Developer: Microsoft Games; Bungie Software
Publisher: Gathering of Developers
Reviewed by Cat91

First Impressions:

I was surfing the 'net and taking a break from looking at Shrapnel Games' excellent Combat Command: Danger Forward for an upcoming review. Over at File Planet I happened to run across a demo for Oni, the third-person shooter that Bungie Software is planning to release at the end of this month. I've read a lot about this game. My very first computer game of any type for a stand-alone PC was actually for a Macintosh, an old Centris owned by my much-loved husband (who posts on our forums under the nom de plume IceWolf). That game was Marathon, also courtesy of Bungie and to date the only first-person shooter I have ever been able to play without getting motion sick. What fun was Marathon! In an age when the top games were Castle Wolfenstein and Doom, Marathon boasted an engaging story, believable characters, and a 3D environment, as well as awesome weapons and great physics. Users flocked to the game, and on America Online one could find tons of user mods, including a level editor. A second chapter, Marathon: Durandal, was released for the Mac, and for the PC shortly after. It was indifferently marketed to PC users and fell flat. The final chapter in the saga, Marathon Infinity, is a game the IceWolf still dabbles in level editing for, nearly five years after its release. Every couple of months he goes through an editing binge with the incredible Forge/Anvil editing tools Bungie released for the game. I'm his level tester, so I'm still familiar with the game and its simple, easy-to-master control mechanisms.

So I visit Bungie's web site every so often. I tried their Myth strategy games, and have been halfway following Halo (a new strategic game under development) and today's subject, Oni. Oni is basically the follow-up to the Marathon series, taken from a new angle. It has a totally new storyline, but a similar philosophy: immerse the user in a believable storyline, give her a linear, important set of goals in a reasonable, building progression in a world that isn't too far different from reality, and let her experience the story first-hand. It's a formula that worked for three installments with Marathon. Is the old Bungie magic still magical? Or has the time lapse since Marathon made these innovators stale?

Graphics:

Well. This is one place I have no words. The demo I ran was released in December, and the game still had over a month of development to go. But it installed quickly and cleanly after a 60mb download and I ran it for seven hours straight without one hang, hitch, or crash at 1600x1200 resolution, in 32 bit textures. The game takes advantage of hardware T&L and looks absolutely gorgeous. Oni is animated in the style of a Japanese anime cartoon, but in crisp 3D for the gamer. The people and the sets in the game are textured in a manner that reminds me of the dark, brooding interiors of UESC Marathon herself in the older game, and there are very few seams and spots evident in the texturing. A great deal of time and effort has gone into the rendering. The heart of the game is its martial arts style hand-to-hand fighting, which the characters execute seamlessly and fluidly, with nary a hitch or quirk. Several weapons have laser-style sighting similar to that in Terminal Reality's Nocturne and Blair Witch games, and these are very easy to see and use. Landing blows on an opponent produces varicolored flashes that tell you his condition: bright red with bubbles is a knockout blow! When Konoko, the lead character, gets hit in turn, she shows the same flashes, letting the gamer know to watch out.

Let's talk about Konoko. How many games do you know of where the lead character is a woman? Several. How many of those women are bimbettes with impossible, Barbie-like proportions? Konoko ain't one of them. Though pretty in the same sense that Sailor Moon's Senshi are pretty, Konoko is realistically (though waifishly) proportioned and moves like a real gal, not like a sex kitten. Her uniforms are not revealing. She either wears some sort of police Ninja-suit or a one-piece uniform coverall, and my hat is off to Bungie for this. The character is strong, aggressive, personable, and intelligent. She has what my hubby refers to as a "NARC chip:" a controller, also female. Named Shinitama, this woman guides Konoko through her missions with clean voiceovers in cutscenes. Speaking of those, the cutscenes for everyone save Shinitama herself are done with the game engine. These too are in anime style and though the characters' mouths are not animated, when one is speaking the game puts up inset shots of the character's face that look like a clip from a Japanese comic book, in keeping with the anime style. I found playing the game reminiscent of seeing a cartoon like Sailor Moon or Dragonball Z from over the character's shoulder.

