The Planet of the Dinosaurs. And other assorted things (FPS W/O)
Written: Jan 29 '02 (Updated Mar 04 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: good graphics engine
Cons: too many
The Bottom Line: Makes a fool of Half Life.
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| darrio's Full Review: Gunman Chronicles for Windows |
Gunman first started out as a mod made by fans of Half Life. And guess what happened? a company called Rewolf thought it was so good that they slipped the mod makers a big check, went on to create more levels and released it as a full priced game. And yet, during this entire game making process, most of the Gunman team have never even met each other, working over the internet in their spare time from around the world. It just goes to show, you don't need millions of dollars of funding and a penthouse office in downtown Dallas to make a game......
Gunman is not part of the Half Life series, but it uses the Half Life game engine. I'll be mentioning Half Life a few times throughout this review because its hard not to. Gunman does not have an interesting plot line or backdrop like Half-Life. On the plus side, there are cool weapons and high tech laser/spaceship type stuff that are entertaining. I lost interest in the game because it couldn't keep me excited about killing the enemy or curious about what was around the corner.
Gunman is about a space Army guy who goes down to a planet to fight Xenomes, genetically engineered animals which serve as military weapons. The Xenomes are mostly dinosaurs and giant insects. On other worlds Gunman faces scary robots controlled by a super computer that has taken over the planet. Gunman kills with a wide range of high-tech weaponry ranging from laser pistols, shotguns, photon beams and lots of other stuff. Each weapon has three setting and some have more settings to modify the initial three. For example, the shotgun has short burst, single shot and riot settings. Then the shotgun can be set 1,2,3 or 4 shells per shot. You can do loads of things with the weapons... I even thought about making one from scratch... but then realised that was impossible. Its only a game!
The game starts with some other Gunman soldiers talking and cracking jokes. They quickly fade away and everyone after that is supposed to be killed. There are no friendly soldiers or scientists along the way, which is totally lame.
There are many types of monster in the game, which make for some nice cannon fodder. The dinosaurs look great when you first come across one then get incredibly boring later on. There are six-legged monsters which look like a cross between a scorpion and something from John Carpenter's The Thing. There are headless men, sentry robots, heavy weapons grunts, and high tech cowboy-like gunslingers. There are these weird things with circular bodies ringed by what could be mouths, and monsters which look like they have escaped from an HR Giger painting, or simply from MY worst nightmare.
Complaints
Because of the comic book style of things, the world isn't quite as believable as Half Life's. You never feel anything for this faceless Gunman as you did with Gordon Freeman. But the important thing to remember is that Gunman is supposed to be good fun above everything else. Its about big monsters, big guns and large amounts of gore. A perfect example of this is the localised damage, allowing skilled marksmen to blow the head off human enemies. The robot enemies are crap though and they lack blood, which is no fun at all, and the Xenome enemies don't scream for mercy. There is nothing to relate to in Gunman. The story does its best to be exciting but fails. The game could have used more characters to interact with and develop a better plot. Maybe a space cowboy bar would have been good or a side kick robot with a sense of humor. Anything like that would have been good.
More complaints
Similar to Half Life there is a intro movie which you cant skip. There is also a training level which you cant skip, and that takes about 15 minutes. The soldiers could not get any uglier and look inbred. Even the humans look like freaks. The motives of the enemy, a General who builds Xenomes to get revenge because he got left behind in some battle, are totally unbelievable. When I first loaded up the game it clicked off and went back to the desktop, a major bug.
Graphics
One saving grace is the graphics. The architecture is surprisingly curvy, with some sharp edges and right angles giving the game an almost organic feel in places. Textures are colourful and detailed, but at times it can all get a little overwhelming. Some areas look like a mish mash of ideas which somehow didn't quite gel, and the lighting can be blinding or overbright at times, with garish greens, oranges and reds a little too common for my taste. Other parts of the game are downright claustrophobic or simply cluttered, but on the whole the level design is mostly very good.
But the bottom line is I didn't like this game, because there are better games to be played. However, if you liked the Half-Life series, you'll probably like Gunman Chronicles, because you might like the new scenery, graphics and cool weapons. But for me, its a badly made game with some good ideas let down by some criminally bad ones.
This is my entry into Rock_On's First Person Shooter Write-Off. Its the first write-off I have took part in, which is nice. The other participants are:
ChromeKiller
Search66
CraigEgg
The_Wood
Jeremy1456
Pavona21
Horhay
Paulyoungotti
Nscanuck
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
darrio
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Member: Super Bot
Location: comic book land
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Happy writing!
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