Chaser

The Good
I picked up this game not having read any reviews or anything about it. I'd never heard of the developer, but I knew Jowood from Gothic, so I figured this game deserved a chance. I wanted a first person shooter to play - you know, to take my aggression out or something. I expected blood and gore and killing and nothing more - and considering I'd only heard the name and genre of the game, I didn't think it would even give me that.

Boy was I wrong.

Chaser has easily made its way to my top five first person shooters of all time. A wonderful story, fantastic in-game cutscenes, believable dialogue and incredible level design was not what I expected from this game.

First of all, for a first person shooter, this game's story is exceptionally well done. Right from the start you become immersed in the setting and story. Throughout the game you meet probably over a dozen unique, interesting characters that play a vital role in your search for your identity, and each one gives a memorable performance. The plot twists are not too cliched, and I, for one, was very surprised by a few of them. The ending is by far the best part, and it comes at just the right time. All but a few questions are answered, and you're given enough information to fill in the rest of the gaps yourself. The entire game gives off a very noir feel. This is one of the few games I've played of late that I'll be thinking back to later.

Your journey takes you to several great locations, including a space station, the slums of an American city, a snowey Russian wasteland, the underground mines of Mars, and dozens more. Yeah, that's right - dozens. In each location you will usually travel through several different routes to achieve your main objective, whether it's going through the streets of the city, office buildings, gang-filled slums, the underworkings of a star port - and the most incredible thing of these levels is the sheer size of them. I have never seen a first person shooter with such massively large levels! Any given level might be literally miles in total length, and it's not all just filler, either. The levels are incredibly well designed, with realistic details and obsticals. The very first level I was in awe at the detail put into it, and every level that followed was equally, if not more impressive than the last. The atmosphere in these levels is another great feature. Many of the areas have a distinct cyber-punk "Blade Runner" type feel to it. Throughout the first few levels you'll be having brief flashbacks in-game! They might disorient you, but that's really the point. Even with the massively large levels, it was surprisingly easy to find my way through without getting lost - even in the winding descending mines of Mars, it was usually clear on which direction I'm supposed to take.

Combined with a great story and great level design is near-perfect in-game cutscenes. You can tell great effort was put into making these cutscenes as realistic as possible. I don't think I've seen a game in which I've enjoyed the cutscenes so much. And not only were they entertaining, dramatic, thrilling and important - but they were also very long. You're not going to find some ten second cheesy pointless cutscene between levels in this game. Instead, you see what happens directly after you finish the level, what happens next, and what leads up to the next level. This not only gives you great information on what your overall objective is, but it also gives the characters so much more depth than in other games.

One of the more unique aspects of this game is that it's not your run-of-the-mill "Okay, I got my gun, now I'm going to kill my way to the big bad boss" type FPS. Your character (Chaser) goes through many different transitions throughout the game, going to new locations and meeting (and killing or betraying) new people.

I've gone on this much and I haven't even mentioned gameplay yet. For a first-person shooter, gameplay is usually at the top, but this game, to me, was more like a linear first-person action-adventure than just a plain "shooter". Anyway, the gameplay, while not revolutionary, was certainly not a let-down. Not only does your arsenal include over a dozen types of weapons, but Chaser has a Max Payne-esque ability to "slow time down" for short periods of time. But unlike Max Payne, this doesn't make you faster, nor does it make the enemies shoot worse. Slowing down time is all it does. It certainly helps the situation, but it isn't instant victory. Some levels are "stealth" missions, and unlike damn near every FPS ever made that included "stealth" missions, these don't absolutely suck!

Graphics are not "next generation", but they certainly exceed my standards. The closeups on peoples' faces during the cutscenes is very well done, and even on the "medium" setting I was very much impressed. Water is actually 3D and reacts to your actions - for example, shooting the water causes it to ripple realistically, as well as diving in or swimming. The weapon models are also extremely well crafted, and as I've mentioned a few times before, level design kicks ass. The glass in this game is also pretty cool. It's your modern type of "break off chunks of glass" type thing, but...I don't know. It's thicker, has a reflection, it just looks cooler to me.

The Bad
The real bad thing about this game is that it isn't better known :)

But seriously, there is lots that could have been improved. Such as rag doll effects. Often times, you'll kill a bad guy, and he'll sort of "hop" around for a bit before he finally dies. And often, if there's any sort of hole in the ground, no matter how small, he'll just vanish into it and never be heard from again.

The game is very linear. There are some instances when there are more than one ways to complete an objective, but no "Deus Ex" plot transitions or anything like that. Personally, this didn't bother me at all, but it should still be noted.

As much as I loved the massively large levels, the very last level was just TOO stinkin' long!

Most voice acting was good, but one or two characters' voice acting kinda stunk.

The level design is great, but perhaps not polished enough. On more than one occasion I reached an area I was not supposed to be able to get to, and then fell into some weird "hall of mirrors" oblivion.

One particular area lets you use a pipe as a means to climb out of an area. I feel this was a bad idea, because there are many times when I could have used a pipe to climb out of an area, but I wasn't able to. I don't know what's so special about THAT pipe.

Most of the time the bad guys are able to shoot you even though they're "recovering" from being shot themselves. It's as if the bullets just fly out of their shoulders or something.

One particular level in which you have to protect a truck as it makes its way through a city was kind of silly. In this level, you use a sniper rifle to kill the bad guys attacking the truck, but, I don't know...I kept cracking up, watching a bunch of little soldiers come rushing toward this massively armored truck and the guy insead yelling "Oh no Chaser! An ambush! Save us!" Heh.

