Haven: Call of the King

"More than your average platformer, but featuring some of the same faults."

Haven is a game that borrows heavily from other recent games and manages to somehow cram a bunch of different gameplay elements successfully into one game. Throughout, you’ll feel like you might be playing Jak and Daxter, Star Fox, Ratchet & Clank, or even Metroid Prime. Yet somehow it pulls it all off.

The first thing you’ll notice while playing is that this is a platformer that actually has some difficulty to it. After the first set of cut-scenes that introduce Haven and set up the story you’re thrown into a collapsing cave, and from this point on the action seldom lets up. Every now and then you must complete some traditional platforming stuff to advance past certain points, but other than these segments you’ll basically be shooting, blasting, racing, flying, zooming around in boats, and running around in Super Monkey Ball style force fields for most of the game. Even something as simple as getting up to a platform in a mine cart has some gameplay element involved. The developers did a good job at making sure you never get bored.

Throughout the game you’ll pilot no less then eight independent vehicles(more if you include smaller gameplay elements), and fortunately all of the controls are no-brainers; the go is always X, and the action button remains the action button. There are a couple other controls involved in some, but all you need to do is press a button to find out if it does anything, and there was only one instance that I found I needed to look at the instructions for help. Even though most of the time it’s quite clear what you need to do in these action sequences, sometimes it can get a little vague. Fortunately, the pause menu always shows the goals for the level and let’s you know what you should be doing.
**One thing I’d like to mention before I continue is that a lot of people complain about the yo-yo type weapon and the fire pots. Yes, the weapon just barely reaches the pots with you out of the danger zone, and it is a little difficult to aim it at them accurately. But I found that it wasn’t a big problem(you don’t need to smash EVERY one), and by the time I was about three hours into the game the correct positioning had become almost second nature to me. This was my experience, yours may be different, but I don’t think this was a big deal.**

The graphics aren’t really anything special, perhaps a little less then what you saw in Jak and Daxter. But it’s not how the graphics look that’s important, it’s what they do with them. The art used in Haven is top notch, it manages to create its own unique look but never appears over the top, as is sometimes the case with similar games. It borrows a page from Jak and Daxter’s book and has environments that cycle through a real time of day, as well as having changing weather patterns. There’s also some really cool water featured. In one of its more impressive feats that had everyone talking for a while, you can go from outer space straight down to a planets surface with no in-between, and the reverse is also true. To accomplish that feat, the draw distance is naturally quite impressive. In fact, I didn’t notice even one instance of any pop-up.

While the graphics and effects on the inanimate objects are quite good, the characters are not similarly benefited. The animation of body movements is nice and fluid; it’s just the subtler details that suffer. One is the lip movement, which is sketchy at best. Most of the time it just looks like the person’s head is bobbing up and down and creating sounds. Also, it looks like the hair on people is glued on wigs. But these problems only become apparent in close-ups during the cut-scenes, and you spend nearly all the game watching Haven run around, so it’s not a big issue. And, as is inherent with virtually all platformer games, the camera is pretty bad. It can sometimes go through walls and get stuck, but a push on the right analog stick will fix that. Most of the time you’ll want to just control the camera manually.

The voice acting is impressive and always seems to suit the characters. The sound effects are great as well, Haven has the typical “hoo--hah” sound while double jumping. And the music features some great epic sounding tracks. In fact, there really isn’t anything at all to complain about in the sound department, it’s all fantastic.

Haven has a story that’s a bit more based in reality than some of the other ones featured in platformers lately. Apparently the good King Athellion left his people a thousand years ago to go fight a war. He left behind the Golden Voice, a giant bell that the people could ring to summon him, should he be needed. When he left, the evil Lord Vetch enslaved the people and infected them with a virus requiring a constant antidote to keep them in subjection. Vetch sealed off the Golden Voice and made it so everyone forgot about it. Recently, Haven has begun to have dreams about the Golden Voice, and so he sets out on a quest to find it. However, the story is where the game’s biggest problem is. Just when it starts to get interesting, that’s when the game ends(hopefully they’ll get the sequel out fairly quickly). I was really hoping that this would have a decent length to it, but it turns out that it’s about the same as every other platformer out there(maybe just a little bit longer); you can finish it in about a week. Perhaps it’ll last you longer if you’re not playing it for a couple hours a day; but this is an addictive game, it’s hard to stop. So, if you pace yourself it’ll take you about two weeks to finish. My best guess is that it lasts about 25 hours.

Overall, this is a great game with a good amount of replay value, especially since there are some hidden items that apparently open up hidden levels. It doesn’t do anything exceptionally well, and it doesn’t do anything horribly bad; a nice balance. Selling for a bargain price of $29.99, it’s hard not to recommend this game. What’s even better then that, however, is that you can find it brand new on the auction sites for as low as $15. It’s very fun, and that’s a great price. So, it’s up to you from here on out, if you think it’s worth the price to play a platformer that does something a little different, then go out and buy it. And this is worth at least a rental, it’ll give you something to discuss with your gaming buddies for a while.

Gameplay: 7
Graphics: 7
Sound: 8
Value: 7
My Opinion: 7
Overall Score: 7.2 (rounded to 7 for GameFAQs)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/27/02, Updated 12/27/02