Fresh of the joy of playing Descent as a First Person Friday game for Extra Life, I found myself wanting to continue with another MS-DOS title and immediately thought of this gem. While I was taking on my fellow gamers every week in the PTMC mines, I was playing this one on my own and loving everything about it. I don't think Im giving anything away telling you that, yes, I still loved this game. But at the same time, it wasn't quite what I remembered. Let's talk about it.
Story: It has been six months since Adam Randall's father died. Not the most traumatic thing for the man, after all he had not kept in contact with him since his parents had divorced. But still, this would be the moment, looking back, that Adam could say his story began. Around this time, he began dreaming of a house, horrific in nature and vivid in detail. He would also dream of a young woman, equally vividly, and both would leave him feeling that the object of the dream was real... somewhere out there.
It was also around this time a man knocked on Adam's door with a package in his arm. He claimed to be Elias Chamber, a priest and pen pal of Adam's father. He also claimed the last letter he had received was a plea to make sure he delivered this parcel to Adam along with a story about a house on the outskirts of his father's perish, claiming he had uncovered something horrifying there. It was all a lie which didn't hold up to even the most basic scrutiny, of course. But the package was something else.
Inside were broken shards of some kind of tablets, the likes of which Adam was unable to find information on anywhere. But something about them told the man to keep them close and safe.... and their uniqueness finally convinced him to seek out the house his father found.... and the very one he had been dreaming about...
Entering the door (and the door locking behind on it's own) will take you right to the point you start playing as Adam, now stuck in a haunted house with no way out. Still, considering the mysteries around his father, the shards he was given, and this place, that really wasn't the plan anyway.
This basic opening will start you on your journey through the house and discovering the events that have happened here, the supernatural connections it has, and just why literally everything is at stake here. I offer no spoilers when I say this as the game advertised this itself it back in the day, but you are about to start an adventure inspired heavily by the Book of Revelations, making what those shards are pretty obvious: broken seals of the Apocalypse. But as long as one remains, there is hope, and right now Adam has unwittingly become the central figure in a final waltz for the fate of creation itself. How will it all end? Will it all end? THIS is the journey I leave to you to go on for yourself.... and if you are not opposed to the theme, you will definitely enjoy it. It's well paced, full of interesting twists, and told pretty damn well blending story telling in the world itself with full motion video to create a proper drama for this.
No, if the story has any faults here, it's the ending... a bit of a trope that annoyed me, but didn't undo anything the game itself achieved on it's face. And even then, my own annoyance is superficial since, if you think about it, it makes perfect sense as a conclusion to what you just witnessed
9/10
Graphics: Realms of the haunting is a mix graphically of first person gameplay and fully acted FMV cutscenes, and, considering the tech available at the time, both look pretty good. When you are playing the game itself, you will see from Adam's eyes as he wanders the halls of this mansion, You can expect more detail then other more famous first person games, such as fully modeled chairs and furniture, but the limits of the time are apparent in just how simple these things are and how sparsely many rooms are decorated. The world is also backed by a very moody lighting setup which actually accounts for light sources in a way that was pretty advanced for it's day, complete with flickering lighting from the lamp Adam finds shortly after entering the mansion. Unfortunately this also can mean at times this game is INCREDIBLY dark... fitting of the mood and condition of the house, but can make navigation annoying at times
At the same time, any object that might need more advanced work (interactive or not) will be sprite based. And the detailed applied to these objects as well as enemies you will see are actually pretty good. Realistic objects look like they belong in this world, if with the limits of detail a sprite will have, blending in nicely with the same grim feel as the world itself. Creatures are a bit more fantastical, but considering it makes them stand out as the unnatural abominations that they are, this works well for them. If you are used to games like Doom from this era, you are about to be pleasantly surprised just how much detail they crammed into each one.
But there is another angle to the world itself for as you play, you will collect artifacts and object which you can review up close while in the inventory. Doing so will give the object a spinning video to show everything about it or, if it's a parchment, give you the ability to look it over and read it's contents for yourself. This is both good and bad: good in that these notes look great for the limited resolution of the day, but also not so great in that if the text is in cursive you may spend a lot of time deciphering something that just isn't clear enough to be easily readable, so you may wonder just why you are stuck reading like a first grader from time to time.
Still for all this talk this is not the star of the show. That would be those FMV cutscenes. Granted they are very low resolution by today's standards since they were designed to work on a 2X CD-ROM (a mere 0.3 MB per second read... and to put that into perspective, a DVD, which runs at standard resolutions (not even 720p) needs to run at about 1.38 MB per second to play your movie from it), but they hold up as a made-for-TV film might. The acting is not half-bad and takes itself pretty seriously, even if the effects look far from realistic at times... but even that I can forgive since the game was clearly trying to use the world created in the first person gameplay so as to blend the two together. It's no masterpiece, but you can see the effort and love of the project in every second.
8/10
Sound: Sound definitely has it's ups and downs here. For the more neutral aspect, I have to look at sound effects. Everything here sounds about as it should from the swing of a sword to the screech of enemies as they either come for you or you are doing your best to smite them with whatever weapon you are using... although I will have to make a special exception for some of your weapons. Most of the are going to wind up being supernatural devices with descent zapping sound effects, but when dealing with real physical firearms this game pulls no punches. Your handgun and shotgun are nice and meaty sounding... enough so that while trying to figure out how I wanted to tweak controls early on I actually was shocked how good they sounded when I fired a round by mistake. Explosions in general also have this meaty impact, so you will definitely enjoy that.
