu CAN'T HIT WHILE LAGGING! Yes, baddies can fire shots at yeu, and yeu can fire back, but yeur shots will miss about 90% of the time when it's lagging, which's very frequent. How can yeu play a game where the entire thing is basically firing a few shots, running backwards, firing a few more, and repeating until everything's dead, when yeu can't even hit?

Anyways, if yeu're really, really, really into diablo 2, like a die hard fanatic, but lurve sci-fi stuff, or like more plot to a game than D2 had, then yeu might consider this one... but be forewarned that it's frustrating, incredably repetitive and rather boring in most parts. For me, it wasn't worth the trouble to keep playing, since the gameplay was bleh for quality, and the upsides weren't good enough to cover for it.

...Oh and the human character has an insanely annoying southern texan accent that has just the right sound to it that yeu want to beat him with a blunt object. Collumbine's neat, but the human outright was impossible to play for me since I couldn't listen to that stupid voice for more than 3 minutes before just quitting that one's story.

Take it or leave it, but I *REALLY* suggest yeu download the demo to it first to see if yeu'll be able to withstand the pitiful gameplay quality. If so, the plot looks like it could be well worth it, and even if the human's voice makes my ears bleed, the voice acting, his included, is some of the best I've seen, though still not able to outdo the soul reaver series. If yeu can handle the awful basic gameplay, then the rest of it will be fine, if yeu survive the odd lag, which I checked around a bit and it seems to be a major flaw in the game somewheres that almost all reviewers I checked noted. It's not an isolated incident.

Anyways... it's potentially a good game, with some good ideas, but yeu'd probably prefer Sacred which is out now, though I've heard to be overflowing with almost as many brilliant ideas as it has glitches, though the bugs are being worked out, which's good, since it was released about 6 months early.

Best bets: Buy Diablo 2 instead and the Lord of Destruction to go with it. Battlechest gives both togeather cheaper.

If yeu want something a bit more interesting, try for Sacred, but it may be best to wait a month or two for them to patch it up some more until it WORKS. Though I have to admit this screenshot of armour being displayed as a sword is oddly amusing.

If yeu're desperate for diablo 1 style gameplay in space, go harbinger, but note that yeu've been warned

Rating:
Summary: Not even your average killing machine.
Review: All in all, Harbinger defines mediocrity and is a great example of a problem in PC gaming today. While the PC is the most powerful of the gaming platforms, many developers and publishers seem more happy to push out rehashes of successful games instead of trying something new and different. In their quest for the almighty dollar, they took shortcuts and ended up with a sub-par game.

Rating:
Summary: Wait til it hits the bargain bin at least
Review: Harbinger is sort of like Diablo in that you kill waves and waves of critters to get random loot and the RP'ing is kept to a bare minimum. However, there are several critical differences here: Harbinger takes place in space, there are only 4 kinds of monsters to kill, most of the loot is worthless and it's mind-bogglingly boring. I wanted to like this game, really, because I've always been a fan of blasting RMB's (that's Robots, Mutants and Bugs for all you non-SciFi'ers out there!) and you certainly get plenty of them in this game. Yep, there's nothing like starting out the day by vaporizing a stuck-up robot or blowing an oogly mutant to kingdom come I always say! Unfortunately, after painting the bulkheads with their innards for a few hours in this game my intelligence dropped by about half from shear repetitive boredom and I had to quit. Diablo could pull it off because it had tons of cool stuff you could 'acquire' from various baddies and a variety of character classes (with differing abilities) to play. Harbinger has 3 (one 'spellcaster', one human, and one robot) but you'll end up using the same tactics no matter which one you play: stand back and blaze away until they get close, then retreat and repeat ad naseum (yea, the AI is that stupid). There are a few interesting parts to the characters--the human can set mines and the robot can send out micro-bot minions to put the smack down on the baddies for example--but not enough to save this game. Most of the loot you acquire you can't use (it's for the other classes) and most of the stuff you CAN use doesn't really hit the 'kewl' button. You can customize weapons for different types of fire (or to increase damage) but that's it--no special powers, no ability boosts, no nothing really. On the plus side it does have a mildly engaging story line (aside from a bizarre opening movie in which a slug gets microwaved and eaten--I kid you not) and the graphics are fairly decent and well designed. Anyway, if you want to spend an afternoon blasting incoming waves of baddies into oblivion in a SciFi setting (if you don't care about the setting I'd recommend Diablo) this is the game for you. But I'd recommend waiting until Harbinger hits the bargain bins so you get you money's worth.

Rating:
Summary: Hours of repetive fun!
Review: I'm trying to love this game, I really am! It has some very beautiful artwork in a setting I can't get enough of. Calling it an RPG is really not adequate though. You have four atributes and thats about as far as the RPG elements goes. The characters have some intresting points to them, but there is never any time to make conversation. This is because the game is composed of nothing but repetive kill everything that moves action for about 95% of the game. The good: looks beautiful, very intresting mood/setting and runs smoothly and most systems. The bad: you just kill stuff over and over again for hours on end, its gets to you after ahwile.
Personally I can't wait to see what the Harbinger team can do next.

Rating:
Summary: Hours of repetive fun!
Review: I'm trying to love this game, I really am! It has some very beautiful artwork in a setting I can't get enough of. Calling it an RPG is really not adequate though. You have four atributes and thats about as far as the RPG elements goes. The characters have some intresting points to them, but there is never any time to make conversation. This is because the game is composed of nothing but repetive kill everything that moves action for about 95% of the game. The good: looks beautiful, very intresting mood/setting and runs smoothly and most systems. The bad: you just kill stuff over and over again for hours on end, its gets to you after ahwile.
Personally I can't wait to see what the Harbinger team can do next.

Rating:
Summary: Diablo in Space
Review: Really liked this game. It is, simply put, Diablo in space. I really didn't like playing Diablo at home (around my young kids) because of all the petagrams, demons, zombies, and skeletons. I try to set an example for my kids. Harbinger filled my need for a Diablo-style game and gave me something that my son could play, too. Excellent quality game all around!

Rating:
Summary: Diablo in Space
Review: Really liked this game. It is, simply put, Diablo in space. I really didn't like playing Diablo at home (around my young kids) because of all the petagrams, demons, zombies, and skeletons. I try to set an example for my kids. Harbinger filled my need for a Diablo-style game and gave me something that my son could play, too. Excellent quality game all around!

Rating:
Summary: Bugs Bugs Bugs
Review: Stay away from this game; it has some serious technical issues. The number of bugs this game has is just amazing--just check out the Harbinger forum. If you are running a high-end ati video card (9700 pro), the guys at tech support have no idea why their game doesn't work properly with those cards. And if you aren't, then there still isn't any guarantee the game will function properly. It seems to me they shipped this out WAY before they should have. They didn't want to wait to get their money; however, they don't mind making you wait to play the thing while they try and figure work arounds for problems they should have addressed long before distribution. Again, just check out the Harbinger forum before you buy.

Here are my pc specs (and remember this is way, way above the recommended, but it still did not run):

Pentium 4 1.8Ghz CPU
768 MB of Ram
Windows Me
Ati 9700 radeon pro
Creative SB live!

Rating:
Summary: Played alfa
Review: this game deserves 5 stars just because Sci-Fi RPG's are very rare nowdays...

Rating:
Summary: Great game at a Great price!
Review: This game is gorgeous and fun. It offers more than many [more expensive] games do, and does so with a wicked sense of humor. Most RPGs I've played lately (NWN,DS,DD, etc...)have had either weak/predictable/or no story. This one reads and plays like a graphic novel ala Heavy Metal, and bottom line is FUN!