[PS] Hexen: Beyond Heretic

Hexen: Beyond Heretic

Genre: FPS
PC/developer: Raven
PC/PS/publisher: GT Interactive Software
PS/developer: Probe Limited
Year of release: 1997
Players: 1
Media: 1 CD-ROM
Slots on Memory Card: 15
Additional peripherals supported: none, sadly

As a kid who loved both Doom and Heretic, I really loved Hexen as well. Yes, it was kinda darker and more complicated in gameplay than its' predcessor, but I understood it SHOULD BE that way. I have been always wondering what 4th weapon does every class have, what are the secrets in this game, loved the pre-final-boss episode in the graveyards (and Zedek, Traductus and Menelkir boss fights as well) and even considered infinite Wings of Wrath to be a glitch of sorts... And guess what, I still like it.
So, when I heard about Hexen being ported to PlayStation, my eyes started to shine, literally. After watching some videos on YouTube that cover this port, my hopes on seeing a good port became evaporated, but even with that, I've finally downloaded it from Rom Hustler. And started playing through it. Even if I understood that the port was a complete shit. So why didn't I tried to beat the N64 port? Maybe because the N64 pad is more complicated in usage than the PS one? Ah, screw it.

***

For those who completely forgot WTH is going on,a short recap of the story so far. So Corvus, the elven protagonist of the prequel, killed one of the Serpent Riders, D'Sparil, another Serpent Rider named Korax started to terrorize the world of Hexen. The only thing I actually don't get is how Korax may ride on the serpents when HE IS A SERPENT... Doesn't that look pointless, huh? Oh well, back on topic. So, the inhabitants of Hexen live under tyranny of The Legion, The Church and The Arcanum, each led by Zedek, Traductus and Menelkir respectively. One creepy night, these men decide to make a deal with Korax who promised to give them incredible powers in change of their lives (so they would be almighty zombies, sort of), and therefore, make life in Hexen even worse. The new protagonists, Baratus (fighter), Parais (cleric) and Daedalon (mage) dedicated their next hours of life to dispose of all four villains and become the owners of Serpent Riders' Hemisphere, an ancient relic that allows to decide the fate of any world existing in the Universe.
As you can see, the plot is nothing really special, but you know, that was only a warmup. The level design, the atmosphere, well, EVERYTHING is in spirit. THIS kind level of level design will never get out of your memory if you love it (compared to Wolf3D and Blake Stone levels which were exciting to play but not really memorable in their structure); I still remember how that goddamn Menelkir's tomb looks like, even if I haven't played it for months!..
But, to be honest, this is only a supporting factor. The most unique thing I distingushed from the other 'Doom clones' I had as a kid is that the gameplay itself tries to go, at least, a bit farther from your regular Doom clone (now, by the context, it's needed to leave this without quotes). Mostly by popularizing so-called 'RPG elements' which are popping up nearly in every single new blockbuster game (and the latest one that used them (kinda) wisely was S.T.A.L.K.E.R.). Three character classes, armor points, hub system a-la Spyro the Dragon (one 'home' level, several sublevels, plus a secret one in each of five chapters (except the prologue and epilogue)), puzzle solving, freqeuent usage of mana - these are, perhaps, all the RPG elements included in the game, which doesn't, however, distract you from the main point of the game - killing stuff. And solving puzzles, of course. These two will take most of your time when you play this. And the balance between 'kill-solve', unlike Heretic, goes more to the right than the left this time... But not that much. What? Oh, I hear. Wanna mess up with bloody stuff, huh. Pleasure. Set the Nightmare skill level before you start and you will not only be unable to stop your blood boiling, but also you won't get the puzzles solved that easily, thanks to the traditional massive respawns.
