Rune

Set in the ancient Viking world of broadswords and battleaxes, the 3D action game Rune puts you in the middle of a 2D RPG game like Diablo and forces you to get up close and personal with various goblins, undead zombies, and square-jawed Viking behemoths. As a young untested Viking named Ragnor, you will embark on a quest to find the man responsible for unbridled attacks against your helpless townfolk. The story draws from ancient Nordic myths featuring the father-like god Odin and Loki, his devil-dealing nemesis.

The game starts out in a peaceful mountain-flanked village where longhouses, stables, and ancient runes stand quietly against the darkening sky. While you're free to explore the village at will, a short training mode will be the only preface to your first mission. Your quests will eventually take you to an underwater abyss, a lava-flowing underworld, and a dense snow-capped mountain region. In-game cut scenes help tell the story and are always relative to what you are doing in the game - similar to Elite Force, but without the clear-cut objectives of Deus Ex.

While the story is interesting, Rune is really all about combat. At first glance, it may appear to be just another third-person action game ala the Tomb Raider series or Hexen II, and while it may have a lot in common visually with Unreal (in fact, it uses a modified Unreal engine), the truth is that Rune features a melee combat system that will knock your Quake III socks off.

But wait, melee combat has always been part of most first-person shooters, right? Certainly Half-Life and Deus Ex allow you to sneak up on opponents in a man-to-man attack. What makes Rune different is that it actually plays much more like a fighting game (see Mortal Kombat) than a shooter. For example, using one of the five swords you will collect in the game, you can perfect various attack moves, dodge and jump around your attackers, or leap to a nearby ledge and then double-back with a two-fisted hack and slash. Some enemies actually require that you perform these moves, and just charging into a horde of zombies while pressing the attack button will get you a one-way ticket to the re-load screen.

This is amazingly fun. Even though I've played through all the major FPS games starting with the original Castle Wolfenstein, I've rarely had such a blast in a combat game. You can finish off zombies with a quick head-chopping slice, just like in the Highlander movies. Strategy plays an important role as well, since your best attack is always the jump/spin move - which must be planned. If you get surrounded by a host of Vikings you might as well drop your sword and pray for quickening.

While you're doing all this hacking and slashing, you will encounter some glorious locations. My favorite was a marble floor anteroom where you must lead one of the zombies over a floor panel, thus opening your escape door. When I first entered the room, I just stood there for a moment and gazed around in bewilderment. While not every mission includes such finely detailed locations, many of them do.

Sometimes the graphics feel a little bit like those in Unreal, which is to say they lack detail, texture and variety (but are always crisp and bright). Also, some maps feel a bit claustrophobic - there are even some spots that reminded me of the maze-like rooms in the original Heretic games (set in a somewhat similar time period). And, jumping puzzles get a bit tedious.

Still, the huge open areas in the underworld more than make up for the occasional mazes. One section has you climbing chains over a flowing lava river - and the sense of scale is perfect. I could see the tower over in the distance and knew explicitly that I needed to get there. The fun part was figuring out how to get the drawbridge to rise over the lava pools. Not since Jedi Knight have I experienced a true sense of precariousness as I peered over a ledge or leaped from one pinnacle to another.

Weapons are varied enough, although I tended to stick with a one-handed sword and shield through most of the game. The skeletal zombies will re-spawn unless you chop their heads off, so a sword is required. In later maps, the shield-carrying Vikings require a heftier weapon like the battleaxe, and each encounter takes more planning and strategy. By the end of the game, I could take out any zombie with one move and just about any foe with a few combination attacks. The fact that you actually have to learn how to use these hand-to-hand combat moves is what really sets Rune apart from run-and-gun shooters like KISS: Psycho Circus.

There are a couple other cool things about the weapons. One is that you can collect Runestones throughout the game and then activate special weapon power. For example, you can supercharge your sword, activate a health-sucking power-up, or turn yourself invisible. While you may not rely too heavily on the special powers (Runestones are relatively scarce), they make for a fun diversion.

