|
The game opens with a cutscene showing the origins of Kahless and the Klingon empire. When the empire was forged, the schools of the great warriors were established. The finest graduates of the three schools would be bestowed with the honor of becoming a member of the Klingon honor guard. If you watched TNG or DS9, you probably already know the story but it's cool to see it shown here and narrated by Robert O'Reilly. You play as an honor guard initiate, completing missions from the high council, in the hope to become a member of the elite guard. Your first mission, given to you by Kurn son of Mohg, is a training mission to destroy a city of rebels single handedly like The emperor once did. The premise sounds a bit ridiculous, but it's a holodeck simulation so at least it's a bit more reasonable. You also may notice that there are some familiar voice actors in this game. They got Tony Todd to voice Kurn and the original actor to voice Gowron as well. After your brief holodeck simulation, an assassination attempt was made on Gowron. Your mission for the rest of the game is to track down the traitors and kill them. Commander Kurn, will brief you on each mission in a short cutscene. The story is simple, but it works to give you a reason for all of your killing.
This game also runs on the Unreal Engine and it shows. You have a cool flyby video in the start screen showing off the state of the art for the time graphics, just like Unreal did. Projectiles also emit light in the environment when fired which make for a cool visual effect, as well as a way to see where you are going in dark areas. The colored lighting is used quite often throughout the campaign and occasionally there are some reflective floors. Visually, KHG definitely holds up well due to its good use of the Unreal Engine. I much prefer the Unreal Engine to the Quake engine, something about it feels better to me. Even if the old Unreal Engine games can be a pain in the butt to get running on modern systems.
Once I started playing, I noticed right away that shooting enemies in this game can be really tricky. All of the weapons seem to be projectile based, rather than hitscan. That on top of the fact that enemies move around a lot and will sometimes dodge your attacks, makes the shooting kind of difficult. Eventually you get used to it, and I found the trick is to wait for the enemy to start shooting first, then fire at them because they can't move while shooting. While the enemies can dodge, you can dodge as well. All it takes is a simple double tap of the movement keys to send you flying in one direction. This sent me off a ledge a number of times. Thankfully you can turn this off in the settings if it bothers you.
Then there is melee combat. It is pretty basic for the most part. You start off with your D'k Tahg, a basic dagger, and eventually by the 4th mission acquire a Bat'leth. There is no blocking so it comes down to hacking at the enemy hoping that you don't take too much damage in the process. There is a lot of blood that splashes everywhere when attacking enemies, especially in melee, so that definitely makes it very satisfying even if it is a rather basic mechanic. It is interesting though that the blood of some of the Klingons is pink rather than red. I guess Klingons are made out of bubblegum, or maybe it's all that prune juice they are drinking.
The level design in KHG is actually pretty good. I'd say better than Elite Force ironically. It is not nearly as linear and actually had me scratching my head a number of times figuring out where to go. Sometimes it can be a little too confusing like the sewers in the second mission in the city of traitors. Or in the Qualon level, where there is a deceptively hidden wall in one of the buildings that you have to find to progress. Otherwise, I enjoyed how open the levels were with backtracking and plenty of secrets to find. Elite Force had more tightly designed levels which were still fun and you were less likely to get lost in, while KHG is more open and less linear. I guess it's up to personal preference.
I also think that in general, an FPS when playing as a Klingon makes more sense than a member of Starfleet like in Elite Force. While Voyager is definitely a bit unorthodox compared to other Star Trek shows with how they go about following Starfleet regulations, since they are thousands of light years away from the Alpha quadrant. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that members of an organisation that call themselves pacifists, will go around with a wide arsenal of weapons that are made to kill, not stun, and kill hundreds of aliens in each mission. While here in KHG, fighting in battle and killing your enemies is the most honorable thing you can do in the Klingon culture, so it makes a lot more sense as an FPS.
The enemies consist mostly of Klingons and Andorians. You have your basic infantry with disruptor rifles or assault disruptors at a distance and a melee weapon when you get close. Some wear heavier armor, but these are the enemies you are up against for most of the game. Later on you encounter flying drones that fire phasers and telepaths that can turn invisible and shoot energy balls that explode. There is also the occasional grenadier that shoots a folly of grenades at you which is rather annoying to deal with. Then you have the occasional creature encounters like swarms of spider-like aliens, underwater creatures, yetis, and dogs. Overall, the enemy variety is decent, but due to this game being rather long and most of the enemies consisting of the basic Klingons and Andorains, it gets tedious after a while. Now, the weapons that you will be using up against these enemies? Well, you acquire an arsenal throughout the course of the campaign. These weapons are mostly projectile based, with one exception being the Sith Har Blaster, which fires hitscan lasers that do a good amount of damage. Then you have your 2 melee options, the D'k Tahg and Bat'leth. The Bat'leth being the weapon I probably used the most since it kills most enemies in 1 or 2 hits and it is pretty easy to close your distance with most enemies and get a quick hit in. I do wish there were some weapons from other alien races, not just Klingons. One nice thing about Elite Force, is the variety of weapons from both Federation and other alien races that you encounter. The weapons in KHG however, are still varied enough to be interesting.
KHG has its problems however. I mentioned before that the levels are much larger and more mazelike than Elite Force and that it was better designed overall. Well, that is true in some cases, but I think the levels can get too big sometimes and don't have quite the refined quality that you get from Elite Force. Some are pretty cleverly designed and are fun to explore. I especially liked the city levels where you can explore each building and roam the streets. I also quite enjoyed how the levels that take place on space ships or space stations, let you exit the airlock and walk around the outer hull. You would see the stars fly by as the ship is being propelled through space,while you're standing on top with your mag boots and along for the ride. It reminded me of some of the space themed maps from Unreal Tournament. KHG does drag on after a while, though. The campaign is quite lengthy, with 20 missions and some missions split between 2 sub levels. The story is pretty straightforward for most of the game until the twist near the end. Until then however, your only motivation to keep going is the level design and the gameplay. While I found the shooting mechanics and the open levels enjoyable for the most part, I was starting to lose steam near the end.
It's also worth mentioning that the game has multiplayer. There isn't anyone playing anymore, but there are botmatches that you can play by yourself. I probably just suck at arena shooters, but man these bots are tough. The movement is a lot faster in multiplayer than in singleplayer and the bots move around erratically. Even with the easiest difficulty bots, I was getting my ass kicked. Anyway, there are 12 maps and they are pretty well designed as far as I can tell. Some maps are areas taken from the campaign, but a lot of them are brand new areas. I suppose if you're a fan of Unreal Tournament or Quake, you will feel right at home with the multiplayer here. I however, was never very good at fast paced pvp shooters, so I think I will stick with singleplayer.
|
|
