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> Results: Mage Knight: Apocalypse
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The ESRB says...
Blood: It's not gory or excessive, but blood flows in battle. Partial Nudity: Aside from every female character being scantily-clad, there is one cut-scene where it could be construed that you see a bit more. Suggestive Themes: There are scantily clad females everywhere, and some sexual overtones in a couple of non-interactive scenes. Violence: Core gameplay is killing everything in your path. The popular Mage Knight tabletop game (mentioned by Dr. Matt Carlson in Unplugged #4: Attack of the Clickies!) has spawned two video games recently: a strategy game for the DS and this action role-playing game for the PC. The two aren't related in any way other than the source material. Unlike the DS game Mage Knight: Apocalypse doesn't attempt to recreate the feel or rules of the tabletop game in any way. Interesting gameplay elements include forging, alchemy based on learned recipes and foraged ingredients, and removable magestones (charms) for armor and weapons. But the best feature is the seamless leveling system; simply play your character and he or she develops along a natural and organic path. Throw a lot of fireballs and your fireball skill advances. By using more skills on a particular branch of a skill tree, you can gain new skills. Strange things sometimes occur, such as why strength increases by unleashing a chain of ranged magic attacks, but overall the system works well and removes agonizing over experience points and skill trees in character builds. Unfortunately the negatives outweigh the positives. Camera control is awful. You eventually figure out a system that approximates a chase cam mode, but still run into occasions when the game takes camera control away from you in tight quarters. Saving makes exiting the game a hassle, since all enemies respawn when you load from a save. Because of the leveling system this isn't the easy experience opportunity it would be in many games, it's just a pain. It seems like you're expected to die frequently. There is no death penalty and enemies have the same damaged health when you respawn, so battles aren't challenging. You just die and retry until you win. There are also a host of technical issues including sound card driver problems, crashes, multiplayer connection problems, memory leaks, and free-spinning camera issues. This is one of those divisive games that some will love and others will hateﾗboth sides with justification. Once you hit your stride there are long stretches of nice battles and interesting areas, but nothing stands out compared to other games in the genre. Take any fantasy themed game and add some high-tech weapons to the dwarf's arsenal, and there's Mage Knight: Apocalypse. Because it is loosely linked to the Mage Knight universe, there is a special appeal to fans of those games. But the look, feel and gameplay suggest more of a budget release from a fledgling developer than a major release from a big-name publisher.  
Mage Knight Apocalypse is typical of its genre. You run around and kill everything in sight until you reach a boss. Defeat the boss, watch a movie about how you still have more work to do, and then continue on with more urgency than ever. It's inherently intense and violent. Constant combat features some amount of blood but nothing gory or extreme.
The women are what's extreme. I am used to nearly-naked women in action role-playing or first-person shooting games, but this takes it to a level previously reserved for xtreme beach volleyball games. It's gratuitous enough that in one particular cinematic, a woman is showing more than intended, though calling it partial nudity compared to the rest of the outfits is splitting hairs. I have a personal pet peeve regarding objectification of women in video games for a number of reasons, but mainly because it exemplifies the immature male stereotype that many people picture when they think of gamers. It also makes it hard to take the developers of the game seriously. Is this their vision of women, or their opinion of the people playing their game? Characters in the game wear various bits of armor and accessories, but no matter what choices you make, your Vampiress never accumulates enough clothes to make a skull-cap for a newborn baby. Another reason I'm bothered is that as my kids are getting older, playing E-10 games, and getting interested in T-rated games, I like to share some of what I'm playing with them. Most classic role-playing games like Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate or Divine Divinity are not a problem. I loved showing them the Darkness Over Daggerford module for Neverwinter Nights, and how through hard work people were able to create their own worlds and stories and bring them to life along with new features. I had hoped to show them how this game took a very different approach to leveling and skill advancement. But it embarrassed me to show them, and they were very interested based on the Mage Knight tabletop game. When I did show them and my wife, their eyes got as big as if a lingerie commercial came on the televisionﾗand my wife just rolled her eyes. This review edited by Dave Long Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Browse Amazon.com's selection of "mage knight" themed games Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Mage Knight: Apocalypse |
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