Puzzles, by the way, may not be that easy as you progress, but most of the time you just have to do what you are supposed to do in this chapter. Just to fill the holes, spoiler time. First chapter - just follow into the opened portal doors and pull all three required switches. Second - pull SIX switches this time, but only to activate the sealed doors that lead to the boss. Third - collect all the gem planets, apply all of them on the astrological board, fight the badguy. Fourth - exactly the same, only this time you collect gears to make the castle clock work. Fifth - fight three menaces of Hexen and, in case of victory, unseal the passageway to The Ultracheap Badass Final Boss Of This Game - Mister George Bush. No-no-no, kidding. Korax himself, what else were you thinking?
Classes. Probably my #1 favourite gameplay feature in the entire game. As said above, there are three classes in this game, all throughoutly balanced (but most pick the mage for some weird reason. They miss Heretic or else?). What's even more interesting, not only physical characteristics and weapons are different in each class, but the usage of several inventory items too! Let's take the most widespread one, that may be used as an alternate weapon, flechette, a bottle with green, yucky and poisonous liquid inside, for an example. Baratus is the fastest, consumes the least mana (and it case if it ends, the weapons may be used as melee ones) and has the biggest resistance against enemies' hits. One problem: his first truly long-range machine of chaos comes under number three. Him using flechettes as grenades may compensate this a bit, still... Parais is a golden middle between the other two classes in EVERYTHING. Speed, strength, weaponry... Yeah, about weaponry: he gets the first long-range weapon under slot number two and his flechettes are used to actually POISON the enemies. You know, the green clouds look no good. And are no good, which is good for us against the brainless monsters. As for Daedalon, he owns the coolest weapons in the game, indeed. For a starter, he gets a wand that may hurt the dumbies even on really big distances, albeit very poorly. But afterwards, he will be able to freeze everything in sight and even throw thunders (really effective against centaurs who block with their shields like fighting game turtles); his flechette appeal actually marks the cameo appearence of the timebombs from Heretic, the sequel! But! Despite this coolness, he's so physically weak... He walks as slow as Momo's turtle rides a bicycle made in good ol' USSR for kids with a hydropump engine placed behind! And he's the weakest in health among all the classes. So, as you see, the perfect balance. Everyone is good and everyone is bad at the same time. Make yer pick, gentlemen.
Talking about goodies returning from Hexen, I guess that I would give a pair of words to this too. Like, you still may turn your haters into... no, not chicken, this time you would mash them for a barbecue. Pigs, what else were you expecting... Also. Chaos Device is back, but now, it doesn't transport you back to the start in case if you get grounded (Banishment Device now does this), but rather pushes the legion, that is about to slash you apart, aback. Needless to say, it's now a more freqeuent item to run into.
And now about what you won't find in Heretic. Obviously, this game has three BFGs and all they look awesome, but before you start seeding death everywhere, you ought to collect three part of your future work instrument. But again, this show is really worthy to look at, ain't it, boys?
Okay, I told everything that's worth knowing about this game if you haven't tried it yet. And if you haven't done it yet, give it a shot, no matter if you will like it or not.
What I find weird, however, is that unlike his big brother, Hexen was officially ported on consoles, including the first PlayStation. Alas, while the creators of Saturn and N64 actually did made a really decent adaptation, Probe (the creators of really good ports of MK1&2, including really smoothly programmed MK2 for the PS) decided to move this into cash projects. Hence the quality.

