d_chaloupov's Full Review: Deathtrap Dungeon for PlayStation 1
First:
I've had to post this review of "Deathtrap Dungeon" for IBM PC here, in the Playstation section, because there were no appropriate page under PC games. Nevertheless the game is ported so very close to Playstation version, that this review still applies.
The plot
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An all-powerful Baron Suckumvit rules the land with an iron hand. For his amusement the Baron created a huge labyrinth, filled it with evil
creatures of all sorts and declared that anyone who can make it through to the last level and slay the Red Dragon, will become new ruler of the
land and will be rich beyond their wildest dreams. Nobody could do it, though many have tried and disappeared forever. Now you come along...
Gameplay
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From the start you can select male or female character with the appropriate names like Chaindog and Red Lotus. The only difference
between them is a few different attacks. The game world is based on "Fighting Fantasy" series of books by Ian Livingstone and is richly populated by Dwarves, Snake women and even by walking flame throwing automatons, remotely controlled by wizards. Total amount of different creature types inhabiting Deathtrap Dungeon is over 50. The game feels a lot like Tomb Raider, especially because of the amount of climbing and jumping puzzles and also because of "insane camera angles", changing from first person view to something that looks like Isometric perspective (view from high above at an angle). The worst part of the gameplay are the save-points. Yes, being ported from console, DD still has only a few places, where you can save you game progress. When you see a white skull, you can save the game right away, but if you see Red Skull, you will need to pay for Saving with the scarce money you can find in the labyrinth. All the sword fighting is done with full gory details: severed limbs flying, blood splashing on the ceiling. The spell effects are well done ("War Pig of Doom" being the funniest). You also have a choice of bombs, Rockets and Flame-throwers (their medieval equivalents anyway). Multi-player game supports up to 8 players, but is limited to the LAN networks (no Modem or Internet games) and it's only Death-Match, no Cooperative play.
Graphics
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Game is 3D accelerated and supports all the major chipsets. Though the polygon count is pretty low, the game looks very good and is fast even on the 150Mhz processor (the minimum required being 90 MHz). You can switch the screen from Full Screen to Cinematic layout (which gives the game screen "letterboxed" look). The game has the optional 16 bit textures and Mip Mapping for the high end systems.
Music and Sound
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Sounds are all top notch: even the Options menu (which is done with a lot of humor) has appropriate sounds ! The music on the other hand is the kind you would like to hear once, maybe twice, but then switch to "none", as it distracts from the gameplay.
The bottom line
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One of many hack and slash games on the market (Nightmare Creatures, Die By the Sword, Ecstatica 2). If you prefer more realistic sword-fighting game - buy "Die By the Sword" instead. The "find the lever" and jumping puzzles are getting boring after the first few levels and the game does not have any automap feature, so you can easily get lost.
Overall this game can only be recommended to "Fighting Fantasy" books series fans and to gamers who like Tomb Raider style puzzles and exploring.
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