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Abomination

Score: 70%
ESRB: Mature
Publisher: Eidos Interactive
Developer: Hothouse Creations
Media: CD/0
Players: 1 - 8
Genre: Strategy

Graphics & Sound:

I really found the graphics to be bad. I think it was just the color scheme or something; the on-screen characters are easy to see, structures have detail, and even the environment (trees, water, nighttime fog) is nice. But, there isn't much in the way of animation in the game, and what is there isn't half bad. However, there's just something about the graphics. I found that everything was too large and too red. Lots of red in the game and very large graphics makes me feel like it was developed for old men with bad eyesight or something. To sum it up, I didn't like the graphics, but I don't know why. It just has an unattractive atmosphere to it. Maybe it was the fact that there was no hardware acceleration to speak of. I just don't know.

Gameplay:

Remember games like Postal and Jagged Alliance? Well, guess what. This one is just like those games. The game plays exactly like Jagged Alliance 2, right up until combat starts. Once in combat, it does not switch to turned-based action; it actual stays in real time and plays exactly like Postal. What does this mean? A fun, but not addictive, no brainer.

Basically, you have mission after mission to accomplish, with a semi-limited amount of weapons and hired guns to do it. As the game progresses, you are given the opportunity to resupply your men and equipment. You have to deal with a top down view and a point and click interface. Again, it's a fun little game, but I would say that both Jagged Alliance and Postal are better than this hybrid of the two. It just lost a lot of novelty and the interface is not nearly as good. Instead of having easy to identify icons and such, you are give shapes and schemes that are supposed to mean something to you. They went for the futuristic look, but the interface suffers because of it.


Difficulty:

This game is not difficult. I found it was not hard to keep my men alive, and even relatively easy to get new ones. There are options that allow you to change difficulty (3 levels), but that only affects the amount of easy-to-kill bad guys in each level. I think the only thing that gives this game any amount of difficulty is the awkward interface. The game starts out bad, gets better, and then tails back off again. Why? Too easy, maybe.

Game Mechanics:

Immediately, I hated the interface. The point and click design is solid, but if you want to do more than walk and shoot, it's not very user friendly. The game did run smooth, and it was pretty on target as far as response goes, but it just didn't have that sustainability that other games have. I guess it was designed to be a third person shoot-em-up and not a strategy type. As far as shoot-em-up goes, it's great. As far as strategy goes, thumbs down.

-Storm, GameVortex Communications
AKA Jeremy Kelso

Minimum System Requirements:



Windows 95/98, Pentium 166, 32 MB RAM, 400MB HD Space, 2MB SVGA card, 8x CD-ROM, Sound Card, Mouse, Keyboard, DirectX 6.1
 

Test System:



P2 450, Windows 98 SE, 128MB RAM, Diamond Viper V770 Ultra w/32MB RAM, 2 12MB Voodoo 2's SLI, 5x24 DVD-ROM, Monster Sound MX300, DirectX 7.0a

Sony PSOne Rat Attack Windows Airport 2000

 
Game Vortex :: PSIllustrated