Abstract:
Bungie Software presents Oni - a single-player blend of action and adventure that combines the best elements of shooters and fighting games into a near-future epic featuring anime-style action and characters. Oni's third-person vantage point casts gamers in the role of Konoko, a heroine with a vast arsenal of fighting moves - including kicks, punches, throws and combos, as well as finishing moves. But she can also wield powerful weapons - from machine guns to plasma cannons - as she maneuvers her way through an increasingly dark storyline.

Technology:
Bungie has created a very solid graphics engine with a many strengths. It’s ability to render very large levels, for example an airport, complete with runways and 747’s, is quite amazing. Frame rates always stayed high and smooth, even with a number of bad guys attacking.

The camera, and its ability to move and keep up with the ever changing viewpoint of hand-to-hand combat, is the best I’ve seen. Gone are the days when your character would get so close to the camera that the view became useless. The camera in Oni has the ability to zoom everywhere, and when it hits a wall, it keeps zooming and the wall becomes transparent. It might sound odd, but it works very well.

The character animation in Oni is also second to none. The hand to hand fighting, the running, the flipping - all perfect. The movement is fluid, the punches and kicks all look great and the physics feel right.

The sound in Oni is also first class. Guns sound like guns, punches sound like they hurt and everyone is grunting and moaning when fighting. Voice acting is good, and the voices definitely fit into the whole Anime inspired genre. My complaint is that the characters lips don’t move. In fact, instead of even trying to make a character look like he’s talking – the developers added little pop-up 2D windows to show who’s supposed to be talking. This takes place mostly in the cut-scenes, but I found it a bit uninspiring.

The only disadvantage that I crossed was some clipping problems with enemies and walls. Knock a guy out too close to the wall and you lose half of him through the wall. Walk out side the room, and the rest of him is found. This isn’t a big deal to me, and it never affected the game, it’s just one of those things that tends to happen in these types of games.

Gameplay:
I found Oni to be a mix of action and adventure. You have certain objectives to accomplish, and on the way to doing this you’ll search levels, fight bad guys and help innocents. You are guided to your objectives by your com-link with to HQ. In addition to being told what to do, you’re given a compass to guide you through the levels.

Oni is a game about hand-to-hand combat. In the past, many PC games have tried (Die by the Sword and Rune come to mind) but none have come even close to Oni. The fighting is excellent. It reminds me of a 3 dimensional Tekken. Konoko has a variety of punch and kick combos at her disposal, and as the game goes on, you’re alerted (via you’re com-link) when you’ve learnt a new move. Press F1, and you’ll be instructed as to how to perform the new move (as well as several other bits of information).

The bad guys that you’ll encounter are varied. Some will fight hand-to-hand; others will bring a wide assortment of guns to the fight. Beat them up, take their guns, and use them on their owners. Shooting projectiles works quite well, just aim targeting sight and click button, you can even still kick people when holding a gun. Getting these guns can prove a challenge sometimes. Many a time I faced an enemy about 50 feet in front of me, and had to get to him, while dodging his fire. But once you’re there, laying a flying kick to his head always sends the gun a flying, and brings up the question “Kung-Fu or Gun-Fu?”

My biggest complaint about Oni is the inability to save when you want to. I hate this. On one occasion, I fought through dozens of bad guys, worked my way across walkways above boiling acid, beat up more bad guys (all taking target practice at me) only to miss one dumb jump, fall into acid and then get restarted at the game’s last save point – about 30 minutes back. Note to game developers: If am playing your games on a PC, we have hard drives, big hard drives, we can save games without the need of memory cards – give us the opportunity to. Usually, if a game is too lame to include user controlled saves, I won’t play it. But to Oni’s credit, I kept playing.

I also didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t re-assign any keys. If you like using the W,A,S,D keys, you’ll be alright, but I want to ability to use whatever keys suit me. The lack of save games, and the inability to re-assign keys probably come from the fact that Oni is also developed for consoles, like Playstation 2. But come on; take the time to know what PC players like. It’s not hard.

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