INDIE SPOTLIGHT: Inquisitor (PC) – The Child of Bauldur’s Gate and Diablo Gets Brutal

The Character Creation Screen only hints at the overwhelming number of spells and skills the game offers …

Do you love Bauldur’s Gate like a fat kid loves cake? Do you love Diablo like a dingo loves babies?

If that last joke was too much for you, then I hesitate to recommend Cinemax’s 2012 isometric hack ‘n slash Inquisitor. Not because it’s a bad game–far from it. Rather, I hesitate because some of the material is quite rough compared to its famous brethren.  Take the first quest you come across, which involves a rare antiquities dealer having been killed via a throat-slicing in the local inn’s attic room.  Gruesome, but nothing compared to the descriptions from the townsfolk, which advise you that his “manhood” was severed and shoved into the corpse’s open mouth.  Yikes.

Most of the game is less shocking, although the thread of religious zeal running through it can be disconcerting (you are a member of the Inquisition, after all.) The game-world is much like a Bauldur’s Gate clone, but the theology gives it a uniqueness missing from the regular D&D fodder, which is a plus.  Also a plus is the excellent and almost H.R. Giger-esque artwork and User Interface templates, which really put the game heads and shoulders above a lot of Indie fare. Inquisitor clearly isn’t the work of a one man operation, and it feels like a worthy full-price package.

The in-game artwork is stunning, and some screens had me simply staring …

There have been some less than glowing reviews, though, and they aren’t without merit.  The combat and character animation is not up to contemporary snuff, though the sprites and pre-rendered backgrounds themselves look good (keep an eye out for special touches, like the barely swaying dead tree, or the smoldering dungeon lantern.)

The combat, at first, also seems suspect.  You’ll find yourself hitting “R” to set your character to run, and think that it’s not working.  It is, though–your character is just, that, slow.  But give the game fifteen minutes or so, and you’ll be right at home.  fis not the kind of RPG hack-fest that feeds you level boosts enough to max out your stats easily; instead, Inquisitor would rather make you work for it, and hard.  Tease out enemies, picking them off one at a time, until eventually you’re powerful enough to wipe out that orc camp.  Then come to the next enemy type, and learn those same tactics and spells are akin to hurling peanuts at an elephant.

Click for carnage, friends …

It’s difficulty makes combat and ultimate victory extremely satisfying, though. When you clear another level of a dungeon, you’ll feel the rush of accomplishment.  The dungeons are brutally deep, however, and with precious few shortcuts back to town, you’ll find yourself trudging back to town on a long campaign more than you want to.

That brings to mind the enemy respawning system, which is actually quite fair.  You’ll never face an entire roomful of enemies resurrected from the dead once vanquished, but there will be one or two straggling enemies that consistently pop up when passing through familiar territory.  This can be helpful when you are looking for that little bit of extra experience to gain that next level (during which you regain your health, mana, and stamina).

The dungeons here are deep. DEEP deep …

Yes, in addition to health and mana, which operate ala Diablo, your character also needs stamina in order to attack, cast spells, or do damn near anything but walk/run.  This valuable reserve replenishes very slowly, so you’ll enjoy the bottled variety almost as much as the mana and life giving potions.  Believe me, you’ll spend nearly an entire dungeon’s haul in gold on health potions.

The good news about that, then, is that your character can hold a ton of loot.  You’ll need that space, too, not just for potions, but for the copious amounts of equipment, much of which will break and require repair after a few good battles.  There are three sets of equipment that you can equip and cycle through, also, so you can waltz around loaded to the gills with goods.

Another major component of Inquisitor that sets it apart from other isometric action RPG’s is the torture system.  Yes, I said torture.  As a member of the Inquisition, you’ll be tasked with finding out who is a sinful heretic, gathering evidence to arrest them, and then torturing them to worm out a confession.  It’s a nice and gruesome feature, and if you end up torturing an innocent victim, you’ll move out of the good and godly alignment and farther towards the dark side.  Your place on the alignment scale will alter the game, so pick your path well.

Hmm … A talking stone head; Fallout, anyone?

There are also little touches that are unique, such as the green genie boxes you’ll find occasionally.  They are excellent additions that add strategy to tough battles, as you can break one whenever you wish, summoning a genie to do something wonderful for you.  It will give you money, let you shop in it’s ethereal store mid-dungeon, or wipe out your enemies.  Time breaking open the box right, and the genie will smite any nearby enemies and then grant you your desired perk, which is a great help.  You can also tell the genie you don’t need anything, and they’ll be surprised, giving you a random perk as varied as money or a permanent +1 to stats.

