fujisan's Full Review: Drakan: Order of the Flame for Windows
This game truly in a class all by itself despite several shortcomings. Drakan promises to be a game to withstand the test of time in the months and years to come. For those of you not familiar with Drakan, it is a third-person perspective action-adventure game reminiscent of Tomb Raider with aerial combat similar to Panzer Dragoon. The game takes place in the fantasy world of Drakan, where magic runs rampant and anything that can usually does happen. The premise is not the most original of any game I’ve seen, but it doesn’t take away from the overall effect of the game either.
You are Rynn, lithe warrior who has lost her brother to a band of Wartok (see characters) attackers who raped and pillaged her village. Rynn will stop at nothing to find her brother and see him safely home. To do this, she must entreat Arokh, a mystical dragon, for his help in her quest. She knows that she cannot find her brother alone, so with Arokh’s help, she sets off on the arduous task of finding and retrieving her brother from the hands of the enemy, Narvaros. To do this, you must fight your way through a series of 11 single player levels, doing mortal combat with a wide range of enemies. When you finally reach the end of the game, you may be less than thrilled with how things turn out; but as the saying goes, the journey, not the destination, is the important thing. If you don’t subscribe to this theory, if you want a big payoff in the end, you might want to reconsider purchasing Drakan.
First let’s take a look at the mechanics of the game. The bottom line is this: Drakan is phenomenally stunning visually, no question about it. The amount of time and effort that went into the physics of the game is apparent as soon as you don the short sword and take to your quest.
The first problem I had with the game is that the gamer is required to accept many things as fact, though no substantial explanation is given for them. Case in point: Rynn. We are presented with this highly well endowed warrior that can miraculously take to the hills wielding any weapon she comes across with amazing skill and accuracy. We are given no background on Rynn, she might just as well have materialized in the very first cut scene with her brother as they walked back to their village. However, if, in good faith, you are able to accept that Rynn is just innately gifted with the ability to kick some monster kiester, then the rest of the game will fall nicely into place for you.
Conversely, Drakan’s character models are nothing less than exceptional. The detail that has been put into the design of Rynn, as well as her dragon Arokh is to be highly commended. As you guide Rynn through the many different levels in the game, the ultra-realistic movements she demonstrates are sure to catch your eye; there is almost no mechanical movement whatsoever. Virtually any movement that a human can do, Rynn can do as well. Drakan is without a doubt the best game to date as far as character modeling, and work on enemy movements did not take a back burner either. As you fight the Orcs, Wartoks, and Scavengers throughout the game you will notice, for one thing, that the AI is exceptionally well conceived. Actions of Rynn are followed by logical, and most times very clever, reactions from the enemies. There is a good fight waiting for you around every corner, sometimes more than one. Unlike other first person shooters such as Quake or Half-Life, the movements of the enemies are not predictable; they are different every time a level is played.
There is both single and multi-player gameplay available in Drakan, though to date I have found that the multiplayer portion of Drakan has serious shortcomings, despite installing two patches provided by Psygnosis. I am still in the process of resolving this issue. When Psygnosis works out a patch that will work a little better, I will post an update. For now, however, I have to rate the Multiplayer aspect of Drakan as very poor. After trying on more than 10 computers with very different system configurations I was able to successfully play over a LAN with only two of them. The problem I faced was a strange one, after hosting (or joining) a multiplayer game I was able to take just about three steps before Drakan quit completely and I was left staring at my windows desktop. Serious work needs to be done in this area, but after seeing two systems successfully playing against each other I can say that I see great potential after a few bugs are ironed out.
As single player action goes, Drakan really delivers; the transition between two very different types of gameplay is not an easy one, as we saw in Redline earlier this year. However, Psygnosis has done very well by combining head to head combat on foot with aerial combat fought high above the ground on the back Arokh. As far as controls go, there aren’t any new ones to learn as you climb atop the scaled back of your mount, however, there is a new dimension as you guide Arokh through the skies above Drakan…a welcome change to the relative confinement of roaming the ground.
To be sure, this is one game that will not leave you bored on a lonely Friday night. Drakan took a couple weeks of moderate play to finish; it should keep your attention for a good long while. You’ll probably need a bib while you play Drakan, as drooling is an unfortunate side-effect of witnessing the unparalleled graphics in this game.
To date there is no game that combines so seamlessly the ground and aerial combat featured in Drakan. Couple this with a top of the line graphics engine and fascinating characters and Drakan has the makings of the best overall game of 1999, hands down. However, it’s multiplayer gaming, or lack thereof could be its downfall. Psygnosis needs to make available a more effective patch, and they need to do it soon, otherwise they risk losing a whole market of people interested in buying Drakan for its multiplayer action.
Work on a more effective storyline also could have benefited this potentially earth-shattering game, however taking into account its weak plot and its unplayable multiplayer aspect, I can’t give Drakan as high a rating as I would like. It’s a shame, but it appears Psygnosis was in such a hurry to release Drakan that they put on a back burner one of the most important features of any modern computer game: the ability to toast your opponents in a head to head grudge match of who’s-the-better-man.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.