| PlayStation Review | |
| Category | Platformer |
| Players | 1 |
| Difficulty | Easy |
| Review Date | 11/98 |
| Publisher | Interplay |
by Mark Cooke
Joseph Conrad it aint.
Everyone who was around in the days of Flashback and Out of this World on the Genesis and Super Nintendo have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Heart of Darkness. Five years in the making, it promised to be everything those games were, but with more intricate art, puzzles, and story lines.
Well,
it wasn't worth waiting five years for, but it is certainly decent, and is the
only game of late that follows in the same gameplay genre of the two aforementioned
classics.
Heart of Darkness follows the story of Andy, an imaginative school kid whose dog gets sucked into another dimension where winged muppets speak bad Spanish. On a journey to save the dog, Andy must travel into this alternate dimension and rescue him. Needless to say, the plot is a bit disjointed. The FMV cinematics that Amazing Studios, the developer, have created for this introduction are absolutely stunning. The cartoon-ish renderings fit perfectly with the adolescent nature of the game.
The in-game graphics are just as spectacular. They have a style and flair of their own that is unlike any other game. Special effects and real-time shadows-a-plenty mixed seamlessly with FMV create one of the best looking two-dimensional games on the PlayStation. The amount of animation frames on Andy alone is incredible, add that to the fluid and frightening movement of the shadowy enemies and you have one incredible looking game.
Another high point is the sound and music. Moody in all the right places and cinematic in all of the others, the music creates a feeling that was only previously accomplished in Out Of This World. The sounds are equally effective, melding the ambient noises of the environment with the screams and bestial noises of the shadow creatures that are hungry for your blood.
Unlike
traditional Mario-derived platformers, you have an infinite number of lives
(all without cheating!). You simply replay scenes until you get them right,
and then you progress.
Unfortunately for Heart of Darkness, the amazing graphics and sound can't make the gameplay improve or the game last longer. Although the puzzles are enigmatic enough, there are still many screens where all you do is time a series of jumps, and the only way to pass them is to die over and over until you somehow finally get it. Although this was an attribute of Flashback as well, it seems to occur much more often in Heart of Darkness, becoming extremely annoying at various points in the game.
The other major problem is the longevity - Heart of Darkness is a remarkably short game. The time it takes to complete it is masked a bit by the parts where you must die multiple times, but it's easy to see just how quick you can beat it once jumping and running are mastered.
Experienced gamers may beat it the very first time as quickly as five hours, and possibly even less time than that. This is Heart of Darkness' largest downfall by far. Although offering no replay value doesn't help it much either.
For a game that was supposed to be the ultimate follow-up to Flashback, one of this writers personal favorite games of all time, what was delivered doesn't even come close to. Heart of Darkness is the classic example of the show off game - great graphics and sound, but ultimately lacking.
| Revolution Report Card |
| C+ |
|
+ Amazing graphics |
