Crusader: No Regret

Preview By Al Giovetti
Price: $36-$39
Genre: combat adventure
Release: September 1997
Developer: Origin
Producer: Tony Zurovec
Lead Programmer: Jason Ely
Lead Artist: Terry Manderfeld
Lead Designer: Mark Vittek
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Phone: 415-571-7171
Website: www.ea.com/origin/english/prod-info/pc-cd/coming-soon/no-regret/index.html
Requirements: Intel 486/66+ or 100% compatible PC system, 8 MB RAM, 55 MB hard disk space, VESA or PCI local bus video, MS-DOS 5.0 or higher, Double speed or faster CD-ROM,
GRAPHICS: 256-color VESA compatible SVGA,
INTERFACES SUPPORTED: keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick, MUSIC,
SPEECH/SOUND EFFECTS: Sound Blaster/SB Pro/SB 16/SB AWE or 100% compatible sound card, Ensoniq SoundScape, Gravis UltraSound (all music is digital)
RECOMMENDED: Intel Pentium ® 60+, 12+ MB RAM, quad speed CD-ROM s_ely04.gif - 13.1 K

Plot: In this sequel to Crusader: No Remorse, you are a renegade Silencer, who has fallen in the the Rebels who oppose the World Economic Consortium. You are on your way to a big moon base, and while you are there you kill everything living and destroy everything else, preferably in the largest explosion or fire possible. You play the protagonist, the guy in the day glow shiny red suit after the bad guy Chairman Dragan.

Missions: There are ten missions this time with five new environments. The purpose is obvious, destroy or kill everything. Money is no longer a factor in the game, so you can spend more time killing and destroying. No more wasted time to search for credits.

Opponents: Many new characters people No Regret, including civilians, soldiers, and servomechs with morphing and stealth abilities.

Combat: Remorse is a third person perspective, overhead oblique game similar to the Ultima VIII title. The combat is conducted in real-time with tons of things happening at once. Tony Zurovek shared his pholosophy with us, "For a game like "Crusader", players should always be inundated with new things--monsters, puzzles, maps. I don't want to create a game that leaves people wandering around with nothing to do--except to maybe find one red keycard--once they've killed all the enemies in a maze." The plot of the conflict is linear, you must keep moving, killing, and solving puzzles. No remorse has advanced character control and fighting tactics, and a multitude of even more devious traps and puzzles. New combat moves include forward dives and kneeling side-steps for a total of 21 fast-action maneuvers. The game also features devastating new weapons and spectacular death effects that let you disintegrate, melt, crystallize, freeze, and shatter your hapless opponents. A new high quality compression engine speeds up animation and smoothes out gameplay.

Puzzles: Relate to what door switch to push, what camera to shoot, how and when to use computer terminals, and many other three dimensional relationships within the graphics. s_new01.gif - 14.2 K

Graphics: cooperated with the game’s main purpose and explosions, blown up machinery, and death scenes are nicely animated with full attention to details. Items have their own personal form for being blown up, so that the mounds of slag look different from destruction to destruction. When dying, unless burnt to death which is the most spectacular death available, the corpses produce a red shiny pool of blood.

Cut Scenes. Full motion video (FMV) cut scenes occur between missions to keep the action going. An elaborate video production will supply the player with mission updates and feedback as you proceed through the Consortiums lunar base.

Art: They have clearly worked on the art, making it smoother, and more attractive.

Puzzles: There are wheels to turn, switches to find, alarms to disable, security systems to bypass, automated weapons platforms to control, cameras to destroy, and other actions that insure that, in spite of al the death and mayhem, you will not be discovered until it is too late.

Music: 16-bit digital stereo surround sound. Tony likes the sound and had this to say about it, "Jason Ely developed the music system on his own time at home. It's a digital instrument format that does what most of the higher end sound cards do with wave table synthesis. The big benefit is even people with $40 cards get phenomenal sound. People with general MIDI also get good sound, although we're not fully utilizing their hardware."

Sequel madness: This is a sequel and the cry will go up from some that this is no different from the predecessor game. Many will be disappointed that the game is virtually unchanged from Crusader: No Remorse, while others will applaud the good sense in not changing a good thing.

What impressed me the most was the effects of your continual mayhem. Items in the game were permanently changed by your passing. Yes you can blow everything up, and it looks like you blew it up after you go past.

References:
Peter Olafson, Computer Gaming World, number 146, September, 1996, pg. 133-134.
Zach Meston, Crusader No Remorse, volume 2, number 9, February, 1996, pg. 52-53, 8/10 (80%).
Trent Ward, www.gamespot.com/previews/crusregr/index.html