Things burn and blow up here. The explosion and fire graphics outstrip every flight sim I have seen with the exception of Jane's F/A-18. The lights shine and glow in the same manner as you'd see in the cartoons, and lens flare is modeled very well. One thing I did notice was the absolute lack of gore. This game should be rated PG for violence, but there is neither strong language nor one drop of blood. One warning: Take your Dramamine if you get sick playing Quake or Unreal. An hour of Oni had me on the run for the nearest altar of the Porcelain God. I found that playing at high resolution-1600x1200-helped a lot, and not moving Konoko quickly in circles (like when running up stairs) helped a lot too; I played six hours more after that, with breaks every half hour or so, which also helped. This game is too fun to let motion sickness keep you on the sidelines. If anyone finds a way to reliably beat that, please tell me! I don't get into most shooters, but this game is one I want to find a way to play.

Sound/Music:

Very well done. The vocals from the characters again sound like those in an anime cartoon, with that same clipped, melodramatic style. The major villain's cold, deadpan delivery reminds me strongly of the bad guys from the first season of Sailor Moon, and is just oooozing evil from every pore. Konoko sounds like an earnest young woman, Shinitama sounds like a combination mother-figure and secretary, Commander Griffin, who dispatches Konoko on her missions, sounds long-suffering, like the stereotypical commander-father figure...it's all very stereotypical, but so very anime it brings a smile to your face rather than grating on the nerves. Guns sound authentic, punches and kicks land with satisfying smacks, grunts and groans are not overdone, and explosions rock the house. A+ for the sounds.

Gameplay:

The heart of this game is its combat style. Oni is set in the distant future, its heroine some sort of genetically-enhanced cop bent on putting a stop to a horrifically evil James Bond-type organization. Bungie did not want, however, to re-do games like Unreal and Quake. Oni is more in the tradition of Origin Systems' old Crusader series, a third-person game. Bungie also wanted to emphasize a cleaner combat form. Rather than merely blowing people up, the team chose a harder form of animated combat: martial arts. This is very difficult to program well, and it is the main reason Oni has been in development so long. The result, however, will change third-person games, in my opinion. Bungie has come up with the best single method of character control I have ever played. It combines three or four keyboard keys for moving forward and back, strafing side to side, jumping, and crouching, with the mouse for punching, kicking, and turning direction. Combinations of these keys in action provide unexpected and spectacular results. In one fight (in an airport lobby) in the demo, I watched/participated in Konoko taking on two bad guys. One, a sallow-looking, spiky-haired punk-rock looking kid, shouts "Static FIST!", glows, and releases a weird punch. A double-tap of the S and Shift keys, and Konoko cartwheels out of the way, into the second guy, a uniformed stormtrooper, knocking his Uzi out of his hand in the process. A tap of the W and spacebar, and Konoko drop kicks the static-fist guy, then with an S and right mouse click back kicks the stormtrooper. He falls to his back, and rises, Uzi in hand. Konoko grabs his gun arm, breaks it at the elbow, and whacks him in the face with her elbow. Down for the count. She turns with a spin of the mouse, as the static fist guy gets up. She gives him a quick one-two punch and spin-kicks him as he goes down in a flash of red bubbles.

It happens a lot faster than this in the game, and it is far easier to master than you think. Bungie provides gamers with a training mission to get used to the control keys and mouse, and the system is quick, easy, and intuitive once the player gets used to it. Any combination of punches, kicks, and judo throws can be done, and in seven hours I rabbit punched, karate-chopped, defenestrated (off a third-floor warehouse balcony), elbowed, kicked and stiff-armed tons of very bad men. The only thing I didn't like was the lack of a section in the training camp where one could actually spar with foes outside the game. A lot of the best moves just happen, but an experienced user can pull off miraculous combinations. Presently, there's no safe place to practice these, and I hope Bungie provides one. The other problem is that the story line is linear rather than dynamic, and there is presently no quick-save. I hope that changes, too, for obvious reasons. In the demo, the game saves automatically at save points in the level. But failure between save points means one has to start back at the save point and the user has no way of saving along the way. Another thing I disliked was the prevalence of guns among the bad guys. Realistic? Yes. But the heart and soul of the game is hand-to-hand fighting. Sniping with a pistol or machine gun isn't as fun, and rushing a bad guy with a gun brings predictable results. The game is scaled: on its "easy" setting it is much like Crusader on "Weekend Warrior," with the AI characters no dumber, but not as strong, and less able to stand punishment. I thought that was a nice touch for newbie accessibility. Character AI is well programmed. The bad guys aren't blind and will see Konoko in the open even if she is sneaking. If they hear you run by they will investigate. And they will fight dirty, and taunt you when you lose. Konoko can taunt back-hit the right key and she sneers things like "Yer gonna get beat by a girl!" at the bad guy she just knocked down. A real Charlie's Angels moment.

