MultiplayerOnline games are everywhere. Whether it’s a MMORPG, an online strategy game,
online sports game or online racing game it seems everyone is jumping into the
mix. With Monster Hunter, Capcom adds another game into the online
multiplayer genre. This time it’s hunt or be hunted, survive or perish and
make sure you’ve got some good teammates with you in order to survive.
The basic premise of Monster
Hunter revolves around the idea that both monsters and mankind can coexist.
However the world has a delicate balance, you’re either the hunter or the
hunted. In Monster Hunter you are a monster hunter and you’re given
different objectives and missions to complete while hunting monsters. You can
either journey the missions alone or online with three of your friends.
The demo on display at E3
allowed you to hunt with up to three different players. The Capcom rep that
was showing off the game decided it was best that we hunt a dragon in the
game. So we jumped into the game with our characters already selected and we
were off after the dragon. The first thing I noticed was the game would load
to the next area even though we only took a few steps. The Capcom rep
explained that the game will only load when you move to a different stage but
it seemed strange that we just started off on the mission and the game had to
load already.
When we found the dragon
we started attacking the dragon right away. The attacks are controlled by the
right analog stick. So you move with the left analog stick and then attack
monsters with the right analog stick. It’s a very simple and easy to use
interface that didn’t seem to work because we’re fighting a very powerful
dragon. My character just wasn’t ready to attack the dragon and we didn’t
have a chance against the dragon since it was just two of us fighting.
I noticed a couple of
issues that made it difficult to fight the dragon. One was the camera angle.
The game allows you to center the camera at any time with a press of a button,
but when fighting the dragon it seemed always be a few seconds too late. The
next problem was the graphics. We were fighting in an area that had a bunch
of trees and leaves. The trees would almost camouflage my character while I
was fighting. So I had a hard time figuring out where I was when I was
fighting the dragon. Also I couldn’t tell if I was even hitting the dragon
because of the foliage on the stage graphics.
Now even though I just
mentioned the graphics caused a problem during combat, the graphics on the
demo were impressive. All of the characters animated beautifully and the
dragon we fought was huge and moved around without affecting the frame-rate.
While moving through the different areas the frame-rate remained constant.
One very cool animation I noticed happened when I died fighting the dragon.
You’re carted back to your home point and then dumped off of the cart. It was
very funny and reminded me of the scene out of the Monty Python.
While the graphics are
great and the ability to play online is a welcomed addition for a PS2 game,
the camera and control system might cause a few headaches. Even though I
didn’t have the most pleasant experience with the game, one of
GameZone’s other reviewers loved it (Rob
Watkins). I’ve heard the game is comparable to Phantasy Star Online, which
was a game that I loved to death. I look forward to giving the game another
try when it’s released later this year.