***

One question to Probe. I know that the RAM constrants of PlayStation really suck, but hey, DO YOU GUYS CALL THESE GRAPHICS? This actually looks EXACTLY like Doom on Super Nintendo, plus floor/ceiling textures and bigger screen resolution. That's it. The one-sided enemy sprites, pixelated textures and screen area are still here. And don't tell me that it's the console which can't afford more juicy graphics than this. Otherwise, take a look at Doom again, but on the PS this time. Freezy framerate, the illness of almost every FPS classic ported to these times' consoles, is still here, but Williams actually managed to retain all the textures and enemies (sans Archvile, sadly), plus every enemy is covered with sprites for all 8 sides! So sorry, but your Hexen deliberately fails at this attempt and has nothing that this port has. But what's more interesting, the turning and the physics are EXACTLY the same as in the SNES Doom, which is making things just ridiculous as hell (I would keep talking about Williams and Probe messing up with BOTH Mortal Kombat and classic FPSes and ending up with having ridiculously same results, but you know, that'll be just pointless trash talking, so moving on).
In addition to really poor graphics, you may also notice that the dark fog has been added on every level. To my knowledge, such thing is implemented into modern games to put some more emphasis into atmosphere and cover the not-so-graphics away from your eyes. But c'mon! The graphics are already piece of junk so nothing would be really hidden, huh? Also, this fog is so useless that it even hampers when you, for example, are fighting the second boss. Thanks to the fog and pixelated screen, you can barely see from where this flying fucker throws fireballs! Therefore, you're unable to save Wings of Wrath for this run. Crammit.
From what this port really suffers as well, is from re-e-e-a-ally ba-a-ad programming and several enemy/platform replacements. Like, in the original version, your character will make a 'buh' sound if you stand in front of the wall and press the 'Use' button. In the PS port, he will buh every time you press 'Use', even if you don't stand in front of the wall (in clunky fashion of SNES Doom, AGAIN). And yes, they have managed to fuck the balance up. Fighter's gauntlet usually killed that two-headed dimwit, ettin, in 3 hits. Now it takes SIX hits to finish him up, the fighter just throws his fist A LITTLE BIT faster. Okay, Probe, I don't get this 'new addition'. How could you come up with such a stupid idea?!
For the replacements, let's give Darkmere a look. Originally, there were black statues holding 'firedishes', sort of. Here, they are replaced with three torches. It would be okay if those could be hanged on walls only, but later on, when I see the same torches 'flying' in the air...
Enemy replacements. For some unknown reason, the Seven Portals has all the serpents removed, leaving centaurs to mess up with. No, serpents ARE in the game, but only brown ones. Greenies are nowhere to be found, even on Light Crucible which had both types just in one level. Oh c'mon, what's wrong with you assholes? It's a fucking palette swap, goddammit!
All the sounds are on their places, thankfully, but the music... the music... well, for some reason (YET AGAIN) they reconverted the music into redbook quality, therefore, leaving only 1/3 of the original soundtrack alive. Aw damn, couldn't you use the privileges of XA so I shouldn't listen the Seven Portals theme on Shadow Woods and miss one of my favourite themes, Zedek's Tomb, huh?
This version has very, very neat (I'm not kidding) FMVs, but sadly, no matter which class you'll pick, it will always show the mage. Damn, will you ever stop me swearing? Were you unable to XA all the music and waste a bit more time on rendering same cutscenes with the remaining two characters?
Loading times. Well, these are okay, since every level loads in 10 seconds, but the saving times... I bet you don't want to wait thirty seconds while your game saves. Yeah, I counted. Thirty. It may look like nothing on words, but on practice, it feels like eternity. By the way. Wanna know why it takes thirty seconds? Well, the entire savegame occupies the whole memory card, all 15 blocks (compared to Duke Nukem Total Meltdown's 3-6 blocks). Awwwwwww, do I need to have EVERYTHING I've done logged? You don't need these dead bodies in any case since you can't do anything with them, why remembering their positions then? Can you simply store the puzzle progress sequence in just one or two bytes instead of remembering every switch, item and weapon I interacted with?! What the fucking fuck where you thinking, Probe?!!

***

Now there's no need to continue listing all the major fuckups done with this port. You already understand that it's just plain lame and looks and behaves like SNES Doom in many ways. All what was excusable for a 16-bit console will never go well with 32-bit one. So... the review is over?
Hee-hee, not yet. There is at least one good point in this thing. Controls. There, you may choose one of about twenty control mappings (compared to the same DNTM's three schemes) for your comfort. But where the comfort really ends is the use of 'shift' and 'inventory' buttons, you just gotta get used to them. While holding 'inventory' doesn't really do anything but switches the items with left and right on your D-Pad, the Shift button... Well, by holding it, you may change weapons (there is no reverse weapon tracking, however... and they swap as fast as in Serious Sam on the XBOX), use the items, look up or down and ascend or descend in case if you use Wings of Wrath. While the first two functions won't be a real bother, the remaining ones, apart from being rarely used, are just komp-lee-kei-t'd. Like, you wanna fly up. All you gonna do is to hold Shift + Jump + Up (almost said Ctrl + Alt + Delete, wow). And now imagine that a lot of serpents are attacking you from the ground. And that you're playing on hardest difficulty. They sure will burn your alter-ego's skin up before you press all the required buttons, for sure.
Plus, among all the level replacements, there is a good one, after all. Do you remember Korax appearing on the wall when a new chapter was about to begin? Well, now this wall doesn't disappear so cheaply, instead, it quickly scrolls down making a loud clang afterwards Now that's the thing that should be implemented into PC Hexen...
As I said at the very beginning of the review, I started playing through this version. And guess what, I made it to chapter three, Heresiarch's Seminary (a.k.a. Monastery)! So why couldn't I do that on the original Hexen? Why do I load up the ISO of this crapling into pSX emulator instead?! Why do I see all this pixelated mess that's called 'mawnstarz' again and again but keep moving the storyline on?!!
...these are the questions I would never find answers to.
Anyways, bottom line.

