Publisher: Enlight Interactive
Developer: Mercury Steam Entertainment
Category: Action
Release Dates
N Amer - 11/04/2004
- Also available on:
- XB
Preview
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American McGee, the visionary game maker is
apparently back and ready to make you want to play an action game on your PC
again.
Borrowing from the Grand Theft Auto style of
gameplay, ScrapLand has it's protagonist D-Tritus, arriving on an asteroid
that was once a dumping ground for humans but has now been converted to a city
strictly inhabited by robots. No humans allowed on ScrapLand the official
greeter says, they are filthy and disgusting. Since everyone on ScrapLand
must have a job, you are assigned the seemingly reviled position of reporter
and sent down to the surface city of Chimera. Upon your arrival you are met
by a rather goofy cast of characters, I'm not sure if the programmers meant
for the robot's to be so silly looking (as if young kids were the target
audience) or because they were setting me up for some rather seedy looking
characters who certainly look like they mean business. One character model in
particular (the banker) has very unfriendly looking claws and a demeanor of a
wounded badger. What would a banker need such sharp claws for? Why do they
have an almost easily identifiable "evil" look to them? Certainly questions
that will be answered as the game continues.
I'm running a 64MB graphics card, and I was very
happy with how the visuals appeared on my screen. At the beginning of the
game, you run through the orbiting space station and can (at some point) look
out the window. The immenseness of the space station is very impressive but
not nearly as cool as how I actually felt when I ran over the glass
floor. My stomach almost dropped, it was a very slick visual and instantly
made me hungry for more. The game makes full use of the sharp linear look of
a robot city. Massive structures, clean streaming lines, bright lights and
explosions. Honestly, this is one of the best looking games I have seen in
quite a while.
If I had one complaint (and I always seem to have
one) it would be that the voice of D-Tritus isn't very cool. While it's not
horrible, it just seemed to me that for a main hero, he needed a touch
more non-goofballness to his voice. Other character voices seemed spot
on, and some were even downright creepy, but something about D-Tritus's voice
just does not fit. And I know that I shouldn't be this critical of a game
that is not released yet, but as far as I can tell, my demo disc is a complete
and full version of the game. But, with that being said, one single voice
that I'm starting to get used to anyway would not discourage me from picking
this title up.
Back to the game, I find myself in a gambling
establishment speaking with some sort of mob boss named Crazy
Gambler who clearly has his wires crossed as he is telling me that I need to
go out and destroy two police officers in my newly assembled gunship (if I
want to move the game forward). So, armed with a single cannon in a vehicle I
assembled out of scrap I head out to try and destroy two cops who of course
take no liking to me trying to cease their functionality and so they call in
another 30 cops to get me... you can guess what happened next. But, the great
thing about being a robot is, if you got the cash you can buy immortality by
making a deal with a seemingly omnipotent hard drive who will resurrect you
and your memory, for a price.
Of course, all sorts of things happen in Chimera,
robot murders that you must investigate, an open ended style of gameplay that
allows you to put your quests aside and roam around the city looking for
trouble. The ability to transform into many other robot bodies and a
Gestapo-like police force that will come after you when you start walking the
dark side of the law.
This one has me excited, like I said, I've been
playing my "demo" copy for a bit now and I think it's the full version, if it
ends up not being the full version, I'll beg my editor for the game when it
finally breaks. I haven't had so much fun on my PC in a long time.
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Avg. Web Rating
7.8
