Overblood

OVER BLOOD
Riverhillsoft
Sony Playstation
Adventure

by Dave Van Cleef

In the wake of Capcom's runaway success with its hit adventure title BIOHAZARD (known as RESIDENT EVIL in the US), a number of similar titles of varying quality are springing up from other companies. Riverhillsoft's OVERBLOOD is the latest entry into the fray in this quickly crowding genre.

You take on the role of Laz, who has just emerged from cold sleep with no memory of his life in a subterranean bunker. He must try to figure out what is going on and escape the complex. You are immediately placed in a life-and-death situation at the start of the game, since even though you've emerged from the cryogenic tube, the room you're in is freezing cold (-10C) and you are so weak that you have only minutes to get warm before dying.

The first thing the jaded Biohazard player will notice is that the backgrounds are not prerendered. Everything is done on-the-fly with texture-mapped polygons. Graphics are all nicely done, with very little polygon flicker noticeable. The character designs are attractive - Laz is quite detailed, although a bit low on polygon count in his legs, and Peepo, the little robot, is amazingly cute, lively and animated.

Here is a close up of Laz, the protagonist of OVERBLOOD.

OVERBLOOD features scenes, unlike BIOHAZARD (RESIDENT EVIL), that are rendered on the fly.

Control will be familiar to a Biohazard veteran: the familiar forward/back/left/right controls on the directional pad, and right-hand buttons for the usual examine and run, as well as new ones for crouch and jump. Shoulder buttons control the viewing angle (selected from first person, behind-the-head and a third-person view), and also shift between characters (a new feature in the adventure genre, and necessary multiple times over the course of a game). These controls work very effectively and seem well-thought out. However, until the player gets used to them, some of the new and lesser used ones may get confused. Expect to shift camera views frequently when trying to change characters in the beginning.

Full Motion Video (FMV) is always a touchy, if not controversial, subject in next-generation video-games. What there is of FMV in OVERBLOOD is always well-done, if a bit long. Several points in the game have uninterruptible multi-minute segments that can get a bit annoying to sit through after seeing them several times.

OVERBLOOD features much more puzzle-solving challenges than other adventure games. In fact, the first combat situation appears nearly one-third through the game.

A small amount of Japanese knowledge would be helpful when playing through the game, since, unlike Biohazard, all the dialogue and text is in Japanese. While not absolutely necessary to complete the game, it would certainly speed up one's progress.

My biggest complaint about the game is the third person view. While one of the most useful in the game, it suffers from sudden erratic camera shifts, which may disturb players prone to disorientation and nausea from games like DOOM and Descent.

Overall, OVERBLOOD does this new genre proud, leaving also-rans and wanna-bes like Fade to Black eating its dust. Whether or not it is superior to Biohazard is more a matter of individual preference of combat or puzzle-solving.