Crispy Gamer has received word from THQ that the publisher is putting Big Huge Games, responsible for the Rise of Nations series, up for the sale, and that the studio will be closed if a buyer is not found.

Also, two other studios, Heavy Iron Studios and Incinerator, will become independent companies as a result of THQ's latest moves to cut workforce and reduce financial losses.

THQ, who acquired Big Huge last year, released this statement:

“As part of THQ’s previously announced business realignment and related headcount reduction plans that targeted cost reductions of $220 million, including a reduction in workforce of 600 people worldwide, THQ today notified the staff at two of its development studios that they will be spun out as independent companies: Heavy Iron in Los Angeles, CA, and Incinerator in Carlsbad, CA. In addition, THQ informed the staff at its Big Huge Games studio in Timonium, MD, that it plans to close the studio if a sale is not completed in the near future. These actions were unfortunate but were necessitated by the difficult economic environment.”

Big Huge, who also developed the popular XBLA title Catan as well as an expansion for Age of Empires III, has two unnamed titles, one for the Wii and another for the 360, PS3, and PC, in development. They have a good track record with their RTS games, so hopefully THQ won't have much trouble finding someone to sell them to.

Rise of the Argonauts is planned to launch in 2008 and currently has a RP rating by the ESRB. Check out the trailer by clicking the link below.

View Trailer Now]]> Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:30:00 -0500 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/lotr_junkies_rejoice_bfmeii_expansion_coming http://www.gamebump.com/go/lotr_junkies_rejoice_bfmeii_expansion_coming http://www.gamebump.com/go/lotr_junkies_rejoice_bfmeii_expansion_coming# This article was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Certain formatting, imaged, and embedded content may have been lost in the transition process.

Think you're the baddest general ever to grind an opponent into paste in Big Huge Games' Rise of Legends? Well, young one, there's forty grand at stake if you can prove it.

In a press release today, Big Huge Games has announced the "Rise of the Ultimate Champion" tournament. Gamers from around the world will have the chance to do battle with the best of the best, with $100,000 in cash and prizes to be tossed out to the best of the best - including a whopping $40,000 grand prize for the champion. From the press release:Participants can play in one of three preliminary events that will take place beginning Sept. 15, Oct 13, and Nov. 17, 2006. Results from the first three events will be used to determine seeding for the Ultimate Championship, which kicks off Jan. 12, 2007. The top eight will win a trip to the finals where they will battle it out for the title of Ultimate Champion!

For more information, visit the official contest website.]]> Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:23:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_rise_of_nations_rise_of_legends_pc http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_rise_of_nations_rise_of_legends_pc http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_rise_of_nations_rise_of_legends_pc# This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content. It was written by Nate Francis.

It's been more than a decade now since Westwood Studios wrenched PC gaming forward with the landmark title Command and Conquer. That genre-defining event set the stage for a virtual real-time strategy takeover of the PC gaming market, as a host of development and publishing outfits rushed to get their own RTS titles to market and utterly saturated it. Since that time, however, there've been few releases that have truly moved the RTS format forward. The Total War series blended in strategic world maps and a nonlinear scenario advancement build; Warcraft III gave us the concept of a hero that was nearly an army unto itself, whose use of special powers could help break even superior forces.

As the industry waits for the next godsend that will drive the genre into true "next-gen" territory, Microsoft and Big Huge Games have teamed up to launch the anticipated sequel to the award-winning title Rise of Nations. Rise of Legends takes the player out of the "real" and into a mythical land where gunpowder and steam engines contest with malevolent magic and fantasy creatures for the fate of the world.

Brian Reynold's team was assembled with one goal in mind: Make a better game than Rise of Nations. "You can never be satisfied," said executive producer Tim Train in a recent interview. "Don't get me wrong, we're proud of Rise of Nations, but when we sat down to consider what our next game would be, all we kept talking about were the things in Rise of Nations we felt we could have done better." Particularly unhappy with the game's dated graphics engine, Big Huge Games back-burner-ed RoN 2, and updated its money franchise with the Rise of Legends title.

So was it worth it?

From the outset of the game, it's eminently clear that Rise of Legends has succeeded in making a more visually appealing product than its predecessor. The opening cinematic alone is nearly worth the price of admission, and although it's obviously never a true indicator of the quality of game behind it, this one really set the game off on the right foot. Play it at a LAN; in no time, you will have a crowd oooh-ing and aaah-ing behind you. 