The writing is also tops, exceeding in both quantity and depth Diablo III and it’s ilk.  And you’ll have to talk to the plentiful NPC’s that abound, if you want to get the facts as to who the real heretics are.  You’ll even have options to try and trick some enemies into becoming allies, or at least into not hacking you to bits.

Be prepared to read. Alot. But don’t worry, it’s worth it!

As the length of this Indie Spotlight may suggest, I’ve fallen madly in love with Inquisitor.  It has kept me up long nights, and I can’t wait to get back to it.  Buy the digital game on GoG.com for plenty of extras, too, like an Inquisitor novel and the soundtrack, the latter of which is great background music for your next pen-and-paper D&D game (you know you want to.)

All in all, I state with certainty that, if you yearn for an in-depth classic RPG with a Bauldur’s Gate/Diablo feel, then spend the $14.99 to get it (on Steam and DRM-free at GoG.com). If you’re a cheapskate, keep an eye out on GoG for one of their million sales, and you’ll be able to score Inquisitor for a ten-spot or less, which is so good a deal that it should be a sin.

GAMEBOY ADVANCE REVIEW – TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2003)

Gotta love the attention to details, like the TCRI neon sign …

Aw, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Great comics, great cartoons, (mostly) great movies, and great games.  Where most licensed games are, at best, adequately playable, Turtles games include not only some of the best within that category, but also some of the best console games period.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game for the NES and Turtles in Time for the SNES are the most well-known, and were excellent beat ’em ups.  This is no surprise, since Konami made them after having cut their teeth with The Adventures of Bayou Billy for the NES, and afterword followed up the above TMNT games with the arcade hits X-Men, The Simpsons, and Bucky O’Hare.

            While Turtles in Time is generally considered the pinnacle of TMNT beat ’em up joy, Konami hasn’t stopped making good Turtles games.  To check the truth of this statement, I took a look at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from 2003 for the Game Boy Advance.  Inspired by the slightly darker and (arguably too) “edgy” 2003 cartoon series (not to be confused with the original 1987 run or the current 2012 Nickelodeon series), the first GBA Turtles title looks to be a classic beat ’em up meant to satisfy your Turtles in Time cravings.  Play a few seconds of the game, though, and you’ll see that this brawler is actually a sidescroller without any of the Final Fight-esque foreground/background depth of movement allowed.

Some areas allow you to take alternate routes …

It still feels like a brawler in that vein, however, as it throws waves of enemies at you during bouts of locked screens.  Bobbing arrows direct you to take occasionally diverging paths, and the backgrounds are definitely fitting of the TV show.  So are the enemies, which range from mousers to purple dragons, and even Casey Jones in the classic Raph-meets-Casey-and-they-beat-the-crud-out-of-each-other story.  That brings up the character graphics for the Turtles, themselves, which are a little mixed.  At times, the Turtles actually look a little worse than the enemies, and it seems that the developers started the Turtle sprites by taking screen captures from the actual show, then modeled around them.  This may not be true, but it would explain the excessive artifacting of their characters.  The animations of the Turtles’ attacks are great, though, and make up for their slightly blurry appearance.

Each turtle has some unique touches, like Raph’s ability to scale walls with his sai …

Each turtle has a normal attack, a jump attack, a special attack, and a power up attack that you can charge by Each turtle has some unique touches, like Raph’s ability to scale walls with his sai …holding down a shoulder button.  Hold it too long, and your Turtle will apparently hemorrhage, reducing them to a shivering, panting easy target for a few seconds.  The spaz-out is by far the coolest animation, and I urge you to do it every time you’re waiting for another wave of foes.  The foes are relatively easy, though I did have to hit continue (of which you have infinite) every few screens and during some boss fights.

Rather than following a traditional beat ’em up plot, where you can select your favorite character and lead them through a single storyline, this title chooses instead to give each of the four turtles their own mini-plot.  Leo searches out the source of the mousers, Raph fights Casey Jones, etc.  Some reviewers have lamented the limiting of certain levels to certain Turtles, but I found the multi-story approach welcome, as the stories act as great intros to the core tales of the TMNT mythos.  The cut scenes use static backgrounds with static characters moving in and out as they dive into the conversation, and do their part admirably.  The writing is in keeping with the show, but could’ve used a little more charm.

The game starts with an intro culled and cut down from the show, and looks and sounds good for the GBA.  The in-game music and sound effects are alright, occasionally rising up to remind you of the great SNES Turtles in Time tracks, though they never reach that excellence.

