| Author | Review |
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Balsin Fase
143,797
TA Score for this game: 1,431
Posted on 01 August 11 at 20:57 |
This review has 15 positive votes and 2 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Now, if you read anything on the game Knight’s Contract, you would have probably noticed that the whole game is just one big protection mission. Your mind probably shot right back to somehow finding a way to keep Natalya from getting perforated by the twenty dudes shooting at her. Those bad memories from Goldeneye probably weren’t the only time you had to protect a complete moron with no self-preservation instinct, either. The thought of protecting someone for fifteen to twenty hours may have sent you babbling into the night, overwhelmed by the distilled madness that would want to create such a game. That’s a shame, because it’s actually pretty good.
Firstly, they take steps to balance the game better for protecting someone else the whole time. As Heinrich, you can’t die permanently. There is no health bar for him. All that happens when you take a lot of damage is that you fall to one knee and have to hit the button a bunch of times to get up. If you take even more damage, you get ripped to shreds, but just have to hit the button even more to get back into action. Unlike your average protection mission, you don’t have to worry about getting yourself killed in the process of helping your charge. In this game, if Gretchen’s in trouble, you run in and start beating people around no matter what they’re doing. Your only concern is her health bar.
Not having to worry about your own health is a godsend for people who play action games like me. I love to get right up in the enemy’s face and pound away with my attacks, ducking and weaving around him. With a normal game, I’m a little bit more worried when I do this, but since in this game I can never die, it encourages me to take a few more risks than I would normally, which results in a lot more crazy fights with the tough enemies in this game. Get hit really hard? Just tap the button and get back in there. Gretchen is stuck behind a wall of enemies? Wade in and start taking them out. Your scythe can’t hurt her (another genius move by the developers), so just start swinging away.
There’s only so much you can do with the light/hard hits of a regular action game, and the developers knew that too. The woman you’re protecting is a witch, so why not make her useful and give her some attack magic? It’s not like the advanced attacks of some action games, which you may never actually use, either. This stuff lets you pin enemies to the spot, hit flying enemies with enchanted spears or hammers, or send spears up from under a blocking enemy’s feet. The magic also often has an instant death effect if the enemy is even kind of low on health, one that just needs you to hit the button with the right timing, which never changes. In the area of effect spells, if even one enemy is low on health, you usually get away with killing them all. The magic takes a little bit of time to recharge after each use, but it would just break the game if it didn’t. Even so, the recharge time is usually just long enough that if you’re using magic in clever ways, your next spell will always become available almost the second you need it. The timing is almost eerie at how good it is.
There’s also a good deal of enemies to fight, so you never really feel like they’re throwing the same battles at you over and over. They keep introducing new enemies right up until the second to last level, so you’re never bored. Their attacks might seem similar, but combined with their toughness and varied weak moments, it keeps you on your toes. Also, do you like bosses? This game has one almost every two stages, and there are a lot of huge ones that look great. Even though they went with seven witches to have as bosses, they didn’t go down the road of making them all just variances on elemental skanks. Holda and Trendula are particularly awesome looking giants, one riding a flaming chariot while the other just looks like a skyscraper-sized ogre. I miss cool bosses in games now, so these were a welcome refresher.
So, do I hate anything about it? Not really, beyond a few small annoyances. If Gretchen gets hit by fire or lightning, she gets frozen to the spot and continues to take damage until you pick her up (this heals her, even in combat). This may give you the impression during some boss fights that she has bad AI, but this is just because these attacks paralyse her while dealing damage. Don’t get mad at her just because you went down after she got hit with one. Also, she can’t get out of the few environmental hazards in the game unless you pick her up, but you can do this from the edge of those traps, so no big deal. Also, during some of the boss fights the edges of the arena are cliffs and you can get killed by being knocked off them. This is really annoying, but I’ve found other tactics to keep myself safe for each of those stages. Since this doesn’t happen often, I’m inclined to think it was a developers oversight, so it’s kind of an unnecessary nuisance, but not one you can’t overcome. The story is also anime drivel with bad voice acting, but what can you do? Beats military jargon being shouted by good voice actors any day.
Overall, if you like action games, this one is fast-paced and exciting. When you’re encouraged to go nuts on the enemies in a game like this, you really can’t go wrong. Other than a few minor grievances, this is one of the better games I’ve played in years, and deserves far better treatment than reviewers gave it. They even threw in an unlockable gun magic just so today’s game reviewers would like it better. Maybe if they said ‘Oscar Mike’ a few more times they would have rated it higher.
Before I go, the female protagonist puts on more clothes when it is cold out. Doesn’t that deserve at least some accolade?
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PickAxPete
151,736
TA Score for this game: 1,110
Posted on 13 August 12 at 03:39, Edited on 13 August 12 at 20:12 |
This review has 6 positive votes and 2 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Knights Contract is what you get when two things most players don't like - escort missions and Quick Time Events - are bolted onto the standard God of War framework. While Knights Contract won't win any prizes for its mediocre production values and at-times aggravating gameplay, it's really not too bad.