The beginning of the game itself opens in formulaic fashion. There are three campaigns involved:

Sitting down to the game and simply playing is fairly easy. Players are presented with a strategic campaign screen to begin, upon which your hero strides, preparing for conquest. Each district is clearly outlined, and inside of each lird a city. Each city, then, is marked for difficulty, along with any special resources it confers once conquered. Additionally, the cities on the strategic map can be built up as you accumulate wealth; adding additional districts makes them both more secure and profitable, depending on what type of district you choose to build. As you proceed to tame the continent, those bonuses will come into play more and more, from providing extra starter units prior to each scenario, to additional resources and hero abilities.

Players will also note, as they begin, that they are not alone on the globe. Aside from the main objective of each campaign, other opposing generals will be attempting to make inroads into territory you've already conquered. As you move from scenario to scenario, these AI-controlled foes will be on the move as well - and should they attack a city you've captured and forgotten to garrison (with a military district), you'll find yourself having to backtrack and re-conquer. It's time consuming and a pain, so make sure to attend to your defenses!

While the strategic map comprises a moderately entertaining minigame in its own right, the meat of any RTS game lies in its tactical warfare, and Rise of Legends does not disappoint.

Each individual scenario has a difficulty level setting that you select when you begin. This is great for people who suck at RTS games (like me) or are just so impatient that they’d rather blast through to the end of the story arc (also like me). Alternately, if you fancy yourself an elitist commando with an RTS pedigree dating back a decade and an ego that doesn't allow for anything simple, ramp up the difficulty and do your worst, Hannibal.

More so than many other "gather and conquer" games, Legends seems to go out of its way to make the gathering/building paradigm as painless as possible. You simply build your main city (whose buildings all need to touch each other), set down some gold-generating districts (unless you're Cuotl, as they trade solely on energy), and watch the cash start rolling in. The other farmable resource, cleverly labeled Timonium, is ripe for mining. As in many other RTS titles, you simply pop down a mine near a Timonium deposit and queue up some miners. Aside from occasionally defending or upgrading your mines, you can now forget about them. Gold not coming in fast enough? Plop down another commercial district in any of your cities and build a new, automated trade caravan.

Of course, there are also buildings adjunct to your cities, which can be placed anywhere inside your ever-expanding borders. These buildings allow you to begin most of your production and research work, in a similar fashion to virtually every other RTS on the market. Buildings erect themselves (or in the Cuotl case, materialize from thin air), requiring no peons or other labor to construct.

The ease of city and resource management makes building fairly vast armies a quick and painless process, in comparison to many other titles. It also allows you to pay more attention to the real fun, which is the warfare. While the sound production is fairly generic and uninspiring, the sharp visuals here are second to none. As a slick, shiftless interface, gratuitous use of tool-tips and on-demand, in-game hints and tips combine to make the game as user-friendly as possible, simply tossing the unread manual on the desk and logging in to crush something is no longer an impossible, learning-curve dream. And really, who has time to read when there are dudes to be slaughtered?

While Legends is simple to sit down and play, Big Huge Games seems to have designed it with Blizzard's mantra in mind: Easy to learn, hard to master. This wouldn't be a Brian Reynolds game without some serious depth to it, and he delivers that necessary depth in a fashion that, unlike many aspects of his Alpha Centauri project, is not at all obnoxious. The tech tree and unit abilities advance at a pace that most any gamer can be comfortable with, while you'll continue to fiddle with things like dominance abilities right up until the end of the game. Personally, I've got about 20 hours into the game (most of them sober, even), and I still feel like there are depths to be plumbed in army composition, use of dominance powers, tech advancement... virtually every aspect of the game. As I advance into the Alin campaign, I'm already rethinking some of my strategies (or lack thereof) from the Vinci campaign, wondering how I could have turned skin-of-my-teeth victories into sheer blowouts.

Rise of Legends may well suffer from what many gamers will find most attractive about it: Its accessibility. Simplifying resource management and city maintenance "dumbed down" an aspect of play that many hardcore RTS fans find compelling. Their ability to manage complex structures and resource chains whilst simultaneously shredding the planet into confetti with staggering armies is a point of pride and enjoyment for many, and it isn't too difficult to find people for whom the relative ease of managing the game makes it fall flat.

