Makes yah wish you went Pentium Review

Makes yah wish you went Pentium

OK, kiddies, I know you’re all porno freak horndogs so I’ll cut to the chase. The Playstation version of Forsaken does not include the calendar of the chick. Yep, that’s right, all of you guys without PC’s will be forced to borrow your Dad’s computer and look up “free samples” (anyone who denies they’ve done it is a bald-faced liar) on those various unmentionable web sites. Beginning with this incredibly important flaw in the Playstation version, the rest of the game continues to disappoint when compared to the PC.

If you want a general overview of the game, check out Calvin Hubble’s review of the PC version. He talks in depth about the general gameplay. What I’m here to do is to compare the two different versions. I’ve played both, and let me say right now that I’m unimpressed with the Playstation version. There are problems with the controls, with the graphics, and even with the gameplay – although it’s hard to figure out how they messed that up in a conversion!

First off, the controls suck. In a game that was truly meant to be played with a keyboard and a mouse in tandem, it is near impossible to play the Playstation version of Forsaken. After hours of practice you may be able to conquer the first couple of levels, but then the real fun begins when swarms of enemies attack you and your button mashing tactics no longer work. This is the largest downfall of Forsaken on the Playstation – it’s so hard to control it’s nearly unplayable. Control is an obvious, yet extremely important, pro for the PC.

One of my other gripes is the graphics. It is definitely unfair to compare a Voodoo 2 to the graphic abilities of the Playstation, but I can’t help it. When I look at bilinear filtered, mip-mapped, dithered polygons running at a resolution of 800×600 (extremely high, about 3 times the resolution of a television) you just can’t help but drool. Going back to the blocky version that resides on the Playstation is hard. I supposed if I had never seen the PC version I would rather like the graphics in the Playstation version. Yet even in the beginning of the game, while navigating the 3D menus, there is a blunt difference between the PC and Playstation. Some graphic details that looked great (such as water effects, deaths, and various lighting effects) on the PC look absolutely horrendous on the Playstation. Bottom line: if you own both gaming machines, definitely go PC.

You’d think that when Probe (the developer) converted their neato PC game to the Playstation they would keep the gameplay the same, right? Wrong. Subtle differences permeate throughout the game – including enemy and powerup placement. After playing both versions, the PC’s layout is definitely superior. It seems as though more time was put into intelligently placing enemies, where as on the Playstation Probe decided to randomly move them around. Maybe it was to give PC and Playstation owners a reason to buy both – a “different experience,” maybe? Nah. Prognosis – PC is better.

Music is a bright point for the Playstation version. It doesn’t outdo the PC version, it simply matches it – which is a feat in itself for this poor conversion. Unfortunately, the sound didn’t receive the same treatment. In the PC version, you can choose what your combat computer will sound like -about 5 or 6 different voices are available. In the Playstation version you are stuck with the one annoying girl voice, unable to choose anything else. Truly annoying.

The only good thing I can say about this conversion is its multiplayer. Again, it can’t quite match the PC’s 16 player deathmatches, but for a Playstation game it is executed well. The split screen mode suffers no slowdown, and is fun if only in that neither person can control their space craft whatsoever.

Now don’t get me wrong, Forsaken is definitely cool. And I’m not completely biased towards the PC, either. Grand Turismo and Tekken 3 are two games that cannot be matched on the PC. If you own a Playstation and envy all those PC people who can play their tunnel crawling space games, this is exactly what your looking for. But overall, the conversion from PC to Playstation has failed very badly. In any case, it doesn’t come with the calendar filled with barely legal pictures of the Forsaken chick, so why bother?