BOTTOM LINE:
Considering that PlayStation was a more affordable console than SEGA Saturn or Nintendo 64, this port indeed had potential. But none of it has been pushed forward. No optimization at all, crappy design, even more crappy programming... And that's Probe, the guys who made some really decent Mortal Kombat ports! I may give them a credit on leaving all the levels in their original order (unlike Doom for the same console), but OH MA GAWD, how much have they suffered... The only reason you have to download this port (neither buy, nor rent, only download - they haven't deserved their loaf of bread this time) is kickass FMVs. Otherwise, if you can't stand its' B-sides quality, beware of this thingie. It's cheaply done, after all.

P.S. Some may say that I have overloaded this review with mentioning yet too much other classic FPSes, mostly Doom for Super Nintendo. My fault. But still, why can't I let myself say that it's technically worse than all the stuff I told about above?!
P.P.S. Also, my longest review so far. I mean, sixteen kilobytes of pure text?! Doubtin' that you have read the whole thing entirely...

SCREENSHOT TIME!

Zedek before he orders an execution. 

So far, it looks accurate... so far.

Korax's dirty face. 

Frankly, even with such amount of enemies the game keeps the same framerate! 

This damn guy takes six hits  instead of three now. WHY?!!

'WHERE IS THE SERPENT?!' - ''He told me to kill you while he's out...'

[MD] Commandos

Commandos: Behind the Enemy Lines

Genre: stealth-action

PC/developer: Pyro Studios

PC/publisher: Eidos

MD/developer: Dragon Co.

MD/publisher: New Game, most likely...

Year of release: 1998

Players: 1

Media: 2 MB cartridge, SEGA MegaDrive compatible

Additional peripherals supported: SMDII joypad

Okay, you may say your one-liners now: 'Why is this game is reviewed in a blog that actually reviews the console ports of PS games? This game has no console port at all!' Well, I'm not going to rush at you but the actual reason I'm writing this article is that Commandos: Behind the Enemy Lines actually got a console port. No kidding, because I'm gonna show it to you right now. Wanna know on which platform it is? SEGA Genesis/MegaDrive! Gyaaaaah.
Of course, many of you would probably start digging a Wikipedia article on this game, glance through the platform list, then stare at me and say: 'NO IT'S WRONG!' But what I'm gonna tell you now is that... Wikipedia covers only the official list of platforms. The MD version is a mere bootleg. In other words, a pirate original. Didn't see THAT coming, huh?
Instantly, after reading this paragraph, you're starting to guess on who made this game. Well... obviously... Chinese? But when you look at the screenshots, another thought will be stuck in your head... RUSSIAN. But actually, every average, for example, Englishman or American will think that way because he will see symbols that really-really-really resemble the Russian ones on the screenshots. How would a Russian guy think about it? Well, he simply reads out all the briefing text and finds out that this game's Russian suffers from:
1) not really regular word order;
2) lots of grammatical mistakes in the words;
3) using the feminine adjectives all the time (like if the first word in a phrase 'German army' was feminine and the second one was masculine. Pointless, ain't it?).
So, we see that a regular Russian guy couldn't make such a fucking huge of typos and mistypos, so it's possibly Chinese who made it. Also, additional trivia: this game's Russian suffers as badly as in another good pirate port, Barver Battle Saga, which was rehashed into Final Fantasy 5 (which itself is nothing else than a redrawn title and lotsa dialogues translated crappily).
So we got into the fact that this port came from China. But who ACTUALLY made it? I may say it now. Dragon Co made it. Is that enough? NO?! Okay, let me bother with expanding this article so it would have 1000 more symbols.

