Helpful advice and links

Find Software: Downloads FTP Search Our Privacy Vow

Realms of the Haunting

After watching a beautifully filmed live-actor cut scene I started playing the game. It seemed to be a 3D shooter in a haunted house. Built with the game engine used for Doom, at first I thought this was just an action game with some puzzles thrown in, ala Resident Evil 2. I was rather taken aback at the first puzzle, it was kind of a real adventure game type puzzle, but still, there was a lot of shooting monsters. I wasn't really too impressed; like most action/adventure games, the action wasn't as compelling as a pure shooter, and I wasn't thrilled with the puzzles. After awhile I stopped playing.

At some point I decided to give the game another chance. I don't know why, probably I was out of good games and I needed something to play. And I found that first impressions are not always right. "Realms of the Haunting" aimed much higher than I would have expected.

ROTH is not a 3D shooter in a haunted house, but rather an elaborate and convoluted action/adventure game about Good, Evil, and the Apocalypse. The protagonist is Adam Randall (played by David Tuomi in the cut scenes), a young, strikingly good-looking young man who has been lured to a spooky old house on a rainy night for reasons I was never quite clear on. There he meets demons, his dead father and a sexy English chick named Rebecca (Emma Powell) who is an expert on magic. Soon he and Rebecca are moving through supernatural realms and chatting up supernatural beings, all the while solving puzzles and killing monsters.

In spite of my initial misgivings, I began to really like ROTH. This is a game that takes its mission to create its own world very seriously. You collect a vast array of documents and relics and with the help of otherworldly beings you learn the entire history of this supernatural realm and your place in it. Rebecca analyzes shrines and relics with a chatty informativeness and throws out dozens, maybe hundreds or historical references just to let you know the game designers did their homework. There is so much information, and the plot is so convoluted, that honestly I had no idea what was going on in the game, but it was pretty entertaining all the same.

The most compelling thing about the game isn't the game itself but is instead the cut scenes. The moody, shadowy look is so effective that you feel the actors are in a real place, even though they were filmed in front of a blue screen and the backgrounds are all computer-generated. The actors are very appealing; Adam is sincere and likable and Rebecca has an adorable accent, although her one expression is a slightly mocking smile that probably got her in a lot of trouble in school ("Is something funny young lady? Wipe that smirk off your face!"). The acting is all good solid British acting.

The puzzles in the early part of the game tend to be rather actiony, involving jumping or finding the way to kill unstoppable beasts. It's more of a very puzzle-intensive action game than an adventure. Later in the game this is reversed: The game has a bunch of hardcore puzzles with a bit of action. These hardcore puzzles vary a good deal. Some are rather clever, such as one where you bounce a flame off of a bunch of floating spheres, some are pure trial and error, and some are solvable, but you've got to be willing to really work at it. I cheated quite often.

Perhaps the worst thing about the game is its obsession with labyrinths. There are a lot of maze-like areas in the game, 2 hedge mazes, an otherworldly portal that goes on and on, a twisty set of passages that you have to fully explore, which can take hours, and at least one other. There are actually maps to these mazes, but they are difficult to use. ROTH has a small viewing screen for reading documents and viewing maps. Really small. You can only look at a bit of a map at one time, which is not the way to look at a map. I actually drew a couple of the maps out so I could look at them properly. This was very aggravating. (The viewing of documents is also a pain, because you can only read a paragraph at a time, besides which sometimes the writing is illegible. There's a similar problem when there are long, difficult to read prophesies on the walls).

The action, as I've said, is not as good as in a straight shooter. There are monsters and demons and you shoot them, basically. Nothing tricky. There's also the occasional jump, including one that's almost impossible and that you're forced to do twice. One thing I discovered near the end is that monsters can get shot accidentally by other bad guys, which I liked.

Visually, the game is pretty good for a 1996 3D shooter. There's more decoration than in a regular shooter, with paintings, fancy wallpapers, skeletons and the like. The sound is generally okay, except when you walk on the stairs it sounds like your shoes are made of rock.

Rather in spite of myself I found this game quite engrossing. Maybe I'll find someone someday who can explain the story to me.

-- Charles Herold -2000

Glitches:I had two serious problems. First I got locked in a house it's not supposed to be possible to get locked in. Fortunately I found someone in a game newsgroup who had a save file past that point. Later I found a place with symbols for the four elements, but I could only see two of them. Someone familiar with that bug said just click where they should be, and he was right, they actually are there, just invisible.