Daikatana Stuff

DK is going to change this?:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=EIDSY&d=1y

Not even Lara Crotch and Supah-Fry Johnson can help this sorry 8-bit 486DX2 game.

Oh, man. Can it be true? Twenty-five million dollars, and they couldn't even make the lips move...

Daikatana stands for the proposition that with enough "design" ("Design," they used to say around Ion, was "law") you can take unrealistic outdated technology and create an immersive gaming experience. Well, judge for yourself. Swamps aren't lit by green and yellow lights, and skies don't scroll like old-fashioned player piano rolls. What you end up with when you try to build realism on the back of old tech is this sort of hokey bargain-basement quality, with characters whose heads bob like Punch and Judy, their lips no more than a stretched texture. Design alone can't trump technology -- or, in this case, the lack thereof.

Sure, the Q2 engine's had a boob job. There's fog, sulpher effects. Bubbles. Weird striated lighting (that, apparently, is volumetric; heh, whatever). And some alpha channel stuff to create grates and trees. There's weather, and it's not bad. But put it all together and the end result isn't that much different from its dear old grand-daddy, Quake 2: you've still got low-poly scenes in which textures are asked to do the work instead of cool detailed geometry, and so you run from one pile of blocks to another, and here the texture says this block is rock, here the texture says this block is a waterfall, etc. etc. Yeah, those are a lot of nice textures. Sorry, it all looks like a pile of nicely painted blocks.

Somehow, despite all the time and money spent on development, many of the monsters aren't any more menacing than, and even lack the personality of, the monsters from the original Quake. There are some standouts -- the griffin isn't bad, although even it loses points for being a typical blocky, hinged Q2 model. The spiders are just like spiders in every fantasy game ever made, dime a dozen. Nor are the human character models that special. Mikiskirt, or whatever her name is, does a hip-rolling, butt-shimmying grind constantly, which doesn't suggest athleticism as much as the notion that she's in training for a job dancing in Duke Nukem 3, but other than her skin she's just like one of the female soldiers in Quake 2. Superfly Johnson -- an out-of-touch white man's idiotic stereotype of a black man, maybe the stupidest creation since Jar Jar Binks -- is big and blocky. Well, he would be, wouldn't he?

Gameplay? Killing the frogs and mosquitoes got tedious quickly. That was an almost shocking choice for starting the game, all this, um, pest control; buildup, I'm sure Ion calls it. Start low on the food chain, move up. Whatever! The crocs were nice. The enemies got somewhat more interesting once I got to Ancient Greece -- those Ray Harryhausen-style skeletons were cool, but batting at them with a sword proved that Ion has yet to solve the problem that's long stopped developers cold: no one, absolutely no one, can get sword control down interestingly let alone convincingly in a 3d game. Dug that boomerang-type disc. More than killing anything, though, which soon became repetitive and unchallenging, I was interested in just wandering the levels, which are as good as anything id ever did and on a par with the best custom amateur mapping: nothing ground-breaking, yet obviously very groomed and refined. (The standout is the by-now aging Gibbler on the Roof, which manages both a city and corridor-crawl layout quite well. Kickass textures. Cool lighting. Neat stuff, just bring plenty of players.)

Then the much-vaunted AI: as Superfly might testify at the top of his lungs, it ain't shit. The enemies are dumb as bricks and can be shot on land or in air with complete assurance that they'll run their little patterns and then line up in your sights...they have the brains of the sprites in Galaga. No, in 2000, we have the right to ask a bit more of the enemy AI than we did when Romero was doing Doom and Quake -- but still, seven years later, enemies stand still five feet around the corner from a battle and don't get involved in it!

As for the sidekicks, they only slow down and frustrate gameplay. Left to their own devices, they might as well be the turrets that rise here and there from the ground, superbots shooting anything that moves. But asked to do anything, they promise to move and then don't; or they bump into each other and get lost; or then stand by idly while a battle occurs. In a word, they're pathetic. Sorry "Superfly," but if you've got AI, it's Artificial Impotence.

On the positive side, Daikatana's atmospheric sound is superb. And some of the early scenes are well directed -- from the bridge explosion to the activation and opening of the base doors at the end of the swamp. This is standard enough fare by now, but it works well. The weapon models, especially the pulsating and scaly gloves, are cool and original looking. That iron-bound heart item also stands out. I also appreciated those hovering security units with the searchlights in the swamp level; how bizarre that Romero thought of them chiefly as decor, and gave the leading role in the first mission to...frogs and 'skeetoes! Maybe Ion's new slogan should be: Design is Lawn!

