Harbinger

Harbinger Of all the sci-fi genres, generational spaceships are probably the most out-of-favor niche with current readers and authors. Spawning many great works in the 1940s through 1960s, such as Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss and Orphans of the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein, the idea of spaceships as closed worlds that travel for centuries was so popular that even an opera, Aniara, was composed based on a poem about generational spaceships. Since the 1970s, the niche has been all but dead, and so it comes as little surprise that it has been ignored by computer gaming. That is, until now…

The story Harbinger is the first game I've ever played that deals with generational spaceships. In fact, Harbinger is the spaceship. Formerly a survey vessel, the ship has grown. Taking resources and slaves from planets it has visited, Harbinger, commanded by the ruthless Overlord, has become the home to many species. Those who've escaped slavery have created their own underground societies on this vast spaceship, which are ignored by the Overlord most of the time. Now, however, a new threat has emerged, sowing discontent between the various species. A small group of humans and other outcasts is trying to survive in this world, and they are about to welcome a new member of their society - you.

Game mechanics Graphically and gameplay-wise, Harbinger is a Diablo clone. You get the same isometric view, roughly the same interface, and pretty much the some way of fighting, running from the enemy, collecting items, trading and talking to people. While there are some differences, only few of them improve the original concept.

You start out by selecting one of three characters - human, gladiator or a culibine.

The human character is pretty much your standard, cynical and money-loving marine. While quite agile, his main strength lies in being able to handle mines and other explosives. He is also pretty handy with his rifle, which he can use in close combat as well. As with the other two characters, the human has only four statistics - ranged and close combat, rigging and life. While the first two are self-explanatory, rigging is required for handling the mines, and life determines the amount of available hit points. Many of the weapons will require a certain proficiency in one or more skills, so carefully balancing the four statistics becomes essential.

The gladiator is somewhat different, yet still closely related to the human. In fact, the gladiator is still partially human - a consciousness of a dying man transferred into a metallic body. He sounds a little bitter, but the truth is that he simply does not care about death anymore. Under the imposing hull there is a philosophical soul, which tends to comment on the advantages and disadvantages of getting a second chance. As the human, the gladiator has a ranged and a melee skill. He also has a life skill, even though instead of drinking potions, he has to use spare batteries to recharge his hit points. Where the human has the rigging skill, the gladiator has the override skill. This enables the gladiator to remotely control cameras in order to scout his way, deliver a deadly explosive or equipped with guns or mortars, directly attack his enemies.

Culibine is the last of her race. She is a very unique character, able to manipulate the energy around her. In fact, she is so good at doing it that even her hit points replenish over time, and this healing process can be sped up in areas of high radiation. She is unique in other aspects as well. While sharing the life and ranged combat skills with the other races, the culibine has a very special close combat attack, which discharges energy in an expanding circle around her, wounding everybody in her vicinity. In addition, her focus skill allows her to control a few attack or defense globes, which circle around her body by telekinesis. All of these skills have made her a little presumptuous, and she likes to refer to humans as "monkeys".

Once you select your characters, it is time to get into the game. The first thing that may disappoint you is that you cannot adjust your characters in any way. They always start out with the same level in all four primary statistics, with the same equipment and at the same spot. Appearance is also always the same, and can be changed only by equipping a different armor or weapon.

You will be able to gain levels when you get enough experience points for killing enemies or finishing quests. Every time you gain a level, you will have to allocate three points to your skills. The maximum level for each skill is 50 points; expect to max out three out of your four skills throughout the game. In another blow to the role-playing conventions, however, none of your statistics or health will get any automatic boost at new level; only your hit points will be replenished. What makes leveling up especially cumbersome is the fact that there is no way to undo your point allocation. While other games allow you to take back the points and spread them over your statistics differently, this feature is missing here, so each mistake is costly.

As in Diablo, you will have a central base of operations, called Torvus Junction. Here, you will be able to receive quests and trade goods. The quests are of the standard fare: fetch an item, kill an enemy or use an item in a certain way, after traversing a long dungeon. The designers tried to enliven this monotony by including various side quests, many of which you will be given while you are inside of the dungeon. This makes the game a little more interesting and unpredictable. To move around, you will use the so-called Umbilicals. These are teleporters, which will get you to the appropriate dungeon and back. This not only increases the linear structure of the game, (as you will be only able to go to predetermined dungeons at each mission) but also makes it much easier to return back, as almost every quest ends with an exit Umbilical to take you home. Unfortunately this also introduces the only serious bug in the game: some quests will never be acknowledged as finished if you take the wrong sequence of umbilical jumps.