Further, there seem to be several scenarios wherein the production crew simply "gave up" on interesting pre-scenario cutscenes. The first several scenarios include cutscenes at their beginning which advance the story and provide plot-basis for the objectives you'll set out to achieve. Yet, in virtually half of the campaigns, you'll get the same generic cutscene: A quick visual overview of the scenario terrain, with a background voiceover telling you something like "The enemy is near; we must prepare. If the enemy gets in our way, he must be destroyed." It seems like a bit of laziness incongruous with the detail involved with much of the rest of the game, and makes it that much more galling - especially after hearing it for the sixth or seventh time. Unfortunately, this same lack of attention seems to have been paid to the audio department. Compared to the great visuals, the sounds of gunfire, spells and airships are almost relegated to a muzac-style of background noise. Disappointing, especially for audiophiles with big investments in surround sound systems and top-end cards.

Multiplayer is also a bit of a gamble at this time. The game is extremely well-balanced for multiplayer play, but actually making it work can be problematic. Big Huge Games is currently addressing many common support requests for multiplayer assistance on its website.

Finally, there's also news that, while the minimum system requirements are relatively low (1.4GHz CPU mated to a 64MB video card) that the game is struggling a bit even on mid-range systems. This is odd for an RTS, which is usually a genre noted for its system-friendliness, yet there's enough being said about it online that it can't be discounted. This is fair warning only; this reviewer tested it on an AMD X2 4600 with 4GB of RAM and a GF7950 pushing two video cores and a gig of RAM, and it ran both stable and flawlessly.

Ultimately, Rise of Legends is a game that succeeds at providing a quality, enjoyable RTS experience. Taking the best interface cues from genre stalwarts like Command and Conquer, Warcraft III and Age of Empires, the player will become immersed in a global conflict pitting two well-balanced yet different powers against an unimaginable foe. While the game at first comes off as "more of the same" due to heavy borrowing of mechanics and concepts from other genre titles, it grows to have its own feel quickly enough that even most jaded gamers will find themselves hooked, should they stick with it. Plumbing the depths of the game doesn't seem to end until the game does, yet it doesn't come at the player in an overwhelming fashion which can quickly confuse and swamp many normal gamers in technical micromanagement. The sides of the conflict, instead of feeling like three sides of the same triangle, feel and play differently, which is a refreshing change of pace that will hopefully, one day, become typical of the genre.

Oh, and there are no elves. Anywhere. Winner!

Intuitive and friendly UI, stable, engrossing fun.

Excellent unit detail, wonderful landscapes waiting to be destroyed.

It serves the purpose of letting you know when you're being attacked, but that's about it.

Easy to sit down and enjoy for hours on end, even for RTS novices.

Enough depth to keep most players coming back to the single-player; balanced for multiplayer.

]]> Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:03:00 -0500 The Gaming Horizon Archive http://www.gamebump.com/go/rise__fall_civilizations_at_war_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/rise__fall_civilizations_at_war_announced http://www.gamebump.com/go/rise__fall_civilizations_at_war_announced#

"Stainless Steel Studios is known for creating revolutionary, real-time strategy games that appeal to a worldwide audience," said David F. Zucker, president and chief executive officer of Midway. "This relationship and the upcoming launch of Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War will further establish Midway in the premium PC market."

"We are very excited to be working with Midway, a publisher who is truly committed to creating the highest quality games in the industry," said Rick Goodman, president of Stainless Steel Studios. "With its unprecedented gameplay, historical accuracy and unique elements, Rise & Fall: Civilizations at War will be one of the most ambitious RTS games to date."

Check out the first screenshots below.

This would be similar to the recently announced 989 Sports titles, ATV Offroad Fury and Twisted Metal: Head-On. Currently, this is still just a rumor, but if true it could lead to the assumption that EA Sports titles would also be online.

We'll keep you posted if and when further details come about from Electronic Arts.

The first X-men Legends turned out to be quite successful and with the way that game ended, you could tell it was set up for the inevitable sequel. The sequel is finally here in the form of X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse. It takes the same successful formula of the first game, adds in a bucket load of new mutants and abilities, and fixes up some of the mistakes Raven made in their first go-round. Even if it was a carbon copy of the original Legends, it would have been a decent game, but with the tweaks and additions, it makes it a great game. Read on to find out why.

As I mentioned, the first X-Men Legends was already a good game and so Raven took the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” to heart. The graphics remain largely unchanged though they did clean up it some as the textures look clearer and crisper. The audio also remains with the generic booms and pows scattered amongst the hits. The voice acting is still very well done, with Patrick Stewart returning as Professor X as well as some other very familiar VAs taking up the parts of the other mutants. The music is much improved, however, as it will change depending on the situation – it’s soft and subtle while exploring, then pumps out some hard rock during fight sequences. It’s also not the same generic music throughout, as each stage has its own musical motif to fit the environment.

