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Third Law / Gathering of Developers Game
Ratings:4/5 from Strategy Plus
The Nightmare Begins...An unborn evil threatens to destroy the universe...
Requirements:Windows 95/98/Me/2000/XP: Pentium 266 MHz (or 100% compatible), 64 MB RAM, 4x CD ROM drive, D3D compatible hardware accelerator, Windows DirectX compatible sound card, 350 MB of available hard drive space, TCP/IP connection for internet play.
Reviews:EuroGamer by John "Gesalt" Bye "The good news is that Nightmare Child is based on the "KISS : Psycho Circus" comic book series by Todd McFarlane Productions (of Spawn fame), rather than the band itself. You must take on the role of avatars for the four Elders - the Starbearer, The Beast King, The Celestial and The Demon." "Guided by the blind gypsy fortune teller Madame Raven, each of the avatars must fight their way through their own corrupted Realm to the Psycho Circus itself, and then on to the twisted dimension of the Nightmare Child for a final showdown between good and evil. Along the way they will find the Elders' armour, assembling it piece by piece until they look just like the comic book representations of Gene Simmons and friends." "Then it's straight into the action, which starts off fairly gently to ease you into the game, but soon escalates to a Doom-like intensity that hasn't been seen in a first person shooter for years..." "The real beauty of the game though is that however many monsters there are on screen at once, the engine manages to keep it all moving along at a playable frame rate. Add in the colourful locations, severed limbs flying around, blood arcing gracefully through the air, and over-the-top weapons effects going off all around you, and you have a real treat for the eyes." "KISS fans will be happy to hear that there are jukeboxes scattered throughout the game which you can activate to listen to well-known KISS songs, which are often a perfect accompaniment for the slaughter around you. KISS haters will be even happier to learn that you can also blow up the jukeboxes to stop the infernal racket... "
"And yet at the same time Third Law have managed to build the game around an entertaining if slightly cheesy plot, complete with a series of excellent in-game cutscenes to push the storyline along, and to introduce new settings and monsters. There are even console-style end of chapter bosses and puzzle-based battles, where you will need more than an itchy trigger finger to succeed." Strategy Plus by Jason Cross "Key to the success of this ultra-adrenaline combat formula is what Third Law calls "horde technology." This is simply their term for using the LithTech 3D engine’s level-of-detail system to effectively put dozens of enemies on the screen at once, along with some nifty AI optimizations that keeps the game from turning into a slide-show. It really works amazingly well. When you’re running through an old cathedral and a big stained-glass window shatters in front of you, spilling out thirty or forty creatures, you’ll get a certain kind of rush that the last five years of action games just haven't quite delivered." "It’s admirable that Third Law chose to take what was a questionable license and turn it into a really good game that serious shooter fans can have a great time with. KISS references are few and far between, with the occasional poster or song from a jukebox or radio being the only things that non-KISS fans will notice. Loyal members of the KISS army will notice scores of other in-jokes and nostalgia—the KISS tie-in has been brilliantly engineered to be almost unnoticeable to all but those who care most about it..."
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- Animated blood, violence and gore
Based on characters from Todd McFarlane's best-selling
KISS Psycho Circus comic book.
"The focus on action and
wholesale slaughter makes a welcome change from the new wave of realistic and
"intelligent" shooters, and the return to single player mayhem makes it stand
out from the more visceral Unreal Tournaments and Quake 3 Arenas of the gaming
world. It's real back-to-your-roots stuff which is sure to bring a smile to the
face of more experienced (or should that just be old?) gamers such as myself
who still remember the thrill of playing the original shareware release of Doom
for the first time."