Once you are down in a dungeon, the real fun begins. You will attack and be attacked by many different enemies, often rushing you in great numbers. In fact, everything that moves and is not attached to the floor (as well as some things that are) is fair game. While I would welcome some friendly characters in the dungeons, I must acknowledge that without them, I had no trouble targeting enemies.

In what is one of the most unique aspects of the game, different enemies have a different level of vulnerability to one of the four basic energy discharges, and it will be up to you to bring the correct equipment along and use it against the correct enemies. In addition to the main energy discharges - plasma, electricity, disruption and electromagnetic pulse - there are four minor ones, which work as poisons, against each different type of enemy. More advanced weapons will offer several different modes of energy discharge. If that is not enough, you will be able to improve your equipment with different add-ons that can be found in treasure chests or purchased at the store. Each weapon and armor has a certain number of available slots for these add-ons, just like in Diablo II, but unlike there you can also remove these add-ons and replace them with others.

The fighting varies by the character and the level. While the human will most likely shoot, run away and shoot some more, the gladiator can be deadly with his knife, especially at higher melee levels and when using an add-on that would make him fight faster. The culibine, on the other hand, prefers to rush her enemies, drawing as many of them as possible around her and killing them all at once with her radial energy discharge. At the end of the day, however, the fighting style is not all that important. With notable exceptions, everything that moves will rush you, but you will be able to outrun them and dodge their shots.

The balance is where the gameplay really suffers. The developers had a unique chance here to create a very tight and engrossing story, and adjust the difficulty of each level so that the player would be challenged throughout the game. Instead, some earlier levels are very hard, while some of the later levels are boring. I have finished the game three times, each time with a different character. Throughout the games, I have always gained the same experience level in the same dungeons. I am sure that the developers observed the same thing, which is why I am very surprised that they put together such an eclectic mix of levels, completely destroying the rhythm of the game.

Let me give you an example. One of the early levels will bar your way back until you finish it. In hindsight, I had a lot of fun in this level trying to survive with only limited number of health packs, as I could not go back and buy more. The final boss was quite tough, and I barely survived. Emerging from this level, I fell into the same old routine - killing enemies and taking damage until I ran out of health packs, going back, buying more, and returning where I left off. Later, about halfway through the game, I was swarmed by enemies, which at my level were almost as hard to kill as the main boss - the Overlord. The second half of the game was a breeze. While the enemies were tougher, relative to my experience level they were little more than annoying.

To make the game balance even worse, there is a script that makes more powerful weapons available in the store once you finish certain quests. However, the growth in power is somewhat choppy. Through several quests, you will only have inferior weaponry available, only to be presented with some overkill later on. Considering that you will never have a problem with money, each new weapon will be immediately available to you, unlike in Diablo where budgeting played a role. In such a case, it is surprising that the designers made these powerful weapons available, apparently without giving too much thought of how it would affect the game balance. All this, and a rather weak background story, made me lose the interest in the game before I was halfway through.

The story is a mixed bag. On one hand, I must give credit to the developers for creating a very realistic world with three major storylines and a lot of background information. However, with the exception of one of the storylines (the Om story), I found the rest to be a little choppy. Imagine this: you are an adventurer wannabe who serves to fetch some items to your boss. Next thing you know, you fight the Overlord's lieutenant, only to try to destroy the whole ship and kill the Overlord later on. I am used to a lot of bad stories, so I know when I see one - just like here. Diablo has solved this much better: there was a single storyline, and the progression was so slow and gradual that it was only natural when I battled stronger bosses. Here, however, the several stories (as well as quite a few side quests that have nothing to do with the main storyline) have resulted in a very unrealistic experience.

Cut scenes and dialogue move the story forward. While the cut scenes are relatively decent, employing an in-game engine and a comic book-like conversation, the dialogue is less than stellar. Never having the option to decide anything by yourself, the dialogue mimics the gameplay: it is linear, only requiring you to push the mouse button to move forward. The only option you will have is determining when to talk to people. On some occasions, this proves beneficial, as you can gain a boost to your statistics or additional experience points, but these minigames do little to enhance the overall game experience.

Interface The interface, while very simple, does all that is required in an efficient manner. You will move wherever you click the mouse, and if you hold the left mouse button you will move in the direction of the cursor. When you hold the Shift button, you will shoot or fight in melee mode, depending which mouse button you use. All keys can be remapped, with a single exception: the Shift button. This makes remapping a little useless, since the most important button is set, so I used this feature only to switch to more traditional quick-save and quick-load shortcuts than what the game offers.

