Diablo's unique style and engrossing gameplay helped
make it one of the best selling and most loved titles of all time.
The strange thing is that unlike most top selling games, Diablo has
not had many clones to call its own which could be considered
both a blessing and a curse. The developers of Lamentation Sword
must have noticed this market ripe for exploitation when they
decided to make their game, as it follows directly in the vein that
Diablo created. With my hopes high and my anticipation great I
delved into the remarkable realm of Lamentation Sword and
found myself repeatedly returning to its enriched environments
and superb animation. But wait a second you say how did such a
remarkable title come out of nowhere? My answer to your simple
but inquisitive question is simply that I just lied my ass off just to
get you to read the rest of the review. Lamentation Sword (or
LameSword as I like to call it) was the most pathetic excuse for a
game I have played this year and my choice to review it has
created a new definition of depression in my life (ok so I visited the
hyper-bole recently but give me a break). My only consolidation is
that by writing this review I can hopefully convince the majority of
gamers to STAY AWAY!
There is no point with a pre-blurb here as we all know
graphics and sound are the two most looked at elements in any
computer game. When they suck, the game has to have killer
gameplay to make up for its deficiencies in these areas. The
graphics and sound are so primitive that I don't dare compare
Lamentation Sword's multimedia elements with any other game
lest I put that other, unsuspecting game down. To be courteous I
will mention that the sound effects consist of about 4 different
loops of sounds such as an owl hooting and crickets chirping (over
and over and over and over again always the same tone and
pitch). But let us not wallow in the downfalls of the sound effects;
we should try and rejoice in what else this game has to offer. For
those of you who own a PSX and have played silent hill, the voice
acting in Lamentation Sword should be quite familiar, although
much, much worse. The voice acting does not follow an rules of
punctuation or conversational dialogue: it sounds as if the narrator
is illiterate. I'm pretty sick of the sound already so I'll discuss the
hand drawn backgrounds and deliciously disgusting sprites.
Lamentation Sword tries to compare with Baldur's Gate's graphics
but falls so short that the all mighty Gate didn't even flinch. The
Sprites are bland and the animation for fighting and spells consists
of approximately 3, no maybe 4 frames. The backgrounds are OK,
and I stress that blandness to the largest possible degree.
Unfortunately the rest of the terrible graphics, from the red blob
fireball to the "I walk like I have a pole up my ass" animation,
ruins the game completely.
Gameplay takes the simple point and click interface of
Diablo and rips out the good and understandable story, the fun
side quests and the simple complexity that made Diablo so
famous. Instead Lamentation Sword brings boredom quicker
(MUCH quicker) than flossing your teeth. The interface is point and
click but there are also annoying key commands you must
memorize and I didn't see any hot key mapping anywhere in the
game. The story is about some devil being evil and you walking
around beating up creatures to stop the evil devil from being his
evil self. Sound repetitive enough yet? Artificial intelligence in
games has advanced greatly over the past 5 years. But as I
expected Lamentation Sword left me asking, "AI, what's that?"
Other than that there is simply not much more to talk about other
than the gameplay follows the rich tradition that Lamentation
Sword has already shown for itself in its graphics and sound!
The so called "funfactor" rating is pretty damn
subjective, but I can also pretty much guarantee that you won't
even bring that phrase to mind when telling your characters to kill
the next idiotic monster. I did have one person approach me
saying (essentially) that Lamentation Sword was God's gift to man,
but then again some people said that about 3D Railroad Master;
enough said? I thought so.
I couldn't find anyone willing to test multiplayer with me
(or anyone willing to even install this forsaken game) so I'll just
leave this rating blank. But I highly doubt that the graphics, sound
AND gameplay will suddenly leap to new heights once you take up
the game with a friend. But that's just me.
Hmmmmm.. summation, what should I say. Quite
frankly, nothing. Lamentation Sword can't even inspire a totally
made up and BS’ed conclusion so there just ain't going to be one.