Product description
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The long-delayed cinematic adventure game D2 has finally
surfaced on the Dreamcast. Despite several years in development
by innovative Japanese game design team Warp, D2 seems to suffer
from a lack of solid gameplay. Fortunately, the gaming
environment is stunning to look at.
D2 offers gamers a curious combination of adventurous exploration
and first-person shooting. Gamers assume the role of airplane
c survivor Laura (not to be confused with game icon Lara
Croft of Tomb Raider infamy). The game begins with Laura
embarking on an airplane flight that soon goes horribly wrong.
The plane is hijacked by a handful of terrorists--but that effort
is foiled when a meteor ces into the plane. Laura emerges as
one of the few survivors of the plane wreck, which has occurred
somewhere in the ains of Canada. Laura must try to survive
the icy elements by routinely killing and cooking cute bunnies
for food as she travels through the snowy terrain. Animal
activists might object to the casual nature of these deaths,
which are essential to winning the game.
Several tentacle-wielding creatures attack Laura frequently
during her travels. When this occurs, the game immediately shifts
from third-person to first-person perspective. While these
point-and-shoot segments are challenging at first, they soon
become tedious. It is impossible to travel more than a few feet
without being attacked--and Laura must travel quite a bit to
advance the game. Despite the presence of impressive graphics,
these action segments a to little more than a glorified
version of the mass-market PC game Deer Hunter.
Still, the ambitious world of D2 is worth a look and a listen.
This game is highly stylized in design, including several
artistic cinema sequences that will keep you riveted. A stunning
new age-meets-opera soundtrack accompanies the title screen,
while creepy instrumental music adds tension in all the right
places.
With an awkward balance of both adventure and action elements,
D2 ultimately succeeds more as a curiosity than a remarkable
gaming coup. --Brett Atwood
Pros:
* Art-house appeal for eclectic gamers
* High-quality animation
Cons:* Awkward gameplay
* Tedious and repetitious action sequences
Review
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Originally conceived and even partially developed for 3DO's
ill-ed M2 console, Warp's D2 has been in the works for more
than three years now. While the name would indicate a sequel to
the eponymous D (originally released for the 3DO, Sega Saturn,
and Sony PlayStation), the only relation it bears to its
predecessor is the main protagonist, Laura. While the original
concept for D2 put Laura's unnamed son in the lead role, it is
Laura once again who basks in the game's limelight. According to
Warp impresario Kenji Eno, D2 is to be Laura's last appearance as
the main character in one of Warp's games, and what a game it is:
part CG, part FMV, part real-time third-person adventure, and
lastly, part first-person shooter. While Warp's previous games
(with the exception of Real Sound) all touched on these various
features, D2 makes the ambitious leap into combining all of these
disparate elements into one highly anticipated stew. In this
pseudosequel, Laura is a passenger on a plane flying high above
the Canadian ains, which, as e would have it, is moments
away from being skyjacked. Once the onboard terrorists reveal
themselves, all hell breaks loose - conveniently displayed in
computer-generated FMV. As if the chaos wasn't enough, a
meteorite blows a hole through one of the plane's wings, causing
it to plummet to the ground, making a wreckage of the plane and
its passengers. Of course, Laura survives, along with Kimberly
Fox and young Jannie, two other passengers on the plane. After a
short opening sequence, which sets up the plot and introduces
Parker Jackson, another pivotal character, the game begins.
Strangely, despite every character having loads of things to talk
about, Laura herself says but three words throughout the entire
game. The bulk of the gameplay revolves around a few basic
functions: walking around and exploring, watching extensive
chunks of FMV, and shooting things. The walking around parts can
get rather tedious, because unlike the shooting parts, the
exploratory bits are handled via a third-person (think Tomb
Raider) perspective. While this was probably an aesthetic
decision based on the desire to bring Laura into full-on 3D, it
adds almost nothing to the gameplay. Since you spend the majority
of the game walking or running from place to place, but have no
other abilities except using items (first-aid spray) and
rudimentary hunting (shoot bunnies for food), you get all the
foibles of 3D gaming (awkward control, bad camera angles) without
any of the benefits. The control is awkward because D2 adopts a
Resident Evil method of control (push forward to move forward,
press left and rotate left, etc.). While this may be of use in a
Tomb Raider type of game where alignment and positioning are
important, in a game where running is your main task, it proves
virtually useless. A Super Mario 64-like movement scheme would
have solved many a headache in this game. Another source of
extreme annoyance is the random battle elements. For every ten to
fifteen virtual feet you walk, anywhere from one to three
monsters will pop up out of the snow-covered landscape and
"surprise" you. These monsters are all -mutated folks who
have caught something a bit worse than influenza and as a result
would like to kill you for breakfast. While these appearances may
come as something of a shock when you first see them, nine hours
later they are merely predictable and aggravating. While each
successfully completed encounter adds a few more points to
Laura's experience meter, and in time raises her levels, the only
effect this has is to raise her hit points and steady her .
This could have been better achieved by fewer random encounters
that were a little more challenging and worth more points. When
these creatures appear, you automatically switch to a
first-person mode that allows you a better, more detailed view of
the monsters. This is one thing that initially seems to work well
since it provides an easy ing interface. You can't move or
strafe but instead you must keep your nents in view by
pressing the X or B buttons and then shoot with the X. The
monsters fly around, burrow in the snow, or just move around,
making it necessary to pivot on the spot. Shooting these guys up
close results in green blood being splattered all over your face,
making it difficult to see, so you must keep your eyes open for
the X or B prompts that indicate where the enemy is at all times.
Another thing that D2 suffers from is back-and-forth syndrome.
Instead of giving you a clear-cut idea of what you're supposed to
accomplish next, much of D2 is spent running back and forth to
various locations on the (a building here, a cabin there),
all seemingly at random. Rarely does anyone say, "Go to the cabin
with the old woman in it," and this makes your success in D2 an
exercise in trial and error. This wouldn't be so bad if it
weren't for the fact that almost all of this is done on foot.
Sure, there's a snowmobile that you get to use, but you only
really get to use it at length on disc two (D2 spans four discs).
For about 75 percent of the game, Laura is found hoofing it
through 30 virtual miles of barren snow-covered Canadian
landscape in stockings and heels. Even when you get to use the
snowmobile, all that does is speed up the random monster battles.
--James Mielke
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review