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Haven: Call of the King Review
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Developer |
Traveller's Tales
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| Publisher |
Midway
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| Genre |
Action
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Ambition is something that is, sadly, lacking in much of the video game world. Although there are a lot of excellent titles, many of these are sequels and installments, featuring only marginal improvements upon their predecessors, and it’s rare when someone tries something really new. Well, if anything, the award for a great idea ought to belong solely to Traveller’s Tales, who envisioned a truly epic tale that would merge many styles of gameplay in order to create one of the most innovative gaming experiences perhaps since the beginning of video games. And while the result is not quite as polished, quite as genre-bending as it ought to be, Haven: Call of the King has quite a bit going for it that makes it a fine addition to any platforming fan’s library.
King Athellion has left his world to fight on a crusade, and in his absence an evil warlord named Vetch has enslaved the people and suppressed their memories of the King and of their freedom. Among them is Haven, a young mine worker who dreams of a golden bell and the times before Vetch’s rule, and as any worthwhile hero must do, he acts on these dreams, looking for the key to his dreams and a legendary golden bell that would be able to call the King back to his home world.
Gameplay - If there’s one thing Haven does right in its attempt to be a video game odyssey, it keeps the gameplay fresh. While the bulk of the gameplay is platform-based, with the traditional run-double jump-shoot formula fully intact, Traveller’s Tales have implemented their FreeFormer engine to allow the inclusions of a great number of side sequences such as on-rail shooters, segments that will have you piloting speed-boats, quad-racers and even spaceships, among many others. The sad part is that these are mixed in quality; while it can be quite fun to fly a hang-glider or a jetpack without pulling out my old copy of Pilotwings 64, the simplicity of many of the segments such as the driving and shooting really deters them from benefiting the game in any profound way. One such shooting segment, Cutwater Ferry, really only requires that you mash the fire button endlessly, stopping only to recharge and adjust your aim, while many of the races similarly require that you only hold down on the acceleration button and get lucky. The trouble with this is that there’s no real skill involved in completing these sections, and numerous frustrations can arise. Thankfully, some of the later segments are more fully realized, but it does take a bit of patience to get to them.
But the bulk of the gameplay lies with the platforming engine, and this is one of the better parts of the game. While there are some minor clipping problems, a lot of the goals, while obscure, require some thoughtful puzzle solving. The Isle of Heroes, for example, features a lot of Indiana Jones-like puzzles that are simple but not obvious, and the platforming sections all throughout the game are a great deal more fun because of it. Haven’s main weapon is a modification of the mining tool attached to his wrist, the Mag-Ball. For the purposes of attack it’s basically a yo-yo, but it also serves as a shield, a radar and a fairly critical part of getting to the next destination. The Mag-Ball can also interact with a number of powerups that allow him to shoot various energy from the device, from standard energy shots to spreadfire shots, and a few in between.
Haven’s biggest trouble, however, is that instead of feeling like an epic, genre reinventing title, it feels a good deal like a platformer with a really large collection of mini-games. Although the game structure accommodates the epic feel that the developers tried to capture, the overall design constantly contradicts that premise. It’s hard to feel like you’re changing the fate of the galaxy when you’re collecting golden cogs, even though you’ll be doing so in a number of vast, varied areas. And for a game four years in development, it’s hard to believe that Raggedy Ann-red cornrows was all they could come up with in a main character design - thankfully, some of the supporting cast is more endearing. But the overall design lacks the polish necessary to make it as memorable as it should be.
Graphics - The game’s visual presentation is a mixed bag, at best. While there are many vast, breathtaking environments, and often times if you see something in the distance you’ll end up there before the stage is complete, the graphics up close aren’t quite as refined. There are some nice details, like the fact that Haven puts on his hood every time it starts raining, and the real-time weather and time-of-day effects add to the epic proportions that the game tries to capture. But the animations for Haven’s few moves are standard at best, and there’s a noticeable lack of detail as you get closer to many places in the environments, with some poor quality, if well colored, textures. But the way the game uses scale to add to the epic feel is quite cool, and the size alone is impressive, even if what lies within isn’t quite as consistent.
Sound - Haven is one of the few platform mascots without an incredibly annoying, stereotypical voice. And while his may lack the overwhelming coolness of a Sam Fisher or a Solid Snake, the voice does the job adequately. The whole voice cast isn’t quite as good with a few character stereotypes littered here and there, but it is nice to have cutscenes that won’t make you wince as readily. And the music, while a bit repetitive, is quite well composed, with a sort of ethereal quality about the tunes that fit in the same way that Enya’s theme to Fellowship of the Ring did last year; you wouldn’t expect it to work, but the fusion is surprisingly fitting. There’s nothing that’s too dynamic on either scale, and a lot of the audio presentation is merely standard and has been heard before. But there are quite a few nice touches on all fronts that work to the game’s advantage.
Overall Value -
You can’t blame ’em for trying. Traveller’s Tales has attempted to develop a game that would change the face of gaming as we knew it, and while they didn’t quite find that game, the result is a flawed, but entertaining game with more attempts at innovation then found in all titles combined of most long running game series. With a bit more polish, the gameplay in Haven: Call of the King could have matched the brilliant ideas that fueled the game’s creation, but as it stands, Haven bears checking out, if only to see how to infuse multiple styles of gameplay with efficiency. Until that time, Haven’s gotta get those cornrows undone.
Review by Adam Matlock
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