Obitus

"The Blue Oyster Cult tells me not to fear the Reaper, but after playing this game, I embrace him."

Even as I write this review, shivers race up my spine. These shivers are induced by the fact that I actually played THROUGH some of this crap. Just another rusty, tetanus-ridden nail in Psygnosis's coffin, Obitus is a thoroughly avoidable exercise in below-mediocre action/RPG games. The game itself is terribly obscure -- the only time I recall having a hard copy of it is renting it at a Blockbuster when I was like, 7. I think that Blockbuster was keeping it around to corrupt small children like me into renting bad games so they could get the financial backing to heave smoldering crap like this back in their providers' faces. So why am I being so negative of this festering little bit of fecal matter? Read on, so that you yourself might not be exposed to the dangers of this terrible game.

Graphics:

I have a mild case of claustrophobia. It's nothing too serious, really -- I don't break down in tears and start screaming or anything when forced in a small space, I just get a little tense. This game, however, amplified this sense so severely that I can't even bear to be in my parents' car anymore. This severity is brought about by the constantly repeating, dull, ugly backgrounds that swamp me as I wander through the poorly constructed first person sequences. Character sprites fare just as badly. They're dully colored, bland, and are almost as uninteresting as the characters themselves. There's no lighting to speak of, and everything seems grainy and pixilated. A game is not evaluated entirely by its graphics, but if it was this game already would have failed miserably.

Graphics receive a 2/10.

Sound:

*cries* Oh, God, what did I do to deserve this? There is practically no music to speak of, and where it is present, it simply is a total aural assault. It consists of repetitive tribal noises and...uh, things being struck. Sort of. What's worse, the land of Falcon Wood (where you're going to spend at least two hours because of the sprawling size and horrid design) has supposed 'music' that really consists of unbelievably artificial birds chirping. Imagine that blaring in your ears until you wrestle yourself away from the computer/Super Nintendo. Whoo.

Sound effects are generally non-existant and consist of your loser character taking damage, your loser character eating something, and the enemy dying, which is more like a rushing water sound than an actual death. All three are horribly toned down and not much to write home about. Obitus's sound is clearly not its savior.

Sound receives a 2/10.

Gameplay:

Well, Obitus is obviously aesthetically-challenged, but does it have strong gameplay to make up for these shortcomings? The answer, of course -- HELL NO. The gameplay sinks the game faster than a lead balloon. Obitus takes its first gameplay blow simply through main exploration. The maps are impossibly huge and sprawling and usually converge into dead ends. The only way to find your next destination is by either sheer, dumb, undiluted luck or a really good map. Or both. Really, Christopher Columbus couldn't navigate through one of these maps for five minutes without getting horribly lost. And considering the sickening amount of enemies that assault you along your not-so-merry way, you're bound to run into some sort of irreversibly bad situation.

This brings us to the next facet of poo gameplay -- Stamina. Your Stamina depletes horribly quickly, and aside from potions (which appear in very small quantities, don't do much anyway, and are very few and far between) and sleeping (where you're always woken up by some monster and killed anyway), there's generally no way to restore your life. (The same can be said for the life you waste playing this game. Imagine that.) There's also a Health meter, which I haven't discovered any practical use for, but you can restore it by eating things. Remember, kiddies, next time you're severely wounded and bleeding, just eat the nearest loaf of bread and like magic you'll be all better! Logic works in unusual ways in the world of Obitus.

Then we come to the unusual parallax-scrolling levels. These made me seizuristic for a week. Not only is your character so graphically challenged it's impossible to gaze on him for more than 10 seconds before your eyes start to bleed, his animation is laughably bad. It looks like a first-year programming student threw it together in fifteen minutes. Drunk. With an eyesight problem. Okay, you get my drift -- the animation's bad. But what makes these side-scrolling turds so horrid is that the control is nearly impossible to use. Your character is not responsive at all, he doesn't seem to stop in time when you tell him to (which usually results in death in the nastiest ways), and it takes about 300 shots to kill an opponent. Playing through these side-scrollers is no more enjoyable than anything else in the game.

So Obitus isn't any fun to play. Who would have guessed?

Gameplay receives a 1/10.

Plot:

Aside from the plot overview in the instruction booklet, there isn't any. Little of it is divulged through the path of the game. The little that you hear of is not so bad, however, and is probably Obitus's strongest point. Then again, that can mean anything from 'just slightly above smoldering crap' and...well, nothing.

Plot receives a 5/10.

Replay Value:

None to speak of. Anyone who can get through the game the first time is a saint -- the second time, insane.

Overall:

Obitus is not enjoyable at all. Due to the sheer lack of graphical talent, sound, or interesting gameplay, Obitus simply seems like a forced exercise in mediocrity. It's a bit like a train wreck -- it's morbidly fascinating in a sort of way, but all together an unpleasant experience. Of course, being in a train wreck is more fun than Obitus.

Obitus receives a 3/10.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/09/02, Updated 02/09/03