Review: Daikatana Demo

Game Demo by ION Storm

April 24, 2000 -- Review by A.T. Hun

There are times in life when you really want to do something very badly, but for one reason or the other, it just doesn't work out. Dad promises to take you to a ball game, but a storm comes through and rains the game out. If you've ever felt that way before, you will understand how I felt when I played the Daikatana demo. The game has been delayed so long, John Romero has been raked over the coals so many times about it, I really hoped that the game would succeed despite it's checkered past. I was almost rooting for him, as if he were an underdog. It's a game I really tried to like . . .

When I heard that the game went gold and the demo was out, I nearly had a heart attack. Then I checked my calendar to make sure we hadn't jumped back to April 1. Eagerly, I downloaded the demo. Actually, I started the download and went to bed since a 102.5M demo takes about 5.5 hours to download on a 56K modem. The morning came and I pushed off the mounds of work I had to do just to install the game and play a bit. Then the trouble began.

Installation

The installation went pretty smoothly. For some reason, there is no icon for the game. It's a small thing, but did no one at ION actually try to install this thing? For some reason, it also comes with Mplayer which it installs without asking me. I HATE THAT! Especially when the demo is big enough as it is without throwing in a worthless online gaming service.

Single Player

There are three single player maps in the demo, one from each of the first three episodes in Daikatana. I could describe them this way: green map, tan map, white map. It seems that "monochrome is cool" in ION-land. With the advent of Unreal Tournament and especially Quake III Arena, boring, lifeless color schemes just don't cut it anymore.

All of the levels are very linear and suffer from repeating-texture-itis (especially the tan map). Poly counts are pretty low, giving everything a rather blocky look. The advantage of the low poly counts is that the game runs very smoothly even on my relatively old system. The disadvantage is that you are constantly reminded you are running around in a video game, not in a real world.

I rarely say that I hate a map, but the first map (green) I genuinely loathe. The little mechanical frog and mosquito enemies are more annoying than terrifying. I forced myself to finish the level so I could do a review. The sacrifices I make for my loyal readers . . . I should say more about this map, but my Mom always said that if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all. Map rating: (2 out of 10)

The second Greek map (tan) is substantially better, but you can't help but say to yourself in the outdoor areas, "Gee, they must use a whole three textures out here!" The enemies are the best on this level, ranging from inexplicably loincloth-girded skeletons to giant spiders (my favorite) to griffons. They also have annoying little spiders to tick you off. The weapons are also the best on this level, including the cool disc that you can zing out at your enemies and it will return into your hand (how you keep from slicing your fingers off is beyond me). Map rating: (6 of 10)

The third Norwegian map (white) looks the best with a nice snowfall effect. The enemies are few and far between, including some sort of annoying little snake things and some bats. You have both your sidekicks (more on this later) on this level to help mow down the opposition. The really strange thing about this map is that most of it is in the frozen tundra of Norway, but the end of the map takes you to a cave laden with lava. Hmmm. Map rating: (7 of 10)

The enemy artificial intelligence leaves quite a bit to be desired. In the beginning of the second level, I could stand about twenty yards away from a giant spider when I was in its line of sight and it would not attack me. Even once I forced the issue, the nearby skeletons did not attack either. At the time Quake 2 was released, that would have been acceptable. It just isn't anymore.

When you kill anything with a weapon other than the Daikatana, you gain experience points that you can eventually use to increase your attack power, attack speed, vitality, etc. This could prove to be a somewhat interesting addition to the game, but of course the demo is far too short to judge its impact effectively.

Sidekicks

The demo doesn't give you enough time with the sidekicks to get a good taste of what they can or cannot do for you. In the third level, they seemed to get in the way and be more of an annoyance than anything else. Their movement is very unnatural. When they are talking in the cutscenes, they look like they are trying to bang out the message in Morse Code with their foreheads. I guess I have to give an "incomplete" score here because there wasn't enough time with them to make a better assessment.

One point I have to make is about the one sidekick, an enormous black man named "Superfly Johnson". Are you kidding me? Hiro , Mikiko, and Superfly? Is Romero trying to bring back the whole blaxploitation genre? I almost expected to hear the theme from "Shaft" when I first saw him. If I were black, I would most likely be quite (justifiably) offended by such stupidity.

The Daikatana

The namesake of the game, the Daikatana (big old sword), is also something I wanted to figure out. Could they succeed where so many have failed and make a decent melee weapon in a first person shooter? The simple answer is no. It is very hard to determine where the Daikatana is going to hit. There is very little indication that you have hit anything. When you hit the fire button, it may swing, it may not, or it may swing after a brief delay.

By using the Daikatana, it earns experience points which makes it more powerful. The only way I could effectively wield it is to turn on god mode. Otherwise, I'd be sliced and diced too. By cheating, I was able to get the Daikatana to go up a level, which does make it much more powerful. But it's pretty sad when the game's main weapon is close to unusable.

Multiplayer

I really didn't try it. The few times I checked the Gamespy-powered in-game browser, the best ping I could get to any server was 480ms. That is no where near fast enough to give an honest assessment of the game. So I didn't try. I may try later, but at this point I have very little impetus to try.

Summary

If this game would have come out two years ago, it probably would have been spectacular or at least very good. Two years are an eternity in the gaming world and Daikatana just doesn't stack up anymore. It is blown away graphically by Quake III Arena and Unreal Tournament. The single player experience is exponentially better in Half-Life. The most unique features of this game, the sidekicks and the Daikatana, are not particularly useful and, in the demo at least, seem to impede gameplay rather than enhance it.

My recommendation? If you really want to try this game, wait until the demo comes out on the cover CD of a gaming mag and pick it up that way rather than downloading the whole thing. You would be better off hitting the bargain bins and picking up a copy of Half-Life, Shogo, Unreal, or even Quake 2 than buying Daikatana. If you want something newer, pick up Raven's Soldier of Fortune which does a much better job with Quake 2 technology. I downloaded an Unreal single-player map pack that had been converted for use with Unreal Tournament. I'm having much more fun with those maps than I did with the Daikatana demo.

Did John Romero "make me his bitch" as he promised so long ago with Daikatana? No, but I do feel strangely violated.

Overall rating: 4 out of 10