Screenshot
No.1
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SCENE
GENRE
GRAPHICS
SOUND
PLAYABILITY
VALUE
OPINION
REVIEW
INDEX |
| Setting
the Scene |
Picture
this... all of a sudden you wake up. Your head is throbbing, you
feel groggy. You raise you right hand to wipe the sweat off your
face and try to push yourself up on your left arm only to discover
that it has been replaced by a metallic monstrosity that appears to
be some sort of weapon. You instantly snap awake and realize that
you're in a vaguely familiar room in a ruined metropolis apartment.
You have no idea how you got there though and who messed with your
arm but you are starting to get pissed. Figuring the only way to get
some answers is to look around and see what the heck happened, you
decide to go out and investigate.
As you begin your journey you are attacked by unknown enemies
and pursued by relentless hunters and bizarre machines of war. You
have no idea why you are being attacked, but as you battle these
foes you begin to realize that the more you destroy, the more
powerful your new body becomes. With this knowledge you understand
that there is only one emotion that will take you to where you need
to go to find the answers and to save your suddenly altered life
that emotion is RAGE!!
Look out world because John Cain is coming and he is seriously
ticked off!
|
| Genre |
| ONE
is a 3rd person shooting extravaganza. |
| Graphics |
First off let me just say that ONE is a special effects graphics
tour-de-force. The liberal use of transparencies and mind-blowing
light sourcing are some of the best yet seen on any console. The
explosions and resulting fires must be seen to be appreciated. They
are really that good.
There are points in the games where the screen literally lights
up with explosions and SFX enough to make your head spin. For the
most part this is really, really sweet, BUT sometimes there is soooo
much going on that you can actually lose the on-screen character
that you are controlling in the melee. And since explosions
occasionally remove the very floor you are walking on, losing sight
of your character at that moment normally means a ticket to "Deadsville"
for poor old John. Oh well, the price you sometimes pay for
eye-candy!
Seriously though, it's not that bad and properly timing the
explosions will have you through the heat in no time. The main
character (John Cain) is very fluidly animated and texture mapped
very well. There is never a problem identifying him in a crowd of
bad guys.
The computer-controlled opponents are also very nicely detailed
but are not quite animated to the extent that John is. I felt the
animation in some parts for the enemies was a bit choppy, but
overall it was quite satisfying.
The game itself is played out in the Playstation's Hi-Res mode,
so everything is razor sharp and crystal clear. The graphics engine
used in the game is easily one of the most powerful ever created and
makes slowdown and pop-up just a bad memory, even during some very
busy moments.
The graphics are truly beautiful to behold and really do
wonders to immerse you in the whole gameplaying experience that is
ONE. It seems the further you progress in the game the better it
looks. It really is amazing. The weather effects are also
brilliantly executed and add even more realism to this high-powered
game.
|
| Sounds
and Effects |
The sound effects and music have come a long way since the early
beta's that we viewed for ONE. A full orchestral accompaniment is
now present that keeps right up with the graphics engine and sets
the proper tone throughout most of the game.
The music fits in splendidly and sets the mood well. Sound
effects range from breaking glass, all sorts of explosions,
machinery movements and all kinds of firepower. All are done in
convincing fashion and add the proper amount of excitement at all
the right moments.
There is even some voice communications that occurs between the
opponents that can be all at once very humorous and intense. You
also get occasional voice updates from your on-board computer
telling you when you reach your maximum RAGE potential.
|
| Playability |
Right
from the get go, ONE pulls no punches. It drops you smack dab into
the middle of the action and never lets up from there. I was
surprised that when the game started, I had to get moving fast and
keep going to prevent myself from being wasted. That's pretty much
the whole idea behind this game - KEEP MOVING OR DIE! ONE will
certainly never be referred to as a game with slow spots. This is
actually the premise behind the game. The more you move and the more
enemies you destroy, the more RAGE John Cain acquires and the more
powerful and lethal you become. Stop moving and your power or RAGE
meter begins to deteriorate causing John to become little more than
a slag heap in a destroyed and ravaged environment.
Pop in ONE and once it loads you will want to jump to the
options menu. Here you have a few choices. Difficulty setting (you
should start with easy, trust me) from easy to medium to hard
(yikes!). Next is Audio, which is basically stereo or mono settings.
You can now adjust the music, sound effects and voice volumes. My
advice is to pump 'em all up. Next you have your controller
configuration. Take this for what it's worth, but if you don't have
the Sony dual analog pad by now, get it. The game plays and controls
much better in the analog mode. Anyway, you can config your
controller buttons at this point or use the defaults. Finally you
get to calibrate the analog thumb pad. That's about it, now your
ready to rock!
