KISS: Psycho Circus

"Frustrating and boring"

Intro:
It has to be two yrs ago now when I purchased the game 2nd hand in a local game store. I'm not a KISS fan in particular, but I got the game anyway. The game itself is not really referred to the rock group, but it features a cast of characters that's alter-egos are that of the members of KISS... at least, that's what the manual says. The only other reference is that there are some juke boxes in the game that play a 60 seconds long sample in very bad quality of some KISS songs.

Story: 3 out of 10
I always see the story as what makes up the feeling and the atmosphere in the games, although it needs to be supported by the arts and score. However, this game almost doesn't have a story. Just a look into the game's manual offers a bit info on why you are doing what your doing. As the manual says, there's a rock group of 4 members going to an outset roadhouse to pull out some songs. But there's nobody there except for an ol' woman that the band meets up. And a second later you're in Psycho Circus and need to find the Nightmare Child, the offspring of Nightmare King. Mission: beat it up and the world's save again. Please don't force me to talk about it anymore.

Gameplay: 5 out of 10
KISS Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child is a first person shooter, so it follows the footsteps of it's genre and put you in dark and scary locations with hordes of monsters and doors that need to be opened by activating switches or killing all enemies in a room. There are no innovations, except for the level- and enemy-design. Ie., stages are giant book shelves or circus tents. As for the enemies, there are two sorts: monsters that look like monsters are supposed to, but anything but scary. And there are the enemies that look like circus artists, no kiddin'. I guess you are scared if you're also scared of clowns. Even if it's kinda different from what you normally see in 1st person shooters, you just hope the hole game that it get's better. But it won't.
There are 4 weapons, each one is a bit different for each character, so there's a complete of 12 weapons. What sucks is that you lose all the weapons again after you've completed the chapter of one characters and start off w/o any weapons again for the next character.

Graphics: 6 out of 10
The game uses Windows CE, so every graphic drawing is software based. That does not necessary mean it has to look bad, but this game does. I gave it 6 points, anyway, 'cause it's smooth and keeps the dark atmosphere even though there are NO light effects. Meaning the texture artist had to implement everything in the textures, what sure is a hard piece of work. I don't want to lose much more words about the graphics 'cause most people should see them to decide if they can play a game of that kind or not.

Sound: 3 out of 10
Boy, this is a game with a rock group's license, so I damn expect that there are some tunes in the game that refer to it. Except for the mentioned low-quality juke box samples, the music for this game is completely unrelated to KISS's music. And to make it more horrid for the player, the existing pieces sound either all the same or just under-arranged, meaning no noticeable melody. I cannot think of how they could pay the musician for this job. I understand that music production is more expensive in the US than in Japan, but especially in this game the music would've helped a lot.

Overall: 4 out of 10
I give the game a 4 'cause it wasn't that bad to make me stop playing. As mentioned before, I'm not really a KISS fan, what doesn't mean I would've liked it more than a fan would. Right the opposite. I guess the creepiest thing of the game is the music, especially for ''true'' KISS fans.
Rent or buy? I wouldn't spent any money on that game, there are far better fps on Dreamcast (UT & Quake III Arena). Save your money, even if you're a kiss fan.

Noteworthy, though not really part of a review, the periphals... surprisingly, the game supports keyboard, but no mouse. But when trying to use the Keyboard as replacement for the controller, you will soon find out that there's no way to look up or down. Some places or aiming an enemy require this, as it has been since DOOM. Further, the game won't run with the VGA Box. No, not even when forcing it by switching the cords or by booting with XPloder or whatever. It simply isn't implemented in the game.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 03/08/04