Another option in the game is to use a torch for help in the dimly lit locations that can also be used to set your attackers on fire. Once again, this is a nice diversion but not necessarily that useful. Enemies will still attack you while they are on fire, and it takes a while for them to finally smolder and die.

One of the slight shortcomings to the game is the enemy AI. Enemies will side-step in combat, which is cool, but for the most part they tend to just keep coming at you like lambs to the slaughter. I can't remember seeing any of the way-too-prevalent skeleton zombies actually retreating from my attack, or pursuing me around corridors (one did jump into a lava pool, though!). Often, when you come around a corner there's the typical AI trigger effect where you have to get close enough to the bad guy before he notices you. There's not much stealth in the game so you probably won't sneak around, hide while enemies pass you by, or run for cover and wait. Also, the game lacks any of the alternate strategies of games like Deus Ex where there are multiple ways to complete an objective and lots of side missions. Rune is a straight-ahead melee combat game that is very linear.

Not that any of that is a huge problem. Rune is a brawny game without a huge emphasis on brains - although Viking warriors toward the end of the game are challenging enough. There's a lot of visceral, visual enjoyment here - a near-perfect antidote to a long workday.

Gameplay = 8 While the gameplay lacks any real objectives other than "get to the end of the level," the truly compelling nature of the combat system is what makes the game fun. I couldn't wait to get to the next section of the game to see what monsters and puzzles were waiting for me, and pouncing on enemies from a ledge is great fun. Rune has some of the same gameplay as a fighting game, but keeps you moving through richly detailed locales.

One huge plus for Rune in terms of gameplay is actually the quick load times. Often, I found myself taking more risks and getting more enthralled in combat because I knew that, even if I died, I could re-load in a matter of seconds (yes, seconds). This has an amazing effect on my perception of the game because, in most action games (Heavy Metal FAKK2 for one), there is always this sense that, if you die, the penalty is going to be about a five minute wait to load your saved game. Rune gets you right back to the action, and I found myself wanting to play the game more for this reason alone.

Graphics = 9 Rune is based on the Unreal engine (with several modifications that include the third-person viewing angle and attack system), but everything is much more detailed and interesting. The underwater world is especially cool since neither Unreal or any of the other major FPS games have large underwater locales. Looking up from the depths at a sunken ship while the light streams down from above really adds to the sense of immersion (in more ways than one!). Lava looks hot and boiling, and the winter landscapes look dark and foreboding. With all the various graphic options turned on in 32-bit mode at 800x600, the rich textures really come to life - Viking attackers are especially well detailed with high polygon counts and dead-on color palettes. There was even one location with wooden bridges that had that eerie Myst-like feel.

Sound = 7 There's nothing overly impressive about the sounds in Rune. Sure, the goblins and ghouls will grunt at you in disgust, ambient wind will rustle in over the cold Nordic landscape, and your sword will swish just like the real thing. One of the problems, though, is that there are too few sounds in the game - and too few enemies. I did like that various swords made different sounds - the heavier the sword the louder the thunk.

Difficulty = 7 It's difficult to learn how to master your weapons and attack combos, and this process of learning is a lot of fun. Because Rune does not really offer any gameplay options other than to just find your way to the end of the map (with a lot of Unreal-style lever pulling), the difficulty is really dependent on how easily you can figure out how to finish the level. The jumping puzzles are actually pretty easy, although there are two instances where a rising pool of lava adds more tension.

Concept = 8 Rune scores huge points for its melee combat system. Also, the Nordic mythology helps give you the sense that you are in the middle of some huge RPG gameworld, which all adds to the realism. There's a pretty solid background story that's not quite on par with, say, Elite Force (which has one of the most developed storylines we've seen in a while) but still miles ahead of Quake, Unreal, or just about any mindless FPS fragfest.

Multiplayer = Not Rated Multiplayer was not tested for this review but will be added at a later time.

Overall = 8

Installation No problems.

Buy the Game? Action/FPS fans will definitely want to play Rune - it may just end up as the game of the year. For those who don't normally play all the Quake-style games, Rune is still a great game for you since it features a great combat system.