ONE features five harrowing stages of intense action and a
kinda starter level. While this may at first seem to be a trivial
number of levels to put into a game, you will be pleasantly
surprised at the actual size of each level. They are enormous! Each
stage is broken into several areas of varying environmental locales
that must be traversed to reach the next stage. While running
through each stage the scenery passes by and changes completely on
the fly. The way this is being done is a handy little programming
trick called asynchronous loading. This is basically a nice fancy
word that means the data on the CD is being constantly streamed and
loaded into/dumped from memory on the fly. The result of this
technology is marvelous. In each stage there is absolutely no break
in the action and multiple scenarios and environments can be loaded
at will. The gives the gameplay a seamless thread that can get so
intense you start getting the "white knuckle" syndrome on
your controller.
Now what would any shooter be without some heavy-duty
firepower. ONE starts the player out with a pretty lethal primary
weapon - the Plasma Cannon - that just happens to be permanently
anchored to John Cain's arm. Along the way you pick up special
weapons such as a Pulse Laser Cannon, Homing Missile Launcher and a
Flame Thrower (which by the way looks very cool). Other weapons are
hidden about the game, but I don't want to spoil the fun of
discovering them for you. Your weapons increase in the damage they
can cause and accuracy as your Rage meter goes up, so it's important
to keep shooting and destroying and killing everything in site, he
he he.
You also have the option of using physical attacks on your
enemies or objects. This can be helpful in defeating enemies that
are in close proximity or for destroying specific objects and don't
want stray weapon fire to happen. As with the weapons, the more Rage
John Cain has the more devastating his attacks will be. Since there
are no traditional power-ups to be found throughout the game your
Rage becomes increasingly important to your survival. There are four
basic states of Rage that affect our "hero". Rage increase
as you attack and destroy objects and enemies, however each time you
are hit your Rage Meter goes down. The basic states and their
resulting effects are as follows: -
Green State: John is in a low State of Rage and is at his most
vulnerable.
Yellow State: John is in a medium State of Rage. His weapon
power, accuracy and firing rate is increased over green, but around
average overall.
Red State: John is in an intense State of Rage: His weapon
power, accuracy and firing rate is potent at this point and causes a
good deal of damage.
Hyper State: Look out! John is at his maximum State of Rage at
this point. Everything is maxed out and you can now execute a
smart-bomb attack as well.
The game features great control, even in digital mode, but
really shines in analog. At first you may find yourself getting
killed quite often, but it's really all a matter of proper timing
and watching your shadow while in mid-jump so you can pinpoint your
landings. The starter level does a pretty good job of getting you
used to controlling John on screen. There are a good number of moves
to master and execute throughout the game. John can perform physical
attacks, evasive rolls and acrobatic flips, as well as hanging,
climbing and sliding moves in addition to his normal running around
routine. Each of the moves is pretty simple to pull off and are used
throughout the game so get used to using them!
At the end of each stage you are given your stats, which
consist of the number of kills, the amount of objects destroyed, the
total accumulated kills and objects destroyed at that point in the
game and your rank.
ONE isn't a perfect shooter, but damn close. First of all the
game is hard as hell, the beginning is so damn hard that it may turn
a few people off. That would be a shame, because the beginning is
not really indicative of the entire game. It mainly serves to get
you familiar with the controls. Check points are littered about the
game, but sometimes they may seem to be a bit too far apart. Nothing
is more frustrating to me as a gamer than having to go back and redo
areas of a game time and time again just because I make a stupid
mistake or took a bad fall.
Overall though, I really enjoyed playing ONE and I certainly
recommend the title. It's action packed to be sure and contains some
of the finest graphics you've ever seen in a video game before. You
just need to stick with it through the beginning stage and then you
can settle back and really enjoy the show!
|
| Value
for Money |
Well,
ONE is a long game. The stages are immense and there is a lot to do
and see (as long as you do it quickly and keep running!).
Unfortunately once you finish the game you don't have a lot of
reason to go back and play it again. That is unless of course you
wish to find all of the hidden weapons and get the maximum number of
kills and objects destroyed in the game, but somehow I doubt it.
ONE is a lot of fun to play and is certainly a showcase titles
that you can pull out to show your friends, but overall I would say
the replay is around average.
|
|
Opinion |
| TOM |
|
|
|
|
|
GRAPHICS: |
Brilliant |
ONE
was a long-awaited, much anticipated title for me and once I finally
got the completed version I was certainly not disappointed. The game
is like a non-stop, action packed roller coaster ride. I really
liked the fact that instead of power-ups, to stay alive you must
destroy and keep moving forward at all times!
The graphics are wonderful, utilizing some of the best
transparencies and light-sourcing that I have ever seen in a home
video game. Everything also moves very quickly about the screen with
no slow-down. But hey, graphics certainly isn't the only thing that
makes a game good, it's got to have playability and One has that
through and through.
For 3rd person, action/shooter fans I can highly recommend this
game, you will love it for everyone else, at the very least it
deserves a rental. I'll bet a lot of you will want to add it to your
library after you have played it. |
|
SOUND: |
Very
Good |
|
PLAYABILITY: |
Excellent |
|
VALUE: |
Good |
| OVERALL
|
93% |
|
