|
Catechumen, for
us, came out of nowhere. For over a year now the game has been
in development. Yet we'd heard nothing of it until a couple
weeks ago. It's an ambitious project that we're planning on
following through its launch and beyond. The
game puts you in ancient Rome where you've just graduated as a
Catechumen. Your mission is to free jailed Christians. In the
process you'll encounter Roman soldiers and some nasty demons.
Every one of them intent on stopping you. While
playing the demo,
I got the distinct notion that the game has something of the flavor
of "Half-Life." While not nearly as involved, the
characters you meet in the game are a bit more talkative than
typical first person shooters. I
saw the connection also in how Catechumen handles loading
levels. Instead of getting a screen showing that your next
level is loading and listing out your statistics, Catechumen tries
to create a seamless feel to the game. The game pauses at
"level" or area boundaries for a moment before you move
on. IE, you drop through a hole or walk through a door and the
next area loads. After it's loaded, you can turn around and go
back where you came from. It's a technique that the latest
games have adopted and it's good to see that Catechumen has as
well. If only they could get rid of the pause while the next
area loads, you'd never notice that you'd just entered a new level. The
demo has three "levels" according to the folks at
N'Lightning, though I could have sworn it seems like four or
five. It's a substantial demo and well worth the download in
any case. The interface and the way the game works is quite
intuitive. You won't have much trouble understanding what to do and
with a bit of experimenting the less obvious things are easy enough
to figure out. If I'd read through their documentation better
<cough> I'm sure it'd have cleared up the small bit of trouble
I did experience. Installation
of the demo is easy. However, I had a lot of trouble running
the game at first. Fortunately the problem was simple to fix.
Somehow in the installation (I downloaded the full demo with sound),
all my sound settings were set to "zeros" This
caused the game to crash when the first angel appeared and he tried
to speak. Once I
changed the settings to something else, the game ran without a hitch.
I experienced no further crashes. If
you're having trouble running the game (IE It won't even start), make
sure you check the documentation. There's a specific problem
with one of the dlls that's easily fixed. This is a problem
common to the Genesis 3D engines. With any luck the folks at
N'Lightning will be able to fix it or put in a work around before
the game ships. Now
with all those details behind, what's our take on Catechumen?
Keep in mind that this is a demo. Demos aren't the final
version and a full review can't be done until the game ships.
So, we're sticking to general impressions and a few nit picks. The
game is being built using the Genesis 3D engine which is a free for
use to developers. It's a very solid engine with many of the
capabilities of the most modern gaming engines on the market
today. The folks at N'Lightning seem to be making good use of
the Genesis engine. Their
demo's levels aren't spectacular but they are nicely laid out.
I would presume the levels get more complex as the game progresses
so the final version should have more elaborate levels. The
bottom line here is that these first three levels won't overwhelm a
new player and yet they have enough interesting architecture to give some
pleasure to the hard core first person fan. They
make good use of the advanced lighting capabilities of the 3D engine
though at times the lighting seems to have no rhyme or reason.
You'll see spot lights with no obvious lighting source.
Additionally, the demo doesn't show off the engine's ability to
do some pretty dramatic real-time lighting effects. Since this
game started in development before some of the newer lighting tricks
were available for the Genesis engine, it could be that we'll see
improved lighting effects in the later levels. Even so, there
are plenty of times when the lighting is both dramatic and
effective. If
you took the time to download the demo with high quality sound,
you'll be pleased. Sound is generally well crafted and
appropriately creepy or exciting. There's a mix of some
original music that gets your heart pumping. Some of the sounds appear and disappear too abruptly but for
the most part they fit very nicely into the game and heighten the
ambiance effectively. There
were only two sounds that didn't fit well for this reviewer.
At one point you're walking through a metal sewer complete with the
ringing of metal as you move along. Now I may be wrong but
Romans never used any significant amount of metal in their
construction and this really felt out of place for me. Maybe
that makes me a nit picking historian but it did break the mood for
me and I thought, "Well, that's not right." But it
was only a very brief moment and I was back into the game quickly
enough. The
second sound was a bit tougher for me to get used to. Your
first few weapons are swords with certain abilities (In the demo you
get three weapons). When you use the sword against the bad
guys it shoots a ray of "light?" at the target and when
you hit the target enough it either falls on its knees and repents
or it melts back into the ground (in the case of demons). The
sound the sword makes when it "shoots" is very much like a
laser weapon. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was firing
laser guns at the enemy. For me it didn't fit into the
historical feel of the game. Now,
one of the neatest effects in the game happens after you've
"shot" a Roman guard enough. The sword represents
the word of God and when you've shot the guard enough times he falls
to his knees and begins to pray. A ray of light covers him and
a few bars of the Halleluiah chorus play. I
both liked and got a few chuckles out of this. When I started
the game for the first time I had no idea that the guards would
repent after being hit by the light beam from the sword. I'll
admit that I burst out laughing when I saw the first guard fall to
his knees and the ray of light hit them. The reason I laughed
is that it reminded me of Billy Graham's Bible Buster game from the
TV cartoon, The Simpsons. If
you didn't see that particular Simpson's episode, don't worry.