***

Okay, about who the hell is Dragon Co. A little group of bucaneer developers that started making their own games for the famiclones. The lead programmer of this gang was Tommy Xie a.k.a. TomSoft, who made a little SDK for writing NES games, before the actual work on their creations. As a result, we get an ultracrappy Lion King 3: Timon & Pumbaa (first game, loosely based on the animated series with two latter characters), ultraturbocrappy Wait and See! (which has Warner's Bugs Bunny and 'Nu, Pogodi!'s mistranslated title, ultramegafuckingcrappy Tom & Jerry 3 (again, based on the cartoon, but on the series from Chuck Jones's era) and good-looking but still crappy in controlling Felix the Cat [by Dragon Co] (the particular episode with Gelie the Goose. Somehow works.). Anyways, somewhere around the new millenium, Tommy released another SDK, but this time, for doing MegaDrive games (get it HERE). And, actually, every single game compiled with the help of this thingie bears a 'TOMSOFT SDK' title in the header, so does our today's victim. You're not able to see Tommy Xie in the credits, however. But Li Meng, the guy who did 'music' for all the above listed Dragon Co games, 'did' the music for this game too. Second proof already, ahoy?
So, let's say that Commandos has been ported to MegaDrive by Dragon Co for ex-USSR audiences only (and that's the thing I'll probably never get) somewhere between the years 1998, when the PC version was released, and 2003, when this particular port was reviewed in the Great Dragon magazine.

***

Okay, Commandos on MegaDrive is not a really good idea.
But these guys did the impossible.
...After sacrificing a lot of stuff, of course. So let's see if it still works anyway.
Technically, it retains only five missions from the PC game, all the characters (apart from the driver) and, perhaps, most of the graphics and gameplay features. That's it. No saving ('mission select' disguised as a 'Load Game' menu is here instead). No dialogues. Several shortcuts present in the original are gone. Still, it's Commandos on the big screen which has some interesting stuff to mess up with though. It may be Commandos on a handheld too, if you waste some money and buy a Megadrive Portable with this cartridge or just load the ROM of it into PicoDrive, no matter if you have a PDA or PSP. And the lack of driver is not such a big deal anyway.
Interface. Pretty obvious change, because if in the PC version you had an inventory with 'backpack layouts', in the MD bootleg, you get a sidebar, similar to C&C on the PS. Also, you can't really activate the 'ray' which points the enemy's head position at the moment. No, it's still possible to see where they look, but only by looking at their pixelated heads. Be extremly careful when you try this port out!
Graphically, this port is tolerable... For a console like this, of course. There, we've got no zoom function or seamless animation, but yeah, you couldn't really expect more from Dragon Co. The only thing that really bothers me is that how in world Dragon Co managed to pick such a suitable color palette for the entire game, so it looks damn accurate to the PC original, even if MD could do really more than this. What you couldn't really expect from them is that there are even footsteps that every character leaves on the ground shown!
Controls are actually pretty easy for a game like this (worst part, however: no mouse support, even the bootleg one from these 'educational' systems): even if you don't have the SEGA MegaDrive II, it won't be a real problem to find the functions that are actually binded with X, Y and Z keys (grab the item, draw a pistol and get up/crouch respectively) on the sidebar. The only thing that will actually make even more problems is the cursor speed. Moving from one horisontal edge of the screen to another takes two seconds by default, but when you get a shitload of sprites on just one screen, this amount of time may increase to ten or more. Additionally, giving orders is fucked up. Like, you can't make a normal 'get there and kill the enemy' one-step scenario for your guys. INSTEAD, you do, like, order him to go there first and only then, you order him to kill an enemy. Will be a real bother, but sooner, you'll get on with it... Maybe.
With all the above factors (no saving, no head tracking thing, laggy controls, removed shortcuts) and one more: if any of your dudes gets killed, that automatically means you have to restart the mission you were playing! And this is on all five missions. The gameplay becomes just a pure trial-and-error experience, akin to the one in I Wanna Be The Guy (you don't have to restart the whole area or entire game in that case, however). The first mission won't be a bother if you know what to do. The rest will be a one big A.S.S., because, for example, in mission 2, you are forced to kill the convoy nearby the nazis' base if you don't want to get fucked up while in the original mission two, you just could get on the ladder and get into the base without killing anyone outside. MD version omits this shortcut for some unknown reason. Dragon Co. had no idea about it?
Additionally, the gun combat part is really fucked up there. If a nazi spots you, he'll kill you in 4 seconds. If you have got a pistol drawn already and if you'll start shooting at him repeatedly, be prepared to lose about 80% of your health. Explosive barrels sure do help, but if a barrel explodes and the soldier spots you at the same time, he'll start blowing you up and... 'Argh.' That's 30% off. Stupid pre-death lag, LAWL.
The game speed is kinda slower than in the PC version. Not only the characters move slower but the program itself lags like hell. From what we get it are REALLY huge maps and a lot of sprites on the screen (pretty similar to TomSoft's beta of Command & Conquer port. I'm still wondering if that mysterious Da Ne mentioned in credits IS Tommy Xie...). But okay, it's a mere MegaDrive which even wasn't able to replicate Populous II without little or just unbearable lagging, so that may be excusable, but the fact that the game LAGS is the fact. Especially with a lot of dead soldiers on one screen and with decoy sound bleeping.
Talking about the sound and music... Well, apart from the menu sound effect copied from the PC Commandos directly, neither of SFXs has anything to do with their original game's counterparts. The music, however, does, even if there are five looped 10-second digitized samples (in other words, mere extracts).