Speaking of the stages, there are definitely a lot more to traverse in Legends 2. The variety is a wonderful addition. You’ll find yourself exploring the mutant country of Genosha, fighting hordes of enemies in the wasted streets of New York City, and finally hunting down the main villain of the game, Apocalypse, in the temples of Egypt.

What Legends 2 does leaps and bounds better than its predecessor is the cast of characters and their interactions with one another. Just like Ultimate Spider-man, the writers know their source material very well. The first game featured a roster of 15 characters; X-Men Legends 2 has that same number, but it is a more “flavorful” roster, it you will. The threat of Apocalypse is greater than the X-men or Brotherhood of Evil could ever imagine taking on by themselves. This leaves them no choice but to combine forces for the most un-likeliest of team-ups ever. Thus, you’ll have at your disposal not only some of the big name X-men like Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Wolverine, but also Brotherhood mutants like Magneto and Juggernaut. Another wonderful touch is the addition of some of the lesser known names (to the general public at least, comic book fans should easily know these names) like Sunfire, Scarlet Witch, and Bishop. Their exchanges during the mission briefings are priceless, as not only do they fit their comic book counterparts well, but they’re quite funny too. They may be working together, but the animosity between the two teams is still very evident.

A number of other mutants make appearances as non-playable characters, some of whom have huge impacts on the story. Fans ought to get a kick out of seeing Mister Sinister acting as Apocalypse’s right-hand man, or seeing Angel in both his original and his Archangel Four Horsemen forms. Others offer help outside of direct combat – Forge will sell you wares, Blink gives you the ability to teleport to your homebase at anytime, and Havok will act as the X-Jet pilot to get you places.

The best thing about the roster is that it is more balanced than the original. In the first one, you could just bust through the entire game with Wolverine alone. Now, that same thing can occur with some characters here, but at least no one in Legends 2 is useless unlike some others in the original (cough, Jubilee, cough). The reason for this is that they’ve expanded the number of mutant powers available for each person to about 10. Whereas you had a couple of passive abilities and a mutant power for each face button in Legends 1, you’ll find yourself struggling with figuring out what powers you want to level up and have active. And with more powers than face buttons, Raven thankfully added the ability to quick switch mutant powers on the fly.

Keeping this balance does take some work however. Leveling up is still a big part of the game and allowing the AI to distribute stat points and skill points will lead to some mediocre character builds. Some may not like this micromanagement, but trust me when I say that it pays off in the end. In my first run through the game, I stuck to the same four characters and built them up myself, and they became unstoppable. In my second run, I chose to use 8 different characters, and they too were able to hold their own throughout the game. A good example is how I leveled up my Iceman. In the first Legends, I used him primarily as a close up melee fighter, but in the sequel, I turned him into a freeze beam spamming machine by pumping most of his stat points into his focus. I could have done the same thing I did in the first game, but after seeing his new ability list, I decided to go that route. Customizing characters has always been an important part of RPGs, and Legends 2 offers it up in large quantities.

The load times have been greatly improved since the last time. When trying to access menus in Legends 1, the load took forever – so long, in fact, that one of the load screen artworks was shown while you waited. This time around, the menu pops up in almost a blink of eye; almost I say, because there is still a bit of loading, but nothing compared to the old one.

Lastly, the multiplayer aspect has been fixed. Last year, it felt tacked on especially since many of the missions involved Magma alone, thus totally eliminating any sort of enjoyment for the others trying to play. Raven alleviated that problem here by always having four people in the party at once. By doing so, anyone can jump in and play at any time, which is a good thing since you can take this online.

Online, you can participate in some of the versus Danger Room activities, but the biggest reason to play online is that you can load up a saved campaign and play four-player co-op with other players across the country. And let me tell you that it is freaking awesome. It’s a throwback to the days when Gauntlet ruled the arcades. The only downside is that the game pauses whenever someone accesses their menu, which will happen very often since level ups occur at a rather brisk pace as well as when trying to change equipment.

Hmm, you know, I can’t really think of anything bad to say about X-men Legends 2. There are a couple of things to nitpick at, but nothing too big.

Finishing the game only clocks in at about 15-17 hours, and that’s with completing every available sidequest. But, when you beat the game you open up Deadpool and if you do a certain sidequest, Iron Man. Doing all the Danger Room missions also unlocks Professor X and playing through the game again with those three is definitely fun, even if Iron Man totally messes up the character balance that Raven had addressed. Considering what you have to do to get him, however, he’s such a great reward.