For single player fun Daikatana is a good deal better than Quake 2, but in every respect it's also much worse than Unreal, Half Life, UT, and Quake 3, and looks soon to be made even more anachronistic by games such as Halo, and, a year from now, by Enclave as well as the forthcoming FPS game from Volition. It's not that Daikatana sucks. Three years ago, this would have rocked. It's just too late. It's really too late. In the wake of Half Life and System Shock 2, both of which are ferociously immersive experiences that raised standards far beyond those that Romero himself helped create in Doom and Quake, Daikatana just doesn't command attention more than as a throwback curiosity (and catastrophically bad business model -- indeed, this is the true interest of this game, seeing what all that money and mismanagement actually buys...). Sure, some will say Daikatana should be judged on its own merits. Heh, true, but so what? We judge old silent movies on their own merits, and some of them are immortal. But as you will have noticed, nobody's exactly rushing out to make any more of them.

My mini review.

Visuals
Loved the artwork. Great textures and skins. The weather effects are top notch and don't seem to hog any resources unlike other implementations. The only games I find better looking than this are Quake3, and Unreal in terms of map textures. The snow effect and texturing in the medevil maps is amazing. The interface is pretty cool as well. Light years better than Q2 or Q3.

Level Design
Liked all the maps except the futuristic ones. Didn't like the DM city one at all. Everything had nice flow, and I didn't feel lost or confused anywhere except for that city map. The puzzles and secrets in single player were great. Simple enough to keep me interested, hard enough to give a little challege. The medevil maps are my favorite here once again. The DM one is laid out very nicely.

Sound and Music
Nice music at times, specially in the medevil map. I got some distortion here and there. But overall its standard fare. Didn't like the voice acting on the sidekicks that much though.

Netcode
Horrible. I'm not sure if I lagged this much in the unpatched Unreal. I get pauses every 10/15 secs even on sub 50 ms servers. Plus I got kicked back to the menu without any reason 5 or 6 times.

Weapons
Pretty decent for Single player, but they just don't seem right for DM though. I won 5, 6 full games so I do have some idea on how they work but I still don't like them. There is virtually no feedback when you fire a weapon or when you hit someone. The melee weapons, specially the sword, feel random. Basic strategy seems to be just press buttons widly and hope for the best. Some other weapons are a bit too gimmicky for me. The ion blaster creates a lagfest. The shotcycler hardly gives any feedback. The C4s are too small to notice. The Greek disc is awesome though. The snake venom thing is cool for SP but devolves to a spam gun in DM. The meteors in the medevil maps are HUGE, and you don't really feel that you just fired them. Though that might be attributed to lag. The hardwood is a cool idea as well, but once again, there is no feedback. I don't feel if I just fired something, and have trouble figuring out if it hit someone. Plus I have yet to figure out how the blue bolts (wisps) work.

Monsters
The skeletons, griffons, alligators and werewolfs were sweet and made me jump quite a few times. I got bored of the metallic frogs and incests, but I guess they served their purpose. The little spiders were annoying though.

AI
Standard fare. The griffons got stuck here and there which really destroyed the mood. The sidekicks seemd to jump/warp around here and there without any reason. The monster AI was okay. Nothing amazingly special, but did the job.

Stability
I had no problems whatsoever all last night. Did get a few crashes today. W2K,128Megs,TNT 5.13 drivers.

Overall
Much much better than what I expected. I'll probably pick it up for the single player/coop games. And to check out more of those medevil maps =) Multiplayer might be loads of fun once the netcode is fixed, and the weapons are tweaked. The stats idea also turned out to be better than I expected. It gives me more of a reason to stay and keep on playing once I start getting beefed up.

Diakatana is the worst game I have ever played. It ranks up there with blood or some shit. Since he spent so much time on the game you think it would have been tons better. I did not have fun playing against insects and frogs and alligators. WTF??????

Gentlemen,

Could anyone point me in the direction of a package which will seek out mono mp3 files (or at least point them out to me) and then list them so I can re-leech them in better quality?

Ta fella's :)

(if anyone knows of a package u can mail me @
scott_abrasion@hotmail.com)

I get 1/2 FPS on daikatana!
I have voodoo 2 and a p II 400 with the newest reference drivers from glsetup!

what could be wrong?!?!?!?
please answer!!!!!!!1

Thief would have been a lot of fun in multiplayer. I wish "Thief Gold" would have had multiplayer. Would have been a reason to buy it. Did'nt they just change some things in the maps and resell it? I think they might have added a level or 2.