Knights Contract takes place during the Dark Ages, when witches walked amongst us. A power-crazy guy with ulterior motives named Faust accuses a coven of witches of spreading the Black Plague and orders their public execution; your character, the burly executioner Heinrich Hoffman doesn't think the witches are guilty (and says as much) but has little choice but to carry out Faust's orders. Just before Heinrich beheads the final witch, Gretchen, she places an immortality curse on him.
Jump ahead 100 years: Heinrich doesn't think immortality is all that it's cracked up to be, and just wants to die. Seemingly by chance he meets up with Gretchen again, who is now inhabiting a new body; it turns out that she had a reason for cursing him long ago: the other witches that Heinrich executed have returned as monstrous, unfriendly abominations. Gretchen needs Heinrich's help to stop them and figure out why they've come back after all this time. Heinrich agrees to help, but only if Gretchen will lift the curse on him when their quest is over.
Heinrich and Gretchen's journey will see them visiting villages, forests, and castles, battling packs of enemies and the occasional boss monster. Attacks are carried out with the X and Y buttons, and button presses can be strung together into powerful combos. A couple of additional button presses will allow Gretchen to execute a magical spell that can be combined with Heinrich's attacks to brutal effect. Enemies give up souls when they die, which can be used to upgrade Gretchen's spells. Attacks are flashy and colorful, but Knights Contract's combat system isn't very deep. Still, it's fun to have Gretchen cast a spell that tangles up enemies in giant spiked vines and then move in quickly with Heinrich to pull off a devastating finisher.
The player can also accumulate "Witch Points" from fallen enemies that can be used to to unleash over-the-top attacks when a status bar is full: Heinrich turns into a whirling dervish who can cut down enemies in a single hit, while Gretchen transforms into a naked blue giant capable of crushing enemies between her thighs or under her enormous backside.
After each level the player is graded in a number of different categories, like the amount of time it took to finish the map and how many combination attacks were pulled off. The better you did the higher the grade, with an S rating being the best. Getting an S rating unlocks things like concept art, spells, and new costumes. Levels can be replayed from a menu if you wish to revisit them to try and improve your score or find all the numerous collectibles.
Although there are two characters onscreen most of the time in Knights Contract, the player only controls Heinrich when he and Gretchen are paired up; while Heinrich can order Gretchen to cast a spell, her movements are controlled entirely by the computer. During combat enemies will concentrate their attacks on Heinrich, but if he goes down they'll turn their attention to Gretchen. While Heinrich can't die, too many hits will incapacitate him. When this happens, you have to hammer away on the A button to get Heinrich on his feet; this will take about 10 seconds. While this is going on, enemies will gang up on the very mortal Gretchen, who flunked out of Survival 101 at witch school: she won't run away from enemies that are much stronger than her and her basic attacks are weak. While Heinrich is immortal, Gretchen isn't and if she dies it's game over.
If you manage to get to Gretchen before she keels over, you have to pick her up and carry her around in your arms while her health regenerates. This leads to amusing - to watch, not play - instances of Heinrich toting Gretchen around like a football, weaving his way through enraged monsters trying not to get hit again.
Gretchen's bad AI carries over to her movements too, as she frequently gets stuck on obstacles and won't get out of the way of things that can kill her, like moving deathtraps. A game that is essentially a twelve-hour escort mission needs to have really good AI, and Knights Contract doesn't seem to know what AI actually is. Some sort of co-operative option where a second player controls Gretchen would have been ideal, but Knights Contract is a one-player game.
About one-quarter of the way through the game, Knights Contract's warts are exposed in a perfect storm of frustration for all to see. After making your way to the top of a burning cathedral tower, you face off against an enormous boss. This arena is surrounded by lava, and if Gretchen gets knocked into it by one of the boss' attacks, she'll calmly stand there and burn to death instead of moving. If you manage to get through this part, the fight moves onto a small platform where the boss rains fireballs onto your head. It's nearly impossible to avoid getting hit and blasted off the platform and right into a bottomless pit but if you manage to stay on the platform, Gretchen will ruin your day by standing in the burning hot spots and dying. At this point, you'll probably want to reach into the screen and strangle Gretchen with your 360 controller cord.
If you're curious about whether you'd enjoy Knights Contract after reading the above few paragraphs, take this simple test: Go into your kitchen, and turn one of the stove's burners on. When the burner is red-hot, place your hand on it; if you keep your hand on the burner instead of pulling it away like a normal person, congratulations: not only is Knights Contract for you, you were probably the game's AI programmer.
Is it wrong to pick on the companion AI in Knights Contract so much? When it's something the whole game is built around, then no it isn't. Playing on the lower difficulty settings makes this issue less annoying, but it still exists.
