Chaser Hands-On

The FPS genre has emerged in full-bloom over the years, and we have yet another action FPS coming our way. Created by Cauldron, the Slovakia based development team, Chaser features an exciting plot with non-stop action, solid 3D graphics, over 45 challenging missions, and a wide range of authentic weaponry for players to toy with. Although it may not arrive at the best possible time (since it's bound to face strong competition), Chaser has numerous characteristics and traits that could easily occupy your attention until the "big fishes" such as Half-life 2 and Doom III emerge.

Dude, look! It's John Carmack, and he's working on Doom 3!

All this "chasing" makes me wanna doze off in this 'ere Hotel!

Chaser entangles players deep within in a futuristic storyline, set in the year 2044, when the UN established the so-called MARSCORP (Martian Security and Economics Committee) under the leadership of Samuel Longwood. Gradually, the UN lost control of MARSCORP and its ruthless and deceitful director. Other factions and companies that oppose MARSCORP's policies, have requested a change in the system and Longwood's immediate resignation. Things went wrong when Longwood refused to stand down and that's when you step into the shoes of John Chaser. At first, John is unaware of his full purpose and why he's being hunted by a bunch of soldiers trying to turn him into Swiss cheese. Along the way, he'll be going to various locations such as Montack City on Earth, Siberia, and finally to Mars - which is where your journey comes to an end and the mystery finally gets wrapped up. It will be a long and hard ride...

Before you start the game, you'll be able to choose between a single-player campaign and a CS-style multiplayer mode. Similarly to Bungie's HALO and Valve's Half-life, the main character begins his journey unarmed, facing destruction and danger all around him. To make things even worse, he will be chased (ha, Chaser gets chased, what a funny coincidence) by squads of shock troops that are after his head. At the very beginning, you're taken through a dynamic set of scripted events. More of these are present throughout the entire game and help keep the pace of gameplay nice and high. This is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game, thanks to which you are bound to keep on playing for a significant amount of time without getting bored. To make the situation even more exciting John Chaser will have occasional flashbacks - sudden images will flash across the screen during the gameplay, adding "shot of adrenaline" to the player and a sense of authenticity to the whole experience. (How in the hell do they achieve that?! - Ed.)

From what we've seen, Chaser seems to present a simple and rather fluid gameplay style. The first couple of levels are somewhat linear, but as you progress, the game gets more involving and the missions become more interesting. Even though the game is set fifty years in the future, Chaser will allow players to fiddle around with various classic FPS weapons, such as the 9mm semi-automatic pistol, Beretta M12, Ingram M10 sub-machine gun, H&H G11, Calico MX 950, GDL2B, TAFF20 (a mighty and rather delightful four-barreled canon), Colt Commando, Famas, etc. FPS devotees will be pleased to know that the main character can use an advanced version of the AK-47 - you can't beat the feeling of firing that baby! We didn't get to try out all the available weapons, but those we tested proved to be, well, effective against enemies. The entire arsenal seems to offer just enough firepower for players to deal out justice to the various villains and enemy soldiers that appear throughout the game.

Enemies we encountered in this version didn't exhibit any out of the ordinary AI behavior. Make no mistake though, your opponents are tough, and it will take you some time to defeat them, especially when they act in groups. Although, ironically, these "tough guys" get confused sometimes if something blocks their path (like debris from an explosion) and they often get stuck when going around corners. So, clearly, they have some pathfinding and scripting-related issue. Also, enemy troops won't begin to vary until you've progressed several stages through the game. The situation improves later on however. Along your dangerous journeys you'll be running into units of the Federal Army, Arctic Soldiers, MarsCorps, Exoskeletons, and others.

Chaser rests and tries to remember the past...

One of my favorite weapons in action! Oh yeah!

About two years ago, when the game was initially announced, we saw great potential in terms of graphics. The game's release was primarily scheduled for 2002, and we expected it to be one of the best-looking FPS titles at the time. For some reason the game didn't hit the market on time and was pushed back. As a result, and thanks to the incredibly fast-paced progress of gaming technology, Chaser could quite easily get lost in the shuffle of superior FPS titles that are coming our way this year. Still, the game does have cool and unique visual elements that are powered by Cauldron's in-house engine, CloakNT - which appears to do a satisfactory job. The in-game physics appear to have been tweaked well, although we didn't observe any radical innovations that might be worth mentioning. The designers did, however, make an effort to add a few nice details to the in-game background; so players will see detailed texture patterns which actually represent distinctive materials (this can only be made out if you look close enough). A few nice touches were added to certain areas - for instance, some of the tubes and pipes in the hallways have demonstrated realistic-looking reflections, which is not much, but it certainly adds a special flare of realism to some of the levels. Just so you don't get the wrong idea, the game was supplemented with a solid amount of visual extras, like a topnotch skeletal animation (which makes those characters move and act genuinely, also displaying a decent range of different death animations) and let's not forget the popular Matrix inspired Bullet Time mode... Overall, we noticed the graphics are a wee bit outdated and that the overall visual quality is slightly below those we've recently witnessed in Elite Force 2, and that's a bit of a downer since the game still has to go through its US launch.

We also expected a bit more from the sound designing team - especially after hearing that the music composer was previously involved with several successful movie projects. Anyhoo, after playing the game for some time we could make out fairly repetitive sounds. Still, on an overall note, things aren't that bad and the game does posses a number of enjoyable tunes that sometimes make things a bit more exciting.

All things considered, we still believe that Chaser may be the right choice for FPS fans when it comes out. Why? Basically, because it issues forth a simple gameplay recipe that proved to be very effective and popular in the past. You know, a series of scripted events, almost constant action, the plot unfolds unexpectedly, solid and not too demanding graphics, and straightforward gameplay mechanics. In addition to that, multiplayer fans could enjoy the game's CS inspired modes that supports up to 64 players in LAN and Internet variants.