Okay, tired of this.

I really wish I didn't have lockup problems in System Shock 2...that's really annoying. I can't wait to get into SS2 when I get a computer that it doesn't like locking up on. The Thief demo did the same thing, the same kind of lockup on me (at the menu screens after starting or loading a game)...I guess my computer doesn't like the Thief engine. Bleh. Too bad, because the concept behind Thief sounds really awesome.

Ugly ass green color. Just as ugly as the tawn/brown Q2. No right shadows or lights, like Quake2. No wonder ID-software dumped Romero. Quake3 would likely suck as bad as Daikafartna if Romero had hung around, in the visual department.

Shooting bugs with a laser-thing-a-jig? Gimme a can of fuqn Raid. Heretic2 wizardry-shit-weapons. Cheez.

What good does this game have to offer that other games do not? Weapons? Story-line? Actors? Humour? Net-code? Kingpin looks 50 times better and has real weapons and real villains. Tribes has real game-play. H-L TFC and C-S has more players than the rest (16,711 on gamespy). Thief had a different game style.

Too little too late. This would have looked OK after Quake1, but the world is a different place after Quake3 (3,834 players on my GameSpy).

Gimme a break, shooting fuqn bugs and frogs. Even Ureal(1) wipes the floor with this crap.

177, vantage, I never played Thief, or SS2. However, I believe you to to be true in your assessment, given your previous game descripions.

Thanks!

-Lex

I remember Storm Station 7, with that tower. I used to fight to get in that tower and rain down twin spirals of pain.

Thanks!

-Lex

I subjected myself to torture and downloaded the old MPlayer version of the DM demo for DK.

Whomever said the DM and weapons were better in the first one was dead on. The explosion of the sidewinder is cooler now, but the sound and visual effect of the missile paths was wicked in that demo. Gameplay felt almost quake-like. They should have dumped Gibbler on the Roof and included Storm Station 7 in the new demo. That tight, small map would have been a lot of fun as an alternative to the larger sprawling maps that it shipped with.

Ah well. It'll be interesting to see how it goes from here.

Nicely written review #167. But I can't see how DK can be considered out of date if SS2 and SoF aren't. To me, they both played worse and looked worse than this.

Does WickedGL work for Daikatana?

Can someone please explain to me who the hell's still playing Unreal (1) online?! It is beyond all comprehension....

This is my thought: Romero's been brewing the Daikatana concept ever since he left id. Sure it's gone through some changes, but there are core concepts that still remain. Look at the picture the demo paints, and determine for yourself why Romero left.

Thanks!

-Lex

Not that bad a review.

Still don't understand why everyone seems downright upset about fighting smaller enemies early on in a story, though.

I wish the DM was better, though. With the variety of weapons and environments, DK had the potential to bring a whole new dimension to DM. Been reading some on the PlanetDaikatana forums and it seems some folks that even managed to enjoy the MPLayer-only demo truly dislike DM in this.

I hope ION takes THAT to heart and fixes DM and melee weapons for the final cut and/or releases a nice big, fat patch ASAP.

http://www.telefragged.com/screenshot.php3?url=reviews/daikatanademo/shots/daik17.jpg

Two kills in 11 minutes. Heh, whats up with that TargetBoy ?

I get 1/2 FPS on daikatana!
I have voodoo 2 and a p II 400 with the newest reference drivers from glsetup!

what could be wrong?!?!?!?

Let's start practicing our Letters Of Complaint that we're going to send to ION Storm. Any suggestions for content?

Thanks!

-Lex

That's what Im saying. HL without mods really isnt that great of an online game. With AHL and CS thrown in tho, its a great game (or is it a platform?).

Personally, I really dig CTF. I could play CTF exclusively for a long time. I need map circulation tho, those servers that just do Face all day long are beyond me. Face is one of the best maps, but damn people, get some variety in there! I never really dug Domination. I think Assault totally kicks ass, but playing it online ends up being an excercise in staring at the load screen. Most people are either a) familiar enough with the maps to be able to beat them in under a minute, or b) not familiar with the map, and just run around in circles until someone beats the map. (A's job is made more simple by the presence of lots of B's.) Its a damn shame, I think Assualt is a really great playmode.

I will be creaming my jeans when Action UT comes out. I cannot fucking wait for that.

First......bah, who cares.

-Ze BFF d00d