Onimusha: Chop Shlocky

The hype surrounding this title, really pumped it up for me. Although I shy away from Resident Evil clones - never really like them - the lure of the magical samurai sword and the smell of freshly cleaved zombies drew me in.

To sum it up, Capcom have basically given you a Resident Evil with a sword instead of a gun. That's it! The cut scene graphics are quite nice, with plenty of focus on the handsome face of Samanosuke, the demon warrior. There is the usual storyline of good versus evil, with the "Soul Reaver" slant being that you are bestowed with a gauntlet that allows you to capture the souls of the demons you kill. These souls allow you heal, or replenish your magical ability, or enhance your equipment. Each soul type has a different colour and the demons relinquish a cocktail of soul energy when they die, often in different quantities. In general, big demons leave behind large amounts of soul energy. The energy adds a level of strategy to the generally mundane task of chopping and slashing these gnarled minions of evil. You have to take a break from the endless culling, once in a while to harvest some energy to heal up a bit. Then back into the melee.

The slashing action is fun for a while. There are however a couple of things that let this title down badly. Firstly there is no use of the analogue sticks for movement. So all your clever manoeuvres have to be done with just the d-pad. Secondly, the camera angles will often leave you in the position where all the action is taking place in the distance, making it difficult to see exactly what is going on. As a different camera angle kicks in, you often find yourself having to re-adjust your spatial reasoning to the new viewpoint. Sometimes this is confusing, when you are trying to navigate a twisty winding corridor, and it often leaves you visiting the same locations over and over again, simply because you are disorientated. For all its beauty up close, the game is played at quite a distance.

The monotony of bashing the square button to slash, slash and slash is broken up by an L1 guard and then quickly back onto slash, slash, slash. You can execute an impressive magical attack pressing the triangle button, if you have magic enough. It seems as though magic is always in short supply, so use these special attacks sparingly. Save them for the big bosses. You collect a variety of sword types each with an elemental power of its own. Lightning swords, fire swords etc. And it has to be said that the special attacks are suitably impressive and satisfying.

There are small puzzles, usually to unlock a chest with a power up or plot item in it. The game is saved at some sort of Shinto shrine called a "magic mirror". Here you can save your progress, and use the red energy collected to enhance your weapons or items. Much like an RPG (Role Playing Game), each weapon has a level and it can be made more effective by levelling it up. As they gains levels they change form, and their attacks become more powerful. There are sealed doors that can only be opened by collectible orbs. These orbs also have a level, and in order to progress you must invest some energy in levelling them up to open higher levelled seals. You can also level up some of your items, such as healing herbs into medicine, increasing their healing powers considerably. The RPG-like qualities of the game do add some depth to play. However, it is often necessary to collect more energy than the current flock of demons possess. This means you have to back track into previous areas, and the enemies seem to spawn endlessly to allow you this privilege. While useful in places - this can become tedious. Having defeated a room full of nasties only to become disorientated and foolishly enter the room again, to be attacked by the beasts you have just slain.

It seems if you have to load your save game quite a number of times, the game opens up the Easy mode. However, you cannot continue through the current game in Easy, you have to re-start the game again. Some have reported finishing the game in around 4 hours. Reducing the games value-for-money status considerably. Zone of the Enders clocking in at 8 hours was considered a poor show.

All in all, Onimusha gives you a short-lived hack and slash buzz. In places, it’s too much like Resident Evil. The RPG/Soul Reaver aspect adds some depth to the game. It's not a game I could rave about - but I've only done about an hour in total. Maybe it will flourish in the remaining 3 hours?

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

Well, the new Lord of Destruction expansion is upon us.

I bought it on Sunday, and installed it on top of my D2 v1.07 - the offline characters seemed unaffected. One thing to note converting your current D2 chars to be expansion chars, means you can't join any vanilla D2 games. Which obviously has implications for Pinwig and me, and our D2 love-ins.

Anyway, I fired up a new character, theres two classes added, Assassin and Druid. I chose the Druid, cos he gets to summon creatures and transform into creatures.

The ability to shift the graphics up a notch (800x600) is nice, you lose a lot of the pixilated edges. The only downside I noticed was a veritable chug, with the automap displayed whilst running. The larger inventory stash is very welcome, along with the two weapon loads configuration and the ability to shift between them with a single keypress during combat.

Not sure whether I was just summon happy or not, but I levelled up my druid pretty swiftly, with my team of 3 summoned ravens - dive-bombing the enemy, pecking at their eyes, whilst I floored them with an arrow or two. If things got too tough for me, and my birds were down, I'd shift into werewolf form and claw the living shit out of everything that moved. Not a bad expansion. Just for the interface enhancements and the new classes.

I did try the assassin but much prefer the druid and his summonings. I didn't feel right playing a charlies angel. Did I mention I can shapeshift into werewolf form..? Oooooh man, now that gets me excited. Basically, my Druid is well hard. Much easier to take on the quests "solo", when you have a pack of wolves and a hired archer, along for the ride. I barely need to hit anything. My whirlwind team, maul and masacre the horde before I get there. I sometimes like to play target practice with my flaming arrows, or perhaps freeze a wandering brute with my cold attack mace. The life of a Druid is a good one.

Anyway, I guess now the servers will be teaming with Druids and Assassins.