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Review: Kileak - The DNA Imperative
Oh my GOD! Oh the humanity! It's the worst Playstation game ever released! It's a steaming pile of cow plop! It's so god-awful it almost burned a hole in the dimensional wall and allowed Kileak to invade your DNA in a most imperative way. That's right friends, it's your favorite and mine, Kileak: The DNA Imperative!
Oh lord, where to start? This was one of the earliest Playstation games released, and it shows. But, its problems go far deeper than that. Some early PS1 games are still fun, like Battle Arena Toshinden. Even Symphony of the Night was released early in the Playstation's life-cycle. But this? This...piece of DNA imperative crap? I think this is another sad example of a horrible game that was thrown together and hurriedly released so that a new system could have one more launch title.
Okay, first...The opening movie. Generally an opening movie is designed to grab your attention, alert you to what the story is about, and impress you with the fancy graphics that FMV is capable of. The opening movie in Kileak does none of this. I have known about this game for many years and tried playing it several times. I have watched the opening movie a lot of times, and I still have NO IDEA what this game is about. Apparently, someone thought that seven frames a second is a great framerate for full-motion video, as long as you have really cool-looking science-fiction looking robots and explosions. Well, not only is the intro all herky-jerky, but all you get to see is a "moon base" or something, which is too dark to see any details, a crappy helicopter, half-assed spherical explosions and a so-so looking robot, which I believe is your central battle machine.
As I said before, if there is any story to this game, it is completely incomprehensible. All you get over the opening movie is voice-overs like the following:
August 16: 2038: International peace-keeping headquarters: Division: Otopp: 846-E.
Lyger helicopter receives an important message:
Situation: Critical. Kim MUST be stopped. Repeat: Kim MUST be stopped.
Time to target: 355 seconds.
Heat-seeking missiles approachinng at 8:00. Evasion maneuver unsuccessful. AHH!
Captain: John Boyd. International peace-keeping force.
Status: Normal. Orders: Eliminate danger of Vargas-566. Subject: Moon base.
Code: Impact-explosion armor defense-mode ON! Mission status: Proceeding.
Team status: Carlos: Voice contact: Affirmative. Status: Uninjured.
Franklin: Voice contact: Negative. Status: Unknown.
Okay men! Time to go to work!
Proceeding toward South base. Out.
So Kim wants to play rough? Okay Doc, you asked for it.
Objective: 50 meters north-northwest. Proceeding towards target entrance. What the? First Kim shoots us out of the air, now he's rolling out the welcome mat? What's the little LAB RAT up to THIS TIME?? KILEAK!!! THE DNA IMPERATIVE!!
OH MY GOD IT'S HORRIBLE!! And then you're thrown into the game. You might think that you might understand more when you actually start playing, but such is not the case. You do, however, get another voice-over near the beginning of the first level:
Unidentified object ahead. This is Carlos! Exercise extreme caution! The enemy is everywhere and attacks without warning!
Great, thanks. I really needed you to tell me that. I wouldn't have noticed all the retarded-looking robots that shoot me from behind or out of my field of vision, usually three at a time. Without warning is right, since this is a first-person shooter and that means I can only see what's straight ahead of me. Thanks Carlos, what would I do without your sage-like wisdom?
Not even the combat in this game is remotely fun. Basically, you run into a lot of robots that look like Satanic versions of the tin man from Wizard of Oz, and imcomplete action figures. They like to fly up and slam into you, or keep their distance and pound you with gunfire. You can fight back by shooting your orange balls at them. And it usually takes about a dozen hits to destroy an evil robot, and by that time you've taken plenty of damage. It is possible to find "repair parts" to refill your energy, but it's pretty much useless since the power-up to evil-robot ratio is skewed very much in favor of the evil robots. At least you can strafe in this game...not that it does much good, since you're usually travelling down a hallway that's about two feet wide when you get attacked.
Hey, there's something else I need to comment on. The environments! I bet the back of the video game case advertises, "Huge levels! Over 9000 rooms to explore!" Well that's great, since they ALL LOOK THE SAME! Sweet Jesus, if you thought HALO had repetitive rooms, just wait until you play Kileak! In fact, I would say it's IMPERATIVE! Man, this is a game that makes me WANT to play HALO instead! It's really THAT BAD!
Another fun, "realistic" element of the gameplay...You need to conserve ammo, since running out will leave you a sitting duck for whatever evil robots you encounter on your way to find more ammo, which is probably about 3000 rooms away. And if you die, forget it. You must start all over. There is apparently a save feature, but you can only use it once you've completed an entire level, which would take at least an hour or so. That means that if you get all the way to the end of a level and are creamed by a super-hulkified tin man boss who you never saw coming, you have to start the whole level over again. All 2000 identical-looking rooms full of evil tin men! Fun!
One more thing, the music. I guess it's supposed to sound real high-tech or futuristic. But the truth is, it sounds like cannibals beating a drum and someone blowing into a microphone. There is no melody, nothing appealing about this excuse for music at all. And it doesn't help matters that it takes about 20 seconds for it to start over. I could play better music by beating my head against a table, which I usually feel like doing anyway after playing this game.
It's a shame. I remember the first time I played this game, I really wanted to like it. But, there was nothing TO like. This is the most incompetent attempt at a video game I have ever seen. I think I would rather play Deadly Towers. This is a game I always bring up when I want to talk about how retarded Sony's "quality-assurance" process is. They took a lot of convincing in order to let Capcom release Megaman 8 and Megaman X4. But Kileak here, made it through "quality-assurance" without a hitch. Megaman is FUN! Kileak is TORTURE! What the hell is wrong with Sony? It's got to be the same department that decided exploding heads and eating guts are appropriate to show, but nudity is out of the question.
This game SUCKS. The only thing "imperative" about Kileak is that you never play it, and burn all copies that you find. Now, I will attempt to come up with a list of what's good about this game.
-Has robots.
-Things in the opening movie that look like sperm.
-Does not feature the Olsen Twins.
-Does not include Dee Jay.
-Lots of the dopest color, GREEN.
-Can be used as a coaster for your drink.
-Congress has not passed any law requiring you to play this game(so far).
-CDs are fun to put in the microwave.
-It was not and will never be a pack-in title.
-You can play frisbee with the CD.
-Will require therapy after playing, and therapy can be a good thing.
-It's not as bad as a fiberglass enima, but definitely comes close.
Rating: 1 out of 10. Truly god-awful. I would compare the fun factor to that of being poked in the eye with a sharp stick.
BBQ at March 12, 2003
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Comments
But Dude it is 3d. It is the desired image of the Playstation not like Megaman
Posted by: Jake at March 12, 2003 7:56 PM

