Doom is the grand daddy of action shooters. Nothing beats the satisfaction of blasting zombies to pieces with a finely tuned pump-action shotgun. With the bestselling release of Doom III and a Hollywood movie being prepped for a fall premier, Doom is a big gaming franchise. On Nokia??™s N-Gage we have a game entitled Ashen, which is pays homage of sorts to the time honored gameplay introduced by Doom.
The problem with the N-Gage is that you don??™t know the type of FPS game that??™ll be released for it. Red Faction was a certified piece of trash that shouldn??™t have seen the light of day, Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm is an excellent example of how an FPS game should be developed for the N-Gage, and here we have Ashen which finds itself right smack in the middle between the two extremes.
The graphics in Ashen look good, although the graphics engine ability to render the necessary polygons takes quite a hit once you start encountering enemies. I don??™t seriously expect lightning fast screen redraws but the would it be too much to ask for something like 20 to 25 frames per second and not something that seems to be chugging to a crawl every now and then. The monsters of Seven River City are well detailed but you??™ll get an eye full of pixelated images when you get to close to them. Sounds are great for an N-Gage game. Torus Entertainment really made good use of the N-Gages sound capabilities. The music is quite good and fits quite well with the action-horror atmosphere of the game. The sounds will change depending on the on-screen situation that you??™ll face and is really the best aspect of the game.
In an attempt to introduce something new to the Doomish type gameplay, Ashen requires you to use a special iffy device called Ghost Vision in order to survive the horrors waiting for you in Seven River City. While at first it seems like a clever idea, I think the gameplay would have been better Torus Entertainment allows the player to just wade in and blast away at the unholy wave of monsters. The game??™s focus soon revolves around a judicious use of the Ghost Vision in order to combat invisible enemies. I??™m an action-oriented guy and all these move- check ??“ move ??“ check and shoot type gameplay is slowing the fun factor for me. The Ghost Vision wasn??™t balanced enough because there are certain situations when it??™ll prove really helpful and necessary and yet there are no opportunities for you to recharge that sucker before you get zapped by an unseen monster. Give me a room full of beasties that can be seen and can be filled with lead and I??™m a happy camper. While I personally didn??™t find the gameplay that much of a fun experience, other people might get turned on by it, well at least my brother said he enjoyed the challenge of quick aiming and Ghost Vision power balancing. Looks like Torus Entertainment have one happy customer in the world at least. |