But to bring this down I have to talk a little about the music. While the game takes it's atmosphere seriously, the music it uses is definitely "video game." It can enhance the tension of a scene or add to a feeling of awe, but it isn't even remotely good enough to hear on it's own or in the background without the game it's supporting. Even mid-game you will often discard it as being there because music is simply expected and given that proper level of effort.
And that brings us to what works exceptionally well, and that is the voices. Unlike other games, the actors here were required to physically act and not just offer these voices, and that acting seems to make a difference. The cutscenes will have you believing the characters, even if the special effects do not, and there are a lot of them peppering this adventure.
Still there is also voicework around the inventory itself which will prove both interesting and inciteful as Adam can reflect on just about every object you pickup. Furthermore, when Rebecca joins him (only a light spoiler. She shows up very early in the game and I will leave it to the game to explain why she is there) you start to get the two conversing with each other about all those same objects... and they sound actually very good together.
Overall, there just isn't much to complain about here. The things in the background work well enough, but the things you are supposed to focus on shine brightly for your ears. Enjoy this.
7/10
Gameplay: When you first open up Realms of the Haunting, you would be forgiven in thinking you are about to play a horror themed boomer-shooter. You would be dead wrong, but you would be forgiven. What you are about to play instead is more akin to a point and click adapted to a first person perspective. You will wander the halls through the eyes of Adam as you solve puzzles and unlock more areas and progress the story. There are times you will have to fight to survive, but these are actually a surprisingly small portion of the game.
The controls to do this are going to prove a unique point for many gamers, though. If this game were made today, you would likely use WASD keys we know by default and the mouse would aim your camera, giving you precise controls both on what you are clicking to interact and what you are clicking to shoot. However, this is a title from before such standards. Rather you will find yourself using the keyboard completely for looking and moving while the mouse cursor is free to roam the screen. I would HIGHLY recommend changing the controls you can since despite this, the game adapts very well to a more modern layout and if you use WASD right, you will adapt to it VERY quickly. The result is a combat system where you will move around pretty naturally while using the cursor to aim not so much the camera itself, but at where on the screen you wish to fire your weapon or swing your sword, allowing for precision combat despite the older experimental way the developers went about giving you this. Puzzles will work the same as you click to to interact with the world in much the same way.
That cursor will also explain what you can do by the two "sockets" within it. The one closest to the arrow will change colors according to what you are pointing at: a blue orb means you can interact with whatever you are pointing at, but you are simply not close enough, changing to green when you are. If it's red, clicking will fire on your target. You can also get Adam (and if she is there, Rebecca) to comment on whatever you are looking at with a right click if you see an eyeball in the other orb.
Unfortunately your look up and down can not be adjusted, but thankfully you will use them very little: basically to pick up ammunition and the like from the ground on occasion, and never when in a rush, so this is more of an inconvenience then any real difficulty. Run-lock is also not adjustable, but with this layout, its easy to reach (CapsLock).
But a far bigger inconvenience is your inventory management. Opening it up, you will be able to change weapons by clicking on any of them and placing them in your left hand. Your right hand is where you will place any object you want equipped for interactive purposes (and double-clicking potions will let you use them). Thankfully you will find the classic "number keys on top of the keyboard will hotpick weapons" for easy changing, because in the middle of battle this can be VERY tedious to do.
Unfortunately item use has no such advantage, which is why I am going to highly recommend setting the puzzle difficulty to "easy." This will make it so that if you have an object for the interaction, the game will default it into place rather then make you do it, speeding up the process. For example you will not have to open the inventory, select the right key for a locked door you are looking to open, put it in your left hand, and THEN continue the game. The game will simply say "this key works and you used it."
This will NOT do puzzles for you, however. For example, if you have a puzzle that requires you to place specific objects in specific places (and they exist) the game will NOT do them for you so much as randomly put a possible one in the place and leave it to you to figure out if it's right or not until you go through the process to select the right ones for yourself. You can expect to get the convenience when it matters without being shorted the experience in this way.
Still for all this, the game is very solid and if you enjoy point and click puzzles you will find a LOT to love before this game is over. The recommendation is just to keep the flow moving better rather then a comment on what the game offers itself.
8/10
Bugs: While this game ran absolutely great from start to finish, I can not say it was perfect. Unfortunately the engine is known for graphical issues which will occasionally make the layout of the world around you move like you might expect when playing an old game on the original Playstation. but aside from that, there were absolutely zero issues playing this game.
Digital Rights Management: No matter where you get this game, it runs DRM free
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Score: When I started this game, I did so because I remembered playing and loving it in my high school days. While it wasn't quite the experience I remembered back then, that was more about balance: I had for some reason expected the game to be a lot more combat centered then like a point & click title. It still held up, however, proving to be a great game even now almost 30 years later. If you like point and click adventures, you really should give this one a try. It's something special in the genre.
8/10
System Requirements:
- Anything 1.8 Ghz or faster
- 2 GB RAM
- Any graphic card capable of using DirectX 9.0c
- Windows 10
- 1 GB Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
No comments:
Post a Comment