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Daikatana was marketed and hyped up a lot before it's release; when it finally did get released (after a few setbacks) it didn't receive the praise and merit expected. After taking a look at it myself, I would have to agree. Daikatana has all the makings of a great game: decent graphics, potentially excellent AI, a good plot and some neat additional features. Unfortunately, a few quirks puts the game somewhere between limiting to downright infuriating. I must admit that after playing through the entire game, though, the player normally adapts around these shortcomings, making Daikatana overall an enjoyable experience.

Graphics

Most enhancements in 3D engines these days have been in modelling and lighting which are getting more and more realistic (with the advent of the GeForce3, near-photorealistic). Therefore, while the scenery in Daikatana maps can look excellent, the models look outdated. Given that Daikatana uses the engine for the cutscenes, more attention to the models would have been appreciated - the fact that characters don't move their mouths when they talk is a little disconcerting.

The gore factor is also over-the-top in Daikatana. The characters all pretty much explode, very rarely will you see one fall to the floor without being gibbed all over the walls. There is an option to turn this off, but it isn't the gore I care about - it just looks stupid.

Overall, though the graphics are perfectly acceptable for a good gaming experience, and the new additions to the Q2 engine were welcome. The fog is used to great effect in some of the swamp levels. The levels themselves are easily the best maps I have ever seen in a game, they surpass HalfLife, Quake-series, and all other games I've played. They are absolutely incredible: the Greek outdoor levels look amazing, Medusa's lair is genuinely creepy, the Japanese levels look authentic (with a futuristic twist), Norway looks beautiful, literally every map had 2-3 places in it I just had to take a screenshot in for the aesthetics.

Other enhancements to the engine included 3D sound support and node-based AI. While I'll look at the AI in a minute; something that did really annoy me about Daikatana was the very dodgy sound. Sounds would cut off too directly, instead of fading out, if you rounded a corner very loud noises would just disappear. This really took away from the immersive aspect of Daikatana, especially since the ambient noises in Daikatana are very well done.

Gameplay

A lot of this is well structured, and ties in nicely with the levels. The game takes place in 4 different time zones as Mishima sends you back and forth through time. Definitely more of a plot that most first person shooters; although it sometimes takes strange turns (human meat hamburgers etc.), and the cut scenes are perhaps a little far apart, although they increase in number toward the end of the game.

The different timezones also have different enemies and weapons for you and your companions to use, which makes every quarter of the game a fresh start. This can only be a good thing; too much of the same old stuff definitely is not what modern FPSs need. Daikatana definitely has some cool weapons, each one having idiosyncrasies that you have to be aware of. For example in the first chapter, the Ion blaster bolts bounce off walls (don't fire straight at a wall!), they also electrocute you under water, the Shotcycler recoil is very strong etc. The metaspheres in the final part of the game rank as one of the neatest weapons in an FPS, in my opinion. You can throw them at a wall where they'll stick, and for about a minute or so they'll zap anything near (including yourself) with a blue laser. After that minute they explode in a very impressive display of lasers and shockwaves.

A lot of the gameplay is a mixture of shooting lots of enemies and opening up doors that don't open in an ordinary fashion. Although it sounds boring, Daikatana manages to pull it off very well. You always have to do something a little different each time. Opening doors sometimes means figuring out where the power box is and blowing it up, or crawling through ventilation shafts to get to the other side.

This though, can be severely hampered by the terrible save system. Unlike Quake or Halflife (or any modern FPS), you can only save when you have a savegem (a little red crystal). You can carry up to 3 savegems, and each save costs you a savegem. This means you are wary about using the gems, since you nearly never have more than 1. Basically, all of this leads to a lot of redoing - going over the same thing over and over (and over and over) again. Not my idea of fun. On top of this, I found the save system to be quite buggy. More than once, I've had the game crash on me, and not been able to reload my game. You do get the hang of the savegem system eventually - the knack is to hold one all the time, and save when you get to another. That way if you ever need to save quickly, you have a backup. Still, it was annoying as hell.