A map could have helped in some levels. After a small bit of searching, I was able to find my way through, but I feel I had just a bit of luck. With the size of the levels, I can imagine it being VERY easy to get VERY lost if you're not paying attention.

The game kind of lacks some modern FPS standard features, such as looking around corners and such. Movement is also somewhat 'jagged'. These didn't really detract from the game much, but more than once they caused me to get my head blown off :)

AI could certainly be improved, though I still consider it higher than the current standard. Enemies will duck behind walls and jump out to shoot at you...but they won't always "find" the wall, and sometimes they'll just turn their back to you. Heh. Lucky for you. Enemies will chase you down halls, but sometimes they'll just get stuck and won't move. Mostly, it's typical "see player, shoot player, chase player" type AI. Not as bad as most games, but definitely could use improvement.

The Bottom Line
Chaser is one of the best first person shooters ever made. The levels, characters, story, cutscenes and setting will remain in my memory for a good long time. I look forward to playing more games by Cauldron. If their next release is half as good as Chaser, it'll still be better than most games I've played lately.

This game blends so many good things into it that it'd be hard not to find someone to recommend this to. Unless you dreadfully hate first person shooters, there is no reason not to get this game.

The Good
You can really guess that Cauldron, the designers of chaser, aren't incapable. Chaser features some nice ideas (for example the atmospheric submarine-mission), from time to time really nice graphics and generally a lot of good ideas, but...

The Bad
... somehow, they weren't able to fit everything together. There are so many design- and gameplay-related flaws, bugs and inconsistencies, that it hurts! It begins with a wannabe-immersive-story, the ultra-linear leveldesign and the bad AI. And it doesn't end...

The Bottom Line
Chaser tries to be a good shooter with innovative features, good graphics and a nice story. But it fails and fails and fails. It seems, like JoWood, the publisher, wasn't able to control and direct the gamedesign-process. So, what remains, is a substandard shooter with some nice moments - and many frustrating...

The Good
Right from the get-go, the graphics are outstanding. I mean that, too. For a 2003 game, these are 2004 graphics (cliché, but true). The accurate reflections on any wet spot of ground, off the window glass, and the ripple-prone water. The glass will fragment, and breaks about as you’d expect too, and oh is it spectacular. This all comes at a frame rate you can adore; on a Geforce 4 4400, Athlon XP 2700+, there were no hitches to speak of. Granted, the computer is no slouch, but it’s also a far cry from running Far Cry (I never get tired of that pun).

Sound is similarly pleasing, though it doesn’t hold a candle to the graphics. The soundtrack adds just the right amount of flavor to the combat, and once turned down to an acceptable volume, it makes the boring parts of the shooter more tolerable. The weapon sounds are good, though once you’ve fired several thousand rounds from a gun you tend not to ‘hear’ them anymore. The screams from your armed victims are pretty satisfying too.

A final strong point would be the story, which is what you can thank for this review. From the opening scene of the intro, you know you’re in for good, cheap sci-fi. It’s the standard fare, but it’s done well. When you start playing and there’s a space station in Earth orbit that’s exploding all around you, you know you’re in for a ride. Chaser does not disappoint, and I congratulate the writers. This is the kind of game that can make a person pick up a copy of Analog just to quench the thirst for talented, quickie sci-fi.

A final note; I picked this game up because I wanted to check out the story. I didn’t try the multiplayer in the full version, but I played the heck out of the demo. I can’t attest to the current state of multiplayer, but I do know that I regret not buying this game when it was first released when multiplayer would have been going strongest. Multiplay was solid in the demo, and I expect it is in the full version too.

The Bad
There are two major flaws to this game in single-play. I’ll start with the one that annoyed me the most… the difficulty. Because I just wanted to experience the game and its story, I opted for normal (out of Easy-Normal-Hard). I play a lot of Unreal Tournament 2004 and its mods, I’ve played a lot of multiplayer everything, and more single-player games than I can count. I can honestly attest that normal mode for this game is the hardest ‘normal’ I’ve ever encountered. You will quicksave/quickload so many times during the course of the game that you will be using the keys for those two functions almost as much as your ‘weapon reload’ key. The game’s Adrenaline mode (akin to bullet-time, but different enough to make its own mark) does not offset this inherent difficulty. When you finish the game, the story is all the sweeter, but damn. This is one hard game.

The second flaw, which I probably shouldn’t gripe about, but I have to register the complaint. It’s well-documented in the game reviews, I’m sure. This game drags out. It will drag out to the point of your being in tears due to the sheer volume of bad guys to kill, of tunnels to go through, of quicksaves and quickloads. The game’s story is epic, and the gameplay is near-infinite. I enjoyed the length at first, but when story was waiting for repetitious shooting sequences to finish, I had had enough. The game is just too long.

The Bottom Line
If you have patience, you enjoy a good single-player game, and you enjoy cheap, Analog-grade sci-fi, Chaser’s single-play will make you giddy and/or content. I would recommend the Easy setting, and I don’t say that lightly. The graphics don’t stop being good at any point of the game, and the music will keep you company during the slow parts of the game. I found the ending to be worth it, and there were many novel sequences that I’m glad to have seen and experienced. It’s not for everyone, but it is worth a shot. Just don’t expect a Half-Life, and you might be pleasantly surprised.