There are, unfortunately, several of what I call "stupid platform tricks" throughout. Given Konoko's catlike agility and ease of user control, this probably is inevitable. In the demo there is one particularly nasty set of laser traps where she must time her movement, and then slide under at just the right time or get zapped by a wall gun with nowhere to run or hide. I hope this is minimized in the release.

Enjoyment:

The animations are crisp and lively, and the sound is professionally done as well. The game is accessible to neophytes. It's just plain fun. One problem will be that Bungie dropped multiplayer support. This will hurt sales long term, as there is a significant crowd that would love to fill online rooms with thousands of Konokos bashing the heck out of each other in out-of-control deathmatches. Further, there is no confirmation or denial of a level editor. My husband, the level genius, desperately wants one of these because he believes that Oni and Marathon would be similar editing experiences. Adding one or the other will go a very long way toward keeping Oni fresh and not a flash in the pan. Otherwise, the static, story-driven linear campaign will grow stale over time. I really believe that if they play their cards right, Bungie and GoD can revolutionize the third-player shooter genre entirely with this release, and create a flood of copycats.

Multiplayer:

N/A

Overall Impression:

I think it is pretty clear that I enjoyed this demo a lot. It is supremely addictive, and has a likeable heroine. If you like anime you'll love Oni. If Bungie doesn't subtitle it in Japanese and release it over there, they're passing up something that will make them very, very rich. On the surface the game is stereotypical, the same old good-guy-stops-bad-guy scene that's been a Hollywood staple since before the first time the man from U.N.C.L.E. got called into action. Oni is going to be a classic, one I will keep for years and return to, in the same fashion that I still play Origin's Crusader once every year or so. It'll be like re-reading a good book. I'm definitely buying this game when it is released.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

I give Bungie and GoD two thumbs and a big toe up for this. They've come up with a heroine who isn't a cheesecake shot, one who's got smarts on the ball, is tough and lively, yet isn't butch at all. She doesn't move or dress like an advertisement for sex, and is not an object, but a character with depth that grows as one gets into the game story. If they'd gone with multiplayer support, I gua-ron-tee that every Quake clanswoman and female Half-Life player out there would drop those games for Oni in droves. This one's got all the right moves for success in our part of the market. And it should appeal to men, too: Konoko has it all over Lara Croft in almost every way save the chest and hips. I've wanted a Crusader with a good female lead character since 1996, and these two studios have delivered that in spades. As my Aussie pals from SimHQ say, "Goodonyer!" Buy this one, folks. It's all that. It really is.

 

Minimum Hardware Windows 98/2000/Me; 266 MHz Pentium II 266 processor or higher; 64 MB RAM; 800 MB available on hard drive; Hardware-accelerated 3D graphics card (OpenGL compatible); sound card, mouse, 4x CD-ROM drive; DirectX v7.0a Test Hardware Athlon Thunderbird 900 processor, ABIT KT-7 RAID motherboard, 256 MB PC-100 SDRAM, 20 GB hard drive, Guillemot/Hercules Prophet 3d DDR/DVI (nVidia GeForce 256) AGP; nVidia Detonator III version 6.49, Microsoft DirectX version 8.0, Creative Soundblaster Live!Value with Live!Ware 3.0 and updated drivers ESRB Teen for animated violence

Support WomenGamers.Com and buy Oni from here today!