On top of this, once you have both your partners it isn't just you that you have to watch - you have to make sure Mikiko and Superfly don't die. If either of them do, it is game over. With this sort of restriction, the partner AI is great, right?

Artificial Intelligence

It was really annoying when your sidekicks got in your way, especially during battles or time-sensitive situations. Sometimes they didn't follow when they should have done, or jumped into battle before you wanted them to. Small things like that made them more hinderance than help.

It has to be said, though, that they do pull off some very good behaviour. They fight well, they will pick up items when necessary, they know how not to get themselves killed (stay away from the motion sensing C4 packages etc), even talk to each other. Here is an excerpt from the Generation5 interview with Noel Stephens (AI programmer on Daikatana), that demonstrates there is a lot more going on 'under the hood' than one might expect:

.: Interview with Noel Stephens :. G5: How does the Artificial Intelligence in Daikatana differ and compare with other similar games? What techniques do you use in the AI for Daikatana? Daikatana has several instances which make it stand out from the current first person shooter genre of games. Obviously, the greatest accomplishment are the sidekicks. There have been a handful of games that allowed the player to have 'temporary' sidekicks, however most of the time you had little or no real control over them. One instance of this would be the ability to tell your 'companion' to pickup a specific item that will improve their health or give them a new weapon or more ammo to fight monsters. Another example is the ability to tell your sidekick to hang back while you go out and crack open some monster skulls (this is particularly helpful when your sidekick is low on health or ammo and you know they might end up dead if they get into a scrap). There is so much to the sidekicks I could end up writing about them for hours... :) Daikatana's monsters also adjust themselves based off of the player's choices and level throughout the game. If the player decides that they want to have more 'power' in their attacks, by adding to their power when they level up, then the monsters will adjust their difficulty to keep the game challenging. This same theory is applied similarly to the other skills the player can choose to improve when they go up a level. On another note, the monsters actually scan the environment for all potential players and sidekicks. They then will determine which one is the best choice to go after. The monsters will primarily focus on the player unless struck by a sidekick or the player is 'out of range' and the sidekicks are closer. Depending on the scenario the monster could decide to turn around and go after the sidekick. So, there is definitely a little more thought put into the monster's selection of who to attack and how to attack them. The whole AI system is based off of nodes which are manually laid out within the map editor. This is how the AI can determine where to run, how to track down the player or the sidekicks, and it also helps in telling the monsters and sidekicks where doors, ladders, trains, and elevators are and how to use them.

As impressive as this is, when it comes to the crunch it is the playability that counts. I found that I enjoyed the sections of the game that didn't have the sidekicks more than the sections that did. It was infuriating to get past a really tough section of the game, not being able to save due to the savegem system, then having Superfly killed by a door...

At one stage in the game Superfly can't defend himself because he's carrying Mikiko, and one of the monsters has the ability to disappear and rise out of the ground again. This combined with the savegem system meant I had to complete an entire level (a big one at that) by leaving Superfly at the very beginning of the level and complete the entire damn thing by myself without saving, then retrace my steps and lead Superfly to the exit. You would have thought the AI would at least have alerted you if one of your sidekicks was being killed.

The other AI was generally quite good. Most enemies had some sort of evasion technique, be it ducking, sidestepping or just moving out of the way! Generally, though, the game relied on numbers over intelligence - but with spiders and the living dead this is quite acceptable!

Conclusion

Now I've completed the game, I was glad I played it, but I wouldn't go through it again like I've done with HalfLife: Opposing Forces. The plot gets quite compelling towards the end, with some nice twists at the very end. Daikatana shows what ION Storm are capable of doing with a first-person shooter, but too much was attempted and some things were not thought out as well as they could have been.

	8.0
	Platform: PC Liked: Interesting plot, cool weapons, atmospheric, good level design. Disliked: AI not fully implemented, save game bug, savegems, some annoying gameplay elements, sound. .: Buy at Amazon.com :. .: Buy at Amazon.co.uk :.