Most people that grew up on gaming in the 90’s are probably familiar to the ‘shmup’ style of gaming. The game sets you off story-wise in the midst of a nameless, faceless battle against a nameless, faceless group. You take the position of a pilot in the midst of a war of some sort; you get the point. It’s a basic setup for the ‘shmup’-style game. The story is not the strong point of this game, but that’s given due to the style. Style is where RAZOR2 should shine…
That being said, the style of the game is great… if we were living fifteen years in the past. While the nostalgia factor is fun, it fades quickly, and leaves you with a remorseful feeling of something along the lines of: ‘I spent $10 on this game, so what do I do now?’ The fun can only carry for so long, and without two strong legs of a story, the game relies mainly on its mechanics and fun music to pull you through the rest of the missions.
Gameplay:
While the story rates as sub-par to nonexistent, the gameplay shines like a supernova. It’s upbeat and racy, which is extremely enjoyable for some people. If button mashing is your thing, this game has a lot of that in store for you. If racing around a screen in a ship is also your thing, this game is for you. If you don’t appreciate the former or the latter, then this game just flat out isn’t for you. It has some very fun moments, but the gameplay also some fairly large negative aspects as well.
There are minor flaws in the controls to this game. In terms of maneuvering the craft, the default keys for movement were set to the arrow keys, and it was awkward at first, but then became bearable. Switching between Team Fortress 2 and RAZOR2 was difficult, though, being so used to the famed WASD keyboard setup. The mouse is not involved at all, which was a bit surprising as well. A fun fact, however, is that key binds are stackable, so if you see it to be necessary, there can just be one button that destroys everything instantaneously.
The gameplay in terms of combat is adequate, if not a bit messy at times. The screen will become so overcome with fire sometimes (especially at boss battles) that it will be hopeless to even attempt to maneuver past enemy fire. It’s understandable as a difficulty thing, but it was still annoying at times to find that my screen had become overrun by small lasers and rockets to the point that my vessel wasn’t even maneuverable.
One of the better gameplay features in RAZOR2 is the upgrade system, albeit navigation to it. By killing enemy ships, having good accuracy, and finishing the mission in time, credits are awarded. Also, after a certain number of missions, you ‘rank up’, earning another cache of points. These points are then used to purchase shiny new upgrades for your ship, which will help you in future missions. As the enemies get tougher, so does your ship. The upgrades range from more ammunition to better shields to more energy to faster and stronger weapons. All around, it’s a nicely ‘polished’ (I say that cautiously) system.
Graphics and Sound:
The graphics to this game are reprehensibly horrible, and the blame lies with the developers, INVENT4 Entertainment. Understandably, if the graphics are part of the ‘immersion’ or ‘throwback’ to 90’s ‘shmup’ games, then that will make this section irrelevant.
Having blocky, pixelated textures made the game feel awkward, especially while in the loading bay for upgrading my ship. When looking at my craft, I saw a brick, not a glorious space vessel that had just taken on a wave of five hundred or so enemies. It didn’t contribute to any of the affect of the game, and for a game without a story, there is the expectation for the graphics and gameplay to compensate for it.
For a game with low-quality graphics, however, it sure did suck up a lot of CPU cycles. While in the first mission of the game, when enemies suddenly swarmed on-screen, my computer actually began to lag. This lead to the belief that the game was poorly optimized, or something of the sort, because hardware-wise, my PC is a fair beast to be sure. Aside from minor stalls and hiccups, the gameplay was smooth and breezy.
Taking out two birds with one stone, as they’re both under the menus, there are the fonts and voice-overs. Unmistakably, the voice-overs are provided by Microsoft Anna. I’d love to leave it at that, but it gets worse. ‘She’ provides annoying (not to mention useless) intel throughout a whole mission. This tends to leave the player hearing a monotonous voice droning on and on about superfluous details that they don’t care about, especially for ‘shmup’. Then, the fonts, which are nigh unreadable. Navigating the menus in this game is easy once you’ve adjusted to them, but for someone just starting, it will be hard to find your way around them.
Ending on a good note, one good quality to this game is its music. Upbeat and heroic, the soundtrack to this game is by far the best out of the graphics and sound department – truly a pleasure to listen to. The biggest problem with the game audio was the Microsoft Anna voice-overs coming in and interrupting the music. Thankfully, there was an option to mute the voice-overs via an audio slider.
Final Thoughts:
All in all, I wouldn’t call RAZOR2: Hidden Skies a ‘bad’ game. A more fitting word is ‘misplaced’. Misplaced, in that it’s fifteen years past its prime, and fifteen years past its graphical threshold. If it were 1995, I’m sure that this game would have succeeded. Unfortunately, in a day and age where people expect fully-functional products with all the bells and whistles, RAZOR2 flounders. It lacks an enticing story, which is generally necessary for a strictly single-player game, as well as smashing graphics. The Microsoft Anna voice-overs also serve as a detriment, pulling the game further down the quality ladder. There are well-formed ideas, the game shows that it’s just bare-bones, with nothing else to truly offer, aside from a nostalgic feeling that passes five minutes into gameplay.
RAZOR2: Hidden Skies is available on Steam for $10. There is also a demo available for anyone who wishes to try before buying.
