By: Pseudo Nim
I always had a mixed feeling about Unreal. On the one hand, it
was the best-looking game when it came out. On the other hand, it
required a system that would cost so much I'd need to either rob a
bank or work day shifts, night shifts, food shifts and sleep shifts. It
also had a pretty neat AI, which pleasantly surprised me... but on
the other hand, the single-player mode sucked so bad it could've
been the best AI in the world - it got so boring after a while you felt
like climbing up a wall and whimpering. And the enemies seemed
to use some dumbed-down version of that monster AI, too - all they
did was roll. And in predictable ways.
It's no surprise Unreal got a great following. While the original was
not much more than a $40 technology demo, the offsprings tend to
usually surpass the ancestors. I'm still amazed at what Raven did
to Heretic. But... Klingon Honor Guard falls short, in my view, of
surpassing its technology demo ancestor. The single-player play is
uneventful to say the least, and the system requirements feel even
higher than Unreal's. At least Unreal ran fine in some
environments on my machine.
But to the point. The graphics in KHG are great. Which is to be
expected - considering how much it's based on the Unreal engine -
and Microprose is no Raven. I'm surprised some of the file names
were renamed - otherwise I'd think this was a great level design
strapped on to the original Unreal. Even the file extensions are the
same. Even the directories are the same. What happened to
innovation? But then again, I suppose the average stereotypical
user (according to companies) thinks a CD tray is a cupholder, so
he wouldn't go around looking for 'extensions' in files. They're all
off in Explorer, anyway. But that's minor.
Where I'd really like to complain is in the speed department. At
first, back in the original's days, I thought my computer was just
way too obsolete to play the new, hit games. Then Shogo: MAD
came out, and I realized it wasn't. In my humble view, the
graphics in Shogo are better than Unreal (and KHG by extension)
in many places. And they're not slower, either. The graphics in
Shogo feel more refined, polished - some environments feel like
AutoCAD models that were designed for a real building. There's a
feeling of peace and quiet in them. Ying and yang, so to say. In
KHG, everything feels raw. The lights don't give the scene a slight
presence of a lighted object to direct the way shadows are
projected. It's a *light*, and you better notice it. Oh, you didn't?
Hey, here's another one, and this one is more like a floodlight -
you can't really see anything around, just white, white and more
white. (Or green, green and green - or any other color used, for
that matter). Water? No, it's a scrolling, bump-mapped texture.
Revere it. And so forth. Things have an unnatural, forced-on look
on them - as to, well, demonstrate the fancy 3D accelerator
technology. And in Shogo, enemies look like enemies - it helps
that they had no TV show to stick to, of course. In KHG, Klingon
faces are mapped onto the models, and... the results are
horrifying. At far range, you can tell you're fighting a Klingon. At
close range, some of their faces (I suppose it's the older, more
mature Klingons) look like a bloody mess of hair, blood and black
stuff. Pretty sad, really. I think they should've modeled the faces,
too - it couldn't possibly have been any worse than this. And
another argument to support the 'raw eyecandy' one... how is it so
that when you fire an energy weapon at a wall the blast becomes
a light source? Last time I checked, a phaser doesn't leave
glowing goo on walls, and neither does a Romulan disrupter, nor a
Klingon one.
The gameplay is okay. The enemies don't come running for you,
they just sit in the corner and shoot you. If you move so that there's
a corner of, say, a cliff between you and them, they'll shoot the
cliff. Want another direct parallel with Unreal? There's a mine
level, where you make your way through the mines, and the
oppressed minority of the miners actually comes to your help
sometimes - though pickaxes don't work well against disrupters, as
they tend to find out fast.
And now that I'm at it... what's the story of this game? I mean,
sure, we've all heard that Gowron's almost been assassinated, and
so forth - but I won't believe all those levels you go through are
infested with bloodthirsty traitor Klingons. There's something fishy
about that. I mean, all you do is run around killing Klingons. And
that ain't fun - there's only so much you can take. Oh yeah, and
you're flicking switches, hunting for keycards and (now this is
innovation - anyone thought of this?) digital palm imprints, which
happen to be sitting on top of desks waiting to be picked up. And
you thought writing passwords on Post-It notes and sticking them
to the monitor was bad.
The weapon array is, unfortunately, more of the same. A welcome
exception is the Daktagh, which is a dagger you can either swing,
thrust, sweep or throw. Throwing Daktaghs is very cool, since
usually an enemy can be taken out with a single thrown Daktagh -
but at range, for some reason if thrown at close range, the enemy
is usually just wounded. The other weapons are the pistol,
flamethrower, trilithium rocket launcher, cannon, grenade
launcher, rifle, disrupter and a Batleth. I'm not sure what they look
like, though, since I was unable to cheat my way into seeing them,
so I was forced to read the klingon.u file - and that's as much info
as I could find in there. Hopefully the Flamethrower is fun. The
Batleth sure is - check Cruze's description of it. And the pistol... the
pistol is a 110% copy of the Unreal first weapon. It fires precisely
the same way, recharges precisely the same way, and if that were
not enough, it fires a secondary discharge that takes slightly more
ammo but does more damage. Funny thing is, the Disrupter works
precisely the same way - but seems to fire somewhat faster, and
has more ammo. Up to the secondary discharge. Point? No idea. I
suppose coming up with original weapon ideas is pretty hard these
days. More kudos to Monolith, then.
