| Game Reviews From a Parental Perspective! | |
|
|
|
| Home | Forums | Review Archive | Columns | Feature Articles |
|
Home >
Review Archive >
Video Games
> Results: Spectral Souls: Resurrection of the Ethereal Empires
Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Scroll down for our Kid Factor. 
The ESRB Says
Language: GamerDad was very surprised when the generic opening cutscene featured one character saying 'BS'. Mild Fantasy Violence: Simple turn-based battles resolve with no blood or intense violence. Every once in a while a game comes along that differentiates itself in some technical way such that you will always use it as a benchmark against which you compare other games. This is one of those games - but not in a good way. The good part of the game is a turn-based battle system that also features an active action bar that shows the turn-order of the players, which can be influenced by how many action points a player has left when they end their turn. The game features an adequate story, and the truly wonderful ability to influence the outcome of the game through your choices. It is a game that, on paper anyway, had me saying 'I want this now!' Unfortunately the execution is poor and the pacing is glacial. But the absolute worst is that the game. has. to. load. every. text. box. and. sentence. of. dialog. from. disc. It is difficult to overestimate the problem- I found myself regularly losing focus in the dialog while watching the 'disc access' indicator flashing incessantly. Level loads were quite long, and the screen would go blank for a couple of minutes before a cutscene. So you are left with a decent combat system, an average story, the nice ability to make a few choices, and a game that you will never want to play. I know what you're thinking, and let me just stop you right there - yes, Spectral Souls really is that bad.  
As far as I can tell the T rating comes directly from the amount of profane language used in the game. The opening dialog includes two uses of the full term for 'BS', and that is just the beginning. Then soldiers are told to 'get bent', and there are just loads of other examples throughout. I have no problem with the use of realistic expressions in games, and as games progress from E-10 to T to M I expect the language to progress with the situations portrayed in the game. But the language usage throughout this game is purely gratuitous, and feels more like an artifact of the translation, sort of like one character making an exclamation and saying 'Jesus weeps'. Sorry, that one lost me.
The other potentially issue is the theme of a world on the brink of destruction with demonic forces taking over and seeking the total annihilation of humanity. That could be a troubling theme, but the forces on all sides are given a balanced set of characters - some are pugilistic, others pacifist, others diplomatic. And since the core of the game is the strategic battles none of it gets played out very seriously - it is just a connecting point between strategic campaigns. Comments? Chat about it in our forums! Format For Printing | Tell A Friend | Digg | Slashdot | del.icio.us | Buy This Game Home > Review Archive > Video Games > Results: Spectral Souls: Resurrection of the Ethereal Empires |
Read the GamerDad 2007 Holiday Guide!
|
Please Note: GamerDad is not intended to be read by anyone under 18. We stay clean, but be warned! Content Management System developed by Redbird Solutions. |
