Avenging Angel
Note: This is a very outdated review, so take that into account when reading it. It is the first game review I ever did for this site, and I may end up re-doing it (with much better screens.. Anti-Aliasing and all..) if I ever play the game through again.
Well, I finally beat it. Took me long enough. That last guy...man...about a ten minute battle in total. I had to play the game in 640x480 to get full screenshots. If I had it any higher it would just snap that resolution, starting in the upper left corner to the lower right...as you can see in a couple of them, there is a crosshair in the lower right...that's really the center of the screen :P
This is not a kids game. This is a game that is one of maybe five based off of religion. The story starts out with a few angels gone bad escaping from heaven and trying to take over Earth. God says to you (Malachi - the good angel), that they have to be stopped. If that is not possible, then he would have to bring about another apocolypse...destroying everything.
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So, you set out..starting in hell. The screen warbles and reshapes to let you know you aren't in a real world. There's moans and wails coming from everywhere..complete with half-dead naked people writhing on the floor or on a wall. There's all kinds of nasty, scary creatures jumping around trying to eat you. And your only defence is a little bolt of lightening coming out of your hand. You get more later...don't fret. If you can get past that part (I almost gave up at that point..confusing level design) then you should enjoy the rest of the game.
So the rest of the game is pretty much a blur. Considering that I started it over a year ago and didn't finish it until two weeks ago...I think I forgot most of the gameplay/story. What I remember most is the abilities and weapons you can use during the game. There's an ability that actually slows down time for you so you can charge a room full of possesed baddies and dodge bullets, etc. Not unsimiliar to Max Payne's/Matrix's feature.
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Another ability is to ressurect corpses that you've already killed (considering they are still in one piece). You can make as many as you want and they will follow you around until harm comes your way. Then they'll fight for you..and die for you...again. Yet another ability is to posses anyone you see. You use the spell, and you fly around until you find a body..then you enter it..then you control it. You can jump from body to body and finish the level without even firing a shot!
Weapons are plentyful. You have everything you could want. From a rocket launcher, to a sniper rifle, to a bad ass machine gun, to a 6 barrel shotgun, etc, etc.
Requiem is the epidomy of what a game can be if a developer is willing to experiment. That's rare nowadays. And since this one didn't sell well, 3DO (the developer) is now concentrating on crappy commercialized games...such as Army Men and Might and Magic.
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GRAPHICS
Lets face it. It's an old game. For the time it came out (I remember seeing my roomate Mackey struggling with it on his P166 laptop) the graphics were awesome. I still think they are. Of course there's no more than about a thousand polygons on the screen at once, and it's probably 8-bit textures...but that somehow makes it look "cleaner".
SOUND
Again...Let's face it. It's an old game. All the effects seem to have a crackly content to them, even with EAX enabled. The forgettable music plays straight off the CD..so that's not so bad.
CONTROL
This is a very original game with lots and lots of stuff that you can do. The Angelic control interface is pretty easy...you press 'T' and a bunch of icons come up..you move your mouse over the one you want and let go of 'T' and BAM you can now use that power. Another wierd thing is instead of WASD..it's ESDF. Not hard to use, once you get used to it. It works pretty well.
GAMEPLAY
Once you're into it...you're into it. The problem is that it takes time and patience to get into it in the first place.
OVERALL
Excellent waste of time. I recommend it to anyone who remotely likes First person shooters.
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