Revenant Review -- Mostly Mediocre
Mar. 27th, 2002 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechWell, I finished Revenant tonight, staying up late in the hopes of catching Vince. (Not successful in that regard, alas.)
This game came out in 1999 and was considered quite cutting edge at the time, IIRC. I bought it a month or two ago out of a sale bin for $7.99 -- and feel I got a good deal.
See, the thing is, a lot of the stuff about Revenant probably looked a lot cooler on paper than it actually came out to be during play. The premise is engaging, the world background is neat and evocative, and the game has a beautiful opening CGI sequence.
From there, well, the shine starts to fade a bit.
The first problem is that the voice acting ranges from hopelessly cliche to unintentionally hilarious. The hero is supposed to sound bitter and angry -- after all, he was stuck in hell and brought back to the land of the living enslaved to a wizard of less-than-good intentions. But instead of being seething and grim, he SHOUTS ALL THE TIME! LIKE WHEN HE'S SHOPPING FOR APPLES! The dialogue is written well enough, but destroyed by the delivery.
The second problem is that the interface is clunky. You'd better memorize which potions are red, which ones are blue, which ones are purple, and which ones are lavender, because there's no way to find out what you're carrying once it's in your inventory, except by looking at it. The manual claims you can, just by left-clicking the item. The manual fibs. Which leads me to the third problem...
The manual fibs. For example: one of the giant "boss" monsters I had to fight, is intended to be killed by use of a bow. And to that end, a bow is provided in a chest in the room with the monster. However, since the manual goes to great pains again and again to state that bows are available in multiplayer mode only, I didn't even bother to go looking for one. It was only after I got frustrated trying again and again to defeat the baddie in hand-to-hand combat and went looking for a walkthrough, that I discovered that I could use a bow after all.
Finally, the promise of the cool beginning is not followed up on by the rest of the game. It's like the designers had a bunch of neat ideas for levels or situations that they crammed into the first half (a pit fight against the ogrok champion ... a sensei to teach you the way of the sword ... a library where you can piece together bits of information about your past, etc.), but then ran out of steam for the second half and decided "just put in something."
This is most evident in the ending. There are hints throughout the game that there's more to the wizard who resurrected you than meets the eye -- but at the end he just shows up and does something bad, so you kill him. Why did he do it? What was he trying to accomplish? And what are the ramifications of his death? The game doesn't say -- it just stops. The end feels like they were fishing for a sequel; and while I can understand that and sympathise, it is a very sloppy way to write a story. It's not a cliffhanger ending, either ... it's just a stop.
In the writers' defense, I gather from what I've read about the game that a lot of the ending got left on the cutting room floor due to time and budget constraints. I would be interested to talk to the designers and find out:
Anyway, like I said, for $7.99 in a game bin, it was an enjoyable game. I got about 20 hours of fun out of it, which means each hour of fun only cost $.40. Not too bad. I may steal some of the cooler ideas out of it for a future D&D game, as well.
-The Gneech, off to bed
This game came out in 1999 and was considered quite cutting edge at the time, IIRC. I bought it a month or two ago out of a sale bin for $7.99 -- and feel I got a good deal.
See, the thing is, a lot of the stuff about Revenant probably looked a lot cooler on paper than it actually came out to be during play. The premise is engaging, the world background is neat and evocative, and the game has a beautiful opening CGI sequence.
From there, well, the shine starts to fade a bit.
The first problem is that the voice acting ranges from hopelessly cliche to unintentionally hilarious. The hero is supposed to sound bitter and angry -- after all, he was stuck in hell and brought back to the land of the living enslaved to a wizard of less-than-good intentions. But instead of being seething and grim, he SHOUTS ALL THE TIME! LIKE WHEN HE'S SHOPPING FOR APPLES! The dialogue is written well enough, but destroyed by the delivery.
The second problem is that the interface is clunky. You'd better memorize which potions are red, which ones are blue, which ones are purple, and which ones are lavender, because there's no way to find out what you're carrying once it's in your inventory, except by looking at it. The manual claims you can, just by left-clicking the item. The manual fibs. Which leads me to the third problem...
The manual fibs. For example: one of the giant "boss" monsters I had to fight, is intended to be killed by use of a bow. And to that end, a bow is provided in a chest in the room with the monster. However, since the manual goes to great pains again and again to state that bows are available in multiplayer mode only, I didn't even bother to go looking for one. It was only after I got frustrated trying again and again to defeat the baddie in hand-to-hand combat and went looking for a walkthrough, that I discovered that I could use a bow after all.
Finally, the promise of the cool beginning is not followed up on by the rest of the game. It's like the designers had a bunch of neat ideas for levels or situations that they crammed into the first half (a pit fight against the ogrok champion ... a sensei to teach you the way of the sword ... a library where you can piece together bits of information about your past, etc.), but then ran out of steam for the second half and decided "just put in something."
This is most evident in the ending. There are hints throughout the game that there's more to the wizard who resurrected you than meets the eye -- but at the end he just shows up and does something bad, so you kill him. Why did he do it? What was he trying to accomplish? And what are the ramifications of his death? The game doesn't say -- it just stops. The end feels like they were fishing for a sequel; and while I can understand that and sympathise, it is a very sloppy way to write a story. It's not a cliffhanger ending, either ... it's just a stop.
In the writers' defense, I gather from what I've read about the game that a lot of the ending got left on the cutting room floor due to time and budget constraints. I would be interested to talk to the designers and find out:
- Who are the Children of the Change? What is changing?
- So who the heck was Sardok? It's implied he was Naxxus or one of his servants ... but if so, he was awfully easy to kill. (Unless it was a fake death designed for him to come back in sequels.)
- What was the pact that Locke's ancestors made? What was the Nakhranoth? It's described as being a set of jewels ... but it looks like a set of armor?
- Is there some way to save the girl at the end? Seems kinda pointless to go through all that just to have her get offed in a cutscene.
Anyway, like I said, for $7.99 in a game bin, it was an enjoyable game. I got about 20 hours of fun out of it, which means each hour of fun only cost $.40. Not too bad. I may steal some of the cooler ideas out of it for a future D&D game, as well.
-The Gneech, off to bed
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Date: 2002-03-28 06:31 am (UTC)