Enclave

"Any other game never made pain feel so good!"

Ok, I bought Enclave about a week ago and I have to say I cannot believe how hard the critics have been on this game! I've found the game to be thoroughly enjoyable in just about every aspect...it's like a medieval fantasy Halo!

I was expecting just a beat-em-up Gauntlet type experience or something like Dungeon Siege with numberless hordes of enemies to kill and thats about it, but was surprised by an RPG type experience with interactive environments that react as you progress through them (like Halo) and pretty good storyline so far.

GRAPHICS -- 10

Gorgeous visuals. Zoom in on the textures with your sniper bow and check out the detail! Everything about the game just looks fantastic. Nothing more to say about that...graphics-wise Enclave blows every other FPS out of the water. Speaking of water...its the best I've seen in any game yet (but doesn't react to anything which is a disappointment)...well ICO is a close 2nd place.

SOUND -- 9

Another reason to have a nice DD system at home. This game makes excellent use of your surround sound system. Great sound effects and pretty good sound tracks that adjust according to game pace and situation.

GAMEPLAY -- 9

Ok, this is where the critics have been blasting the game in reviews. The default controls suck...R-stick button for jump is lame pure and simple. But guess what, thats why you can choose the alt control scheme which assigns the jump button to A button...now what do you have? Halo controls almost exactly. Ignorant critics didnt even read the instructions! Other than that, the game plays quite well...its challenging to time your attacks as the enemy AI is pretty decent (exception is they sometimes get stuck on corners), you can approach a mission by various ways...brute force, sniping, stealth, etc...quite good. This game reminded me of a cross breed of Thief and Gauntlet without the button mashing. Lots of strategy involved. The game progresses through an engaging storyline, there are several characters with very diff strengths and weaknesses to employ, and there are two completely diff campaigns to play with totally diff stories and chars to unlock. The RPG elements come in when you are at the char select screen before a misson and get to outfit your char strategically with armor,weapons, ammo, potions, etc with gold you earned and found in previous exploits...think of it as a kind of XP system with $.

DIFFICULTY -- Hope you enjoy pain.

Whoa! This game can get HARD! This is one area where I can sympathize with the critics since Enclave will destroy your will in later levels and reduce you to many fits of rage and thrown controllers. You eventually encounter situations and enemies that require strategies to defeat and you'll probably get killed quick before learning what to do. Why is this bad? Because for some dumb reason there are NO SAVE POINTS IN MID LEVEL. Yes, you can spend 45 min on a level only to die and have to start all over again. This can suck. Bad. Thankfully, there's a god mode and level skip cheat to remedy the situation. Then you can come back and try the level again later on when you have better equipment.

OVERALL -- 9

I was very surprised by this game and personally I like it as much as I did Halo...its my favorite game on the system now. Well worth the buy.

If you are turned off by extreme challenge, Enclave is not for you. This game demands patience and skill. Rent it first. For everyone else, this is a sleeper hit on Xbox!

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/06/02, Updated 09/06/02