Tekwar
SHATNER’S TEKWAR SAGA CONTINUES
A Review of Tekwar
by Derek F. Tarvin
Enter the future in the year 2045 as depicted in William Shatner’s TEKWAR
series. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading the novels or seeing the
TV program, here’s the skinny on the situation. In this futuristic city of
the GLAMA (Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area), cyberspace is a reality,
and of course their exists an opportunistic group out to exploit this new
arena, the TekLords. The drug of the future is Tek and the group who lead
the spread of this new drug are the TekLords. Your objective is to scour the
city for these scum of society and stop their plans to distribute Tek
through the cyberspace network known as the Matrix.
Walter Bascom (William Shatner) opens the game with instructions regarding
who your target is and reminds you that either you achieve your goal or get
put back into cryoprison. By the way, you’ve only been thawed out to thwart
the efforts of the TekLords and gain back your credibility that was lost
when you were framed for selling Tek! The story is a great premise for any
game but you’ll quickly lose sight of any such supporting story.
TEKWAR falls into the same genre as the DOOM-style games, which have reared
their ugly heads ever since the creation of the original. TEKWAR was
doubtfully meant to be a DOOM-killer, but more so an example in 3D virtual
reality environments becoming an integral part of PC gaming.
This first
person shooter is rehashing a style that has been seen many times before,
but if these kind of improvements in a virtual environment can be made,
maybe these “DOOM-children” should be welcomed instead of mocked.
The player starts by being briefed (barked at) by Mr. Bascom, and then
you’re thrown into the subway level among other civilians and police
personnel. You should begin by searching everywhere and obtaining as many
weapons and supplies as possible. The weapons are what you might expect with
items like a pistol, a stun gun, and even energy round weapons. As with
other games of this type, you utilize an assortment of weapons while trying
to obtain the needed key cards to get to your final target in each level.
Once you enter the subway train and exit on any of the next stops, you’ll
quickly see where TEKWAR excels: graphics. Running in SVGA mode, the
buildings, people, and moving vehicles show great detail, at least from a
distance. Each level has everything that you might expect from a big city
with people actively going about their business in it. Businessmen and
women, police, vehicles, and TekGoons are all walking about the area giving
the city its live element.
They’re all integrated in this sci-fi environment
in places like banks, pool halls, beaches, drug labs, and hi-tech industry.
All the characters wear distinguishable and appropriate clothing and the
buildings have equal detail. The big city is even detailed to the extent
that the bathroom mirror shows your reflection and the underwater areas have
fish swimming around. Even the abstract cyberspace level, the Matrix, is
intricately designed with its own adversaries and environment. It’s this
very detail which feeds the interest in gameplay even in the game’s lack of
direction.
Every area of the city has a distinctive background sound and the people in
it react vocally to your actions. When you pull out your weapon, the women
will cower and yell “Run, he’s got a gun!” and the police will tell you to
“Drop the weapon!” Even the sound effects like a speedboat, or jumping into
water, are interdispersed with techno music that’ll bring your midi card
alive. If you’re not partial to using doors, be sure to shoot out a window
or two to gain entry into some buildings with a “crash!” Unfortunately,
there are also sounds which are quite annoying and mysterious as to what
they are supposed to signify. The general feel for the sound mixed in with
stunning graphics even surpasses other 3D shooter counterparts like RISE OF
THE TRIAD or NUKEM 3D.
The player uses the all-too-familiar first person interface while running
and shooting. Though joystick and mouse support are provided, most users
will find the keyboard the best way to execute movement. Since this
interface is familiar to most, the only thing that needs to be mentioned is
the “aim & shoot” element. While running around, strafing, and opening doors
are commonly known, trying to aim your weapon and get your reticule
crosshairs on an opponent isn’t easily orchestrated. Instead of being two
operations well-integrated with one another, the player will usually have to
encounter a TekGoon at close range and then begin to aim their weapon of
choice. There’s little hope of dodging any incoming fire and keep in mind
they can still hit you from blocks away. Your best strategy is find their
location and unload more rounds then they do as fast as you can.
