Cheet Sheets 1995 February/CHEET38.ZIP/INSTALL.DAT/4OTTREV.TXT

Text File | 1995-02-07 | 8KB | 181 lines

~Rise Of The Triads

Review obtained from the Internet.


System tested on:

486DX2/66 with VLB ATI Graphics Ultra Pro graphics.
SBPro and UltraSound sound cards (GUS used for game)
Gravis GamePad
12 megs RAM.

Rise of the Triad was released somewhere around 12/20/94.  Some
of the text suggests that it's a 'prerelease' type thing to
appease the users.

Overall Impression -  I'm personally sick of 3D games.  They
give me a mild headache, and they're all extremely similar.  As
far as 3D games go, Rise of the Triad is great, though.  Despite
all of the "yeah, sure!" type responses to Joe's claims that the
90 degree walls don't subtract from the game very much, it
really is true.  Granted, it WOULD be nice if the walls were
more flexible, but the rest of the game makes up for it.  Unlike
Apogee's last few games, I'm afraid I can't say that it seems
perfectly stable.  I found that when I did something that
changed the screen (map, save, load), one of my control keys
would often 'semi-seize' when I returned to the action screen.
I'd have to hold it down for about 5 seconds to get more than
about 2 degrees of motion out of that direction, or to walk more
than a few inches if forward or back seized.  This happened VERY
often.  The game also locked solid on me three times, always on
E1A5 (Metal Threat), and always after I went through the last
locked door (Silver key).  In case you have the same problem, I
recommend saving often in that area.  Since it doesn't lock up
in one certain place consistently, it's annoying, but passable.
Another bug that I found was that no matter what you change the
"180 degree turn" (Volte turn or something like that) to, it is
ALWAYS reset to Backspace key.  The other one I found was that
it doesn't like certain keys being pressed together.  I use ctrl
to shoot, alt to run, and insert to strafe. (I have a gamepad,
but I find these types of games easier to control with the
keyboard).  When I try to run and strafe left, it doesn't work.
Running and strafing RIGHT works fine, though.

I played this game through in easy mode so I would hopefully not
leave any important info out of this review.  Some things may be
a little different in the harder, more fun difficulty levels.


~Pros:

When you shoot walls with normal weapons, bullet holes are left.
I   haven't wasted my time counting the limit, but once you use
a certain   number, old holes start vanishing.  This is also a
way to find secret   walls.  No bullet holes are put in them.
Unfortunately, the missile   weapons do nothing to the walls.
You also can't damage floors.

You can destroy almost everything except the walls and floors.

There is most definitely a Y (vertical) dimension in this game.
There   are magically suspended platforms, moving (vertically or
horizontally,   never both at once) or staying still that let
you access certain   things.  There are also things that let you
fly, and floor panels that   project you into the air.

Certain enemies beg for mercy if you shoot them enough to injure
them   but not enough to kill them.  After begging for a few
seconds, they   collapse.

In my opinion, Boppin's biggest problem was terrible music.
Rise of   the Triad makes up for it easily.  The music was much
more lively,   catchy, and IMO, quite good.  They're still using
that Apogee intro   music that sounds a lot like it was ripped
off of Origin, though. :-)

Really nice graphics.  The enemies are pretty well digitized,
but the   best graphics in this game are definitely the
pyrotechnic graphics.   The explosions and flames in the game
look REALLY nice.

The weapons system is a nice change from the norm.  There are
three   normal weapons with infinite ammo (at least, infinite on
easy mode).

Some nice physics things..  If you aim down (that's right, you
can   look and aim up and down) and shoot a missile weapon, it
explodes and   propels you upwards.  I did find one place where
this was the only way   to get me into a place (a healing basin
was in the way, and I wasn't   hurt).  Of course, this also
injures you.

There's glass.  The glass is a bit cheesy looking, but it's a
nice addition.  Also, human enemies won't shoot through it.
Apparently they don't want to destroy their boss' property. :-)

Enemies hide.. sometimes.  You'll see what looks like a dead
body on   the ground, and when you get near, it pops up and
yells "Surprise!"   This also happens in objects.  It's kind of
stupid that the enemies   are apparently actually IN the
objects, but it keeps you on your toes.

Lastly, it has some neat "Do you wanna quit?" graphics.


~Cons:

The bugs mentioned above.

When I asked Joe if the super save games were "super" in any
other way   than the fact that they show a picture of your
position.  He said it   was more than that.  As far as I can
tell, that's the only thing   "super" about the save games.

The extra gore is kinda stupid.  It's really not that much more
gory   than Doom.  No disgusting sounds when the enemies are
blown up, etc.   The supposed extreme gore comes from the fact
that occasionally, a   body part flies off when you blow someone
up, and when you shoot   someone, blood sprays about 50 feet in
the air, which I think is just   a LITTLE too silly..  One nice
touch I noticed is that when blood is   falling, and it hits a
wall, it slides down it slowly, like blood   really would.

I didn't pay attention to the press releases closely enough to
see if   there was a background story, since I figured I could
read it when the   game came out.  Guess what?  There's no
story!  Not in the help EXE   file, not in the game, nowhere, as
far as I can determine.  The actual game itself suggests that
there HAS to be a story of some type.

The idea of having many lives is implemented poorly enough that
they're really absolutely useless, just as they are in other 3D
games.   Just rely on your save games, since dying and using
another life gets   rid of your upper 2 of the three standard
weapons and your 4th weapon.

The game is actually choppy at times on my system.  Doom didn't
have   this problem at all.  ROTT doesn't seem technically
advanced enough to   run slower than Doom.  Some of this may be
due to the fact that I   haven't defragmented my hard drive in
awhile, but that can't account   for all of it.

The help screen takes an awful long time to load for a simple
picture   file.  I think they should've done something where the
current   settings are displayed, not the default commands.  I
realize no one   else has done this, but it doesn't seem that
complicated, and I think   it's about time that someone DOES do
it.

You can't close doors.  You can open them, but they only close
with   time.  Closing would be nice to block missile weapons, or
even bullet   weapons.

This is just my opinion, but I think the idea of falling off the
level is ridiculous.


For those of you who want a numerical rating:

`Category        Rating   Weight (for calculating the over all score)
`-------------------------------
`Graphics        - 95%      2
`Sound effects   - 95%      2
`Music           - 97%      2
`Ease of control - 92%      3
`Fun!            - 92%      4
`Stability       - 70%      1
`Replayability   - 85%      3
`-------------------------------

Overall  - 90.8%

This really is a great game, as far as 3D games go, although it
is REALLY big (3.8 megs compressed), so I wouldn't recommend it
to 2400bps users (anyone still using a 2400bps modem probably
doesn't have the system to run this anyhow..  It doesn't work on
XT's :-).  Version 1.1 should be even better, though, assuming
they fix the bugs as well as add the things that they plan on
adding (no server necessary, etc).