Tekwar

SHATNER’S TEKWAR SAGA CONTINUES

A Review of Tekwar

by Derek F. Tarvin

Enter the future in the year 2045 as depicted in William Shatner’s TEKWAR

series. If you haven’t had the pleasure of reading the novels or seeing the

TV program, here’s the skinny on the situation. In this futuristic city of

the GLAMA (Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area), cyberspace is a reality,

and of course their exists an opportunistic group out to exploit this new

arena, the TekLords. The drug of the future is Tek and the group who lead

the spread of this new drug are the TekLords. Your objective is to scour the

city for these scum of society and stop their plans to distribute Tek

through the cyberspace network known as the Matrix.

Walter Bascom (William Shatner) opens the game with instructions regarding

who your target is and reminds you that either you achieve your goal or get

put back into cryoprison. By the way, you’ve only been thawed out to thwart

the efforts of the TekLords and gain back your credibility that was lost

when you were framed for selling Tek! The story is a great premise for any

game but you’ll quickly lose sight of any such supporting story.

TEKWAR falls into the same genre as the DOOM-style games, which have reared

their ugly heads ever since the creation of the original. TEKWAR was

doubtfully meant to be a DOOM-killer, but more so an example in 3D virtual

reality environments becoming an integral part of PC gaming.

This first

person shooter is rehashing a style that has been seen many times before,

but if these kind of improvements in a virtual environment can be made,

maybe these “DOOM-children” should be welcomed instead of mocked.

The player starts by being briefed (barked at) by Mr. Bascom, and then

you’re thrown into the subway level among other civilians and police

personnel. You should begin by searching everywhere and obtaining as many

weapons and supplies as possible. The weapons are what you might expect with

items like a pistol, a stun gun, and even energy round weapons. As with

other games of this type, you utilize an assortment of weapons while trying

to obtain the needed key cards to get to your final target in each level.

Once you enter the subway train and exit on any of the next stops, you’ll

quickly see where TEKWAR excels: graphics. Running in SVGA mode, the

buildings, people, and moving vehicles show great detail, at least from a

distance. Each level has everything that you might expect from a big city

with people actively going about their business in it. Businessmen and

women, police, vehicles, and TekGoons are all walking about the area giving

the city its live element.

They’re all integrated in this sci-fi environment

in places like banks, pool halls, beaches, drug labs, and hi-tech industry.

All the characters wear distinguishable and appropriate clothing and the

buildings have equal detail. The big city is even detailed to the extent

that the bathroom mirror shows your reflection and the underwater areas have

fish swimming around. Even the abstract cyberspace level, the Matrix, is

intricately designed with its own adversaries and environment. It’s this

very detail which feeds the interest in gameplay even in the game’s lack of

direction.

Every area of the city has a distinctive background sound and the people in

it react vocally to your actions. When you pull out your weapon, the women

will cower and yell “Run, he’s got a gun!” and the police will tell you to

“Drop the weapon!” Even the sound effects like a speedboat, or jumping into

water, are interdispersed with techno music that’ll bring your midi card

alive. If you’re not partial to using doors, be sure to shoot out a window

or two to gain entry into some buildings with a “crash!” Unfortunately,

there are also sounds which are quite annoying and mysterious as to what

they are supposed to signify. The general feel for the sound mixed in with

stunning graphics even surpasses other 3D shooter counterparts like RISE OF

THE TRIAD or NUKEM 3D.

The player uses the all-too-familiar first person interface while running

and shooting. Though joystick and mouse support are provided, most users

will find the keyboard the best way to execute movement. Since this

interface is familiar to most, the only thing that needs to be mentioned is

the “aim & shoot” element. While running around, strafing, and opening doors

are commonly known, trying to aim your weapon and get your reticule

crosshairs on an opponent isn’t easily orchestrated. Instead of being two

operations well-integrated with one another, the player will usually have to

encounter a TekGoon at close range and then begin to aim their weapon of

choice. There’s little hope of dodging any incoming fire and keep in mind

they can still hit you from blocks away. Your best strategy is find their

location and unload more rounds then they do as fast as you can.

