Posted on: June 9, 2011

wvpr
Verified ownerGames: Reviews: 47
violent sandbox
[review based on original release, not GOG release] Crusader was the best action series of its time. There's little here in the way of story and character development, but the armed infiltration gameplay is fully fleshed out. The Silencer advances Diablo-style through various industrial and corporate installations toward his mission objectives, which occasionally change along the way. Ultimately, the levels are all very linear, but the player has a multitude of options for dealing with each room. The Silencer's arsenal includes pistols, remote bombs, mines, rifles, auto-shotguns, shield-killing energy weapons, and even a room-clearing multi-rocket launcher, letting the player choose between setting traps, attacking the whole room head-on, or anything in-between. The Silencer is also able to roll in any direction, giving much-needed mobility. At higher difficulties, guards are extremely deadly, so rolling in for an unexpected surprise attack is often the best approach. Guards patrol, sit in ambush, teleport or wander in unannounced. Unarmed technicians stand around, work at their stations, and otherwise go about their routine. When they see the player, they might hold up their hands, call for help, or run for the alarm. The levels are littered with obvious security cameras and gun turrets, hidden electric eyes, concealed touchpads, disguised doors, any of which can turn a simple room into a deathtrap. All of these add to the sense of a living world, and there's never a feeling that a particular trick is overused. It's hard to overemphasize how well the game balances the believable level defenses with the player's freedom to carefully dissect or wantonly demolish them. There are often computer consoles available to shut down or take over fixed defenses and robot guards. Sometimes it's more satisfying to be sneaky; sometimes it's just as fun to blast through a locked door and set all the alarms and traps off. Crusader was one of the first games to play music from a digital file rather than MIDI or a CD track. The soundtrack is full of brilliant techno mixes that add more sense of action than the actual gameplay. One of the best soundtracks in PC gaming. Crusader's sound effects were top-notch too. Two significant flaws still stand out. Crusader uses live action video clips to advance its story. These are unusually hammy and often too long, especially since they are all monologues (the Silencer stays true to his name). Video quality is good for its time, and there's a certain campy charm, but the videos are often annoying. The other flaw is the Ultima 8 engine powering the game. Rather than smooth Diablo-style scrolling, backgrounds jump from camera to camera, and the Silencer animation does some odd skipping as he runs against walls. Mouse and even joystick control were available in the original release, but I always found them too imprecise compared to keyboard-only. There are also some difficult jumping challenges due to the misleading perspective and fixed jumping distance. In general, jumping is only a major obstacle when exploring for secrets (which are everywhere), but it's still a weakness of the engine. Crusader would be phenomenal with a modern 3rd-person engine like God of War's. In short: lots of shooting, lots of sneaking, lots of sneaky deathtraps, lots of explosions, and great music the whole time.
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