Gods
| Developer: The Bitmap Brothers | Graphics: |
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| Publisher: Renegade | Sound: |
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| Year: 1991 | Difficulty: |
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| Genre: Action-platformer | Lastability: |
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| Number of players: 1 | Rating: |
8/10 | |
Determined to take on the challenge thrown by the gods (Greek gods?), our hairless, muscular, and scantily clad warrior of the day has come to reclaim a mythical, abandoned city infested with monsters. He must triumph over the four guardians of the place in order to earn his spot on Mount Olympus.
Gods is a beautifully presented action game, but classic in its execution, where you throw every weapon that comes your way (knives, axes, spears…) at the faces of all the creatures that cross your path. For a breather, the killing phases are punctuated with simple but well-crafted puzzles, involving placing objects where they need to be; and of course, treasures and traps galore will reward your curiosity. And should your greed falters, your survival instinct will remind you that all riches gathered can be exchanged for weapons and potions at the local hawker!
While the game is universally praised for the quality of its design and graphics, one could take issue with its controls. The character is slow and stiff, and jumping from platform to platform is sometimes tricky, especially when the ceiling is low. Don’t even get me started on dodging monsters…
This is a recurring problem on Amiga, but I don’t find it particularly bothersome in the case of Gods. All the mechanics seem suited to this rigid handling: the hero attacks at a distance, and his attacks cover a large area on screen; the environments are cramped, and enemy behaviour is predetermined, which requires memory and preparation from the player rather than reflexes (somewhat in the manner of Castlevania). Compare this to Magic Pockets, where the short-range weapon in large spaces makes the lack of mobility and speed more noticeable. Or perhaps nostalgia is making me talk nonsense…
What bothers me more are these “one-way” paths that prevent you from going back and searching the area. It happens that you cross a door and leave the level for the next one unintentionally. More rarely, but even more frustrating, I think I’ve been permanently stuck by not doing things in the expected order (here, for example). By the way, if you get stuck in the gem room (second world), that’s a bug. Simply throw the items from your inventory on the ground, then pick them up one by one.
It’s worth noting that the difficulty adjusts to some extent to the player’s level, by materializing various bonuses (or monsters) here and there, following certain parameters (character energy, time spent, number of lives, etc.).
To finish, want to have a laugh? (Comments are disabled, would you believe!)
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