***

As for me, I have beaten the final mission of this game. Without beating the previous ones, of course. Just wanted to see the ending of the game.
I have disabled a lot of guards (especially ones inside the base with a simple decoy+dynamite trick performed nearby a black Volkswagen (or whatever it is), which created an ULTIMATE LAG... As well as ultimate death, 9 soldiers in one explosion.), blew the radars up, made the base completely desolated, stole the truck, messed up with controlling it, then got away, and... Stats screen. Got three stars for beating it. When I select the 'Next Mission', it just throws you to the... Title screen. My eyes became popped at that moment. No 'The End' screen, no credits, nothing! It just resets the game. Nevertheless, I give credit to the creators that they have put effort into porting Commandos to SUCH a weak console like MD. No kidding, this is their best creation ever. Period.

BOTTOM LINE:
Dragon Co took a really complex game to port. Lots of obvious flaws and annoyances there, but nevertheless, it's stealth action. Not your cheap platform gamie which have been (re)created over millions of times before. Dragon Co was a part of this process as well, creating a lot of cartoon-based platformers with fucked controls, but a strategy game is not what I have expected from these guys! And they've kept most of the stuff alive, what's really important. So, if you're looking for a really good unlicensed game for your MegaDrive, take Barver Battle Saga and this. Also, [pointless cursing mode on] if you think that 'those mothertrucker pirates' just CAN'T MAKE a good game, shut your fucking monkey ass up and stop treating this game like a douchebag. Go do something more useful, like, comparing two ports of Westwood's Lion King to the NES: licensed one by Dark Technologies and pirated one by Super Game, wontcha?

Crash Nicker

SCREENSHOT TIME!

Such a NICE title screen... spoiled by a Russian title below.

I use to laugh SO much at this Russhen.

And this.

Let's go heavy machinery!

Sin City coloring method makes this building look like an evil genius's lair...

...I swear, this mission has HORRIBLE difficulty... still haven't beaten it.

