Yo, props to m'homeys @ Bungie.
Here's my review of Oni...
MOVES & TACTICS:
* crouch + forward & punch is a great attack when guys are just getting up off the ground. highly effective
* double-tap forward, but keep the forward button down and even if your Konoko gets knocked down, she will get back up and still be in "dart" mode. this is good for fighting. stay in dart mode and repeatedly tap punch for good punch attacks, or keep running around the enemy and then move in for the kill holding punch down to do a swinging neck-breaker or a throw.
* master this technique of quickly entering dart mode while fighting. it seems to prevent the enemy from hitting you as accurately and your own attacks (especially if you can pull of some throws in this mode) will do lots of damage.
* conserve ammo!
* learn how to lure enemies off into secluded areas one at a time. stand there where only one of them can see you, and that one will come after you while the rest mind their own business. killing them one at a time in this way is the only way to fly. when they attack in groups it is much harder to deal with, although there are certain areas that force you to fight more than one at a time. when you fight more than one at a time, run around alot and use jump kicks, then run away again. if you can become invisible or stun them with the shock-gun, then sneak up behind and do a back-breaker (instant death! forward+kick from behind).
* the back-breaker can also be used on guys who are looking the other way. the baddies follow set routine movement patterns unless they have been alerted to your presence. so if you time it just right, you can sneak up behind one of 'em when they're not looking and do a back=breaker from behind. this is extremely difficult though because often they will still notice you, even if you're invisible. plus it's hard to be in the right position for the backbreaker. still, it's worth a try!
* a note about CAPS-LOCK... the capslock key makes konoko turn into a slow, annoying, invalid. NEVER PUSH CAPSLOCK!!! what it really does is make you walk at normal speed instead of running. Also when you're crouched, it makes you walk with your head lower than the normal crouch. slower to. but the problem is, you can't jump, run, or anything else useful for combat or evasion while this key is pressed. then, when you get attacked with the key down, you will accidentally press it twice or forget that it was pressed in the first place and wonder why you are unable to avoid destruction. bungie should revise it so that you can still double-tap to dart and you can still jump even if it's down. it should only change normal run to walk and normal squat to super-squat, but it should not disable running & jumping!
STEALTH TACTICS
* stealth requires its own category. you gotta hold down shift and creep around so they don't hear you.
* you can get right next to a doorway and then use the mouse to look around the corner and see who's on the other side. This is kind of a flaw in the game because konoko herself can't see, but you can because of the way the game's perspective works. however it is realistic in a way, because otherwise there is no way to quickly look around a corner, which in real life there would be (a small mirror on a telescoping rod for instance).
* stealth up to guys and backbreaker them from behind if you can.
* sit quietly and observe the movement patterns of the enemy. they march in predetermined patterns. then time your movements to avoid detection.
* being detected is bad because sometimes the enemies will see you all at once, and they will all come after you. you have to let only one see you at a time, and then lure him into an area where you can quietly fight it out instead of having a loud gun battle. often if one bad guy shoots at you, all the rest will then be alerted to your presence.
* running will get you noticed. creeping with shift held down will not.
* be stealthy, but don't be nervous. it's just a game. notice when you're all tense and relax a bit, or else if one pops out at you, your own cort response will have already thrown you onto the wrong end of the response-accuracy curve, forgetting about konoko's own dangerously adrenalized state!
BALLISTIC (RED AMMO) WEAPONS
* the SMG is good only at short range and it's not effective against heavily-armored badguys like the elite guys (see bungie.com for pictures of badguy types). a clip generally kills one guy and hurts another.
* the pistol is crappy but somewhat effective at short to medium range with a full clip. cool laser sight!
* btw- the sights in this game really kick ass!!! especially for the frozen mercury bow.
* the mercury bow is the most deadly weapon, basically it's Oni's 'railgun.' it's highly accurate but sometimes it doesn't fully kill the guy for some reason, maybe hit location? i dunno. you get two shots with one clip, and there is a long delay between shots for it to 'warm back up' or 'cool off' or whatever. cool sound fx and graphics too!
* btw- the visual fx in this game are k-rad!! they really embellished it with lots of cool interactive fog fx, and the weapons have lots of neat use of the lighting effects and fire effects built into the graphics card. that shows you how they really spent a lot of time and effort POLISHING this game. Oni shows an extreme amount of POLISH!!!