Vehicle-based minigames and toy placements abound …

The truly unique thing about this ’03 GBA outing that sets it apart from its fellow sidescrollers and beat ’em ups is the minigame levels.  These are stuck between the main sidescrolling levels, and include things like a rail-shooting Sewer Shark-style segment with Leo piloting the Sewer Slider, an Excitebike-style motorcycle race with Raph on the Shell Cycle, a sewer skateboarding section ala Sonic 2‘s special stages featuring Mikey, and a sidescrolling shooter with Donny hooked up to a glider.  Clearly, Konami did their best to put in plugs for Turtle toys like the Sewer Slider and Shell Cycle, but the Thrashin’ Mikey and Air TMNT figures hadn’t been designed or released yet, leaving Mikey and Donny to use generic gear for their minigames.  The minigames are a welcome addition, although some (like Leo’s) seem a bit overlong.  However, if I were twelve years old and stuck on the school bus, I’d have been more than happy to sink the time into them.

Overall, the game is good.  It’s a little bit original NES Turtles and a little bit Turtles II, and with the minigames, that’s more than enough value to merit a play.

COMMODORE 64 REVIEW – B.A.T. (Bureau of Astral Troubleshooters)

If you haven’t heard about this Ubisoft adventure/rpg from 1990, then you aren’t alone.  I came across a boxed copy of this 5 1/4 floppy game last year, and it looks like an enticing Blade Runner-esque rpg on its face.  If nothing else,

This mainly point-and-click adventure game starts you out with an optional character creation screen. Don’t ask me if it really affects anything …

the box is great and way ahead of its time (it looks solidly like a 1995 game, so it had to sell a bit on that, alone.)  The game of B.A.T. itself, though, which is actually a port from the Atari ST home computer version, is a mixed bag of awesome and awful.

I’ll start with the awesome: the setting is just darn cool.  It embraces rather than shy’s away from its Blade Runner roots, casting the player as an interplanetary detective searching for an escaped criminal scientist who’s suspected of siding with a known human-hating terrorist.  There are lots of aliens and bizarre landscapes to view, though I’d say that none are so outlandish as to be utterly unique.

Also good is the amount of open-ended action.  You can find a phone, and dial the number off of a pamphlet or ad, and speak to different individuals that you may or may not ever encounter.

Locations branch into comic-like panels when you delve deeper into them …

There are limits, though, and you’ll hit them after about half-an-hour.  Still, given the size of the game (one double-sided disk,) the achievement is commendable, and you’ll find plenty of places to wander around and aliens to chat with.

The speech system is okay, giving you random conversation encounters with recurring characters and the occasional on-screen static illustrated character, but having long ago mastered interactive fiction/text adventures, the “Discuss/Attack/Steal” type options of interaction seemed overly limiting.

Personally, the graphics did it for me.  They aren’t fantastic when compared to the Atari ST version, which, coincidentally, is what they decided to stick on the box.  However, they did a lot with the limited graphical capacity of the C64 hardware, and it definitely succeeded in keeping the gritty urban/sci-fi atmosphere they were shooting for.  The fight scenes in particular look great, which sometimes occur randomly, and sometimes occur at your prodding (there’s a great ATTACK option for every random person who talks to you, and I urge you to hit it often if you want to lose all your ammo and die over and over again.)

Battles look pretty good, but don’t forget to buy ammunition …

Now, for the awful bits about B.A.T. for the 64. LOADING, LOADING, LOADING.  Every C64 enthusiast knows the lengthy wait times associated with booting up the real deal software, but this game takes the “read a book and play at the same time” idea to the next level.  I’m not sure what the developers were struggling with, but having to switch from side 1 of the disk, then side 2, and back again is truly maddening. Even emulating this title can feel like a chore, though it makes the task a bit easier.

The gameplay of B.A.T. consists mainly of you clicking on static images, either to go to new locations, talk to characters, interact with technology, or search an area for items.  Like other games of the point-and-click adventure genre, your cursor will change depending on what it is you’re dragging your joystick cursor over.  This brings up the second biggest problem with B.A.T.: there is no indication on which way you came from, and your new location screen never keeps a consistent perspective.  This means that you will click an arrow to go to the next place, yet you have a 33%-50% chance of going back to the previous screen by mistake–keeping in mind that you had to wait half a minute or more for the new location to load, switching disks like a fleshy-jukebox all the while.  This makes that easily attainable online walkthrough all the more tempting, which isn’t what I look for in a great game.

I had nightmares about this guy …

When the cursor driven interface succeeds, though, it’s adequate.  The learning curve requires you to realize that, when you click and search on that little item in the picture, you are actually searching the whole screen.  It’s confusing at first, especially when you click on the picture of a gun in a case, search it, and the dialogue box pops up to say “Sushi. Will you take it?”