[PS] The Neverhood Chronicles

The Neverhood Chronicles [Klaymen Klaymen: Neverhood no Nazon]

Genre: adventure game

PC/publisher: Microsoft

PC/developer: The Neverhood

PS/publisher/developer: Riverhillsoft

Year of release: 1998

Players: 1

Media: 1 CD-ROM

Slots on Memory Card: 1

Additional peripherals supported: DualShock, PS Mouse

I hate the gaming press when it comes to f***ing a product that IS great and that anyone actually wants to play to (take God Hand for instance). I just hate it. With passion. The Neverhood got into the same situation. Exactly the same.
It was a battle between the critics of GameSpot and the funkiness of the world of Neverhood… where the second got squished by a tank and received the score of 4,9 (When Skullmonkeys, a less amazing, but still charmful sequel got 5,0. WTF?). Okay, as you say, the story and puzzles might be weak there, but are they SO weak that you have to stomp it?
I still have a word for these guys to say…
WHY SO SERIOUS?!
AND YOU CALL IT BAD?!
Geesus Howard. I may understand it when a person didn’t really liked this game when he tried it only once, but seeing critics trying to beat A WHOLE game and treating it like a piece of cum is…
Ah, enough rushing, because unless I stop it, this will never end.
Let’s get to the thing instead.

***

If you are not familiar with this game yet, here’s a short recap of what’s going on (may contain spoilers, you’ve been warned). So, in a faraway galaxy, a clay creature named Hoborg the King built a new planet named The Neverhood. After getting bored of a few days living on it alone, he additionally creates a friend, Klogg, by using only one seed from his crown. This tiny thing will soon became an object of Klogg’s attention… As well as his throne. His property. His planet!!.. So, without any hesitating, the crown is being stolen… and Klogg becomes a retardedly-looking clay figure. Still, Hoborg is out cold. Klogg is the only owner of this deserted (by now) planet.
Basically, it’s not that deserted, but for such a planet, the cast of actual characters (until you get to the good ending) is pretty low. Along with the fact that most of them are minor. What are they? Well, Hoborg and Klogg themselves, obviously – that’s two. A big evil Robot Bil who spends the end of his rusty days surviving a punishment, pretty much like Sisyphus’s: sitting in a pit and being unable to get his lovely teddybear back (one more warning: this game is ultraweird) – that’s three so far. A couple of beasts called Weasels, yet who don’t have anything to do with the actual weasels – that’s five. Guy From The TV who has the only line in the entire game yet whose theme became used for some stand-up comedy shows – six. A random spider which may be found not too far from this guy – seven. A fluffy little mouse who stands in front of a BIG block of cheese – eight. A ‘talking eye’ which can be only seen through a little window there – nine. A Whack-o-Hammer little troll – ten. Three random squishy clay sheep – fourteen. Bear Retrieval Squad – sixteen. A creepy pterodactyl monster thing that Klogg summons as we invade ‘his’ castle – seventeen. Two Venus Fly Traps – nineteen.
And last, but not least, Willy Trombone. Goofy and hungry, like, as usual (he doesn’t care what he would have for dinner, even if it will be Weasel’s leg); he’s actually the son of one of Hoborg’s predecessors. And thanks to him, we’ll have an alter-ego to mess up with. Klaymen (forgive the incorrect spelling of the name you damn spellchecker, I warned you too).
Yeah, he’s silent pretty much most of the time. But that wouldn’t really bother him right now: the first time he shall actually talk to someone is in the ending. Before, we’ve gonna explore a damn lot of weird and funny locations which are made of clay. ENTIRELY, lemmie tell you.
The adventure will not be just a walk in the park. If you don’t know how to beat this game, then you’re doomed to, for example, stuck in a laboratory, without knowing how to actually shrink Klaymen. Sometimes, for a puzzles like this, the solution is situated just nearby your nose, though it wasn’t made to look that obvious…
Well, never mind. I’m gonna say that after the release of this port, the character of Klaymen became some sort of a star in Japan (a burning star, still, but in any case, Riverhillsoft & KIDSMIND Inc. made up their own Neverhood game, Klaymen Klaymen Gun Hockey, which had a minor at the gameplay BUT lost the atmosphere of the original). So why don't we get started checking the port out right now? Was it really worthy?

