Chaser Being an avid PC gamer, there are few games out there in which I am unable to finish. There are games that are just very difficult in nature (in which case I will resort to cheating) and there are games are just designed with a very bad interface in mind. Either ways, I will still be able to finish them. Some games, however, are just there to irritate you and make you go crazy, and these are the games that I will not be able to finish. Unfortunately for newcomer PC game developer Cauldron, Chaser turned out to be one of such games. Don't get me wrong. The game is good and certainly very impressive for a newcomer PC game developer. Some may say that it is almost perfect. So why is it that I am unable to finish this game? Don't just take my word for it, read on. Who Am I? The storyline in Chaser is supposed to be one of the best ever developed for a first person shooter, although I never really find that out myself, as I didn't get to finish the game. Set in the near future, Chaser starts with a protagonist suffering from some sort of amnesia (seems to be the trend these days) waking up on board an orbital space station. As our hero, named Chaser, woke up from a dazed and confused memory, enemy soldiers start dashing into the room. Like all heroes suffering from amnesia, these soldiers are here to kill him, and this is where the first level starts. Of course, Chaser managed to grab an escape pod and get himself to Earth, but in the ensuing chaos, the space station was somehow destroyed. Thus begins the self-discovering journey of Chaser. The game is pretty good in the sense where in most scenario, there are always something exploding around you. This can be seen most apparently on the first mission, when the space station was on the verge of self-destructing. These scripted events make for plenty of fireworks, which is always a plus point in action games. On the next mission, after Chaser had landed on Earth and the space station was just destroyed, you can even see debris of the station falling through the skies. I'm Hit! Unfortunately the game also leaves you with no time to marvel at these fireworks, as enemy soldiers are always spawning around you as well. This is quite frustrating, especially when you thought you have cleared out a room, only to find more re-emerging from the same room at some point later. What's even more annoying is the bullet fire from the enemy. Unlike some other FPS shooters these days, the Chaser HUD does not indicate to you where the bullet fire is coming from, even when you are hit. As such, you will find yourself turning your mouse around, trying to figure out where the bullet fire is coming from. To make matters worse, most levels in Chaser are set in a dark and gloomy environment. Even the pair of night-vision goggles that comes as standard equipment does not help much. Most of the time you will find yourself critically injured to the point of death before you manage to find out where the enemy is. Not everything is that bad in Chaser, however. For one, the game incorporates a lot of 'gunfire-interact-able' objects. For example, crates will break, gas pipes will emit smoke, and glass doors will shatter. On one particular level set in a luxury hotel, there is seemingly an endless supply of glass doors and windows to break. This Way, That Way... Speaking of which, the levels in Chaser are huge, and they are not designed to be friendly. As a matter of fact, think of them as gigantic mazes, and most of the time you will end up running around in circles, in desperate attempts to find your goal. There is even a humongous underwater level to boot. Although this giant level has some waypoints (in the forms of bright looking buoys) to aid in your navigation, most of the time these waypoints are not visible until you get close enough. This translates into spending a seemingly endless eternity swimming in the ocean. To make the game more 'realistic' the developers somehow thought it would be wise to make the vision distorted a bit in the underwater level, and they also throw in some mines and enemy sentries. Sure, this is just one level, but it is enough to push me to the point of nausea that I finally decided to give this game up (not to mention the amount of headaches I had to endure during the other levels). Anyway, back to the game. This & That The weapons in Chaser are basically just guns and grenades. There are NO melee weapons at all. Most of the firearms that you encounter along the way are present day weapons, albeit the fact that the game is set in the near future. For example, there are the 9mm pistol, MP5 submachine gun, and the M4 assault rifle. Most weapons also enable you to switch the firing mode (this is achieved by pushing the right mouse button). In general, firing modes can be switched to auto, semi-auto, or burst. In terms of graphics, it is quite beautiful, really. Despite the fact that the game came from newcomer Cauldron, the graphics in the game look awesomely impressive, with highly detailed textures and such. Lighting effects are also very convincing, as well as the pixel shader effect on the water reflection. Think Unreal Tournament 2003. Yes, the graphics in Chaser is as good as that, and what's more, in terms of performance, the game somehow manages to run at an even smoother frame rate! However, Chaser still suffers from some clipping issues, which should have already been fixed in most of today's games. Character models can still fall through walls, and in some cases, even the floor! In terms of sound, Chaser is not really all that impressive. The gunfire sound, in particular, is not at all convincing, some of them sounding like toy guns. The environment sound effects are also poor, most of the time there are not many sound at all. Reading up on the support forums, it seems that the initial release of Chaser is bugged with an audio flaw pertaining to EAX. However, even after applying the latest patch (version 1.50 at the time of this review), there is still not much difference, if there is supposed to be any at all. If you are looking to test that nice 5.1 setup you just purchased, then you should probably look elsewhere. Conclusion Chaser is a game with a lot of potential, with sturdy graphics and very nice scripted environment effects. Unfortunately, the game is heavily crippled by its bad level designs and audio flaws. If you think you will never be pushed to the point of nausea by a bad level design, by all means, please give this game a try. Rating Gameplay - 3 / 5 stars Graphics - 4 / 5 stars Sound - 2 / 5 stars Overall - 2.5 / 5 stars The Good The graphics and the nice scripted environment effects where almost everything are exploding around you. Also the really nice glass-shattering effects, literally. The Bad The bad, bad, and really bad sound effects. The gunfire sounds are way too soft. The Ugly The level design. There is definitely more fun navigating around in a hedge maze. EDIT: Re-attached the pictures and added an additional screenshot.
Hmm, yea... I'm seeing red-X-es as well. Anyway I've re-uploaded the attachments and added another screenshot I have the word document copy of the review (together with the three screenshots) if anyone's interested...