* the mortar is by far the most effective killer of bad guys at short-medium range. I would rather have the mortar than any other weapon, even though it is extremely dangerous to your own health at close range. Basically what it does is launch six grenades, MX-missile-style, about 25 yards or so. then they break off in a scatter pattern, and blow up. but if you hit a guy dead on with it, they all blow up in his ass, and he dead! boooom! also this is good to shoot a group of enemies with.
* the missile launcher SUCKS ASS at short-medium range but is most deadly at long-range. it shoots a circle of six homing missiles which will definitely not hit the bad guy at close range but if they're at long range, the missiles have time to home in and then DEATH.
ENERGY WEAPONS (GREEN AMMO)
* the plasma rifle is the basic thing here. three shots kills normal armored troops. two shots will kill unarmored guys. shots don't knock people down but push them around. six shots to kill elite guys (how annoying). eight shots per clip. Good at medium to long range but short range not too effective due to the fact that it doesn't knock 'em down (so basically they just run up and knock it out of your hand, or worse, take it from you). this is good to remember though if you are fighting a guy with a plasma rifle, cuz you can just run up to em, and the shots are easy to dodge, just juke left and right like barry sanders, and come up and whack that mfr on the nose.
* the shocker stun gun thing is k-rad, good for one-on-one short range combat. stun 'em, then come up behind 'em and backbreaker they ass.
* the plasma pistol is like the ghostbusters weapon. shoots out a stream of plasma, knocks guys down, pretty good weapon. one of my favs. inaccurate though so sucky at med-long range. lotsa use per clip too. this is prolly the most efficient weapon.
* screamer gun. freakin' weird!!!! shoots out a demon that basically looks like a big-ass roman candle ball that makes this weird screaming noise that, props to bungie, really is quite disturbing. this is a very demoralizing weapon to be killed by, since it is so loud and flashy and green and slow. it's easy to avoid. the badguys typically don't run away from it though unless they're chasing you. a cool trick to use this weapon in a small room is to shoot it in the corner, and then start running in a circle. the bad guy will chase you, so lead him through the area where the screamer is and then try to get him to hang out there long enough for it to nail him. one way to do this is to kick his ass into it. or sometimes it will kill him just running through there.
PICKING UP AND DROPPING WEAPONS:
* you can only carry one weapon at a time (not that you need any more than that, what with the 9th degree black belt and all). you also have a limited amount of ammo you can hold at any given time. I don't think this is a bad thing. it makes the game more interesting because you have to decide sometimes.. do I want the SMG or the plama rifle? etc.
* it's hard to pick up a weapon off the ground. you have to be right over it, so it requires some careful positioning. there is none of this keanu reeves cartwheeling through the air and grabbing a gun off the ground and then shooting three guys with it before returning to the upright position. none of that. no, the opposite in fact.. if you are in the middle of any kind of fight, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PICK UP ANYTHING FROM THE GROUND *unless* you do not currently have a gun. If you currently have a gun your konoko will exchange it with the one on the ground, but only if your current gun is ALREADY DRAWN. which means, if you are in hand-to-hand combat, in order to pick it up off the ground, you have to draw your weapon first. the best idea if you really need that gun is to draw your weapon while running, then drop it, and THEN pick up the gun from the ground.
* Also drawing guns is slow and if you are in hand-to-hand combat it's better not to even try unless the guy is on the ground across the screen from you. otherwise you're liable to get that gat knocked outa yer hands and then the other guy might get it instead. that would not be good. This is a potential problem with the game itself, IMHO. I mean it would be a better game if weapons were easier to pick up faster, at least at first. Of course you adapt your playing style to this factor and it becomes no big deal, but stil... imagine if you COULD pull a keanu reeves cartwheel gun-grab move! (hint to bungie: oni 1.1?)
* another horrible annoying thing in Oni is that, unlike special items, guns disappear after a short amount of time if they are dropped. why?! this sucks! I'm sure they did it to make the game more challenging but it's just plain annoying. cheap. i mean, you go running back, having found some ammo, thinking that now you can go back and get that mercury bow or whatever. or you go back for that plasma rifle, having ran out of ammo on the one you have. but when you get there, it's gone! where did it go? did it vanish into another dimension? given the plot of the game, maybe it did. maybe there was a federal law enacted by the TCTF in 2014 that requires all weapons to disappear into another plane of reality if they have been dropped from the hands of their rightful owner (in order to prevent the deaths of innocent Tankerlings).
