Reviewed by: Various
Developer: Ion Storm
Publisher: Eidos Interactive

It's been a long time in coming, but finally we can now stop worrying our little tiny minds over where this little gem has got to. Yes folks, the Daikatana demo is now ready for you, and at 102Mb in size, gives you plenty of time to prepare yourself for the experience. At this time, the rumours fly around that indeed the full game has gone gold. Saints be praised!

I thought for this occasion I'd do a different style review. The setting .. DNM's house, the attendees .. DNM, Belshy and Ebow .. The following are excerpts from the in depth analysis on Ion Storm's fabled masterpiece.

Belshy : Let's play the new AvsP Gold Edition maps over the LAN.

Ebow : Yes, hurrah! Let's!

DNM : Hold on guys, I downloaded the Daikatana demo last night. I'm sure as the both of you suffer from terminal modem-out-cast-in-the-wildernessitus disease, you'd appreciate a quick spin?!

Belshy : Oh god yes! I've been waiting for this one.

Ebow : Excellent! I don't quite believe the bad press I've read thus far. Surely after three years and more, it's bound to deliver a killer punch to the Q3 and UT community.

Belshy - Hell yes!! HELL YES!!

DNM - Gather round then my friends. Get ready for an experience to behold.

(much mumbled excited talk between Belshy and Ebow)

DNM - This menu system is wonderful, really intuitive. I particularly like the fact the mouse button settings are done in a completely different section to the keyboard. When I went to bind Mouse 1 and 2 in the keyboard section, it didn't respond to it. A different approach .. I like it!

Belshy - Hey, I like the whole menu look to be honest. It looks like it was done about three years ago, looks nicely archaic.

Ebow - I'm amazed already. Can we just stay at the menu a while longer please?

DNM - Sorry mate, the whole point to this is to look at the game itself.

Ebow - M'okay. (Lights a cigarette) I'm ready.

(DNM launches the game into action)

DNM - Check out this loading screen. It gives a false impression of doing absolutely nothing, when all of a sudden the little bullet loading bar kicks into action. Marvellous. I really thought my PC had crashed the first time.

Belshy - That must've been worrying mate. Mind you, the whole thing is already oozing atmosphere and we haven't got into the game yet!

Ebow - I'm positively cacking my pants here .. I can't look!

Belshy - Be brave Sir Ebow, for it is but a game, not a reality.

(Meanwhile the level Marsh has loaded after 30 odd seconds)

DNM - Look!!!

Ebow - Oh my god!

Belshy - It's very green. In fact it only appears to be green.

DNM - It's so that it makes it nigh on impossible to know where you're going, or whether you've just walked past a weapon or not. Ah here's a weapon, let's fire it.

Weapon - Ftzzzz! Bang!

Ebow - It fires green too. The imagination that's gone into this is unfathomable.

DNM - I love the movement. This is only in 800x600, and it's superbly jerky, adding a real edge of realism. I can't wait to try it in 1024x768.

Belshy - Man alive!! Check out that metallic looking frog! Mummy!?! Are you there mummy?!

Ebow - Calm down Belshy, DNM's got rid of it, though it was oh so very close. I'm more worried about those pesky mosquito things. There ought to be some sort of warning about these things.

DNM - I can't play this anymore, I'm too nervous. Belshy take over.

(Belshy reluctantly takes the controls .. A man honed on AvsP scariness, entering new realms of pain!)

Belshy - Wow! Check out the shadows underneath the characters. I mean look, even the torch holders cast an eery little dot of shadow. Now that's attention to detail.

Ebow - All the characters have wonderful rugby ball shaped shadows underneath them too. There's been no skimping on quality here.

DNM - I'm more impressed with the torch flames, especially how they don't cause any flicker or shadow movement whatsoever. I mean heck, why bother with such extremes eh? Who wants that level of realism anyway.

Ebow - I thought for one second that they'd carefully crafted those skeletons from polygons. Alas no, but hell, they look very frightening.

DNM - I cannot believe we have waited this long for this. I was expecting some form of groundbreaking technology going on. Maybe to be wowed by some Q3 beating engine. Instead, the whole thing has a Hexen 2 feel about it .. Which would've been fine three years ago. For them to expect us to buy this tripe is an utter insult. As we discussed, this game just shouldn't have been released .. simple! Cancel the product, give out the apologies, forget it ever happened. Or failing that, at least release it as a Q2 add-on at a cut price. It's utter toilet, and unforgivably poor.

Belshy - My highlights :- The big headed enemy with a sock on its head that went "Whoopee!!" when you shot it; the flame torches on the walls that had absolutely no effect lighting-wise on their surrounding environment; the little static rounded shadows (why?) underneath the torches on the floor; the little round shadows under anything that moved, even the tiny spiders with hardly enough body mass to cast such a dense shadow as if everything was being lit by a 60 watt bulb from above; the totally kick-ass Gas Hand weapon; the floating raft made of solid granite; the Robot Frogs that really showed AvsP a thing or two about inspiring fear; the blue and green stuff that is meant to be water but that doesn't have any opacity when you're under it; the way they've managed to make the Q2 engine look 10X worse than the Hexen 2 engine; the big belly laugh it gave me and two other Alfies when we absolutely ripped this pile of steaming crap to pieces.

Ebow - (I think Ebow is writing an email to Ion Storm themselves. Results will be posted.)

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Note: This review used the old ratings system and only the final score is applicable.