Written By Shaun McCracken
This review is probably going to be pretty short. My experience with this game
was not a pleasant one. After only playing it for a couple of hours, I never
really felt compelled to play it again, and thank God I never bought it, even though
it goes for cheap. For most repsected gamers, a hour or so is all you need to really
see how flawed and jilted this game is. And what's odd is the developer, Bungie,
went on to do Halo, which is a million-plus seller. I ask, what gives?
Oni's plot is foregettabl. I think it was about this woman who is either programmed
or trained by this organization for a reason, and she must stop a threat from occuring.
She is able to pull off agile (meh) manuvers, and use stealth tactics to subdue
her enemies. Of course, this would be a little more feasible if the controls
were a little more intuitive. So many moves need to be done with so little buttons,
and when timing is everything, things start to fall apart. I demand a little more
accuracy than what was done here. If this game were to follow Syphon Filter's
model, the game would have been a lot more playable.
The graphics, for a PS2 game, are not so hot. While I don't see any pixelation
in textures, which is fine, most of the textures are muddy and washed out. Now
I can understand that the PS2 may have a limited texture capabillity, but I have
seen so much better done with the hardware. Look at Ridge Racer V, another game
released around this one. The textures are nicer, brighter and more detailed.
Here, we're served up some nasty looking mung. Ok, maybe not that nasty, but it's
very uninspiring. And as for the camera, I've seen better ones in Jet Grind Radio.
While Oni's is not that ballistic, you really need to shift around often. And
I know the developers were trying to be helpful by making objects transparent
when you get close to them to prevent the obstruction of your view, but I wish
they hadn't. It looks really strange.
The sound is not that great, either. First of all, where's the music? I would
like to have something to carry the pace rather than abrupt silence or sound clips.
The voice acting is ok, but not enitrely special. I've heard better, and you probably
have too. The effects are on par.
Overall, Oni is a big let-down in terms of it's place in genre. It touts to
be an action game, and rarely delivers the goods. I didn't mention the fact that
enemy placement is rather sparse, but, I told you this review wouldn't be long.
The graphics aren't demonstrative of the "leap" you wanted to see at the time
the console was released. It looks like a really smoothed out 1997 PC game. Oni
is really not worth investing your time in. If you must, rent the game. As for
buying it, take your money and run.
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Oni
