Yet another shooter drops into the long list of titles at the game store this year, and that shooter is Chaser. Chaser builds upon the standard sci-fi thriller about a commando with a bad memory. Does Chaser build upon a solid foundation and give us a decent shooter? Does it make us want to forget about the whole thing and join Arnie in his pre-memory alteration state in Total Recall? Read on and find out.
Visually, Chaser, well, gets the job done. Truthfully, Chaser has a few high points, but it generally sits at a bit of a low. The biggest impressions come from the faces. They are insanely well done and boast a high level of detail. Frankly, everything neck-up is incredible. Each character is highly detailed and impressive. From Yakuza to helmet clad enforcers, everything reeks of details. Even the textures are great. Unfortunately, though, the level of detail did not move down to the lower extremities. It would be a rather fair comparison to say the body models in Chaser rival those in the original Half-Life. They may be a tad smoother, but you are still given the shovel-hand look with a whopping 6 bone bodies (or so it seems) that move like action figures. It is almost as if half the modeling team quit after finishing the heads.
A particularly strange graphical issue popped up for me in the game. Whenever a character is talking, the one you see is the one moving his mouth, regardless of if he is talking or not. It was evident when Chaser was sitting in a building being renovated listening in on the Yakuza when his bud called on the radio, and we were treated to Chaser lip synching it. That is rather odd.
The rest of the game fares as well as the bodies do. Levels and textures range from excellent to bland and boring. From the impressive levels like the underground Chinatown and the rooftop Japanese suite, to the drab hallways of buildings under construction to the even more boring space station you start out in. Textures are the same deal. Great reflection and glass effects, to flat metal that doesn’t shine even though it is obviously polished. Chaser’s graphics just feel half-assed all the way around.
I wish I could have said the same about the sound, which was absolutely poor all the way around. Voice acting, weapon effects, music. It is a gigantic bag of irritating. There are very few games out there that really make me turn off the sound, considering how bad games are on mute. This, unfortunately, is one of them…but I am forced to keep the sound on to pay attention to the story.
Speaking of story, how about them clichés? To tell the truth, I haven’t seen so many clichés since Final Fantasy 10. This game takes every sci-fi movie cliché and dumps them soundly into the story. Add a dash of salt, and BAM! You get pure Hollywood muck. So, here you are, starting out on this space station. You wake up, have no idea who you are. Suddenly, the military is shaking up the place looking for you, because apparently you are some huge bad-ass mercenary and they want you dead. Hrm, sounds like Total Recall to me, except the bad-guys didn’t have the consideration to give you a hot wife and give you nice memories to replace the blank slate you were shoved with. So, you dump down to Earth in an escape pod, get a chip put in your head that will blow up if you refuse the Mob boss’ orders or leave the city, and the Mob is fighting the Yakuza. Gee, how original guys. Let’s give this writing team an Oscar for best screenplay.
So, let us move to the meat of the game, the gameplay. The gameplay manages to pull up the scores a bit, not because it is particularly good, it is just not as bad as the other feature in the game. Chaser is your typical run and gun title. You run, you gun, you get to the next level. The good part is, the game pretty much does what it is supposed to. Another good part is, not a box puzzle or jumping puzzle in sight. The bad part is, there isn’t much else to do. You head from point A to point B and shoot everything that moves. If the door is locked, chances are you will never need to go that way. The game opens up the path needed to travel and sticks enemies in the way. The level designs, like their appearances, are bordering on amazingly genius to boring. If the level looks good when you get there, it should be interesting. The best one is the underground, ruined city.
Unfortunately, the levels are never wide open and even outdoor levels are just narrow corridors funneling you from start to finish like a lab rat. They toss in enemies that don’t have particularly good AI. They just run at you, shooting, to die. The only reason they are a bit tough is they have better accuracy than your run of the mill target drone. It takes great skill to hit a man with a pistol at 200 yards. The AI does it with relative ease. So the trick is to shoot them before they can get a shot off, otherwise you are hit.
There is also your typical placing of medical supplies and armor…meaning completely random and without particular sense behind them. Nothing says basic shooter than a perfectly good box of healing supplies floating in a sewer.
Overall, Chaser is a resoundingly average shooter. It has its flashes of brilliance, flashes of idiocy, but overall, it rounds out to be a run of the mill shooter. It does have a bit going for it in the likes of running smoothly and without much error beyond clipping issues when your bad guy dies a static death, but still a fully average title on the whole. It is worth about $15 if you can find it for that. Otherwise, hold out and get something better.