***

Talking about differences between PC and PS versions… Well, it’s still The Neverhood, but with some slight changes. First, the entire game is in Japanese (even some titles embedded in the clay were translated like nothing happened, yay!). Second is the availability of the Dual Shock support (why?). Third, you may listen to the entire OST in the options menu (another fanservice for those who can’t live without Terry Scott Taylor’s jazz?). Fourth… well…
Let’s get deeper into the Spanish Main this time. The game uses one, two or three screens per loading which means that you’re doomed to listen to the music themes from the beginning again and again multiple times. The game uses the CD even when you want to see Klaymen’s idle animations or just get gulped by a Venus Fly Trap at the beginning of the game. The loadings here are not very long, 10 seconds maximum. What? You say that roaming in Hall of Records in that case would be hell annoying? Calm down. It would be. Keyword: WOULD. But that won’t work with the creators of this port. If you try to walk through it on the PS version, you’ll find yourself amused and astonished. THE ENTIRE HALL OF RECORDS THING IS NOW THREE SCREENS ONLY! With all the records removed, obviously. You get into the room, hit the light switch, move on, see the wall where the goddamn long ‘This Game’s Bible’ is supposedly meant to be started and, after moving a bit further, just a bit… you see the disc. And the end of the room too. So, it’s sure a nice attempt to overcome the console’s RAM limitations. ‘Can’t fix it? Cut it down.’
Loadings may be, perhaps, the worst part of this port (not the game itself), but that can’t really spoil the fun, right? Not even a single texture or a FMV (including the ones where you see The Neverhood first-person style) was removed (apart from the location listed above), so, design-wise, this one is perfect. Possibly, the only moment where loadings may be annoying is the storyline movie narrated by Wiri Trombonkendan (used his Japanese name, just lemmie laugh a bit on it…) which loads segment-by-segment even if you collabed the entire thing. And, like on Windows, you can’t get past this one! Oh well. At least it’s a reason to go away for a while, like, shopping or just making a fridge clearing.  
Back to the start of this review, some more minor differences, just for kicks and to get all the pieces of the complete picture altogether. First, some sounds in the game are being edited for some reason (like the ‘ding’ sound when you complete a puzzle being pitched up and Bil’s grunt inverted). Second, you get an intermission letter in Japanese when you start the game. Third, you get little help screens a-la Skullmonkeys, again, in Japanese, and again, when you start the game. Fourth, the mail is still present in this game, albeit you don’t get random ‘write back or die’ letters this time, instead, there’s ONLY one ‘write a reply’ letter. RAM constraints much?

***

Unlike a lot of cheap and not really cheap PC-to-console ports which I’m going to review really-really soon, the controls are comfortable. Kinda, if you’re using a gamepad. And exactly, if you still own a PS mouse. Yes, this game is one of those that actually supports mouse! It’s an adventure game, after all… Oh, by the way, this game doesn’t really need a shitload of slots on your memory card to save. One is enough, with three ‘subslots’ to save on, which really makes sense. The only inconvenience is that when you beat the game, all the saves of your current game will be blocked for usage, unlike in the original... Okay, now that makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.

BOTTOM LINE:
Basically, when I first heard of Neverhood being ported to PlayStation, I spent almost all the New Year’s Eve of the year 2008 (Americans may replace this with ‘Christmas Eve’) to find the ISO of it. With the links on SNESorama and all other popular game ISO resources being shut down, I finally got it on the 20th-30th page of the results of my googling for this game. It was on Yoshitora’s Blogspot, uploaded on Rapidshare (ffff, I hated this filehoster very much) but even despite the filehoster’s unreliability, I finally got it. And, lemmie tell you, it was a great self-present, seriously. This thing would be forgotten with time, however, if the port would be crappy. But it isn’t. At least because you’re reading these lines.

Crash Nicker

SCREENSHOT TIME!

New shiny title screen. Not in clay like the pause menu in the PC version, but still makes sense.

One of the few moments in my life when I'm damn sorry I dunno Japanese... Or is that because I don't have a Japanese-languaged keyboard?

One statue there is, like, three shrinked Klaymens high.

One of the few cases where the final 'puzzle' is not the hardest.

Best escape scene ever, I'd give my testicles to prove that... But! My testicles are more of value than that stuff.

'Don't jump on it you piece of--'  [gulp sound]

What I forgot to mention in the review is the progress bar... aw well, who cares.