Iedereen nog steeds opgewonden voor ED?
[url][url="http://www.xengamers.com/sections/news/7496/[url]"]http://www.xengamers.com/sections/news/7496/[url][/url]
A few years ago Nintendo signed Silicon Knights to an exclusive contract joining the ranks of other second party developers such as Rare, Left Field and Hal. Given the track record of Nintendos other second parties and Silicon Knights development of the underrated Blood Omen for the PSX, great things were expected of them. Their first Gamecube project, Eternal Darkness, has been a long time coming. Nintendo showed a nearly finished version at E3 and we got a chance to play it one month before its release.
Going into the show, Eternal Darkness seemed like it was going to be the next generation of survival horror games. After years of seeing what Capcom, Konami and other companies were doing in the genre Silicon Knights had a pretty good foundation on which to build.
Though the game demo on display at E3 was only a small portion of the game, the portion that was shown played exactly like Resident Evil. The pre-rendered backgrounds have been replaced with low quality textures and the zombie polygon count has been halved, but other than that it could very well be mistaken for a Resident Evil side
story.
The control of Eternal Darkness is a tease. During normal gameplay the game moves at a snails pace. Realizing that there is very little fun in slowly lurking around a mansion, Silicon Knights wisely added a run button which speeds the game up to an acceptable level. Unfortunately, after about five consecutive seconds of running, your character gets winded and slows down to even slower than they were before. The combat controls also leave something to be desired. Players hit one button to use their weapon and thats about it. Theres no dodge or jump button. Hold down the L button while you attack allows you to aim at your opponents heads, but that doesnt change much. They could have just as easily defaulted your aim to a head shot since there is no reason to ever aim any place else. The much discussed insanity meter didnt come into play in the course of the demo, although its possible we just missed it.
Eternal Darkness was set up a stones throw from the Resident Evil 0 kiosk at Nintendos booth and the difference in the quality of graphics is startling. A genre such as survival horror needs jaw dropping graphics to hook players. Eternal Darkness looks and, for that matter, feels like a PlayStation game.
Eternal Darkness still has some hope in being a worthy entry in the survival horror genre, but right now it does nothing to distinguish itself from the hoard of other Resident Evil-clones out there. Nintendo has been known for keeping everything close to its chest so maybe they thought it best to only reveal certain aspects of the game. Check back with XenGamers in a month to read a final review
Niet zo erg positief dus...