Sound effects are, to say the least, cheesy. The likes of 'I am the
hand of Kahless, I am Death!', 'This won't hurt... much.' and an
evil-sounding 'Heh heh heh heh' plague your fun, endeavoring to
uproot it and destroy it. Sure, they're said in the Klingon voices we
so love and cherish, but couldn't they at least say it in tlhIngan
Hol? At least most of us wouldn't understand how corny it sounds,
and maybe appreciate it. Maybe even quote it, until someone
knowledgeable in tlhIngan Hol ridicules us. Other sounds are
'usual' (am I using this word too much?). Weapon blasts, enemies
growling, et cetera.
The fun in the game, in my view, anyhow, is limited to throwing
the Daktagh around. The physics of it are pretty neat, and the way
it ends up in the ceiling or under the stairs, or anywhere else
where you can't find it is pretty neat - and completely believable,
by the Chaos theory, that states that the most useful item will
always displace itself so that it's furthest from its owner at any
point in time. And some of the enemies are neat, too - case at
point: the ones in the Ice level, that take stones and throw them at
you, or the AI Klingons. That's very neat. I suppose I shouldn't ask,
though, where they get the stones - looks like flat ground to me.
But that's minor.
Usually, 3D shooters are infinitely more fun with friends than
alone. Few exceptions - Jedi Knight and the ubiquitous Shogo, but
not much else. The multiplayer in KHG isn't much different from
Unreal's, or any other game, for that matter. Join a game/host a
game, set up an arbitrary number of AI-controlled bots, get a few
friends to join the fun, and watch the slideshow. Or, if you got the
horsepower, enjoy the game. Some neat items make your travel
through the Jeffries' tubes more fun - such as a stealth suit, an
antigrav belt, or a special combat armor (though not sure what its
use is).
Overall, KHG isn't a game you'd want to play like you may have
wanted to play Jedi Knight. Or then again, perhaps this is precisely
your kind of game - depends if you want a plot and a refined
engine, or no plot, lots of 'Iw (blood) and fellow Klingons to
annihilate - then suit yourself. I admit this might be infinitely more
fun on a P2-450, with 128MB RAM and an SLI Voodoo2, since you
could increase the resolution, texture detail, sound quality, and so
forth - but that's insane. I was disappointed that Need For Speed 3
required a 12MB Vooodoo 2 to show a -dashboard- - please, I can't
possibly recommend this game for anyone but the diehard Klingon
fanatics, or people with the right hardware, or people that just
must try all the latest in 3D shooters. It could've been a good effort,
and it does have some neat and original features - but its faults
haul it down.
"batlh biHeghjaj, HurDaq tu'HomIraHvetlh."
Highs: Interesting idea, some clever weapon choices, level
design suits theme, is well-executed (in most places, anyway), the
font throughout used throughout the game is really wicked;
Lows: Ludicrous system requirements, nonexistent
storyline, AI is pretty unimaginative at times, some of the models
look cheesy (like wolves... or dogs... or pigs?);
Bottom line: Okay game, with some weight to it, but not
really worth playing unless you're an absolute diehard fan of the Klingon style.
Graphics: 15/20
Sound: 9/15
Gameplay: 18/30
Fun Factor: 13/20
Multi-Player: 5/5
Overall Impression: 6/10
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By: Cruze
Honor Guard from MicroProse takes us on yet another foray into
the Star Trek universe. Here, using the Unreal engine, KHG
deposits you, as a young warrior, into the world of Klingons.
Forget what you know about humans, because in this world the
only thing that matters is honor, and the only way to achieve honor
is through battle. The stage is set when you begin the game just
after an attempt on Gowron's life. (Gowron being the leader of the
Klingon High Council) Gowron has survived, but many of the honor
guard were killed as well as most of the High-Council. Quickly
promoted to active service as a member of the Honor Guard, your
mission is to track the Klingon assassins through the 7 unique
worlds and uncover the ringleaders of this rogue group of warriors.
Klingon Honor Guard is another title in the long list of 1st person
shooters quickly saturating the PC entertainment market. The
distinctly different playing environment of a Klingon homeworld is
fairly detailed and the harsh locales of the Klingon landscape a
nice change from the standard issue Quake and Unreal settings.
Some of the unfortunate lows of the game include a non-existent
storyline, and the cheesy 'only one way to get from here to there
and you got to find the button' scenario. (More reminiscent of the
Duke Nukem era) Very little in the way of exploration is available
as you are led from one gatelock to the next on the path to your
mission objectives.
