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IGN Review of The Cursed Crusade
The modern games industry is comprised almost entirely of imposing, triple-A, high-budget blockbusters at one end of the spectrum and nubile, creative independent developers at the other. The receding middle ground, what little there is left of it, is increasingly crowded with mid-level games scrabbling to find purchase – and more and more of them are falling off the edge. You have to be something really special to find a firm foothold. Is this a sad state of affairs? For the developers in question, yes, of course. But why should players mourn an end to mediocrity?
The Cursed Crusade isn't even mediocre, though – it's bad. Not unplayably bad – it does work on a basic level – but it's turgid, sticky, unsatisfying and incredibly boring. It's a third-person medieval hack-and-slash game that likes to think of itself as pretty violent, with a big emphasis on finishing moves. It's also got a heavy co-op emphasis, lumping you, a Knight trying to get into the Crusades and find his father, with an unfortunately dim AI companion for each mission if you're playing alone.
If the premise sounds familiar, that's because The First Templar did exactly this earlier this year, complete with co-op campaign. The Cursed Crusade's twist is that the main characters have cursed blood, letting them transform into demons now and then. This doesn't actually do much, though; supposedly it boosts your attack and defence, but really all it seems to do is coat the screen in terrible flame textures. It does provide an excuse for lots and lots of motion-captured cutscenes in which hero Denz and his wince-worthy racially-stereotyped companion Esteban show off their rad new horns in fights, and engage in instantly-forgettable and incredibly long-winded exposition.
Almost all of the proper action in The Cursed Crusade takes place in cutscenes. Final showdowns, dramatic fights, cool transformations, journeys – all of it happens in custcenes. There are so many of them that it's borderline ridiculous. The opening hour of the game is about 80% cutscene, interspersed with brief playable interludes, and the game never tires of its own voice (or those of the voice actors, who bravely give the middling script a very good go). Every single mission is book-ended with at least two cutscenes at the start and at the finish. At least they're skippable – but skipping one usually just leads you straight into another. Everything about them testifies to the Cursed Crusade's budget production – the background music is so badly compressed that it sounds like you're listening to a dodgy MP3 downloaded off LimeWire in 2005.
When you are actually allowed to play, the combat system – which initially seems promising – proves itself shallow and sticky in the longer term. There's a noticeable delay between when you press the button commanding Denz to swing his sword, and his eventual attack. You can pick up different weapons and use them in dual-wielding combinations, which is a neat idea – fights theoretically play out differently with a sword in one hand and a mace in the other than with a hatchet and shield, altering the available combos and finishing moves.
But nothing really feels like it connects. Swords disappear through midriffs like retractable props, emerging at the other end in unconvincing blood spatter. The motion capture isn't half bad, but the effects and models just can't communicate the kind of visceral, gratuitous violence that the combat is obviously going for. The finishing moves, meanwhile, can last forever, and never look spectacular enough to justify their five-second playtime. Especially not the twentieth time you see them.
It's also embarrassingly easy. Aside from the crippling boredom, my main obstacle in The Cursed Crusade was the scenery. Button prompts failed to appear next to items of scenery that I was supposed to interact with, leaving me wandering tiny enclosed spaces at a loss for what to do. Once, I got stuck on a brazier, left to watch Esteban tussle ineffectually with a squad of enemies from afar. Only an eventual restart saved me from the scenery's cruel embrace.
You unlock a tree of weapons techniques through victory points that you earn at the end of each mission. Your gradually expanding arsenal of weapons and repertoire of moves should keep the fighting fresh, but the combination of input lag and the imbecilic nature of the game's enemies means that it's far, far too easy to muddle through with one button. There's the beginnings of interesting depth in the counter and parry system; sometimes you can break an opponent's guard or counter their attack with a well-timed button press, but this is inexact and unreliable.
Shonky games can be fun, sometimes. But the hack-and-slasher is a genre that relies entirely on gameplay, on the feeling of control and connection with the world on a basic level, on the satisfaction of landing a blow on some good with a greatsword. The Cursed Crusade delivers none of that, and the story and characters do nothing to make up for its shortcomings. Co-op doesn't save it, either; the game's performance slows, and there are no actual co-operative elements or puzzles besides both of you pressing the same button at once whilst standing next to a trebuchet.