There are also Danger Room missions, comic art, and concept art littered throughout the stages, but other than that, multiple difficulties, and playing through again with the unlocked characters, Legends 2 is lacking a bit in replay value.

I guess another fault would be that there aren’t enough online options, but I honestly think that the online co-op campaigns are more than enough to satisfy fans.

Lastly, the game still feels a little too easy, and it’s because of the same problem the first game suffered from – health and energy packs are abundant, with enemies dropping them left and right. You’ll never be in short supply of them, so you don’t have to worry about dying too often unless it’s against certain enemies that hit really hard.

Raven took a successful formula and made it even better by addressing the mistakes it made and improving them. The result – a fantastic action RPG that fans of the Marvel universe and non-fans alike should enjoy sinking their teeth into for more than a couple of hours. If you have the first one, you should have this in your possession already, and if you don’t, I suggest you track this game down and purchase it today.

Still the same solid gameplay fans know and love, though might be too hack-and-slash for some.

Cleaner than the last game’s. Nothing overwhelming, but captures the comic look well.

Music is improved, voice acting is still brilliant.

A face paced, action packed dungeon crawl gets more fun with multiplayers, off- or online.

3 unlockable characters, 3 difficulties, and some art to find is all. Online saves this score.

]]> Sun, 16 Oct 2005 13:33:00 -0500 Brian Mohr http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_xmen_legends_ii_rise_of_apocalypse_xbox1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_xmen_legends_ii_rise_of_apocalypse_xbox1 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_xmen_legends_ii_rise_of_apocalypse_xbox1# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse is looking to bring what was successful with the original Legends and improve on every aspect of it. In this version the developers are looking to have 16 playable characters in which each has approximately 12-14 mutant powers, more than doubling them from last time. The game also looks to feature over 20 bosses and three skins for each player including classic ones.

The designers particularly wanted to improve on the team aspect of the game and make you work together more. In this version, you'll be able to have Magneto and Wolverine on the same screen and play them together. There will be a completely new strategy in which you can play how you want as they made it to fit both role playing and action fans alike. One sort of example of this is in the boss battles which will include multiple stages as you'll have to progress through them. You'll see that the boss uses the environments against you and then in turn you must use it against him.

You can tell that the developers particularly worked on the graphics, the X-Men are much sharper and better looking than last time. The environments are also impressive and include enhanced destruction including the ability to throw and blow stuff up. The levels are also larger and there is more to do. One particular notice of graphics was when you were in the museum and scarabs were literally coming out of the floor, graphically this really worked and was very impressive.

The game's sound is also impressive with all new dialogue added to make the experience even better. If that's not enough, the game also supports online play for up to four people. Activision worked hard on overhauling the menu system for online play there is no waiting while other people are in menus, instead with the simple touch of the D-pad you can power switch thus keeping the nonstop action going. If you don't have four players, you can also fill the rest of your slots with the computer.

X-Men Legends 2 is looking to be an impressive sequel to the best selling X-Men game of all-time. With more powers, characters and options, the game certainly looks to build on every aspect of the original. The graphics are even sharper and the dialogue is better. Overall, X-Men Legends 2 certainly will fill the action and role playing desire of X-Men fans everywhere.]]> Sun, 22 May 2005 16:34:34 -0500 Shiva Stella http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_rise_of__the_kasai_ps2 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_rise_of__the_kasai_ps2 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_review_rise_of__the_kasai_ps2# This review was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.

The sequel/prequel to 2002’s Mark of Kri, Rise of the Kasai is one of the more unique action/stealth games to hit the market as of late, though nearly not as original as its predecessor. In Rise of the Kasai players now assume the roles of two heroic pairs, hopping between instances in time in order to discover a murderer. While the aesthetic feel of Kri is present, the rest of the game feels merely like a shadow of its former self, plagued by troubling asides that may add up to hinder your good time. It’s almost ironic that God of War is showcased on the back of the manual.