If you’ve not already grown tiresome of these type of “kill everything that

moves” games, then the environment should be enthralling enough to keep your

interest in searching on for the keys needed to reach the level’s TekLord.

Don’t expect any help from the manual or the software in achieving your

goal. You are forced to aimlessly scavenge every area you can find without

any rhyme or reason for your efforts.

Though entertaining as it might be to

stun an annoying cop, or gun down a wimpy businessman, any hint of a story

line or clues in making progress in this story are lost. At least between

levels Bascom verbally slaps you on the hand for killing innocent civilians

in the city, but you are never really punished for obliterating the city

dwellers. It’s hard to not blow someone away when they cowardly scream

“Don’t shoot me!”, especially when you can see them wilt to the ground and

watch the blood splatter on the wall and drip its way down. If this level of

gore bothers you, just set the blood factor down a notch. To aid in your

search for the great unknown, be sure to make use of the map feature, which

will help you thoroughly search each level.

TEKWAR has the potential of having one of the best introductions ever seen

without even having to do anything but duplicate the TV series.

Unfortunately, the introduction, along with all the other video sequences,

are intolerably grainy and too low resolution to enjoy the seemingly

entertaining content. The only other shortcoming in the graphics might be

when you get real close up to some of the objects in the game. From a

distance the graphics are a force to be reckoned with, but up close they

start to show their true detail. Your opponents will also show no real

detail in intelligence since the cops instantly forget you killed someone

once you withdraw your weapon and even TekGoons don’t pursue you.

An added extra to TEKWAR is its multiplayer capability which should help

overcome the AI shortcomings. Capstone boasts a 2-16 player network

possibility. Be sure to grab the patch from the vendor to ensure easy set up

for modem play though. The players will most likely have to lower their

resolution in order to avoid lag or “warping” of opponents. Also note that

the full features of each level won’t be fully accessible from multiplayer

mode. As with almost any game that offers this modem option, you haven’t

fully explored a game until you play head to head with one or more real-life

opponents, who show no lack of intelligent reactions. TEKWAR is no exception

to this rule.

The game is quite easy to install and the only software protection is that

the CD be present in your drive. Though some of the graphics have been well

refined, other features of the product seem to have been disabled due to

rushing the game to the market. For example, don’t bother trying to pick up

crucial items bobbing in the water or the blue grenade charges. If your

haphazard efforts are trying your patience, try one of the cheats to adjust

your weapon arsenal or health.

Overall, TEKWAR includes a highly detailed 3D environment which is only

rivaled by the best. The gameplay lacks a sense of direction and

accomplishment, thereby hindering longterm playability. The graphics and

sound are certainly enough to capture your attention for a short while, but

as time passes, the lack of AI and sense of completing anything related to a

story, handicap the game heavily. Capstone has certainly come out of its

shell with this game and if this is any sign of what they can generate,

watch out for their next debut which might have ALL the finishing touches.

TEKWAR is a game well-worth checking out and if you’re uncertain about

buying it, try out the demo and get a taste of what flavor it offers.

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	Tekwar
Company:	Capstone 501 Brickell Key Drive, 6th Floor Miami, FL 33131 (305)373-7700 www.gate.net/~intracor/tekwar.html

Cost:

$59.99

Minimum:
486/50, MS DOS 5.0+, 2X CD-ROM,
8MB RAM, 40MB HD space, VGA or SVGA video card.
Additional:
Most major sound cards, joystick, 9600bps modem for modem play,
IPX network for multi-player games.
Preferred:
486DX4/100 for VGA, Pentium 90 for SVGA,
2MB PCI or VLB video card,
16-bit Sound Blaster compliant sound card.
NOTE: 640×480 mode requires a 512K VESA compatible video card.