If you’ve not already grown tiresome of these type of “kill everything that
moves” games, then the environment should be enthralling enough to keep your
interest in searching on for the keys needed to reach the level’s TekLord.
Don’t expect any help from the manual or the software in achieving your
goal. You are forced to aimlessly scavenge every area you can find without
any rhyme or reason for your efforts.
Though entertaining as it might be to
stun an annoying cop, or gun down a wimpy businessman, any hint of a story
line or clues in making progress in this story are lost. At least between
levels Bascom verbally slaps you on the hand for killing innocent civilians
in the city, but you are never really punished for obliterating the city
dwellers. It’s hard to not blow someone away when they cowardly scream
“Don’t shoot me!”, especially when you can see them wilt to the ground and
watch the blood splatter on the wall and drip its way down. If this level of
gore bothers you, just set the blood factor down a notch. To aid in your
search for the great unknown, be sure to make use of the map feature, which
will help you thoroughly search each level.
TEKWAR has the potential of having one of the best introductions ever seen
without even having to do anything but duplicate the TV series.
Unfortunately, the introduction, along with all the other video sequences,
are intolerably grainy and too low resolution to enjoy the seemingly
entertaining content. The only other shortcoming in the graphics might be
when you get real close up to some of the objects in the game. From a
distance the graphics are a force to be reckoned with, but up close they
start to show their true detail. Your opponents will also show no real
detail in intelligence since the cops instantly forget you killed someone
once you withdraw your weapon and even TekGoons don’t pursue you.
An added extra to TEKWAR is its multiplayer capability which should help
overcome the AI shortcomings. Capstone boasts a 2-16 player network
possibility. Be sure to grab the patch from the vendor to ensure easy set up
for modem play though. The players will most likely have to lower their
resolution in order to avoid lag or “warping” of opponents. Also note that
the full features of each level won’t be fully accessible from multiplayer
mode. As with almost any game that offers this modem option, you haven’t
fully explored a game until you play head to head with one or more real-life
opponents, who show no lack of intelligent reactions. TEKWAR is no exception
to this rule.
The game is quite easy to install and the only software protection is that
the CD be present in your drive. Though some of the graphics have been well
refined, other features of the product seem to have been disabled due to
rushing the game to the market. For example, don’t bother trying to pick up
crucial items bobbing in the water or the blue grenade charges. If your
haphazard efforts are trying your patience, try one of the cheats to adjust
your weapon arsenal or health.
Overall, TEKWAR includes a highly detailed 3D environment which is only
rivaled by the best. The gameplay lacks a sense of direction and
accomplishment, thereby hindering longterm playability. The graphics and
sound are certainly enough to capture your attention for a short while, but
as time passes, the lack of AI and sense of completing anything related to a
story, handicap the game heavily. Capstone has certainly come out of its
shell with this game and if this is any sign of what they can generate,
watch out for their next debut which might have ALL the finishing touches.
TEKWAR is a game well-worth checking out and if you’re uncertain about
buying it, try out the demo and get a taste of what flavor it offers.
Gamer’s Zone Scorecard
| Product: |
Tekwar |
| Company: |
Capstone |
$59.99
System Requirements:
Minimum:
486/50, MS DOS 5.0+, 2X CD-ROM,
8MB RAM, 40MB HD space, VGA or SVGA video card.
Additional:
Most major sound cards, joystick, 9600bps modem for modem play,
IPX network for multi-player games.
Preferred:
486DX4/100 for VGA, Pentium 90 for SVGA,
2MB PCI or VLB video card,
16-bit Sound Blaster compliant sound card.
NOTE: 640×480 mode requires a 512K VESA compatible video card.
Breakdown:
Fun Factor 3
Graphics 5
Sound 4
Interface 3
Replayability 3
Overall Score:
(* 0 rating, 0 votes)
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