Daikatana

Herald rating: * *

Ion Storm

PC

$99.95

Review: Peter Eley

This was going to be the best game ever when it was first planned in 1998. It was the brainchild of John Romero, one of the top action game designers around, and was hyped up to the hilt.

A few screenshots were released on to the Web and they looked good, back then. But that was that was three years ago, and what looked good then doesn't now.

The development of Daikatana became something of a saga, with release dates being announced, and then put back again and again. Well, we've finally got a look at it, and in short it's a dog.

It was conceived on the back of Quake 2 and borrowed that technology, but games have made enormous strides since than and Daikatana simply looks dated. It has a sort of murky, blocky look and compares badly with action games such as Half Life, Unreal and Quake 3 Arena.

Graphics aren't everything of course, but the game is very ordinary too, with obvious artificial intelligence glitches, and a feeling that nothing very exciting is happening as you plod through lots of samey levels.

For the record, you play Hira Miyamoto, a top research student whose mentor, Dr Ibihara, is murdered and the Daikatana sword stolen.

You team up with his daughter Mikiko and your all-American friend Superfly Johnson to reclaim the Daikatana and stop the murder happening by travelling back in time.

Action takes place in locations as diverse as ancient Greece, Norway's Viking period and Los Angeles circa 2030. Sadly, the ordinary landscapes don't capture this diversity.

Greater things are expected of Ion Storm's upcoming Deus Ex, with previews praising it as ground-breaking.

Peter Eley e-mail: peter_eley@herald.co.nz