Severance: The Blade of Darkness Review

I feel saddened to admit this, and I hope none of the "violence in games" committees are reading this, but the best thing about the combat is the mutilation and the dismemberment. It's so deliciously juicy (bloody) that I caught myself handing a few of my opponents an extra blow or two just to see their heads bounce off the ground and roll down the slope... I know, I know... violence in gaming... yada, yada... but hey! It's one of the few reasons why someone would want to buy this game! A couple of other combat features that seemed cool-enough are the possibility to throw melee weapons at your opponents, like in that execution scene in Gladiator, and the decent AI, which vigilantly detects your presence, and can even switch between long-range (long bows) and melee weapons during a fight.

A fountain of blood.

Cool lighting.

Blade of Darkness also features the aforementioned RPG elements, which comprise of your ability to use different weapons, and have higher levels of attack and defense... The usual stuff, although it's not by any means a pivotal element of gameplay. It seems that the programmers just didn't have enough RPG experience to properly balance out the amount of experience to the amount of abilities gained ratio.

Finally, the third segment of Blade's gameplay, besides the combat and RPG elements is the running/jumping, action-adventure part. I don't feel like spending too much time on this... Let's just say: spikes, ceilings (with spikes) coming down on your head, Indiana / Lara rolling giant boulders, and a lot of keys, locks, and levers...

The Looks and Sounds...

There's been a lot of talk about Blade's visuals and steep hardware requirements... The good news is, the game played fine on max detail on my workhorse PIII 550 / GeForce / 128RAM rig. The bad news is, the engine is not what it's all cranked up to be... First and foremost, there is the choppy, two-frame animation. However, some of the in-game physics like the tumbling parts of a smashed crate, and of course the limb chopping exhibit some high-quality and realistic physical properties, which are, along with some great texture work (the water looks incredible), real-time lighting, and shadowing by far the best aspects of the visual experience. The characters and environments, on the other hand lack polys, and are rather blocky by today's standards. Blade's 3D engine is an eclectic mix of good and bad code, which really needed more work to reach its full potential. The wow-factor of the ambient reflected in soft and realistic lights, nicely done transitions between differently lighted interiors, highly believable real-time shadows, crisp textures, and some advanced physics is unfortunately thwarted by a weak animation system, and a low poly-count of the environments. That's from a technical point of view. From an artistic point of view, the level design definitely needs more variety... After a while, many levels start looking alike... At least big chunks of them do... And that's never good for an action adventure game.

The sound effects could've used some more work as well... The musical score is atmospheric enough, but some of the moaning and groaning of your lead hero can get tedious after a while. I also expected to hear more metal-on-metal sounds during combat, and maybe some sparks to go with it (Highlander style), but then again, there was none of that in Blade either...

The Wrap-up...

Phew, there you go... If I were you, I'd give this one a miss... Unless you're really crazy about some gory chopping, nice textures, and light play... Hell, that's a good enough reason for many to buy this game, so if that's your main thing, then go ahead and buy Blade. However, if your expectations go a tad higher then that, I suggest you leave this title alone... Yeah, it's tough for the developers... but I wouldn't want you spending your hard-earned cash on something that doesn't fully justify its price tag either...