I’ve said already that the fight screens look good (though don’t expect them to change,) and consist of you looking at your target from a first-person view.  You have a limited amount of time before they start shooting, which they will, without fail or variation, and in that time, you need to click on what weapon and shield (if available) that you want to use in the fight.  This is where you learn that, while you may have a gun, you probably haven’t bought any ammo.

Yes, this is a point-and-click adventure mixed with an rpg of the old-school–you’ll get hungry, thirsty, and tired, and occasionally you’ll have too much stuff and be forced to leave stuff in random locations like a slug leaving a slime trail.  This isn’t a bad thing, though, and adds something a bit deeper to the talk-to-him and find-this gameplay that makes up the majority of the game.  Did I mention that there’s also a time limit to your overall mission?  Don’t fret, though,

This game features a computer on your arm that you can program. Yes, like Fallout‘s Pip-Boy, but Brian Fargo had nothing to do with this game …

because you’re not likely to reach it before you either complete the game (I commend you) or decide to quit while wondering if the game is loading or just plain crashed.

This may sound to you as though I didn’t enjoy my time with B.A.T., and I hope to correct that misconception.  There’s a lack of cyberpunk adventure in the world of games, despite some well-known favorites like Beneath a Steel Sky (which you can get free with a free account at gog.com) and Neuromancer (also on the C64 and other platforms, and much easier to play,) and I think that any addition to the fold is a welcome one.  If cyberpunk is your cup of tea, and reading Philip K. Dick while your 1541 disk drive clicks and whirs away sounds heavenly, than I suggest you give B.A.T. a try. Also, check out the sequel, The Koshan Conspiracy for DOS, the Amiga, and the Atari ST systems.

GENESIS REVIEW – UNIVERSAL SOLDIER

Oh, licensed games, how you confuse us.  We love the movies and comics that you represent so thoroughly that we temporarily forget the tragic history of poor games shoved out the door to make a quick buck.

But that’s not always the case.  Sometimes we get lucky, a golden ticket of a game that combines a great license with fun gameplay.  Ducktales for the NES and the Arkham series of Batman games have taught us that developers can give us great licensed games that combine quality original game engines with the atmosphere of the source material, but there’s another strain of licensed game that merits our attention: licensed games that are great versions of other games.

So the movie didn’t have any giant robot-insects–they’re better than generic character actors!

Rambo: First Blood Part II for the Sega Master System falls into this category, as it’s a re-skinned version of Ashura/Secret Commando. Since it’s a re-marketed version of a good game, Rambo: FBPII is, itself, a good game making okay use of a good license.  There’s a similar game that does one better, and it’s Universal Soldier for the Sega Genesis.

Ten seconds with this game will tell any experienced gamer what the engine is from, and it’s an amazing thing: this game is a retooled version of Turrican II for the Commodore 64.  Like Turrican II, Universal Soldier has the excellent animation and quality shooting and platforming controls that made gamers riot when the Turrican II demo was released and there weren’t enough copies to go around (Cologne, circa 1991).

Never played a Turrican game? Imagine the love-child of Contra and Metroid.  Sound good?  It is, and Universal Soldier  has the platforming and shooting joy that it denotes.  Turrican lets you jump and shoot like any good Contra-esque title, and there’s a lot more platforming and some hidden secrets ala Metroid.  Also like Metroid, you can press down and

Spiny-balls of doom are pretty much always a great game-maker, right?

attack and you roll like a spiky ball, whacking enemies and spinning through hard to reach places.  Something Universal Soldier takes solely from Turrican  is the automatic fire mechanism–hold down the fire button, and your character locks down, spraying a rain of bullets in whatever direction you aim with the directional pad.  It’s a staple of the Turrican series, and it works just as well here.

So it’s got a good engine, you say, so what? It also has something that most shooters don’t, and that’s a weird sense of humor.  See those tiny mechs that look like little baby ED-209’s running at you?  Sure, you can shoot them … or you can jump on them, Mario-style, and watch them collapse like a can, skittering back and forth and spraying sweat into the air.  Not enough?  Okay, what about

There are tons of power-ups to collect by shooting flying drones ala Contra …

discovering hidden blocks that, when shot or bumped, spit out power-ups in a showering arc like, oh golden coins?  Yeah, that all happens, and it really gives the game a sense of fun missing from a lot of shooters.  The odd bits remind you “Hey, it’s a game. And I’m having fun.”

