BlueDemon's Archive

Daikatana is a First Person Shooter with RPG elements, developed by Ion Storm , with John Romero as the primary figure behind the game. Published by Eidos Interactive in April of 2000, three years after the planned 1997 release. This review is for the 1.3 patch version of the game. I also wrote a short article about its development and the uphill battle Ion Storm faced with the title. /// Premise Hiro Miyamoto, must wield the most powerful sword ever made, the Daikatana, and travel through time to find and stop Mishima Kage, a time-traveling warlord who altered time to become a supreme dictator. With the help of his two newfound allies, Superfly Johnson and Mikiko Ebihara. /// Structure The game's split into four separate episodes, consisting of around six maps each, culminating in a boss encounter. These are set in different ''eras'' with unique aesthetics, set of weapons, and enemies. Inconsistency is the term that better describes this game's quality. It...

/// Calm before the Ion Storm The story of Daikatana begins before Ion Storm was even founded, during Quake's turbulent development at id Software. Quake's concept was originated from id's D&D sessions, and it was completely different from the final product. Unlike Doom, it would have focused on melee and magic combat with RPG elements. A legendary hero, casting spells, smiting its foes with his powerful hammer, and jumping between different dimensions. For John Carmack, the lead programmer at id, the next logical step to push the technology further was to go full 3D. With Carmack working on the engine from scratch, all that was left to do for the rest of id was to blindly design mechanics, enemies, and levels, before the engine was even finished, and hope it could support the content created. Due to time constraints compromises to the original design of Quake started to be made. This left John Romero, designer and co-founder of id, disillusioned with how Quake was bein...

Zeno Clash is a first-person fighting video game. It was developed and published by ACE Team , running on the Source Engine . Released through Steam on 21 April 2009. Zeno Clash received an Xbox 360 port, Zeno Clash: Ultimate Edition , published by Atlus and released in May 2010. It contains extra modes, new melee moves, four new weapons (two of which are reskins), and a multiplayer coop. These were never released on the PC version. Likely due to legal obligation with Atlus . I will be reviewing the PC version today. /// Premise The game is set in the strange punk fantasy world. Following the journey of Ghat and Deadra. A young man and his companion are on the run from his vengeful siblings, after murdering a powerful figure known as Father-Mother. Through the strange and exotic lands of Zenozoik, their journey unexpectedly brings them to where it all began. /// Structure and Pacing Zeno Clash features a total of 19 short levels, where you move from one to the other in a string of co...

Far Cry 2 is an open-world FPS game, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft . Released in North America on October 21st, 2008, followed by a global release in the following days. /// Premise The player takes control of a mercenary, hired by an unnamed third party to fly to this sub-Saharan African country, to assassinate the arms dealer fuelling the civil war, only known as The Jackal. Five minutes into the country and things don't go as planned. The cease-fire between factions is breached, and you find yourself stuck in this war-torn country with its borders closed, ridden with malaria, all that is left to do is mercenary work for both sides of the conflict, while you try to track down your target. Using smuggled weapons that came from the same guy you were hired to kill in the first place. Performance addendum Far Cry 2 nowadays is one of those games that need some fixing to work properly in modern systems. As Ubisoft hasn't updated the game over time to kee...