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By Al Giovetti, 03/16/97
Price:$50
Genre:
Release:
Developer: Silmarils
Lead Artist:
Programmer:
Producer:
Publisher: ReadySoft
Phone: 416-322-7350
Website:
Requirements:486DX2, 66 MHz, 8 MB RAM, 5 MB hard disk drive space, 2X CD ROM, VGA, mouse

Deus

History

Silmarils is a French company which has turned out quite a few games over the years for its Canadian and United States licensee, ReadySoft. ReadySoft was recently acquired.

Some Silmarils games include Robinson's Requem, the prequil to Deus, Artic Baron, Ishar 3, and others. Most of Silmarils games, as is Deus, are animated graphic adventures. (See Al Giovetti's Bibliography for more information on these games. - Ed.)

In Robinson's Requem, you played Trepliev, a cadet officer of the Alien World Exploration (AWE) unit. As Trepliev, you wandered aout the prison planet Zarathustra, where you killed everything you met, stripped the bodies of their gear, and used the gear you found in typical treasure hunt fashion in the appropriate place to advance the plot with the eventual goal of getting off planet.

Company Line

What is DEUS? You are DEUS - a bounty hunter in the 22nd century. Terrorists have captured the scientific research station on planet Alcibiade. Your mission is to kill the terrorists, save the station and collect your money. But big challenges threaten your progress: jungles; swamps; traps; puzzles; cannibals; blobs; Samurai robots and baby Yetis, just to name a few. With all these enemies, beware of changing from the Bounty Hunter to the Bounty.

Play DEUS two ways, role playing or arcade. Go role playing and get complex. Experience real time simulation of life parameters like heart rate, injuries, fatigue and poisoning. Feeling more aggressive? Switch to arcade mode, grab a weapon and waste everything in your path. That's two modes of killing for the price of one!

Navigate through temples, caverns, and huts while avoiding traps and solving puzzles. To add to your trouble, there are over 40 enemies to fight. But don't worry, grab an axe or a rocket launcher from your arsenal and you should be able to survive. And don't forget to keep track of your food, energy, health and blood pressure; you wouldn't want to bite it because of a little heart condition.

Game Play

You wander around the planet killing everything, exploring the landscape, collecting artifacts by either stripping bodies or searching the landscape, and combine or use those objects in the appropriate place to kill all of your enemies and save the research station.

You can play the game in two modes: arcade and adventure. In the adventure mode, the game plays like a graphic animated adventure. In the arcade mode, you play the game like a Doom game, killing everything in site and dispense with the adventure game aspects, especially the medical kit. There are a plethora of interesting ways to die all complete with a very interesting animation sequence just for that way of death.

A medical kit is supplied that you must continually be using to keep the grim reaper at bay, a tedious and unsatisfying responsibility. Graphic animated adventures are enhanced by automatic resets and death without inconvenience features, such as those introduced by Ron Gilbert's Monkey Island series. The high lethality of the game is one of its most entertaining and frustrating elements.

The interface contains the three dimensional adventure screen, a personal computer, a medical kit or pharmacy, and a map. The screens work well and are easily accessed.

Plot

You play Trepliev, an elite Alien World Exploration Agent, Bounty Hunter, and all around nice killer, who again is stranded on a planet. This time the plant is called Alcibiade, where you must save the scientific research laboratory from a terrorist group called the Crusaders.

Graphics

Graphics for all the screens save the three dimensional adventure screen are highly detailed and attractive. It is too bad that Silmarils did not spend needed time improving the 3D screen which you spend most of your game time looking at.

Animation

Voice Actors

Music Score

Sound Effects

Utilities

Multi-player Features

Cheats, Hints, Walkthrough

Journalists

Conclusions

References