Ominous Horizons

Details: Category: Computer; By Cheryl Gress; 01.Jun; Hits: 14426

System Requirements

OS: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME or Windows 2000
CPU: Pentium(r) II 266 or 100% compatible
RAM: 64 MB HDD: 400MB VIDEO: 8 MB DirectX(r) 8.0a 3D Accelerated Video Card
SOUND: DirectX(r) 8.0a compatible sound card
Age: Teen

Mainz Germany, 1455. Johannes Gutenberg, creator of the printing press completed his great masterpiece, a printed Bible. Thus, a new era in human development would ensue where scribes were no longer needed to painstakingly hand copy manuscripts. Gutenberg could now create thousands of copies of the Bible to be distributed throughout the world, making the Word of God easily available to any who sought it. With his press destroyed, and the Bible stolen, a Paladin is called upon to once again free the world of evil and return the Bible to Gutenberg. You are that Paladin in, Ominous Horizons: A Paladin\'s Calling.* Your quest is to recover the seven lost parts of the bible scattered across the world. This will be no easy task and you cannot do it alone. God will protect you and get you ready for spiritual warfare. On each level you\'ll find an angel to upgrade your sword and a piece of the Lord\'s armor to protect you from evil. Don\'t leave a level without doing these two things! Some of the enemies will hurt you pretty bad. Fortunately there are Bible scrolls laying around that restore your faith/health. In the options menu you can have the verses in KJV or NIV format. Nifty!

Enemies

There are many enemies you\'ll face along the way. Some of them are sneaky and others are just plain strong. Some levels end with a tough boss, so keep those bible scrolls handy. In the end, you\'ll face Satan in various forms! * Anubis * Bats * Devils * Druid priests * Rats * Scarabs * Scorpions * Spiders * Statues that follow you when your turn your back (freaky!!) * Sand golems * Witches

Just shoot and kill?

This game has more than just blasting away monsters. There are some puzzles to figure out to keep you thinking. The whole Mayan Temple level is loaded with puzzles. The most difficult for me was a tile sliding puzzle; I think I spent an hour doing that alone! There\'s about twelve or so hours of play.

Bugs

I did come across a problem that did not just affect my system alone. There are a couple moments in the game where I was not able to perform some jumping maneuvers. I contacted the technical support e-mail and did not get a solution yet. The only way I was able to work around this glitch was to put my save onto another system, go further and then bring it back down to my machine.

Appropriate?

The storyline and spiritual warfare themes are great in this game. There is violence as you are blasting away your foes. There is no blood yet it\'s still rated Teen. Your weapons are the Sword of the Spirit, Holy Crossbow, and Moses Staff.

Final Thoughts

The installation of the game is pretty smooth. In order to watch the intro movies you\'ll need to install the Divx codec which is included in the installation. The movie during the ending credits is quite funny, reminds me of Pixar humor. The controls are pretty simple but the camera angling can be awkward at times. The graphics are dated by today\'s standards but are some of the best I\'ve seen in Christian games. They have pretty much maxed out the Genesis 3D engine. The scenery and levels are pretty good. Some of the maps are linear and others you can get lost in. There are lots of hidden secrets so keep pushing on walls to find them! The musical score is well done and it very much added to the game. My favorite tracks are in the Japanese Fortress and the Scottish Castle. You can listen to the music here! The sound effects are good as well. There is no multiplayer so the only replay ability is to adjust the difficulty level and start again. For $30 this is a good game, if not a little short, as long as it runs on your system. I would highly recommend this game to anyone seeking a good Christian title. You can get it at CovenantGames.com.