Oni

"Nice little mover!"

Oni, a new game by Take2, appears on first impression to be another poor man's Tomb Raider. You'd be forgiven for thinking this (as I did), after all, it is a third person action game featuring a nubile young lass, who just happens to be a weapons and martial arts expert. It also appears on first inspection to involve a lot of running around and puzzle solving. Only after really sitting down with it for a good few hours do you see what Oni really has to offer...

The setting is a futuristic city, 2032 apparently, and you play a ''one woman SWAT team'' working for the Tech Crimes Task Force. The setting becomes more evident as you progress through the levels and see one hi tech industrial landscape after another. The settings, factories, laboratories and warehouses etc. were supposedly designed by professional architects, but the first few levels just seem grey, monotonous and uninteresting. However, as the game progresses you get a feel for how it hangs together, and the scenery becomes slowly more fascinating. The facelessness of the technological corporation is reflected in the buildings you run around in - all glass panels, polished metal and anonymous corridors.

The surroundings don't account for all the graphics though. The explosions are suitably spectacular and the weapon effects look nasty. The graphics also are a showcase for a certain amount of sly wit - one example is when a mad bomberman blew himself up in the characters face, and besides the little bits of debris vapourising all around, I noticed a smouldering shoe arc slowly overhead...

In these corridors you find the denizens of this technological cityscape - armed guards, super brains with remote controlled lasers, mutant androids and even mad terrorist bombers! All, of course, are out to get you by various nefarious means, usually involving heavy artillery. It isn't all doom and gloom though - there are friendly faces to be found, including laboratory workers and fellow SWAT team members. Approaching these guys and chatting to them can sometimes be very beneficial, as they can hand out power ups of various description such as ammo clips, hypo sprays and the like.

Amongst all the action and carnage your 'control centre' team pops up continually, advising you and prompting you in various fashions. This helps string along a merry tale of corporate intrigue and dastardly doings in various genetic engineering laboratories. The Manga-esque interludes are fab - 'Akira' anyone??? Needless to say, you bump into products of this genetic engineering from time to time...

Bumping into things is the order of the day at first, as the controls are tricky to use to begin with. You soon get the hang of them. They are divided between the keyboard and mouse, the keyboard being used to walk forward, backwards, side to side, opening doors, and picking up dropping weapons, the mouse being used to control the direction facing and the angle from which you view the action, as well as right and left mouse buttons for kicks and punches.

Combating the many different foes you come across is also tricky at first, but with a bit of practice you soon get the hang of it. You can create a variety of different combos based upon the number and timing of mouse clicks, and order in which you click the mouse buttons. The game adds an extra element of fun by giving you new moves the further in you get. You are shown the very basics in the training run at the start and then 'taught' more as you move onwards and upwards. Some of the moves are quite spectacular to watch - fluid, fast and devastating. More worthy of a dedicated combat game like Tekken 3 than a third person adventure game. The temptation to shout 'Banzai!' is almost irresistible as you go charging towards the enemy...

Charging in isn't always a good idea, particularly if you are up against some serious weaponry. It is sometimes easier to sneak around, and, as in such games as Tenchu, you can creep up behind someone and take them out quite quickly. This is particularly nice when they are holding a lethal looking bit of hardware you've taken a shine to. Weapons can be stolen from your foes and used against them. It is also nice to be able to boot one person and then turn and blast another target in the distance - although it is trickier to use hand to hand combat whilst holding a gun, it is possible and sometimes very effective.

So how effectively does the game hang together? I would say very well indeed, once you give it a chance. The graphics are excellent, the storyline moves along nicely, the animation is fluid and often amusing and you can't help but wonder the origins of the mysterious lead character you play... It is not often you come across a game which involves a bit of puzzling to be done, combined with mutants, crazily crafted cityscapes and serious backside kicking martial arts action! In the third person adventure type games stakes Oni can hold its head up high next to its predecessors, and probably many of the clones to come. I thoroughly recommend it!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/03, Updated 01/30/03