Developer(s): Acquire Corp.
Publisher(s): NIS America
Platform(s):
PC (Steam), PSN, Xbox 360
Review Platform: PC
Release Date: October 30, 2012
Over the past few years, free-to-play
games have shown us that you can get a fairly decent amount of entrainment for
free. Even if you throw in some of the micro transactions, you really don’t
need to spend too much money to compete with your friends in all sorts of
online venues. So when a game does carry
a price tag, it should also carry the responsibility of providing players with
something beyond the rudimentary. Clan of Champions is an arena brawler that can
be tackled solo or with friends in co-op and multiplayer. While the premise of
a gladiator-style hack n’ slash with magic, orcs, and elves sounds promising,
the end result is a broken, unplayable, and painful experience that’s sure to
give you carpal tunnel and make your ears bleed.
- Co-op and multiplayer arena-style battles
- Using helmets as boxing gloves
- Keyboard controls are counter intuitive
- Groaning sounds are unbearable
- Visuals are bland and repetitive
- Zero diversity in gameplay
When was the last time you
played a PC game that didn’t let you tweak your graphics and control settings?
I honestly can’t remember, must have been in the early nineties. From the
moment you’re presented with the main menu, you have two choices: “Game Start”
and “Instructions.” The latter shows you a generic gamepad layout, but not a
single option to assign commands. What’s worse is that you can’t even use a
gamepad. The game doesn’t register anything
besides the keyboard, so you’re left with the unintuitive keyboard/mouse combo.
Upon starting the game
you’re given the option to create your warrior by choosing between human, orc,
and elf races. The character creator is one of the most barren you’ll ever see.
Choosing between three face/head types and a few haircuts/tattoos is all the
customization the game offers. Sure, there are a few different voices to assign
to your character, but their moans and growls all sound frighteningly painful.
Lastly, you can distribute talent points and choose between dual-wield, close-combat, and sword-shield
fighting styles, but in reality, none of these choices affect your combat very
much.
You begin by selecting your
“mission,” which is nothing more than a checklist of arenas that you go through
one by one. There’s no presentation here. Each arena has some kind of backstory
that’s told through a few lines of text and I never knew, or cared, why I was fighting…or who for that matter. It is immediately
apparent that Clan of Champions is designed for consoles and I’m shocked that it's
making its debut on PC. Attacks are dealt with the left, right, and middle mouse
clicks and combining them performs various combos and special attacks. But it’s
when you’re trying to roll and block that your fingers will spaz after extended
play. Characters control as if on a pivot and maneuvering incoming attacks feels
extremely clumsy. Rolling is cumbersome and animations are so weighty that you’re
more inclined to button-mash than mix and match offensive/defensive techniques.
Of course upgrading your
character results in higher stats and greater performance, but it never truly
impacts gameplay in any way. For the sake of the review, I played an entire
arena on the hardest setting and just tapped the left mouse button. No
blocking, no dashing, just button mashing. Sure, it was a bit tougher walking away from attacks, but I was
never challenged to try anything else. There are speckles of potential in the
arenas, such as the ability to knock away enemy weapons and armor and re-equip
them in any way you please. You can put helmets on your hands and use them as
boxing gloves or you can fist fight your way through an entire mission.
Unfortunately, it appears your warriors suffer from lower back arthritis and
are very slow at picking up objects. What’s even worse is that you have three
different buttons for picking things up. A button for your left hand, one for
your head/helmet, and one for your right hand. It sounds easy enough, but when
enemies surround you and there’s a pile of junk on the floor, it’s impossible
to pick up the weapon you need.
If the gameplay hasn’t
pushed you away by now, the presentation surely will. If I didn’t know any
better, I’d say this is a first generation PS2 game with a slightly higher
resolution. Environments look like something I could put together with Google Sketchup in a few hours and there’s no sense of design or creativity. Arenas
look identical to each other with repetitive textures plastered over barren
walls. Some battlegrounds are short, linear passageways that lead to larger
areas, but I couldn’t tell one place from another. Character models are treated
the same way. There were instances when I was surrounded by three orc
warriors…that looked exactly like me. Ouch.
But nothing comes even close
to the suffering you’ll experience from the sound. Everyone grunts and moans in
the most obnoxious manner imaginable. Poorly recorded, repetitive audio samples
that run on a nonstop loop. It’s torturous. Some of the orchestral background
music is “ok,” but you won’t notice it over the shrilling cries echoing in the
arenas.
| Final Score | “Repetitive, Soulless, and Archaic” | 3.5 |
| Graphics |
The game looks like it was put together in a day. Repetitive environments, repetitive characters and textures, everything looks the same. There aren't even any graphics settings to adjust. What you see is what you get.
|
4.0 |
| Gameplay |
You can technically beat the entire game by tapping the left mouse button and walking away from most incoming attacks. There are upgradable moves here and there, but you're never challenged to mix up your combat. After a week of playing, my hands felt numb and stiff.
|
3.0 |
| Value |
There's a decent amount of arenas, but there's not a single reason to play through them. Even when the multiplayer becomes accessible, the gameplay lacks any diversity and enjoyment. You'll have more fun peeling onions and drinking your tears than playing this game.
|
4.5 |
| Sound |
I've endured some of the worst video game audio throughout my lifetime of gaming and I never had to put a game on mute. That is until I played Clan of Champions. The painfully annoying grunts will haunt your dreams.
|
2.0 |
Review by Tin Salamunic
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Tin Salamunic is the founder of The Game Scouts. He is a Video Game
Journalist during the day and illustrator by night. He's been obsessed with
video games since the early NES days, collecting every major system and game on
the market. Video games are the reason he pursued the illustration career and
he hopes to be creative director for a video game company one day. All Artciles by Tin.
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