Enjoy the effect. It's pretty and the sound sampling from the
Halleluiah chorus is beautiful. If
you fail to convert the Roman, he grabs hold of you (His hands reach
toward you and you freeze, unable to move for a bit) and calls for
other guards to come help him. If you are unable to get away or
convert him you get hauled off to jail and the game ends. At
first I was confused when my screen seemed to freeze as a Roman
soldier got close. I
didn't realize for some time that the guards were grabbing me.
It just felt like I'd lost control of my character for a
moment. This is because it's not readily obvious that the
guard has grabbed hold of you. He just appears to be reaching out
at you. You can see his hands and they are not touching your
character. It's a bit disconcerting if you don't realize what's
going on, but it's an original gameplay element and adds a nice
twist from what you'd expect in an FPS (First Person Shooter)
game. When a guard grabs you you'll actually feel the
helplessness of being held captive. It would have been nicer,
though, if you could tell the guard was grabbing you and that you
were trying to get free again. When
a guard grabs you or a demon hits you your spiritual health goes
down. When your spiritual health hits zero you've lost the
battle and the game's over. To regain health, you pick up
scrolls with scripture written on them. As you pick up the scroll, a
verse appears which you can read. If you are in the process of
fleeing a guard or a bunch of demons, you might not have time to
read the verses so while this is a nice touch to see the verse it
doesn't affect gameplay any. Once the verses were gone I
couldn't figure out how to get them to re-appear to read them. Catechumen
also has a number of nice details thrown into the mix. This is where
it hints again at Half-Life. Soldiers will react to your
presence in an appropriate manner. They even have small
conversations with themselves (reminded me of the PC game, Thief)
that exist only to enhance the ambience of the game. All I can
say here is that I wished the game had more of these little details
spread throughout. The
characters you meet in the demo are nicely rendered. It's
clear the folks at N'Lightning have some talented 3D artists. The
modeling for the various demons and the Roman soldier are well
done. The angel is particularly impressive. The
animation is solid and character movements are fluid. Wait
till you see the tumbling demon. And the lion is worth seeing
a couple times so save before it jumps you. One detail I
really appreciate is the fact that the Roman guard's mouths
MOVE. Yes, when the guards speak their mouths open and close
in an appropriate rhythm! The
folks at N'Lighting have done some impressive work here in a rather
short development cycle. Usually games of this nature take at
least two years to finish but when this game is released it'll have
been in development only a year and a half. That's enough time for a
solid game but it's likely to lack the polish of a more mature
title. Nevertheless, Catechumen shows some serious potential
and we're looking forward to the game's full release in October. For
all it's ability to remind me of certain games such as Half-Life and
Thief, the Catechumen demo isn't as
polished or as in-depth as those two breakthrough titles.
However, we like what we've seen so far and for a first effort and
for a short development cycle, this game appears to be destined to
be the best Christian game title for the Christmas season. You
can bet it's already on our potential "gifts for friends"
list. If
you like the demo, we suggest that you go to your Christian
bookstore right after playing the demo and let them know you want
them to order it so you can buy it in October. Since it's
probably not on any bookstore supplier's list yet, print out this page
from Catechumen's website and give it to someone at the bookstore.
If there's one thing that recent Christian games have suffered from
is a lack of distribution and if you wait until October to ask them,
they'll probably look at you and say, "Cate-what?"
By then most Christian bookstores have their Christmas buying done
so the earlier they find out about this game, the more likely
they'll have it in stock later. And
while you're at it, point out other Christian games which you've
bought (or better yet want to buy) which you'd recommend.
Chances are they don't stock it because they don't know it
exists. So, spread the word a bit and help get the word out
about these up and coming new Christian game developers. As
information warrants it we'll keep you updated on the development of
Catechumen and come October expect a complete review.
Final
Score
Get
the full Game Review HERE
Highlights: Beautiful
graphics and sound. Great angel.
Lowlights:
Some out of place sounds, it's a bit odd when the soldiers
"grab" you.
Hints:
Fighting toe-to-toe isn't recommended.
Recommendation:
Get the demo.
Age Appropriateness:
12+ (though anyone familiar with First Person Shooters would do
fine.
Christian
Sense (CS): Waiting
on final game
Game
Engine (GE): Waiting
on final game
Game
Play (GP): Waiting
on final game
Overall:
Waiting on final
game |