Kasai’s storyline appears to pick up from where Kri’s left off, only now the original’s fabled hero – Rau, the hulking, silent cartoon Conan – has been slain, drastically altering the path of good for the world. The oracle, a mysterious talking tree (I know, “only in mythology”) has been tasked by the gods to determine the circumstances of Rau’s tragic death and, through the manageability of time, right the wrong. To do this she summons Rau’s spirit guide, Kuzo, the giant black bird that scouted ahead for Rau in Kri. Kuzo and the oracle together weave a superb and fascinating narration of the events leading up to Rau’s death, presenting players with a twist: they go back in time to play as the Baumusu/Griz team, foreshadowing the incidents that transpire in the “present” and result in Rau’s murder. It’s confusing at times, but results in a strong ending and is presented via the same absolutely stunning, hand-drawn animations that Kri fans loved so well. When it comes to the beauty of complexity, Rise of the Kasai’s storyboard animations rival even God of War’s cutscenes in presentation quality (but notice I said “rival” and not “surpass”).

If you’ve forgotten the premise behind the world of Kri, several powerful marks (spells, rather) exist, some in the form of scrolls or mysterious birthmarks. As generations pass the innocent tribal people have reduced the legends of the old protectors of such marks – the Rakus – down to children’s tales, but as the narration is explained by Kuzo in the opening cinematic, the Kasai, a legion of corrupt souls vying for worldly power, have not been nearly so forgetful. The Kasai have in fact regrouped, and are more determined than ever to pose a threat to the Rakus, which includes Rau and his younger sister, Tati (you remember the brat from the inn, right?) Tati is the key figure in Rise of the Kasai, and players will be drawn to her bloodthirsty need for revenge against a universe that would curse her with an evil mark. Kind of like a storyline within a storyline, isn’t it? And it gets better – Baumusu and Griz have their own roles to be explored, and that’s where the gameplay opens, not with Rau and Tati but with Baumusu and Griz, in the far-past.

All the little nuances that Kri featured Kasai features too; there are the colored health rings around your character; the highlighted targeting beam; the quick-select weapon inventory slots, and so on. Anyone who’s played the original will feel right at home here, even three years later. The key points to consider are the new features Bottlerocket has included, one of which is immediately noticeable: the addition of a partner character. At the beginning of each of the 11 levels the player selects a character to control from the offered pair, either Rau/Tati or Baumusu/Griz, leaving the other character for AI control. The partner will often fight by the your side, or run off to do his own thing (which traditionally involves the flipping of switches) to clear a path for you. The AI is solid in the sense that the partner can effectively handle his opponents, which frees you from babysitting, but it has a tremendous share of flaws. Still, the addition makes exploring Kasai’s world more interesting, because whereas before it was one lonely adventurer in a great, big barren environment (discounting Kuzo and enemies, of course) now it’s you, your partner, and…also Kuzo…in a great, big barren environment. It’s not enough freshness to support the title, but it’s a start.

A good draw-in for Kri was the gameplay option of stealth, and that continues here, with more gruesome and sadistic cartoonish stealth kills that’ll make you feel almost giddy with glee. Sharp objects enter the human body in ways not approved for by the manufacturer, blood jets out in streams, bad guys are decapitated, necks are broken, and a lot of people are cut in two. If you find the violent cartoon bloodbath intriguing then grab your keys and head to Blockbuster – this’ll be one you like.

Setting up a stealth kill is done just as it was in Kri; the unarmed player sneaks up on the target, highlights him, waits for the trigger button above his head to stop flashing, and then selects it to take him down. You can hide behind walls, drop down from above, or simply follow baddies while their backs are turned to target the kills. Kuzo, the spirit guide, can scout ahead to spot enemies that require stealth killing, while Tati and Griz can use the power of their marks to guide their souls from beacon to beacon of life energy. From these positions the camera enters a first-person view that hones in on enemies and things of note, like flocks of birds. To make it more interesting those same, pesky horn-carrying sentries abound, and usually the first task is to figure out a way to stealth kill a sentry before he alerts all his friends. The other opponents – various bad guys with axes/swords/sticks/bows and sometimes armor – are trivial and can be handled easily in direct combat.

Direct fighting gets just as gruesome as the stealth kill animations, with the pair wielding four weapons (one specialized, one for distance, one for strength, and one for massive targeting) that can be toggled in and out via the quick-select menu. Each character almost has his own fighting style, but it really comes down to a game of matching. Rau, Baumusu’s pupil, is most like his mentor and both fight heavy with the visual aid of Kuzo. Tati, on the other hand, is most like her beloved uncle Griz, and both favor agility and decisive blows over brute strength. Whichever style you prefer, your task in direct combat is to highlight opponents with the right analog stick and then start swinging away in all your button-mashing glory while selecting an enemy with either the X, circle, or triangle button. You can perform combos if the mood strikes you, and again, if you ever wanted to see Bugs Bunny REALLY mutilate someone, the mood is going to strike ferociously. Combos in Kasai are unbelievably disgusting, but also more difficult to pull off than they should be. If you’re sweeping the field and spot six enemies with target buttons then your combos are sharply limited because your tapping of a button for a combo – say, square – will send you targeting the nearest square-assigned bad guy. Piece of advice: limit the targeting area down to one or two, tops, and then pull off combos for massive blood and confusion. However, if you’re the lazy type (and that’d be me) feel free to pound out those XXXX combinations I’m so fond of. Hey, simplicity is beauty.

