Enclave

"Close, but not quite..."

Enclave is a paradox of a title. One with excellent graphics, a great story, and enjoyable gameplay. But it lacks such fundamental game aspects as difficulty settings and level check points.

Some might consider Enclave a return to ''old school'' gaming. Just like classic games such as Contra and Ninja Gaiden, Enclave will send you to the morgue alot. But unlike those great titles, Enclave is a 3rd Person Hack-n-Slasher. Throughout the game you'll unlock a total of 16 characters (8 are clones) across 2 campaigns. Only the Light Campaign is available at first, which is much harder than the Dark Campaign despite what the manual says. Forcing players to unlock the Dark Campaign does nothing to better this game, and in fact the GameCube and PC ports of this title have been changed to make both campaigns immediately available. The levels in Enclave, which range from castles to forests to the pits of Hell, are all beautifully rendered with amazing attention paid to detail. They also, for the most part, possess clever designs full of secret areas and shortcuts.

But the levels are also home to dozens of enemies (largely composed of the characters from your opposing campaign) just waiting to tear you apart. Gold, used to purchase better equipment, is also scattered across the levels. Battles against some truly monstrous bosses break up the action from time to time, requiring players to hit a series of switches or destroy some other piece of the landscape to make the boss vulnerable to damage.

While this all sounds like a good time Enclave is plagued by its shortcomings. The designers apparently felt that cheap, single hit deaths were the key to making the game challenging. A single misstep can put you in the sights of a dreaded enemy archer that will end your quest with a single burst of arrows. In some levels aspects of the environment will work against you, killing you instantly. Even worse is the fact that the levels of the game are not consistently difficult. You may find yourself stuck on a level for days only to breeze past the one following in only 10 minutes. On top of this, every enemy you fight is just as powerful as you are (though you can replay levels after you've beaten them with your superior equipment to gain an edge). Getting to the end of the level and being killed by a lucky shot from an assassin which you missed will send you all the way back to the beginning. This is because only two levels in Enclave have any sort of checkpoint system. Why only two levels have this feature is anyone's guess, but it's a terrible oversight that keeps the game from being truly enjoyable by any except hardcore gamers.

Graphics: 9
Everything in Enclave looks good. The character models are well detailed, the animation is crisp and the levels are absolutely brilliant. Sometimes the frame rate stutters when too much action fills the screen, but otherwise this title is a visual masterpiece. Spectacular lighting effects do a great job in setting the mood of each level. It's a shame that the difficulty of the game doesn't permit players to really enjoy their surroundings for long.

Sound: 7
Classical/Fantasy music appropriately composes the score of Enclave. The voice overs are fairly good, though it's obvious the cast wasn't very large. Sounds of metal on metal and spell effects are adequate, but nothing spectacular.

Control: 7
At it's core, Enclave plays much like a 1st person shooter (this is in part why characters that lack a good ranged attack are essentially worthless). In fact, you can even play the game from 1st Person perspective. Movement is controlled with the Left Thumbstick, facing is controlled by the right. The controller layout is fairly easy to pick up and play without much adjusting. Though occasionally suspect, the controls are also pretty responsive.

Replay: 5
There are a ton of secret areas hiding gold in each level of the game, but the extreme difficulty in some of them makes such treasure hunting impossible. The secret characters you unlock for collecting all the gold in each campaign are lame and not really worth the effort. All in all, you're just as likely to get sick of this game before you beat it to even think of replaying any part of it.

The Verdict: 5 (not an average)
Enclave should have been one of the premier titles on the Xbox, but the developers of the game made several critical errors that makes it difficult to truly enjoy. It's telling that both ports of the game (PC and GameCube) will include a Checkpoint system in every level. If you have a choice, I'd strongly suggest picking up either of those versions of the game. But if you're stuck with the Xbox version rent it first and decide if such a frustrating title is for you.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/03, Updated 02/11/03