Graphics: 16/20
At the risk of starting world war 3 over the age old Quake vs.
Unreal engine controversy, I will say that I tend to lean towards the
Unreal faction and appreciated the way it was used to generate a
Klingon atmosphere in KHG. Distinctly different designs of
structures, doors, lights etc... all go a long way in providing you
with a true feeling for the harsh, servile environment of the
Klingons.
To get the most out of the graphical engine, you must go to the
advanced options section in the menu and choose display settings.
Here you have a long list of various filtering and detail selections
that will enable you to make full use of the features in the game.
Set incorrectly, (or, as in my case, the default settings did not
appreciate my 3Dfx setup and 2D video card) the entire game
takes on a different feel as dark areas turn pitch black, details get
pixelized and animations become blocky and unrealistic. All the
standard forms of 2D, 3D and D3D are supported through the
advanced options, but I highly recommend a 3Dfx card to take full
advantage of the display engine.
Sound: 11/15
For some unknown reason, MicroProse really makes you work to
get the best effects out of Honor Guard in both the video and the
sound department. Once again, a trip to the advanced options
menu is highly suggested to tweak out the sound settings for your
particular audio card. Disappointing at first, I found with the
addition of reverb and surround that it made a whole world of
difference to effects in the game. Other selections include
playback kHz, number of channels and various additional features.
Gameplay: 19/30
The objectives in Honor Guard are a throwback to the old Duke
Nukem days. Run around, push the buttons, open a door to get to
the next area, push the next button, etc. etc.. all the while
avoiding the annoying hindrance of some trigger happy bad guy,
soon to be a part of history, as he becomes the focus of your target
practice. Controls in the KHG engine are not bad, mouse and
keyboard work well together and all controls can be customized
through the options menu. Unfortunately, one of the big
downsides in the game is the complete lack of urgency as you
walk about. No time constraints, little in the line of random patrols,
that, coupled with the your immortality (in that invariably, after
dying, you restart the level with all your previous equipment rather
than just a blaster) don't make the player try very hard to stay
alive.
Rather than having ultra-aggressive foes, Klingon Honor Guard is
plagued by poor snipers (who fire like clockwork about every 6
seconds allowing good use of timed counter-fire) and either very
brave or very stupid close range attackers with little regard for self
preservation. Unless, of course, they are the run-away version of
the AI, in which case, after being shot once, they will head for the
nearest cover and politely wait for you to walk up and finish the
job. That said, getting trapped by 3 angry guards will take every bit
of side-stepping, trigger slapping brutality you can muster. You
can't just rely on your blasters though, because ammunition in
Honor Guard is scarce, and don't be surprised if you find yourself
getting the majority of your kills with the dreaded D'Ktahg (dagger)
a valuable and very powerful close range weapon that can also be
thrown.
Your opponents in Honor Guard are somewhat limited. According
to MicroProse, there are only 11 distinct types of foes for you to
battle which can get somewhat tiresome. 8 different weapons are
available for you to use in the game, covering a wide spectrum
from the standard Klingon fare to some very unique and more
interesting specimens. The Ding-Pach, for example, shoots a very
large 3 bladed boomerang at an incredible speed that, when in a
confined area, will make mincemeat out of even the toughest of
foes.
Fun Factor: 14/20
For your average 'Trekkie', I can see an attraction to KHG as it very
effectively drops you into life on the Klingon home world. For the
average gamer, as an entertainment title, Klingon Honor Guard is
stuck somewhere between Duke Nukem 3D and Unreal. Having to
completely configure all the advanced options to match your
hardware is a bother, and the lack of more than 1 solution to a
level leaves the re-playability factor fairly low. Same creatures,
same spots, same shots.
Multi-Player: 5/5
Done through the Unreal engine, Honor Guard supports all of the
original Unreal multi options including join, host and dedicated
server. Multiplayer is a great way to test out some of the more
unique Klingon weapons and allows you to pit your fighting skills
with those of your friends. Team play, co-op and deathmatch are
all supported, as well as an interesting feature called botmatch
which allows you to spawn computer controlled opponents with a
far more superior AI than those in the game. These 'bots' wander
through the ship killing both players and other bots alike. A great
way to hone your multi skills offline.
Overall Impression: 7/10
Call it for what it is. KHG is MicroProse's shot at capitalizing on the
Star Trek fanatics of the world. In that context, they haven't done
so poorly, as the game does make use of actual Klingon actors'
voices from ST-TNG. A good attempt at creating a Klingon world
for our enjoyment, and some interesting weapons as well as
exceptional lighting effects are the games highs, while poor plot
development and a simplistic mission organization don't measure
up to today's gaming requirements. If you are a Trekkie, and can
overlook the need for some kind of plot, I expect you will find KHG
most enjoyable.
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