Rune

Herald rating: * * * *

Human Head Studios

PC

Review: Peter Eley


Those Vikings loved to fight just for the sheer fun of it: 12 pints of mead and they'd slug it out with their mates if enemies weren't on hand.

They didn't have guns either — just fists, swords and axes in hand-to-hand combat.

True to its Norse roots, Rune follows this philosophy and our hero Ragnar likes nothing better than slashing and bashing various goblins and undead nasties in the Viking underworld.

Although it's a first-person action game, Rune is unusual in that it has no long-range weapons.

You have to face your foe, although you can throw axes a short distance and create a mini-earthquake with your mace.

Rune uses the Unreal graphics engine and makes good use of it, with excellent locations, characters and lighting effects.

The game begins in a beautifully detailed Viking village, and moves through a variety of stunning landscapes over 45 levels.

Much of the game takes place in caves, which are nicely crafted but a bit on the dark side. Other levels feature castles, towns and dwarven workshops.

The runes of the title are magical stones that give Ragnar special powers. For example, the strength rune causes him to go berserk for a short time, while health runes give him limited invulnerability, a fancy name for power-ups, really.

For all the excellent graphics, Rune would be just another first-person action game if it wasn't for the simply superb control and view system.

You control Ragnar in third-person mode, a great concept but one that hasn't worked that well in many other games.

But Rune's developers seem to have cracked it, mainly through the clever device of making Ragnar transparent when the camera view is obstructed.

This ease of use makes up for some small flaws, such as as a low difficulty level at the start which lets you eat up the early levels.

It does get more challenging as the game wears on, and 45 levels plus a slick multiplayer mode isn't bad value.

* e-mail: peter_eley@nzherald.co.nz