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May 22, 2009 - 02:43 PM |
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Realms of the Haunting review (GFF Gamers Month alternate) |
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This was what I wrote for my May 24th spot in the GFF Gamers Month before I handed it off to Rockgamer (since I was the only one who had claimed two spots). Because I'd hate for it to completely go to waste, I'm sticking it here for posterity. I won't be around for most of the weekend, so I'm posting it today.
Realms of the Haunting [PC] (1997)
Developer: Gremlin Interactive
Publisher: Interplay
Genre: FPS/Adventure
So you're this guy and your father died and you come to poke around a spooky mansion and solve puzzles and shoot stuff. The theme is heavy on the occult: demons, summoning, alternate planes of existence, physical manifestations of good and evil, etc. Most of the game is spent exploring the house or mystical worlds. Interspersed throughout the shooting and puzzling are live-action, bluescreened cutscenes that are predictably hokey but do a decent enough job of setting the mood.
The readables in this game are excellent. Lots of detail was put into the art assets:
Unfortunately, despite the high production values, Realms's mechanics are a bit of a hodgepodge and don't excel in any particular area. Platforming sections, for example, make awkward appearances:
Can't touch the floor; hot lava:
They're not terribly challenging, but movement is restricted to the arrow keys and is accordingly stiff. There's no mouselook; the mouse is reserved for activating and examining objects in point-and-click adventure fashion.
On the adventure elements: while there are a few puzzles that require logic and environmental clues, most are simply key hunt variations, though the game does provide some red herring items to increase the challenge. However, on "Easy" puzzle mode, the correct item is automatically selected whenever you try to activate something, removing the need for considered thought. There are also some dissonant Soup Can moments in the late game, particularly after you take the plunge into the realm of Sheol (Hell). This is what awaits you instead of brimstone (and here I borrow from another review, which is sadly no longer online):
"One hub. Eight rooms. Eight entirely random games. Jumping over floor tiles. A mirror maze. Moving blocks to cross a floor. A coconut shy! A bloody coconut shy in the devil’s back yard, put in your way by the minions of evil to prevent you stopping the apocalypse! A coconut shy! A coconut shy! But like the level design team, I digress..."
Combat is poor when compared to a dedicated shooter like Blood (this was 1997, remember). Enemy AI is mostly braindead, and they either mill about aimlessly or make a beeline straight for you. A few are fast and tough enough to require tactical consideration, since your ammo is usually in short supply and you won't be doing any fancy circle-strafes with these controls. There's not much variety in weapons: you end up with a sword, a couple firearms, and no less than five artifacts that all operate as fire-and-recharge energy cannons. There's an separate difficulty level you can set for the action, but all it does is adjust how much damage the enemies can absorb and dish out.
So what else is in the game? Mostly exploration and gathering occult trinkets. Unsurprising, then, that there are several mazes, though you're always provided a map if you've been searching carefully. Since the maps are presented as realistic documents (no automap here), you can usually "see" areas that you can't access yet. A good portion of the game is spent deciphering the map symbols and determining what you've recently unlocked.
No CD-quality music, unfortunately, but the MIDI soundtrack isn't bad, with a recurring theme that's vaguely reminiscent of the one from John Carpenter's Halloween. Sound effects are excellent (love those creaky door noises), and the voice acting is competent, albeit lacking emotion. A word about this, actually: a girl named Rebecca joins you early in the adventure and presumably walks by your side throughout the game. However, she only has a physical presence in the cutscenes; outside of them, she appears only as a disembodied voice in your head that offers a comment or suggestion for nearly every object you examine. I can't think of any other game that treats a companion in this way, but it works perfectly--you don't have to babysit her in combat or perform any cheesy "team lift" moments, but she's still around as support.
Idiosyncrasies aside, my criticisms make it sound like Realms of the Haunting isn't that great of a game. And frankly, it's not. It's ambitious, it's unique, and it's practically leaking atmosphere, but there are a lot of rough edges. Still, if you can get past the grainy visuals and oft-goofy plot, there's genuine dread to be found here, and few games have a better "sense of place."
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Okay, review's over. Forget everything negative you just read, because I love this game. I played it at my friend's house when it first came out, and he was so excitable that he would shout and hit the power button whenever a scary noise came out of the speakers. It wasn't until I played through it on my own that I realized just how large the game is--the feeling of exploration is just immense. And of course I loved all the occult stuff. I don't like to praise games on atmosphere alone, but this is one of my guilty pleasures. "Immersion" has become something of a meaningless buzzword these days, but this game gets it right. It's the first game I remember playing where I felt like I was moving around a persistent location that could exist in real life, instead of a series of disjointed "levels."
Someday I hope for a worthy successor. Clive Barker's Undying brushed up against the theme, though it was a straightforward FPS, and the Penumbra series has some similarities in terms of adventure elements, but nothing's really come close. If anyone has suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Oh, and it needs VDMSound, but otherwise runs fine in Windows XP. I Haven't tried it on my Vista PC.
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