Beowulf (PC)

...Beowulf is a third-person action game in which where you play the role of the buff, angry, and eponymous Beowulf, while commanding your small band of warriors "thanes" by doing simple commands . The combat is rather cinematic, a bit gory, and repetitive making it rather boring after awhile.


'''The Plot'''

The story is similar to the computer animated DVD movie with the same tittle, but somehow felt forced ...
...the demoness managed to seduce Beowulf into giving her the horn, and _VIOLA_ all of a sudden you're the Danish king, and your kingdom is in peril once more having a new demon roaming around and threatening your kingdom. The players goal is to kill baddies, and somehow not be seduced by demoness, who'll gladly humps your leg and bites your neck whenever she sees you and given the chance.


'''Gameplay'''

Extremely straight ... more

Brief Intoruction

Beowulf is a third-person action game in which where you play the role of the buff, angry, and eponymous Beowulf, while commanding your small band of warriors "thanes" by doing simple commands . The combat is rather cinematic, a bit gory, and repetitive making it rather boring after awhile.

The Plot

The story is similar to the computer animated DVD movie with the same tittle, but somehow felt forced and full of nonsense. You play as Beowulf, a strong monster-slaying Nordic macho dude who loves fame and glory, and he wants to rid the Danes of a monster called Grendel. After Grendel was defeated you're given a golden dragon horn by the Danish king, who then asks you to kill Grendel's mother. Macho he may be but still a man he is, the demoness managed to seduce Beowulf into giving her the horn, and VIOLA all of a sudden you're the Danish king, and your kingdom is in peril once more having a new demon roaming around and threatening your kingdom. The players goal is to kill baddies, and somehow not be seduced by demoness, who'll gladly humps your leg and bites your neck whenever she sees you and given the chance.

Gameplay

Extremely straight forward. The game is very linear and doesn't take long to finish. However in that short journey there are many obstacles such as pitfalls you may never escape from, puzzles, the silly drumming mini-games etc.

Beowulf have several skills and ability such as the Carnal rage where he enters a berserk state and became very powerful, so powerful that he could smack a sea serpent which like 20x larger than him barehanded. There are also a skill called Heroic Aura or something like that, by killing baddies your Thanes' morale increases and when it's full the skill can be use to increase the combat abilities of your band of merry Thanes.

The game also introduce puzzle solving elements, if you can call it a puzzle that is. One of the puzzles that still doesn't make sense to me is the puzzle that challenges you to use carnal rage (berserk mode) to start fires, which in turn let you hunt the leader of a band of evil monkey men. If the connection between rage, fire, and monkey men does NOT make any sense to you, you are not alone. Unraveling that the game is a bit lacking in the logical side. The game also filled with weird mechanics, and bad planning. You'll witness the illogical for a game where the hero is a mere strong butch macho dude, things that you'll probably only witness in marvel comics or so, another thumbs down for this game.

The game also introduce "carnal" versus "heroic" scale system. For short, it is a gauge by which your legacy is measured. If you rely on Carnal fury mode in which you become invincible and do heavy damage, the gauge will slide toward carnal. If you kill enemies with regular attacks, the meter will shifts toward heroic and will boost your thanes strength. However there's no light or dark path in this game, and there are times that you can't choose whether or not you want to be carnal or heroic, especially when encountering the big bosses, you have to enter carnal mode as it's the only way to hurt them.

Combat

Combat is simple, a combination between light attack, strong attack, and dodge. If you dodge an enemy's strike, you'll be able to execute a cinematic power attack that can slay nearly any foe in one go while healing yourself. The funny thing is that you don't actually have to dodge an attack, simply hit dodge followed by power strike, and Beowulf automatically executes the super swing while moving toward the nearest enemy, Beowulf also seems to be invulnerable during both animations, so as long as you keep up the sequence, you can Cinematically cleave and stomp your way through an unlimited number of barbarians, monkey men, or worshippers, all while healing yourself and your allies. During boss fight, players need to follow button prompts, just like in God of War.

Mini-Games like feature

During gameplay players will find that your path blocked by a boulder. Instead of just kicking it aside yourself, you point at it and say "Move that boulder" using a simple command menu, and your mindless little band of warriors will all jump on it while screaming "Here I go," "I'm doing it!", and "I'm in position!", then you begin a rhythm game where Beowulf dances, sing, and pump his fist while the thanes heaving and hoing. You aren't just a marauding band of tough guys, you're an adventurous, Nordic circus troupe that solves problems with the power of song. Moving huge boulders with the power of music? Get real...........

Another thing that annoys me after awhile. You see, every time you do anything which can be described as awesome, your thanes will cheer you on with shouts like "Wow, did you see that?", "Whoa, look at Beowulf, he is so awesome!" and "My hero, look at him go! I am inspired!" not their exact words, but the sentiments are similar. Every one of them will whoop and holler every time you kick butt, making combat is a matter of you chopping things up and stomping on them in glorious slow motion, while buckets of blood splats all over the screen, to an unending chorus of awe, affection, and gratitude.

My Opinion after playing this.....d'uh! game

Most of the environments look good, rendered and drawn nicely with plenty of atmosphere and creepy set pieces, and the cinematic violence certainly has enough blood and gore. However the character rendering is not very impressive, some of the textures look as if using a lost ancient graphic technology. I've seen the game for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and they look and run great, without any noticeable rendering laggy-ness. The PC version is a different story, without anti-aliasing, the game looked gritty but ran fine. With anti-aliasing, it looked fine but moved with caffeinated jerkiness. Aside from that, all three versions were effectively the same, with simple controls, ridiculous challenges, and merry fun-loving thanes. So, after reading all that, still care to try? 

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