Quick-Time Events are also a part of the Knights Contract package, and while they're a small part of the experience they're put to use during the toughest parts of the game: boss fights. Every now and then you'll face off against one of the monstrous former witches, and after you whittle through several health bars, a Quick-Time Event plays out. Match the button and analog stick prompts correctly and you're treated to a flashy spectacle of over-the-top witch killing. Miss a single prompt though, and the boss regains a significant chunk of health that you have to wear away to initiate the QTE again. While the prompts never change, you only have a split second to make the correct inputs. Playing at lower difficulty settings extends the time limits, but even then the window of opportunity is barely open.
Other parts of Knights Contract fare somewhat better. The story is decent, even though most of the voice-acting telling it is lackluster. Even so, it's interesting enough that you'll want to see how it all turns out.
Levels also contain lots of secret areas that contain collectibles, most notably equipment and more powerful spells. This stuff can be carried over to new playthroughs, and since Knights Contract has five difficulty settings, there's good value here for completionists. Level design can be confusing at times though, with some of the stages essentially being giant mazes. While there's an in-game map it's mostly useless, so be prepared to spend a fair amount of time wandering around trying to figure out where to go next.
Maps are also broken up regularly by loading screens, often mere seconds apart. In Knights Contract it's not uncommon to enter a small room, get a loading screen and then another loading screen when you exit the room five seconds later. It's hard to tell what the game is actually loading, since Knights Contract looks like a game that wouldn't have problems running on the original Xbox.
Levels also get recycled late in Knights Contract, apparently for the purposes of padding. These parts of the game also separate Heinrich and Gretchen, with Heinrich getting a new non-lobotomized partner and Gretchen flying solo.
Despite these issues, Knights Contract manages to hold itself together and provide some fun in spite of its best attempts to infuriate you. People who get frustrated easily may want avoid the game though, since many parts of Knights Contract are truly aggravating.
Knights Contract also isn't a game you'll show off to your friends: the graphics are lackluster and the character animations are pedestrian. Environments don't look like they have a lot of polygons to them, and the textures adorning the walls are nothing to write home about. Some of the character designs - mostly the bosses - are good, and the cutscene that plays on the title screen if you don't touch the controller is of high quality.
The audio in Knights Contract is middle of the road, with only the music standing out as being above-average. Combat effects, environmental audio, and voice-acting do the job and not much else.
Knights Contract has 50 achievements and the standard 1000 GamerScore points up for grabs. Achievements are rewarded for completing the game on each difficulty level, finding all the collectables and spells, collecting certain amounts of souls, defeating bosses, getting X amount of kills in certain ways, and so on. The achievements list is fairly well-done, and if you want to 50/50 this game it'll take a long time.
If you're up for a game that doesn't always play fair, then Knights Contract might be what you're looking for. Everyone else can steer clear.
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CheesusCrackers
85,268
TA Score for this game: 1,037
Posted on 19 June 11 at 17:31 |
This review has 8 positive votes and 6 negative votes. Please log in to vote. |
Let me start by saying i have not yet beat this game, but am close. The one word i can use to describe this game is "FunStration". Yes, it's not a word, but is the best i got right now.
The game is fun, a hack-n-slash with very simple rpg elements. There is no real leveling up per say, but you have powers you can upgrade with souls. This process is tedious at best. Many times you don't really worry past level 2, because souls take forever. Beat enemies, infuse potential powerups. Not the greatest variety of powers, but it works for the game. Your "witch" can carry some equipment, but they are more like augmented powers, i.e. recover faster health when carrying the lazy witch. No really, she's a witch, and very lazy. Let's just say she was not at the top of her witch class. Her value in combat is that she provides you with "spells" and little else. I find myself picking her up, running around and avoiding enemies. WHY do you ask? Cause, if she dies, the game is over, and apparently cuddling is the only way to keep a witch alive. (no comments here)...
The combat is fun and challenging, the boss fights are unforgiving. I love running around and destroying the bad guys, although once you play through the first couple of chapters, they are just slight variations of the same. But, you know this, because that's HOW EVERY GAME DOES IT NOW. The boss fights use RTE (real time events) or the button pushes, that is after you exhaust their health. Oh, you're wondering how or why i said unforgiving? If you miss a button press, the boss gains half their life back.... wash, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat. Now, many of you won't have that problem, but the causal gamer will be very frustrated. I played a few of the bosses several times.
Now, you don't die, you just get dismembered and have to press A really fast until you get put back together. This is a bad for the witch, as she is very slow, and not smart at all. She just stands there waiting to be decimated by the baddies. And doesn't matter how many times you press A, it takes a little bit to come back.
All in all, it has it's fun moments, but is very frustrating, no help finding your objectives will annoy at times. Overall this is rental, and if you like it, buy it, otherwise, the overall frustration will drive many average gamers away.
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