One of the good games that demonstrates video games don’t always need a storyline.
- by Christopher Newton
Gauntlet Revisited, a game by Mark Alexander, is a unique top-down RPG that combines RPG elements with… well pretty much bullet hell. You choose your avatar out of four characters and enter the Gauntlet, which is 30 levels of intense action. It starts off nice and simple, but as you progress, new enemies appear; monsters get stronger, faster and even gain new abilities. If you survive, you will be named Champion!
So, you start off with a choice, you can choose: Warrior – who has superior strength, Wizard – who has superior firepower, Ranger – who has superior speed, and Valkyrie – who has superior armour. Each character has a standard ranged weapon, such as a bow or throwing axe, and will also attack enemies and objects that collide with them. I personally chose Valkyrie because I thought it was the most original and got myself straight into the game.
Each level has a dungeon-style layout, filled with treasure, food, enemies, doors and power-ups. Picking up treasure goes towards your experience points, which I believe is simply your score. The enemies spawn constantly from, from I suppose you would call their Barracks. The first monsters you have to face are the slow and incredibly weak skeletons, which spawn from a skull structure. This soon changes however, as you then face the faster ghosts, stronger and sword-throwing equiped knights, flamethrower turrents and many more for a total of over 25 different AI. Also, each level has a time limit until Death arrives, in which he chases you and kills you instantly on contact. However, this is extremely buggy as he appeared once after I died during the game restarting, and he appeared inside a wall and couldn’t move.Even though the game starts off relatively easy, it gets hard quick, and turns into an exciting game! I believe it is quite unique in both it’s style and gameplay.
The graphics are very appealing to me. The effects used add to the atmosphere and feel to the game, but what I’m most impressed by are the overall graphics in the game. The characters look great and are animated in an almost retro way, simple yet beautiful. The actual dungeons change just about every level and each look sophisticated and polished. The objects look great and throughout the game I noticed no clashes or bugs.
The music also sets the scene to a T. Okay, so it wasn’t made by Mark (it was used from www.freeplaymusic.com), but it gives the game a great atmosphere and is usually quite epic. Some of the sound effects are stock which isn’t great but doesn’t take away from the gameplay. The music could have been looped slightly better, but again it’s bearable. You can mute the music during the game too which is a nice addition.
The game is very enjoyable mostly and is a great way to pass the time. It is a little repetitive after a while so it might not suit your taste. All in all, a very solid game and an enjoyable one at that. The game is available for Windows only: http://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=396506