SPECIAL ITEMS
HYPO'S- these are health packs. they give you energy. you can get over-charged with health energy and then you start glowing purple and making a hissing sound that sounds like bacon on the grill but without the pop-rocks. one hypo gets used up when you hit tab and it gives you a boost of about 30% on the circular health meter (which is a cool display IMHO, reminiscent of some recent golf games).
FORCE SHIELD- unlike the hypo, the force shield becomes active the instant you pick it up. it is also a meter and its strength is controlled by how much you get shot at. it doesn't work against hand-to-hand attacks, which is lame as hell. i would rather have a shield that worked against everything. if anything, it ought to work against ballistic weapons and hand-to-hand attacks but not against energy weapons. however, it definitely will save your ass so don't complain too much!
INVISIBILITY- oh yeah baby. the name says it all. you turn invisible the instant you pick up the item, and you get maybe 20 seconds. not very long! just long enough to run somewhere important, or sneak up on a nearby badguy for the ol' backbreaker or to throw 'em off a ledge or take his gun. still, if you're running, they can see you, and if they manage to hit you, they will suddenly know where you are and jump on you like a pack of dogs.
* note- it sucks that you can't save the invisibility and force shield for later use. as soon as you pick it up, you "use it." this sucks as far as invisibility is concerned because when you pick up an item, you don't always know how to use it to your tactical advantage because maybe you're new to this particular level. IMHO bungie should make invisibility 'turn-offable' and 'turn-onnable' so you could use it at your discretion. that would greatly increase the tactical benefit of the item without unbalancing the game too much, because it still only lasts for 20 seconds.
* HIDDEN ITEMS: they are stashed on top of things where you can't see them a lot of the time, so always jump up and look on stuff, and then try to get the item from up there. BUT BEWARE OF TRAPS. they have cheaply put bad guys that APPEAR OUT OF NOWHERE!!!! as soon as you get near the health pack which is precariously placed on top of a hard to get to rooftop or box. you will go all over the level and have killed everyone, but when you get near the health pack, guys teleport in from the secret badguy dimension and begin pumping SMG ammo into yr ass.
OVERALL PLAYABILITY & STORYLINE
Oni is highly addictive, both because of the awesome gameplay (these disadvantages are minor quibbles reallY) and because of the intriguing storyline. you actually WANT to get to the next cutscene to find out what will happen. trust me, they keep the story mysterious and there are constantly twists and turns. unfortunately i think that it is too dark and disturbing. i mean there could be a bit more comic releif... but then again, this is bungie, so, what do you expect? marathon infinity was much darker even. marathon 2 was about right as far as having some humor in it.
* back to playability issues. the combat is amazing! the game is so addictive! but beware: Oni is REPETITIVE.. the reason is because it only lets you save the game at certain points. but those points are separated from each other by a lot of ass-kicking. in other words, you could get pretty far, and then have to do everything over again unless you totally finished the level the first time. this is annoying, but you will get VERY GOOD at these levels. You will know them in your sleep. overall, i did not get bored with the game because of the repetitiveness, since every time you play the level, you get better and it happens differently. this gives you lots of time to develop your skills at the game so by the time you get to the harder levels you will be ready. believe me, you will need to be!
* INTERFACE: it's a typical PC-port-tyle interface. no real mac cursor or mac menus, no mac dialogue boxes. well, what do you expect coming from MICROSOFT??? i'm sure they were just trying to make a standardized version accross all platforms, but still... oh well. no big deal i guess... but it feels like a port, not like a real mac program. esp. the save dialogue box. it would be nice to generate saved game files that you could put in any folder or share with friends or attach to messages like this more easily. but that is a minor issue i guess...
TERMINALS & DIALOGUE
even if the plot itself is dark and disturbing, is some humor in oni. you just have to find it. there is, for instance, a reference in the dialogue to back to the future, but I won't tell you what it is. it's a surprise. but it was funny to hear, LOL, etc. also, some of the terminal texts are funny, and if you actually read them, you will greatly benefit because then some of the later dialogue will actually make sense. if you don't read the terminal text, then you won't know what the hell they're talking about half the time. you'll be like, "what the hell are they talking about?" also some of the interactions between yourself and the "bobs" (marathon reference) are pretty funny. one line I really liked: "what are you doing hiding back here?" "i'm just trying to hide..."
