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| Apocalyptica PC review | |
| developer | EFX Extreme |
| publisher | Konami |
| author | Chris O'Regan |
| date | Nov. 18, 2003 |
| graphics |   |
| sound | |
| gameplay | |
| value | |
| reviewer's toast | |
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Chromehounds
NA Review by Marcin
Oblivion-The First 3 Hours
PC Quicktake by walTer
Comic Quick Takes January 25, 2006
Feature by Mike
There comes a time in a reviewers career when they encounter the most appalling game ever to grace their monitor/TV screens. It is so bad that it haunts the reviewer for weeks, months, even years after the reviewer was exposed to it. For me that game was Heavy Metal FAKK 2. An abortion of a game that was released on the PC in 2000 and it remained for me the ‘worst-game-ever’....until now.
Who wrote this stuff???
For those of you who’ve read my reviews before you may notice a certain structure to them. I usually kick off with the back ground story of a game before I go on to describe the gameplay and what not. So here goes, the back ground story for Apocalyptica. Please bear in mind that when reading the following text you must appreciate the fact that I DID NOT MAKE IT UP!
Set some time in the distant future where the Earth has been destroyed by Satan following the second coming. Soon before this happened the ‘faithful’ i.e. those who worshipped God and Jesus Christ, fled Earth in vast colony space ships to other worlds that could not be corrupted by Satan. In the mean time God’s angels fought the demons on Earth until they finally rid the planet of Satan himself. For centuries after this victory the remains of humanity, the faithful created a new society free from Satan’s influence. Sadly the angels hadn’t been thorough in vanquishing the prince of darkness as on Earth Satan rose again as ‘Neo Satan’ and began a campaign of terror against the remnants of humanity.
Feel free to read the above paragraph again just to be sure you read correctly as that is indeed the background setting of Apocalyptica. And if you think that’s bad...
Oh deary, deary, deary me.
Apocalyptica is a 3rd person action adventure game. At least that’s what the back of the box blurb pre ports it to be. In reality it’s a poorly designed cross breed between Diablo, Quake 3 Arena and a dog turd. A little harsh? You wouldn’t say that if you’ve ever played this travesty of a game.
Apocalyptica primarily consists of you controlling a character through a series of missions as part of a group of up to four characters. The controls are spread between the keyboard and the mouse in the traditional first person shooter manner. The difference here being that the melee attacks are handled by repeatedly bashing the right mouse button. Some odd combinations can be performed by timing your mouse clicks. Sadly this is all rather random as you normally wade into battle by running into them and right clicking randomly or trying to aim your gun at them while they try and take your head off. Predictably this doesn’t really work and you spend most of your time dying. Sadly you can’t save at any time to help you progress through the game as Apocalyptica is a console game at heart and any such PC shenanigans are simply not tolerated. Along with making the game even remotely ENTERTAINING!!!
I’m with stupid!
Your party members are really dumb. They’re almost as stupid as the monsters you’re attacking. For instance I found them running off on frequent occasions, chasing down enemies and negating at chance of creeping up on any enemies to launch surprise attacks. They also have a tendency to run into parts of the game scenery and get stuck until you give them a nudge....I’m not making this up! This is all true! This game has been released IN THIS STATE!!!
Me again!
Ah yes, the monsters. These beasties generally run at you and take the odd pot shot at you until they are dead or you are without any thought of their own self preservation. Sadly they also respawn. Yes that’s right, the enemies in Apocalptica reappear a few minutes after you’ve killed them. This means that, in the event of your death and you respawn at a point in the map they are back again. OH WHAT FUN! DIDN’T THEY EVEN PLAY TEST THIS????
Multiplayer
Apparently it is possible to play this game online against other unfortunates who own this poor excuse for a game. Sadly (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) I failed to join or even start an online game as it didn’t seem to work terribly well. I was either chucked out of games for no apparent reason or no one could join my games. The game claims to have CTF, Death match and ‘Campaign’ modes of play, the last being a co-op mode for the single player although why anyone would want join you playing this tripe I have no idea. But I can’t vouch for any of these game modes as IT DIDN’T SODDING WELL WORK!!!
Graphics and Sound
Despite the fact that this game may have indeed been spawn from the 9th level of hell the graphics aren’t too bad. There are some reasonable lighting effects as there are textures and water ripples. The animation of the models however is a bit suspect though which let’s things down a bit
The sound is functional at best with the sound track being some bizarre cross between ‘muzak’ and ‘rawk’ tracks that the user is best to turn down to ‘zero’ on the sound options as opposed to ‘eleven’.
Game play.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH *gasp* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *cough* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH HA HA HA HA HA etc.
Summary
SHITE.