Devastation

Details: Category: Computer; By CCGR; 01.Jun; Hits: 8996

System Requirements

OS: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP CPU: Pentium 700Mhz RAM: 256MB HDD: 1 GB VIDEO: 32MB Direct 3D Direct X 8.1 Compatible SOUND: 16 bit Direct X 8.1 Compatible Age: Mature

The year is 2075 the world as we know it has wasted away. There is no government. Technology is outlawed. Pacification troops are deployed to keep the peace. Your resistance friend Baxter has an encrypted disk which has endangered his life and the messenger who brought it to your attention. You have to decrypt this disk and find out what evil technology is being produced. You must stop it! The resistance and world depends on you!

How do I start?

When you start the game you get to choose your difficulty level. There\'s Easy, Medium, Hard and Insane is available after you beat the game. There are two game modes. Arcade and simulation. Arcade is just like any FPS game out there. Simulation mode is a bit more realistic. For example, when you\'re moving, the crosshairs fade away making it more difficult to aim. You have to manually grab each weapon instead of running over it to collect it. And most importantly, you can\'t hold onto 30 weapons. One thing I like about this game is that it has on the fly training. You learn as you go instead of having to do tutorials. I thought that was kind of nifty.

What\'s the point?

There\'s actually a story in this game. You must find out more about this evil technology and to do that you must decrypt this data disc. Once decrypted, you will learn about this spawning technology that makes people practically immortal. It must be stopped. But of course you can use it to your advantage in the meantime. You\'ll gain more resistance friends along the way. There are four main territories that you have to take control of. Gain a foothold from the enemy!

How do I gain territory?

There are four regions that you must control. Each region has several areas that you must claim piece by piece. Of course each area is heavily guarded. Every mission has objectives for you to complete and once they are all met, you move on. Many of the objectives include hacking their mainframe for access codes, disabling laser fences, taking over enemy bases and respawners. There are some rescue missions as well to spice things up.

What am I up against?

You will run into thugs with 2X4\'s, insane asylum doctors with syringes with sleepy medicine. There are tons of respawning guards or bucket heads as the resistance refers to them. You even have to deal with nature sometimes, earthquakes and sharks will catch you off guard a bit. There are no typical bosses but some of the harder enemies in the game were helicopters and the owner of the genetic company which was practically immortal. Many of the bases are armed with turrets and security robots armed with turrets. Not to worry, you get enough guns to conquer!

Weapons?

There are guns galore in this game. When you get multiple pistols and machine guns you get to operate them in pairs! Lots of machine guns and rifles. Of course there are many sniper rifles with varying scopes and re-fire rates. Shotguns are available for close encounters. For more unique weapons you can use 2X4\'s, katanas, and even throw objects at your enemies. One of the more powerful weapons is a chain gun. We\'re talking sprays of bullets. There\'s a super sniper rifle that torches your enemy. Finally one of my favorite weapons is the rat bomb. Who would suspect a rat? BOOM!

AI and bugs

One cool feature of the single player game is the bots. You get to control up to six friends at a time. You can individually command the to follow, attack, defend, and hold their position. The AI isn\'t perfect, but they are pretty reliable. Some of the glitches I encountered was that sometimes they would get stuck or just not do anything. Other times I had to retrace my steps to get one to follow me again. Other times they would get stuck in a mode like climbing. They wouldn\'t attack just fly around climbing and following you. I have a screenshot of that, kind of funny looking. The game ran pretty stable but when it did crash I was happy to see it started back exactly where it left off! Read about the patches before you apply them, some make your save games not compatible. I applied a minor patch and couldn\'t load any of my saved games. I eventually figured out a work around. But be warned!

Multiplayer

There are many different multiplayer modes in this game. There\'s street war, team street war, territories and capture the flag. There are options like balance teams, friendly fire %, physics options and you can even set the server to simulation mode. The biggest disappointment was that, having such good bots in single player mode, I was hoping to see bots in multiplayer but no!

Appropriate?

From a Christian perspective this game has violence. There\'s no way around it as you\'re quite outnumbered and you have to kill to survive. The gore can be turned off, but there are still some graphic cut scenes. Death is underplayed in this game. Later on in the game, you don\'t die but instead you respawn. Besides being theoretically impossible, it goes against our believe of an afterlife. No heaven, no hell, no God to judge your life. The game tries to show some realism in a couple of ways. You can catch your enemy off guard, for example I picked them off a couple times while they were peeing. There\'s lots of swearing which cannot be turned off. Also in the asylum level there are nude paintings. The paintings are actually famous pieces of art, but there are still naked people in them.

Overall experienceEase of use

This game is easy to install and play. The graphics uses the second generation Unreal engine. The scenery and player detail was good, but given the tone of the game, there weren\'t many bright or pretty colors like Unreal 2. The controls are WASD with using E for interaction with people and objects. The sound effects and music were decent. The gun noises were loud and very fitting. The voice acting was good, even if their lips didn\'t move to it. There wasn\'t much background music unless you blew away some enemy forces, then you heard the same music loop over and over again. If you like first person shooters, you\'ll probably enjoy this game. I\'d say it\'s a combination of Half-Life and Deus Ex. Like all FPS games, I would not recommend this game for kids.