©2011-10-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The Cursed Crusade isn't even mediocre, though – it's bad. Not unplayably bad – it does work on a basic level – but it's turgid, sticky, unsatisfying and incredibly boring. It's a third-person medieval hack-and-slash game that likes to think of itself as pretty violent, with a big emphasis on finishing moves. It's also got a heavy co-op emphasis, lumping you, a Knight trying to get into the Crusades and find his father, with an unfortunately dim AI companion for each mission if you're playing alone.
If the premise sounds familiar, that's because The First Templar did exactly this earlier this year, complete with co-op campaign. The Cursed Crusade's twist is that the main characters have cursed blood, letting them transform into demons now and then. This doesn't actually do much, though; supposedly it boosts your attack and defence, but really all it seems to do is coat the screen in terrible flame textures. It does provide an excuse for lots and lots of motion-captured cutscenes in which hero Denz and his wince-worthy racially-stereotyped companion Esteban show off their rad new horns in fights, and engage in instantly-forgettable and incredibly long-winded exposition.
Almost all of the proper action in The Cursed Crusade takes place in cutscenes. Final showdowns, dramatic fights, cool transformations, journeys – all of it happens in custcenes. There are so many of them that it's borderline ridiculous. The opening hour of the game is about 80% cutscene, interspersed with brief playable interludes, and the game never tires of its own voice (or those of the voice actors, who bravely give the middling script a very good go). Every single mission is book-ended with at least two cutscenes at the start and at the finish. At least they're skippable – but skipping one usually just leads you straight into another. Everything about them testifies to the Cursed Crusade's budget production – the background music is so badly compressed that it sounds like you're listening to a dodgy MP3 downloaded off LimeWire in 2005.
When you are actually allowed to play, the combat system – which initially seems promising – proves itself shallow and sticky in the longer term. There's a noticeable delay between when you press the button commanding Denz to swing his sword, and his eventual attack. You can pick up different weapons and use them in dual-wielding combinations, which is a neat idea – fights theoretically play out differently with a sword in one hand and a mace in the other than with a hatchet and shield, altering the available combos and finishing moves.
But nothing really feels like it connects. Swords disappear through midriffs like retractable props, emerging at the other end in unconvincing blood spatter. The motion capture isn't half bad, but the effects and models just can't communicate the kind of visceral, gratuitous violence that the combat is obviously going for. The finishing moves, meanwhile, can last forever, and never look spectacular enough to justify their five-second playtime. Especially not the twentieth time you see them.
It's also embarrassingly easy. Aside from the crippling boredom, my main obstacle in The Cursed Crusade was the scenery. Button prompts failed to appear next to items of scenery that I was supposed to interact with, leaving me wandering tiny enclosed spaces at a loss for what to do. Once, I got stuck on a brazier, left to watch Esteban tussle ineffectually with a squad of enemies from afar. Only an eventual restart saved me from the scenery's cruel embrace.
You unlock a tree of weapons techniques through victory points that you earn at the end of each mission. Your gradually expanding arsenal of weapons and repertoire of moves should keep the fighting fresh, but the combination of input lag and the imbecilic nature of the game's enemies means that it's far, far too easy to muddle through with one button. There's the beginnings of interesting depth in the counter and parry system; sometimes you can break an opponent's guard or counter their attack with a well-timed button press, but this is inexact and unreliable.
Shonky games can be fun, sometimes. But the hack-and-slasher is a genre that relies entirely on gameplay, on the feeling of control and connection with the world on a basic level, on the satisfaction of landing a blow on some good with a greatsword. The Cursed Crusade delivers none of that, and the story and characters do nothing to make up for its shortcomings. Co-op doesn't save it, either; the game's performance slows, and there are no actual co-operative elements or puzzles besides both of you pressing the same button at once whilst standing next to a trebuchet.
©2011-10-12, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved