Fade to Black
Developer - Delphine
Publisher - Electronic Arts
Players - 1
Extras - Memory card
The bit on the box
"Spend an eternity rotting in a
prison cell or grab a gun and fight your way out, destroying the Morph
empire on your way. Hidden equipment, secret doors and maze like levels
make sure you don't have it all your own way. Stunning 3D graphics for
unlimited camera angles. Advanced shading, texturing and motion capture
on characters. Atmospheric sound and effects using the power of the PlayStation."
Graphics
Long before Tomb Raider came to existence this
game by Delphine Software was one of the first if not the first free flowing
3D action adventure. The graphics are not overly detailed but everything
runs smoothly with no slowdown, and the camera angles are very good, including
the shooting stance that zooms in so you can target enemies easier. Delphine
have an excellent reputation for their past titles having superior animation,
and Fade to Black is no exception. Conrad appears motion captured
and the enemies all move fluidly making up for their overall lack of detail.
The main problem with the animation is that you can be caught out in battle
as Conrad has to finish an animation before doing any other moves (a similar
flaw to many of the motion captured soccer games available).
Sounds
Fade to Black opts to use mostly incidental music
and sound effects that take place when something triggers (such as an enemy
attacking or an alarm going off). Coming from the makers of such cinematic
masterpieces as Another World and Flashback the atmosphere
in the game is superb, building both tension and action in various ways
with the use of sound. The music is also used to warn of impending dangers
(similar to the style that Tomb Raider uses) and this can really
make the player apprehensive about what may be waiting for Conrad around
the next corner, causing you to tread carefully and not go running headlong
into danger and losing your life too easily.
Gameplay
Even though Fade to Black is a very difficult game,
the player can save anywhere and therefore it feels more like an adventure
than an action game, and with as many levels as this game has it may take
some time to complete. Combat is pretty straight forward, though sometimes
having to stop to target something all the time can get you into a tight
spot, especially against multiple enemies. As well as the exploration and
shooting going on there are also many puzzles to complete, ranging from
easy to tricky at best, rounding the game off nicely. The game is slightly
tarnished however with flying stages that don't seem to really fit with
the rest of the game, and mainly act as fill-ins to make the game slighter
larger and more varied.
I feel a verdict coming on
It's a shame we don't see more games from Delphine these
days as they do have a good reputation for high quality games. Fade
to Black falls into this category and with the controls now converted
to the PlayStation controller (as opposed to the PC version using keyboard)
the game is just that much more fun to play. Perhaps there could have been
a few more cut-scenes (I know i'm being greedy as there is plenty of CG
scenes thoughout, but the ones that are on offer are so good I can't help
but want more) and the flying levels could have been better (or left out
altogether), but overall the game's size and playability make up for any
misgivings. This is definitely not a rental title unless you don't care
about not finishing a game, and at it's lower Platinum price it's a bargain.
Review by D.R.T.Barrett
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