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Oni by Rockstar Games
for Playstation 2
Review
by : Craig
Youngblood
Oni
is an action/fighting/shooter game combination from upstart
company Rockstar Games and Bungie. It stars a young special
agent named Konoko who knows very little about her past and
even less about the shadowy company she works for. With it’s
very anime feel, this game sets the stage for a unique blend
of intrigue and fighting.
Graphically,
the game has its points. The character animations are smooth
and crisp, and the moves feel right. If you have Konoko do
a jump kick, that’s what it looks like. While the characters’
mouths don’t move while they’re speaking, they’re animated
pretty well. Each group of people has a unique outfit, and
it’s easy to avoid shooting innocents in confusion. The backgrounds
of the game can be very bland at times, and I’m not sure if
Rockstar games was going for a cyberpunk/corporate feel to
the game, or if they just didn’t put more effort into it.
I vote somewhere in the middle.
 Controls
are very difficult and frustrating at times. It uses both
analog sticks to move, very similarly to Timesplitters.
There were times when my perspective changed and I ended up
taking a beating from an enemy who was behind me or at an
angle that I couldn’t see him. Additionally, shooting was
difficult for me. I found that after the first few shots if
I didn’t kill my opponent it was better to holster that smoke-wagon
and use fisticuffs than it was to try and move and shoot.
Aiming on the run? Forget it. And that's really too bad because
there’s some pretty damn cool guns in the game. My favorite
was the mini-missile launcher, which could just annihilate
your enemy.
Gameplay
is pretty straightforward--it’s a story mode. Auto-saves are
frequent enough that I didn’t have to repeat a large section,
but when I did die, waiting to reload took a long time for
a PS2 game. I expect more than that.
The sound
acting on the game is pretty decent, but at times the game
would hiccup and repeat a phrase right over another character
actor. I don’t know if this was just my copy of the game,
but it was damned annoying at times. Sound effects and mood
music were both pretty solid.
While
it sounds like this game wasn’t that strong, I literally couldn’t
put it down. If I had free time, I was playing the game. It
definitely has its weak points, but learning new fighting
techniques, the overall feel of the graphics, and the story
kept me coming back. This is another game I’d recommend to
pick up if it at all interests you. At bare minimum, rent
it and beat up on the computer for a few hours. It’s fun.
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