Inventory works the same way as in Diablo: all new items will be placed into your inventory until you run out of space, and you will be able to click and drag (or right-click) to move items from your inventory to that of the shopkeeper, or to your external stash. This external stash, called "EZ Stash" will be available throughout the game in several dungeons, making it possible to replenish your inventory or get rid of some stuff you are carrying until you are back at your base, ready to sell these items. Because you will not be able to move back to levels where you finished previous quests, EZ Stashes will become your primary means of storing items that you plan to sell.

Technical considerations Let me start by saying that the game is very stable. I have experienced no crashes, freeze-ups or slowdowns, nor did I experience any of the gameplay bugs that some players complained about on the official message boards. However, there are some problems I would like to mention.

The moment you open the box, you will see the first set of problems. Apparently, the designers were rushed at the end, and they botched the installation file. As a consequence, every time you insert the CD the installation sequence will start automatically. To make matters worse, the installation procedure forgets to include shortcuts to the game and the uninstall program, forcing you to do so manually.

The game offers several graphic and sound modes, and I found the configuration program quite reliable. However, I have experienced the loss of sound at random intervals, and no setting has fixed this. In addition, the configuration file allows the player to select a speaker configuration in order to maximize the superb directional sound experience, but one of the most used configurations, 2.1, is missing.

On the other hand, I must say that I am very impressed with the level of technical support given by the developer. Members of the development team are constantly monitoring the official message board, and often encourage players to send them their saved games, so that they can fix them.

Gameplay - 6 I wish I could give a higher rating to the gameplay, but due to the severe balancing issues, the game ranks only slightly above average. The lack of balance and the weak story are partially offset by using a very unique game setting and successfully implementing varying levels of weaknesses to certain weapons. In addition, the simple interface and relatively flawless gameplay (once you actually start the game) eliminate any frustration the player could experience.

Graphics - 8 For a game of its type, Harbinger features some of the best graphics I have ever seen. The background is wonderfully rendered, and the lighting effects are superb. While still using a 2D environment, the game looks better than many 3D games, mainly because of the textures featuring a lot of depth. As a nice addition, each character features a unique interface designed along the most appropriate themes. Where the gladiator's interface is all blocky and machine-like, culibine's is curvy and organic, and the human interface is somewhere in-between.

The only disappointment is the relatively low level of animation, as all enemies and the three man characters feature only several frames of movement and fighting. To make matters worse, sometimes the characters get locked facing a certain direction, and end up moonwalking across the screen. There is still one positive aspect of the character animation, though. With the exception of the human and the final boss, no characters or enemies bleed red blood, which greatly decreases the level of realistic violence and makes the game a little more family-friendly.

Sound - 6 The background music is very appropriate. A little ambient, without a distinct melody to remember, it still adds a lot to the atmosphere. In addition, the sound of explosions and shots are well made, and the directional sound is the best I've heard in a Diablo clone. However, the voice-overs are less than pleasing. All three characters sound like they were reading a script. There is no emotion in their voices. While this works fine with the gladiator, who comes across as a phlegmatic giant, it is particularly bad with the culibine, who uses the same tone when she says she is enraged and when she comments on the weather. The voice-overs greatly detract from the overall experience of the game.

Replay value - 5 The initial run through the game offers up to 25 hours of gameplay, depending on your character. However, the human and gladiator campaigns are so similar, that there is little use of playing both. Culibine offers some excitement, with an additional storyline and a very different fighting style, but I managed to squeeze only an additional 10 hours of gameplay out of the game. While the lack of multiplayer does not concern me too much, the lack of an editor is a more serious matter. The game already has a dedicated fan base, which could create additional levels. Furthermore, due to the linear character of the game, expect to play it once and shelve or sell it afterwards. Still, at a $30 retail price, the game strikes even at value.

Overall - 6.3 The game is certainly a good start for Silverback Entertainment. At $30, it provides more entertainment than many titles priced at $50. Its main strengths lie in a very unique setting and a few tweaks on top of Diablo, such as making various enemies vulnerable to various weapons. Due to the game being a budget title, I am willing to overlook the bad voice-overs, weak character animation and technical problems. However, the game fails when it comes to balance. The designers had a unique opportunity to create a tight game, offering suspense and challenge throughout the entire gameplay, thanks to the linear nature of the game. They failed to do so, and thus sentenced a title with a great potential to a short life of mediocrity.