(if you can't tell i have spent many hours with this game!)
* the enemies will often say crap to you while they are kicking your ass. one of 'em seems to say: "lyin' bitch!" heheh. but it's not funny because this lyin' bitch attack is hard to block.
* the voice talent is really good! this is really the FIRST game with lots of dialogue where the dialogue didn't sound totally cheesy (the origin games / xena: warrior princess / star wars: episode 1 syndrome). it sounds like they got decent actors and a good storyline.
* did I say the storyline is GREAT!!!!???? i haven't finished the game yet obviously, and you know, I can't wait to see what happens!!! it's really frickin' cool, with lots of twists and turns. it is also very bungie-ish, if you played the marathon games then you will see what I mean!! in fact, Oni is really marathon-like in a lot of ways, as it should be. the terminals you can access and read text from is one of these influences. another one is the way that the character looks: the body build. something about it is marathon-ish. this is a good thing.
If you liked marathon then I think you will love oni.. it's kind of Marathon Square-Root of Negative One or something. Heh.. Konoko is a total badass. It would be kind of cool if there was a secret attack where you seduced the bad guy and then killed 'em. just kidding
Anything else.. oh yeah. MUSIC!!! Oni has such a great soundtrack. it gets better and better as the game progresses. the music typically starts playing at certain points in levels, like when you get closer to finishing a particular stage, or when you're just starting out on an intense level. then it will stop right when certain action is supposed to occur. mostly it's techno, but often it is VERY VERY EERIE sounding ambient electronica, which borders on not even being music any more. it really wigs you out sometimes. plus several of the levels have moments that are quite spooky, esp. the one with the yellow staircase (don't want to give anything else away!) then there is some more classical sounding music with violins and stuff. really cool.
FPS
* i.e. frames per second. on a g3/350 w/the standard ATI card (blue and white machine) with 192 megs of ram it was just fine. Oni wants 120 megs or so for its own partition of RAM, so you better have at least 192 megs on your machine. i give it 140 since it was crashing. but i also reinstalled it before it would stop crashing.
* overall the FPS was in the 30 range. but when you get attacked by multiple enemies or get into a scene with lots of complicated structures all around you, the FPS goes to hell and suddenly everything is all choppy and it makes it much harder to do anything. this is especially true when you are being shot at from every direction.
* in other words, lure your enemies one-by-one into a low-FPS room or corner where you will be fighting while not facing any big background items. Alternatively, there could be a mode the game goes into while fighting where the background goes into a wireframe mode with the dangerous ledges depicted by flashing red lines and cross-hatched areas. only the characters would be texture-mapped and the shots and items would be minimally rendered as well. this would make hand-to-hand with a group of characters much smoother. or you could just get a radeon and a G4 MP.
* I don't know if the game supports multiprocessing, come to think of it. ask bungie, i guess.
Overall this is the best action-style game I've ever played. But It would be cool to have more different perspectives of viewing; you only get the "from directly behind and slightly above" view. they should copy Mario 64's perspective modes or something. In other words, Oni is a very simple game in many ways. all you do is run around, kill guys, get stuff, and unlock doors. that's it! in that respect it harkens back to old platform games like mario bros. In a weird way, Oni feels like the first computer game I've ever played that is really, truly like an Arcade Game in its addictiveness and quality. I mean, if there were quarters required, I'd be pouring them in uncontrollably (hint hint). Imagine a 4-player Oni game at the arcades! that would be such a hit!!! (no pun intended) it could either be like teenage mutant ninja turtles was, or it could be like a cross between street fighter and spy vs. spy or something.
Well there's so much more that could be said but I'll leave it to y'all!
my advice: buy oni ASAP and play this wonderful game. but beware.. it will live up to bungies goal of "testing the limits of your personal relationships" ...
= g-loob, macdaddie! =
= aka: tang farmer, vitamin arrr =
------------------
M M DDD Alchemist for hire! Have dragon, will travel!
M M M D D Photoshop guru & Ancient Greek reader,
M M M D D psychobiologist and art historian.
M M M DDD ... and Christian, if there was such a thing.
"People always get excited over archaism." - B. Dollar
Top