All that slaughter would get pretty redundant without a wide environment to explore, and Kasai (almost) delivers; you’ll have some lushly forested areas, a few temples, a fortress here or there, a dungeon or two, an active volcano, and so on. In outdoor environments the levels are spotted with giant trees, planked walkways, small streams, stupid sentries (getting ahead of myself here), lots of darkness, and sometimes tiny, detailed buildings. In one of the fortress areas there are small pools of water and a great, clear blue sky. In that dungeon level there’s a lot of darkness and a lot of darkness. Oh, and a nasty plant “infestation”. Character designs received a lot more attention, with Rau looking the same as he’s always looked – big, strong, and donning an interesting skirt – and Tati shining as the developer’s character design jewel. It’s refreshing to see a female character that’s not just another Lara spin-off with pigtails, although Tati has received Lara’s measurements and, oddly enough, pigtails. She has a much more sinister attitude, though, and it’s presented well down to the very way she moves and attacks. The other two characters aren’t worth mentioning. The game is adequate visually, but environmentally looks better in actual screenshots.

Love extras? Love unlocking extras? Love watching extras? Rise of the Kasai has neat movies, outfits, and arenas to unlock, if you’re willing to go through each level’s five challenges (even in the “present” Baumusu’s annoying tasks haunt Rau). These challenges can be as mundane as “stealth kill this guy with a bow” or ludicrous as “stealth kill five guys with a poisonous mushroom, at once, while blindfolded and standing on your head”. At least it adds to the replay value.

Presentation, presentation, presentation. What rings true in nearly everything else rings true here, too. Rise of the Kasai’s audio elements (when actually used) are very well-done, scoring major points in the storyline narration (voiceactors: excellent work) and combat sound effects. The background music, however, is subtle and only robust when the alarm is called. However, as this is a game that prides stealth you can’t really be so harsh on the tribal soundtrack and drum beats (although MGS games seem to get the balance between music and quiet tension right). The aforementioned visuals are supplemented by all that violence and gore. The storyboard cutscenes are simply phenomenal. Taken as a whole, this tribal legend is presented as one.



I’m not exactly sure what happened during that three-year interval between Kri’s release and Kasai’s, but of one thing I’m certain: that innovation that made up for Kri’s flaws is MIA in Kasai. Oh ye ancient, tribal gods, where to begin?

That immediately-noticeable partner addition I mentioned earlier is only functional if it actually works correctly. Sometimes your AI partner will play it smart and stealth kill his way silently around a room, and other times your partner gets stuck running into a tree. This is very bad because there are areas that require both partners to take separate routes to flip the necessary switches (that reminds me…) and if one gets stuck, the other (that’d be you) can’t progress. There’s a convenient feature accessible from the vividly decorated map (I wish they’d spent as much time on the environments) that allows players to “remote view”, i.e. see what their partner sees. After sitting for ten minutes at a spot waiting for Rau to stealth kill some sentries I finally checked the remote view only to spy Rau standing there, doing absolutely nothing, being about as useful as your chemistry partner from the tenth grade. A controller later and I’m still waiting on Rau to do something productive. Eventually he moves forward and sets up another stealth kill, but by this time he’s still half a map and God only knows how many kills behind me.

It’s not often this tedious, but there are times when you want nothing more but to strangle the AI, and it doesn’t get any better for your enemies. I didn’t think it’d be possible for them to become any more than a pack of dullards from Kri, but I was dreadfully mistaken. These guys pose zero challenge; they’re placed in the most obvious positions, and when you do alert them they circle you and attack one at a time. Oh no! Someone call Rau because Tati is surrounded by eight opponents and they’re all attacking one at a time! Whatever will the damsel in distress do? Answer: proceed to quickly dismember them in a period of 18 seconds. Don’t laugh – I timed it. And the AI madness doesn’t stop there. When you’ve got your back to the wall near a corner and you’re waiting for the horn-toting sentry to close in, you’d better be ten feet from that edge, because if you’re not that sentry is going to use his superman abilities to peer through that wall. This is even more irksome when you’re playing as Tati, who has the ability to “cloud the minds of her enemies”, i.e. go invisible. These sentries must be equipped with heat sensors or something, because they repeatedly spotted me – invisible, five feet from the edge – and sounded the alarm.

