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Platform: Playstation 2 Genre: Fighting Publisher: Titus Software Developer: Saffire ESRB: T (Teen) Released: Q3 2002
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BarbarianScore: 9.0 / 10 |
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Pros: - Excellent
fighting game - Superb 3-D
arenas and interactive backgrounds - Good
multiplayer game – up to 8 with 2 multi-taps - Great one player mode with good variations on the 3-round match-up |
Cons: - All this
sword-fighting and no blood? - Story lines can be a little on the thick side (if you aren’t a D&D fan you might groan)
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Related Links: Review: The Bouncer (Playstation 2) Review: Bloody Roar 3 (Playstation 2)
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"All in all, Barbarian is a very entertaining fighting game with some particularly cool features."
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When a game comes out and garners quite a bit of success obviously there is quite a bit of pressure for the sequel to do just as well, if not better, than the original. Dealing with this would be hard enough for a development team who was responsible for the original title. Now imagine if a new studio was brought in and had to live up to heavy expectations having not had the experience of making the first game in the first place. Such was the case for Black Isle as the Dark Alliance torch was passed to them from Snowblind Studios. Happily, Dark Alliance II proves to be a very solid title, if looking a little dated, keeping the engaging action RPG elements of the first game intact while expanding upon its predecessor with new characters and a handy item creation system. |
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Barbarian is a new take on the whole fighting genre. Borrowing the 3D-fighting style of The Bouncer, the game features battles between up to 8 players (on the screen) at one time. Unlike many 3D fighting games, the background is highly interactive with objects that can be thrown at your adversaries or the surrounding poles and trees that can be climbed or suspended from. The game can be played as a standard “street-fighter analogue” with up to seven of your friends or as an adventure game with a detailed story-line and some truly challenging variations on the usual three round conflict. Each |
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of the 11 fighters employ a
unique
weapon based fighting style ranging from standard Nordic sword/shield
styles to dual-axe stances to scimitar styles (although I can’t recall
too many Arabic barbarians from Western Civilization class….).
Barbarian
utilizes a two-button attack mode (one weak & one strong) that is
used to develop some nasty combos on your opponent. Ranging from
stunning combos to magic gaining spells to just plain brutalizing
attacks – the combo system is easily the most important aspect of the
game to master. The only complaint about the attack-system is based on
the fact that no character attacks low – everyone fights standing and
attacks their opponent at the chest. When not attacking, the blocking
and countering system allow for defense or momentum breaking on your
opponent. Those systems are simple to use, but suffer the problem of not
working when someone is performing a combo on you (nothing quite so
frustrating as getting hit in the wrong direction and having to sit and
watch your character receive a 10 hit combo). Also included are runes
and projectiles which serve to ‘juice your character for a moment or
disrupt your opponent with a ranged attack.
The visuals are excellent, with the interactive backgrounds looking great and reacting perfectly. The sound is good; the beats differ for each region trying to develop a regional feel for each atmosphere (African beats for jungle areas, Mayan rhythms for temple-like area, and industrial beats for castles). The sound effects are basic but well implemented (don’t need to be more advanced than clanging of metal on metal and groans and grunts, right?) and accentuate the action superbly.
Barbarian
is broken down into 3 modes of play: Single player quest mode, a versus
mode, and the tutorial. For this game, the tutorial is a little slow but
extremely important – as it not only goes through the basics of the
fighting style, but explains the nuances of the game including runes and
how to use the surroundings to your advantage. The versus mode is by far
the most fun when you have a group of people to play with and against
– with 2 multi-taps and additional controllers up to 8 people can
simultaneously to smash things. At this point, I was only able to play
with 3 people at once, but the game handled perfectly with no noticeable
slowdown to the action.
The single player mode is more of a quest-like experience where you choose one character and as you complete battles you earn experience and attain higher levels. These levels allow you to add techniques, skills, or just physically improve your character as you advance in the game. The quest mode is non-linear – so you can choose between two or more characters to visit (read: fight) to advance the story line. Different paths result in different aspects of the world being revealed, so the replay value for each character is high. Some people will find the story line excessive, especially when the narrator goes on a tear describing some trite activity as an insurmountable task… just be warned what you’re getting into. To make this mode more interesting, are the handicapping battles – some battles have you pitted against characters that can regenerate their health others in situations where you’ve been poisoned and slowly losing health (so you must defeat your opponent VERY quickly) or even others where you are fighting against an enemy who has minions joining in the fight. This certainly can increase the difficulty of the game rather drastically.
All in all, Barbarian is a very entertaining fighting game with some particularly cool features.
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Tazman (August 3, 2002)
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