Disaster Report

"A good game while it lasts..."

Disaster Report, also known as S.O.S Final Escape in Europe, takes place on a man made island called Stiver island. You are a reporter for the local newspaper, The Town Crier. One day, when you are riding the train to Stiver Island disaster strikes, a earthquake hits the island and you gets knocked sensless. When you wake up you make your way out of the train car just to see one of the last rescue hellicopters take off. This is the beginning of Disaster Report.

Controls:
The control is quite good with few flaws. However the two things that could be annoying is that the character jumps automatically when you run close to a ledge and the camera is some times quirky.

Gameplay:
This is basically a sort of survival horror game except the zombies and monsters have been exchanged with collapsing buildings and the only weapon you have is your feet. A things thats not so good is the fact that the tremors will strike less and less so the action quite toned down in the middle of the game where there are most puzzles.
it has innovative gameplay though, that isn't about just shooting the badguys and find some key to unlock some door somewhere to clear the level instead you have to make sure youve got enough water and not to be crushed by that 15 storey building that nay collapse at any second and things like that so it's quite a fresh breeze into the overpopulated action genre.

Graphic:
The graphic in this game is not great nor bad it serves its purpose well but when there are a lot of things happening on the screen there is a noticeable slowdown to the game. But there are some highligts in the graphics such as the collapsing buildings and some quite nice looking water effects.

Longetivity:
This is where the game lacks, even though it has multiple endings it doesn't last very long, the first time you play it it may take about 6 hours on normal difficulty. There is also a special feature called, surprisingly, special to select on the main menu upon completion of the game, i wont reveal what it is but i can say it wont keep you ocupied for very long. One thing that adds a bit to the longetivity is collecting weird and funny compasses, finding all may take some time.

Sound:
Another are in which the game lacks. For the most time you will run around to the sound of your own steps which is some times fitting some times not. And the voice acting is realy lousy for an example one of the other characters you meet, a photojournalist, says umm or eeh before he speaks and all the other voices are also crappy.

To sum it all up, this is quite a good game but i would advise you to rent it before buying since the gameplay is quite uniqe and special, on the other hand you shouldn't bother buying it unless you want to find all the secret endings and find all compasses. So i give this game a solid 7.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/03/03, Updated 04/03/03