Time for the switch discussion. Remember the early years of the Tomb Raider franchise? Every reviewer eventually had to sit down with Eidos and explain the public’s dislike of repeated box puzzles, and now it’s Bottlerocket’s turn: quit with the switches. I feel like I am completing three-four areas/level with the ultimate goal of “flip all the switches to access the final area”. Assuming at least four switches/area (sometimes there’s at least two, sometimes there’s six, etc) you’ve got anywhere from 12+ switches to flip/level, give or take a few. Some of the actual tasks are presented as “Tati: dispose of the sentries to flip the heavily guarded switches”. Come. The hell. On. I can’t believe that the same company that endorsed God of War saw fit to release Rise of the Kasai. Where are the puzzles? Where’s the motivation? Where are the potentially dangerous bad guys? Is it just me, or did Mark of Kri also sport so many damnable switches? Keep the focus on the stealth/combat gameplay and toss in some unusual opponents and straightforward, but unique, puzzles. Don’t waste my time with switches; if I won’t give Lara Croft the time of day for a box puzzle, I certainly won’t spend ten minutes looking for a switch. One word: outdated.

I adore Kasai’s presentation. It’s got beautiful hand-drawn, animated storyboard cutscenes and an intense narration. The cutscenes using in-game graphics, though, are just as bad as they were in Kri. I couldn’t believe that the actual gameplay graphics in Kri were better than the imagery we got during the in-game cutscenes, like someone had taken a paintbrush and gone smear-happy. We get the same problem in Kasai, three years later. I’m confused as to why this doesn’t seem to bother other reviewers. Maybe they’re all too busy complaining about the camera?

And oh yes, that jerky camera is back. Sometimes it gets stuck when you’re in an enclosed area, and sometimes it doesn’t. The problem seems to have been lessened from Kri’s release, but you’ll be spending a lot of time adjusting the camera with L1 so you can actually see what’s in front of you.

But if you’re completely surrounded by darkness it won’t really matter. Some areas in Kasai are way too dark, drowning the environment in a thick, black shadow that envelops your character and everything else in sight. Expect to turn your TV brightness up; I didn’t get blackouts this bad in Primal. Some more aptly placed torches would have been a treat.

Another addition we should have seen: how about some online or co-op play? If Tenchu can work with two-player modes than why not Kasai? I’d rather have a friend controlling Rau than that cursed AI.

One tiny other flaw: when trying to hop down from a ledge or climb a ladder, you have to push your character to do so, often turning him in just the right direction. It’s a nuisance. I can’t count how many times I fell off a ledge or got struck by arrows because I was busy turning Tati in the correct direction. It shouldn’t take three nudges to fall off a ledge “correctly”.



Rise of the Kasai is a good game that should be played by Mark of Kri fans and cartoon-violence fanatics. Others should just steer clear, unless the storyboard animation and narration intrigues you. It’s the year 2005 and by now we’ve seen what this system is capable of, and we’ve seen those capabilities pushed to the max in God of War. But something GoW offered the masses that Kasai doesn’t was its use of interesting, unique, fathomable puzzles and intense combo system. Kasai instead gives you Tati, some twisted AI, bland environments cloaked in darkness, poor in-game cutscenes, and a hell of a lot of abominable switches. It simply doesn’t compute. Mark of Kri was hailed for its innovation, but Rise of the Kasai doesn’t have one innovative leg to stand on. 

Repetitive button-mashing and switches even out the fun stealth kills. Poor AI. No originality.

There’sTati, and a great presentation. It’s not horrible but those in-game cutscenes…

Excellent voicework for narration. Too subtle everywhere else.

Unlockables, and you can play as your partner to re-do levels.

This is being lenient. If I have to flip one more switch…

]]> Mon, 09 May 2005 19:30:00 -0500 Brian Mohr http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_rise_of__the_kasai_ps21 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_rise_of__the_kasai_ps21 http://www.gamebump.com/go/gh_preview_rise_of__the_kasai_ps21# This preview was originally published on Gaming Horizon, GameBump's predecessor. Its format does not match our own but we support its content.