Clans
Published By: GT Interactive

Reviewed by _fo0k
9/6/99

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First Impressions:

Woohoo! I finally get my hands on another title being hyped as a "Diablo 2 killer"! Clans features Internet or LAN support in deathmatch and cooperative modes, through nine quests, seven levels and five sublevels of "the ultimate hack and slash action"! I can't wait!

Hold on a second. I have four characters to choose from, and three of them are different variants of the traditional warrior mold. I guess I'll have to try the elf, because he uses magic!

Graphics:

Um, let's skip past the character choosing screens, they aren't that good looking. I'm sure once I start playing, it will be much better! NOPE! Take a look at the screenshots of this hunk of CRAP (Yes, GT, I am calling this CRAP!)... those nifty little red arrows point at which way I can move off the tiny game screen to get to the next one. It's a good thing that they put these in there, because the background is such a dark and muttled mess that you'd never be able to guess where you're supposed to go. All of the characters are pre-rendered, in a 3rd person 3/4 perspective. This thing doesn't even look good enough to be a Diablo 1 killer, let alone "the deuce".

Sound:

The battle cry of the goblins as they charge me sounds frighteningly similar to Cornholio (see Beavis and Butthead). I could swear that I hear Grandpa Simpson make an appearance, as the guy I am supposed to rescue from the torture chamber. Wonderfully poor quality grunts of pain and death, with a few boring and lengthy narratives thrown in to tell me what my next quest is supposed to be.

Gameplay:

Let's give this one good note, at least the interface is easy to understand. That's because it is limited to "click on something to attack it, click on something to pick it up, click on something to move there, click on the icon to see your inventory, then click on the spot to put the ring on your finger." You get weapon slots along the bottom, with your pack along the side. There's lots of pointing around the pitch black screen, trying to find the thing that will highlight, indicating you must click it to solve the incredibly mind bending puzzle. The toughest thing I found was a barrel puzzle, which took all of about 30 seconds and two tries to solve (the first try was because I didn't quite understand what I was supposed to be doing). Choose a Dwarf, Barbarian, or Warrior, and you will do a lot of clicking on the enemy with your sword or axe to chop him up. If you pick the elf, you get to do a lot of clicking on the enemy with your scroll to cast spells on him! There wasn't any character development that I found whatsoever, and the characters are terribly generic.

Enjoyment:

I love a great rpg. I also love a great action game. Together they would fit my mold of the perfect game. This fails to deliver in both areas. The action is boring, the role playing element is nonexistant. This game would have made a great arcade game in the mid 80's. I probably would have spent my life's savings on it back then. Now, I'm pushing myself to play it long enough to give it a review, and I got the game free!

Multiplayer:

Multiplayer seems to work, but there's no assistance in finding others to play online with. You can race your buddy to get a set amount of gold before he does, or you can do battle with him. We are really not breaking any new ground in this area (GUYS! Don't even think about this game... go visit WWW.NEVERWINTERNIGHTS.COM and drool over what we have to look forward to NEXT year! I'll spam Biowares email box until my fingers fall off, if it helps me get a preview copy! Then maybe I'll get a new game that's worth spending my time on.)

Overall Impression:

I wouldn't recommend this game to anyone. FREE is too much to pay for this dribble. Go buy yourself a copy of Diablo for $5 and have some fun. Leave this one where it belongs (on the shelf!)

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

Can't really rate this area. There are no females in the game that I came across. Maybe a damsel in distress on a level I haven't gotten to yet. All of the heroes you can pick from are males.

Added Note: "When I first looked at the game I said, 'Hrm, which female will I play...' only to find that they didn't even bother to have one female character to choose from in the game. This is not typical for RPGs, usually they have some female character to pick. The fact that 'Clans' have none shows me who they expect their audience to be. Getting the interest of a female gamer can be as simple as having some good strong female characters to play." - Atari