The music is a so-so bag, giving adequate but not memorable tunes paired with radically mismatched ones (I’m talking about you, level 2–YOU SHOULDN’T BE THAT HAPPY.) The graphics, while the animation and colors are great, are also uneven.  Turrican II  had some awesome enemy sprites, whereas the Universal Soldier film had, uh … b-actors pretending not to have emotions (except Dolph Lundgren–he’s the bomb.)  So the retooling Universal Soldier did on Turrican II (it’s not a total rewrite, but it’s a lot more than just a re-skinning) resulted in uglier and less-creative enemies, all in an attempt to make the game fit the license.  Yeah, it’s a sad result of the process, but anything that gives the world another Turrican game is a positive.

Turrican II (left) had much better enemies than Universal Soldier (right), but the action is just as fierce in both …

So if you want to shoot the gears out of a million robot-bugs and cyborg fighters, Universal Soldier is an excellent (not to mention inexpensive) action-platform fix that is a perfect fit for any Genesis or Mega Drive owner with an itchy A-button thumb.

SNES REVIEW – ININDO: THE WAY OF THE NINJA

 A lot of modern gamers will claim the Super Nintendo as the godfather of JRPG’s, and there’s good reason for that.

Same RPG actions, harder to pronounce RPG names …

It hosts the classics of the genre, such as Final Fantasy III (or VI, if you’re one of those people), Illusion of Gaia, and Chrono Trigger, to name a few.  But those are just the big guns, the games everyone and their grandmother has heard about.  Inindo: The Way of the Ninja is one of a slew of Japanese Role Playing Games that came stateside for the SNES and has, for one reason or another, been forgotten by the wayside.  Does it deserve to be left there?

The short answer: no.  Released circa 1993 by Koei, Inindo has a lot going for it that other JRPG’s of the era don’t have.  First, the hero isn’t your average boy-whose-village-is-destroyed-by-the-villain-and-is-out-for-revenge kinda kid.  Err, actually, that’s exactly what he is.  But this boy is a ninja in a somewhat historically accurate feudal Japan, and the villain he’s going after is Oda Nobunga.

If that name is familiar to you, and not because you’re a historian of ancient Japan, it’s because KOEI has been making Nobunaga’s Ambition historical strategy games since 1986.  That said, Inindo is the first and only traditional RPG to find it’s way into KOEI’s Nobunaga-repertoire. The historic setting definitely gives the game a unique feel–you still visit inns, but you also visit Tea Houses.  You still get party members, but you have to gain enough of their trust and enough levels to be able to recruit them.  You can also start a duel with recruitable characters, and beat the stuffing out of them to show that you mean business.  Shame I couldn’t do that in other JRPG’s–I’m talking to you, comic relief!

There are some good cut-scenes, reminiscent in style to the original Ninja Gaiden …

The setting is enhanced by bits of historical facts dished out by the NPC’s that you’ll talk to in towns, and also from the occasional shifts in political power in certain regions as you walk through them via an overworld map.  Every so often, a risk-type map of feudal Japan will pop up, and cycle through battles between feudal lords (called “daimyō”).  Nobunaga is one of these, and each political shift brings him closer to total rule over the region.  After you get renowned enough, you can speak with daimyō’s, and spy on other rulers for them or carry out various tasks to curry favor. When you have enough, you can unite them against Nobunaga.

The shifts in regional power within the game occur when a certain amount of days have passed, which is calculated via the overworld’s day-night cycle.  Yes, you heard right–this 20+ year old SNES RPG actually has a day-night cycle, shown by the dimming and brightening of the screen while traveling on the overworld map.  Your character has to rest, too, and when he wakes up, he can be ambushed by traveling recruitable party members.  Lose, and you get robbed of all your cash and are injured, causing attack and defense penalties that require medical attention or items to remove.

Even ninjas had to deal with dungeons …

Sound rough?  It is.  This is a tough game, but gets less so the more you push on.  You can’t grind excessively, because duels don’t give you experience, and there’s programming that makes enemies disappear if you’re way too powerful for them.  And guess what?  Overworld random enemy encounters are super-rare.  This can give the game a somewhat linear feel, which may turn off some RPG’ers.

Aside from all the nifty features present in Inindo, it is, at it’s heart, a traditional JRPG.  You fight turn-based battles against giant rats, snakes, and “bushwhackers,” which I guess is what KOEI called bandits in the early 90’s.  The graphics have been bashed by other critics as NES quality, and while that’s not true, they can’t compete with the SQUARE, CAPCOM, or ENIX RPG’s of the era.  The spell and attack effects are underwhelming, and the character sprites and background illustrations are the bare minimum for a 16 bit system.  That said, the unique elements of Inindo kept me coming back for more, and the promise of different events on different play-through’s tells me I’ll be hitting this one up again down the retro road.