Severance: Blade of Darkness
First Impressions

Dr.Haggard, 11. February 2001

All things considered, it’s been a pretty good day. I got a new car, which I’m very pleased with, and I found time to transfer the guts of my PC to a shiny new case (make that ‘wind tunnel’ ;-)

Oh, and my review copy of Severance: Blade of Darkness finally arrived.

Days like this don’t come along very often. Going for the customary aimless drive around the countryside in my new car can wait, my priorities lie elsewhere for the moment, because after years of patient anticipation I am finally sitting down in front of my computer to play Bla…er Severance.

I wanted to write this article mainly for those people who have already played the demo, so I can tell you a few of the things that have changed and a few things you can expect in relation to what you already know. I don’t want to spoil anything at all though, so I’m going to try and be fairly brief and non-specific.

Firing her up you’re presented first of all with the intro movie in all its full motion rendered glory. It’s very atmospheric, and sets the scene perfectly, condensing the game’s back story via a chilling voice over into a succinct and striking minute or so of FMV. Then the menu begins loading, and the first thing I noticed was that the loading screen images are now displayed relative to the resolution you have chosen to run the game in, rather than being stretched to full screen (this also applies to the in-game journal screens). They look a lot better for it, and I think it was a wise decision because every level in the game has it’s own individual loading screen images which are a selection of gorgeous stills from the particular level they represent (very effectively made to look like illustrations), and they looked crap stretched beyond their original resolution in the demo.

Anyone who’s played the demo will immediately notice that everything about the game is so slick and polished that it doesn’t feel the same at all. It’s a finished product now, and as such is so professional and perfectly executed that you’ll immediately forget any concerns that were prompted by the buggy, unfinished demo.

Anyway, after setting up all my control options etc I was presented with a quandary, what the hell should I do first? I browsed around the menus a bit, looking at the Arena setup screens (the player configuration screen is very well done), but I couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer, I had to choose a character…

OK, I admit I crumpled under the pressure, and I decided to play through the tutorial level as each of the four characters, just to get a feel for them. It was great fun, and I finally settled on the barbarian for my first experience of the whole adventure, but it was a close call. The characters are very different from one another, not just in the obvious ways but also in the way they feel when you control them. Also they each have their own variations of some of the basic actions, such as jumping and dodging, and the basic weaponless attacks aren’t all just punches. The dwarf had me in stitches :o)

I’ll point out a few of things that I’ve noted and that people may want to know about, and the first of these that is immediately apparent is the water. Have you been wondering how good the promised water-ripple effects are? Well don’t worry they look fantastic, and they finish off what has to be the most amazing looking water yet seen in a game. Also load and save times have been cut down a lot, which was something I was a little concerned about previously. The mouse handling code has been improved a great deal, and even though it still becomes slightly more sensitive when you're running as opposed to when you’re walking it isn’t annoying anymore, and it never jerks around erratically! Other minor points that I've noticed are that you can now skip cutscenes you’ve already watched, and you get a visual indication when you’ve acquired a key from a felled enemy, which is useful, also enemies (mainly traitor knights from what I’ve seen so far) actually shout at you rather than just laughing occasionaly (but nothing yet beats the zombies vomiting poison at you!). Um...oh yeah Sargon has a much larger repertoire of grunts now!

There are undoubtedly lots more small improvements and fixes like these (and if I searched the forums to remind myself of things I could double the length of this article), but those are just a few that I can think of right now, and there's obviously lots of cool stuff I'm not going to tell you about!. Oh yes, and the games takes up about 750mb after installation for those of you who were wondering.

Now that I’ve played a couple of levels as Tukaram the barbarian I have to say that this game has me gaping in awe, sweating with suspense and tension, and gripping my mouse with grim determination all in equal measures. The world feels more real than in any other game I’ve played. The levels are utterly magnificent, the music is atmospheric and beautifully executed, the quiet lulls and periods of exploration are tense, and the combat can often be far better than indicated by the limited and uniform encounters offered in the demo. Sometimes your struggles can be little more than a jumble of flailing weapons, clashing steel and flying limbs, and at other times they can be like finely choreographed ballets of perfectly timed dodges, well chosen swings and arcing severed heads (oh how satisfying!). But whichever category they fall into they’re always epic, beautifully animated and totally absorbing, and often when you've cleared an area you just want to go back and do it again! Your skills improve quickly too, and when you remember that there are four player-characters with totally different fighting styles, weapon preferences and movement characteristics to get to grips with you soon realise the seemingly immeasurable depth and detail of Severance, and why it took more than four years to make. Computer gaming just doesn’t get any better than this :o)

Well I’ve gone on long enough already (and I have sooo much more to say), but I’ll have to leave the rest till later. Pretty soon everyone will be able to see for themselves how fantastic this game is. What I’ve seen so far has surpassed my expectations, and I just wish everyone could play it now and see what I mean! :o)

I’m now feeling a bit apprehensive, because as I said before, days like this don’t come along very often, and when they do they’re usually closely followed by a bad day or two to restore equilibrium to the universe. Still, at least now I’ve got Severance to play, and that’s going to last me some time.

Robin “Dr.Haggard” Marlow