Ghen War<Long Review>
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Long post follows:
Ghen War Review
I picked up Ghen War last night for rental and here are my
impressions after playing it for a couple hours.
Basic story line: The Ghen are refugees from outer space where
another Alien race, the Ghen claim, is taking over the galaxy. They
come to earth for refuge and they help mankind with new technology,
like a device that is put under the skin to cure all diseases.
To ready earth against the other invaders they give technology to
allow Man to get resources from among the planets. So humans and
Ghen go to Saturn's moon Titon on a joint mission where the Ghen
backstab the humans. Story continues on FMV in game...
The FMV picture quality in this game has some artifacts like
pixalization and minor color banding. It also plays in a reduced
screen, with a black border running about an inch off of the
bottom of the screen. The FMV uses live actors and the acting is
quite good, with no cheesy dialogue. The sets and the action in
the FMV is very good. The FMV has a very professional feel to it,
like it was done by hollywood professionals, which I believe
it was. There is FMV between the major missions in the game to
explain the story along. I would rate the FMV a 9/10.
The game uses a advanced graphic engine that allows full 360
degree movement. You can go up hills in the game as long as
the grade is not too steep in front of you. You can look up or
down in the game. The walls do not run at 90 degrees like in
some other games(ala DOOM). Most missions are outdoors, but
some are in long winding caves. Everything moves very smoothy
with no slow down. There is pixalization in the landscape
when you are flat up against a wall, but minor since you do
spend much time in such a position. Control in moving around
the landscape is very smooth and fast, with no objects to snag
you, unless you run straight up against an mountain or enemy.
You can jump sometimes up to an higher area, and even hover
a bit after getting a special powerup. The game environment
did not make me feel like 'sea sick' while playing which I feel
alot playing DOOM on the PC using the keyboard as control.
The enemies in this game are all 3D objects that are fully
texture mapped and look very good. The AI of the enemies are
quite good in that they can detect you from quite a distance
and they start shooting right away. You can hide behind the
landscape and then come out shooting to take out the enemy.
Some enemies are mobile and some are stationary. Some of the
enemy vehicles are huge, taking more then the size of the
screen and I have noticed no slowdown in the game yet.
The shots of your weapons are nicely depth cued, as you can
tell even with the laser that the shots are going into the
distance. The enemies are not randomly placed every time you
go back into a level. There are fourteen different enemy
objects to destroy in this game.
You are piloting a mech type of device, which reminds me of
the one Ripley in Aliens II used to defeat the mother alien
in the final scene of that movie. You get a large range of
weapons to choose from and you have alot of each weapon!
They are even power ups of health and more weapons to be
found on the different landscapes.
Weapons:
Laser <main weapon and cannot run out>
Grenade Launcher
Mine Ejector
Rocket Launcher - non tracking
Missile Launcher - tracking
Spike Launcher
Decoy Launcher
E-Cell Ejector
One thing I like alot about this game is the overhead map that is
always on the screen, in you HUD, and it keeps track of where you
went by leaving tracks behind on the map. Very cool indeed. You
even get a full size map of the area my pressing the start key
at anytime during the game, so you cannot get lost. Pressing the
Start key also pauses the game so you are not in danger when
checking the map. The full size map also shows what areas have
not been checked yet, because they are not exposed on the map
till you visit those areas. So the mapping capabilities in this
game is perfect! A 10/10 for this.
Sound in this game is very good. Sound effects can be heard by the
enemy machines when you are near them and go slowly quiet as you
move away from them. Some areas you are in, music starts playing,
I guess to set the mood. Even though it is rock grunge music.
Group is called: bygone dogs. Not bad but depends on you taste
of music. The sound of your shots is quite nice too.
Missions in Game <20 total levels>
Venus - Training Mission
Mars - Mission 1 to 4
Deimos - Just one mission
Moon - Mission 1 to 5
Australia <Strange choice?> Mission 1 to 5
Norad - Mission 1 to 5 <Takes place at Norad headquarters>
<Off game topic: Norad is the agreement we Canadians have with you
Americans where you are allowed to shoot down Russian missles over
Canadain territory! Nice agreement we made. During a war: "Hey look
guys, its raining radiation">
So far I have made it to Moon Mission 1. The Mars missions 1 to 5
and the mission on Mars moon Deimos are very straight forward and easy,
but I am playing on the easiest mode called: Inept. Thanks alot
programmers, that makes me feel real good. he he They are two higher
difficulty levels in this game to choose from in the option screen,
called Intense and Insane. The manual says that you can only play
up to Moon mission 5 at the Inept level. The game starts out with
3 men and you can find another man on one of the Mars missions,
maybe more but I found an easy one on one of the Mars missions.
The first Moon mission is very hard even on Inept difficulty level,
because on part of this level there is a huge machine you have to
take out and he kills me every time. Cool machine though, fires
triple firery shots at you! It is going to take alot of figuring
out to kill this one, any codes for extra men?
Over all I like this game and is very fun, straight forward 3D
shoot-em-up. Nice Control, nice graphics, nice sound, nice
playability and nice FMV. You notice I did not say awesome and
fantastic in my review, this game is good but not as great like
Sega Rally for giving cutting edge gameplay and graphics.
Over all a 9/10 for this game.
Gordon Vink
Vancouver, B.C.
go...@dsoe.com
Cheers!