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Severance: Blade of Darkness July 7, 2002 Price: $10 (full retail packaging)
Not only having does Severance: Blade of Darkness have the honor of having the most commonly misspelled name on the internet ("Severance" with a penultimate "e" rather than an "a"), people are also divided over as to how they should abbreviate the game; whether Severance or Blade of Darkness (BOD) is more appropriate, in fact, many review and download sites have it dually listed under both. But a less dubious honor it has received has been a groundswell of gamer recognition as the word of mouth sleeper-hit of 2001. The term "sleeper" is traditionally used to describe games that despite their unique or exceptional qualities receive relatively little commercial or critical success but yet eventually gain a strong following among devout gamers--which causes critics to declare the game a "sleeper" hit, hoping to indicate that they themselves appreciated the game all along and it was the rest of those idiots in the media that were not paying attention. BOD has certainly stayed under the radar. But not for lack of trying on the part of its publisher, Codemasters, who has had other sleeper success stories with titles such as Project IGI). BOD floundered at the cash register largely because its release was overshadowed by that of Rune--a similar game that drew upon Viking mythology and was published by the heavyweight Gathering of Developers (GOD). Featuring both the Unreal Tournament engine and a multiplayer mode that (in the eyes of reviewers) more than made up for its tremendous single-player shortcomings, Rune won the war of the third-person hack and slash genre and its victory was largely uncontested by the gaming press. However, slowly but surely, a small but articulate group of gamers began telling a different tale: BOD is just better.
While melee combat has been a staple of console and arcade games over the years, trying to integrate it into the 3D world of PC gaming (post DOOM) has been a mighty challenge with no clear winners; though most have come to the conclusion that a third-person vantage point is superior for the genre. Early attempts have either erred on the sake of simplicity or extreme complexity--such as Interplay's Die by the Sword which featured the innovative "VSIM" user interface that attempted to actually allow gamers to control the sword arm of their character in real 3D space. Though VSIM was a compelling experience, few users were able to master the interface and subsequent melee oriented games have looked to the world of consoles for inspiration. BOD allows users to string together combinations (or "combos" in gamer speak) of moves by pressing certain directions on the keyboard as they aim with the mouse. This is more complex than systems like Rune but is quite manageable and offers the side benefit of role-playing potential: as a character gains levels by defeating enemies and discovers new weapons, newer and more impressive combos are unlocked. This role-playing is expanded with the addition of a stamina bar which increases as the player gains. The more powerful weapons require more energy to swing so players must choose between feebly swinging the most devastating weapon in their possession (possibly even running out of breath and becoming defenseless) or being able to wield a lighter weapon indefinitely with finesse. Control is similar to that of other games in the genre, allowing players to orient their view and attacks with the mouse and movement with the keyboard, but has a convenient target "lock" as well. After pressing the lock key (TAB by default), the character will change his or her stance and remain focused on the chosen enemy. Moving left or right will no longer turn the character but will allow them to step left and right to encircle the opponent or even leap out of the way of their blows. While it is sometimes more useful to stay "unlocked" and dart between several foes, the lock ability adds a measure of intimacy to the battles, making them into epic struggles at times.
Rather than staking out new territory, the story of BOD has been drawn from sources that are immediately recognizable to most gamers, from Conan the Barbarian to The Fellowship of the Ring. Unlike other games that plagiarize cinema and novels so thoroughly, players of BOD are more likely to savor the moment than to complain of unoriginality because of the game's more immersive qualities. To heighten the continuity of the story arc (with the side effect of giving a great first impression), each of BOD's four characters has their own unique introductory level from which the exposition of the plot begins: Sargon: A lordly soldier (who uses one handed swords and a shield) begins trapped in the dungeon of a keep and must fight his way out to see daylight once again. Naglfar: The stout dwarf returns to the underground city, finding every dwarf has fallen to the invading goblins and orcs; he pledges his axe will avenge them. Zoe: The Amazon huntress with both spear and bow stalks the ancient pyramids seeking to discover the secrets of a lost city. Tukaram: The barbarian must first brave a city of the walking dead to find the wisdom of his ancestors. The barbarian and the Amazon have the advantage of being able to leap nimbly about, which somewhat compensates for their lacking ability to block enemy attacks. While they can block, they must do so with their weapon and the block must be timed precisely (the soldier and the dwarf can hold their shields upraised indefinitely) and having a weapon shatter under the weight of an enemy attack is certainly more disconcerting than having an easily replaced shield splinter. Indeed, the soldier and the dwarf have a bit of an advantage early out as the human-sized foes all carry weapons that can be employed by the player, though this diminishes as more powerful enemies emerge.
The graphics of BOD are certainly dated at this point. Low resolution textures and rudimentary architecture abound; sometimes sinking to the depth that one might wonder if they were lifted directly from one of the numerous Tomb Raider sequels. On the other hand, BOD also offers some unparalleled special effects, such as reflections on water and a very complex physics engine (meaning that objects fall and get knocked about with uncanny realism). But the best part is clearly the shadows. Not only are complex shadows created by players relative to light sources, even enemies and the most mundane objects cast real time shadows as well. Recently, teams working on future games such as DOOM 3 and Deus Ex 2 have bragged that a player might be able to view an enemy's shadow looming over a corner, giving advance warning of its presence. With BOD, the future is now. Even typical scripted events such as the famous Indiana Jones' "rolling giant boulder" come to life when that boulder casts a shadow that changes shape relative to its position to light sources in the scene. One of the most impressive events in modern gaming is a fight between the player and a flaming skeleton in BOD. As the skeleton acts as a light source, shadows are formed by the columns supporting the crypts ceiling and as the battle goes on--they swirl about as the player and the foe circle each other. It is simply breathtaking. However, the strengths of BOD are also its weaknesses. By making every enemy encounter into an epic battle, Rebel Act and Codemasters have raised the difficulty bar above and beyond what is expected by the genre and that is only compounded by the fact that there is no choice of difficulty options within the game. While it is very unlikely that a goblin will kill a mid-level character, it is very possible that a poorly timed attack on the part of the player might result in he or she being wounded by that goblin to the point that completing the current level is no longer possible. Traps that cause sudden death are also common, forcing players to creep along, saving at every point. This is made all the worse by a terribly slow saving process and an unforgivably slow restoring process as loading a saved game after a defeat can take nearly a minute. Players also might begin to resent the system of leveling. When characters gain a higher level, their health is magically restored, no matter how low it might have been. Though this can sometimes be of tremendous assistance to a player, when a player's character is only slightly wounded, they might be hesitant to engage in combat--as if they should level they would not gain the healing bonus. At other times, the leveling system helps to invalidate the level design: at one point, a player has the option of luring an orc into the path of a falling boulder (the designers making it obvious that this is the intended route the player should take), but if the rock dispatches the orc, no experience points will be gained. Most players will opt for the experience points.
Despite its Machiavellian difficulty, BOD is a compelling game for anyone who grew up with the hack and slash films of the 1980s, such as The Beastmaster and Red Sonja. Unlike other games of its genre, BOD combines the perfect mix of tactical swordsmanship (and spearwomanship) and general chaos that makes for a great melee experience and is a must buy at $10. [Note: While playing through it recently, I noticed that halos
for light sources were occasionally visible through obstructing structures
and that the frame rate stuttered to less than one frame per second
while looking at the "sun" (though opportunities to view
it are limited within the game and your mother told you not to look,
anyway), two problems I do not recall from my previous experience
with the game. It is unclear whether Windows XP Pro, nVidia drivers,
or Direct X 8.1 is to blame.] by Richard Leader |
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