Immercenary (1995)

Preliminary Solid plot, great intro video, and wow that ambieint music gave me chills. Love this. I have a feeling the controls and gameplay wont hold up to this absolutely amazing beginning, the music, the immersion as a first person "number 5" the tension like you're really entering it, almost has a Twin Peaks sound and aesthetic but sci-fi. Hard to explain. Plus, an attempt to infuse RPG and first-person shooter ("Doom-like" at the time :-p ). Ambitious and great music and great Look. So, no matter what it at least deserves recognition with a 3 star.

Ok these polygonal people are a bti silly, but the death sequence is amazing, as is the way you are shown your stats etc. Almost roguelike in that you die then have your stats updated and return.

The controls are a bit clunky as others have said, but not bad imo. It is brutal that they just throw you in, luckily I had read up about it and knew to hide away in the safe zoen asap and use that as a training spot a la an Inn/Town in an RPG. Plus the neutral area tune is amazing.

Interesting, and you run low on, say, Attack, and then go to a Red Spire to heal that back up. The controls are quite clunky so I probly wont play through this but thisr eally is an itneresting and well-done game, even if imperfect. Oh wow now there's a storm too

Great game, arguably worth fully playing through nowdays, btu definiteyl worth checking out, playtesting, or at least watching some of a playthrough.

Look: 8.5/10 Yes

Sound: 9/10 Heck yes

Play: 7.5/10 Kinda yes. The run/walk part is a bit frustrating but I got used to it. It was my main barrier to playing more of it tho.

Feel: 8/10 Great plot and cutscenes, and ahead of its time in many features. It almost felt like OSRS/Runescape classic Wildy, or another pvp situation, which is what they wanted to recreate anyway. It'd be neat if those were actual other players

Attachment: 8/10 I just sent my younger brother countless videos of this so yea. I likely will replay it, watch a video of it, and/or show others

Overall: 8.2/10

Immercenary may seem clunky in terms of control and can grind a little at first, but its incredibly engaging and open world along with weird and wonderful sci-fi plot make this game absolutely worth playing.

Dr. Marcus Rand was contacted from the future by an astral projection of a woman who warns him that all of humanity will be trapped in a virtual reality network called "Perfect". Focusing on projecting a person's mind forward into the future and into Perfect, you are an operative sent into Perfect to shoot and destroy those in the network to gain stats and climb the ranks until you can destroy Perfect1, the operating system of the network.

The game is a FPS on a flat plane, where the player can accelerate forward (and fully stop), sidestep, and use three configurable buttons to shoot, use special weapons/powerups, and use the map. The player has three stats (Defense, Offense, Agility) that determine how much health the player has, how much attack they have before they need a recharge, and how much they can move. While the world has spires that recharge these values, it can be tricky at first to keep such small numbers up. By killing enemies and absorbing their essence by running into the static clouds they leave behind, the player can get a stat boost that is reflected by a rising rank from 255 to 1.

While the player can move around the world and explore to their leisure, the center is a large spire called the DOAsys. The player can choose to talk to enemies instead in this neutral zone, asking about powerups and weapons along with the 11 bosses that rank at the top of Perfect. While the other enemies are abstract-looking humanoids most of the time, these have stranger forms like a cosplaying orc, a slick silver siren, a disgusting fly woman, a man made of ribbon, and other such strange sights.

The land of Perfect itself is a bit blocky but wondrous to behold, with a large streaming world filled with lonely landmarks and somewhat urban looking destinations under a sky that occasionally storms menacingly. The music is mostly ambient but can rock and flare some techno here and there to keep things busy. The FMV is used to interesting degree with comic panel style dialogues outside of Perfect and fully acted portraits of the bosses when you talk to them.

Immercenary is a weird and wonderful game with a strange control scheme, an odd stat system, and a variety of colorful characters. For one of the only exclusives for the 3DO, it is certainly worth playing if you have the console.