Why hasn't anybody done this before? That's the question that kept going through my mind as I played Rune. To be less cryptic, why hasn't anybody done a good hack-and-slash game for the PC that focuses on action, not character development? The PC has had plenty of titles in the role-playing game (RPG) genre over the years, but Rune is the first of its kind at this level of quality. Whatever the reason, I'm glad Human Head Studios finally got around to making the game. Read on to find out why.
The visuals in Rune are pretty stunning. I probably shouldn't have been surprised given that it is built on top of the Unreal Tournament (UT) engine, but the developers have clearly added some nice bits of their own. The environments are never less than impressive, and in some cases they're downright beautiful. I'll never forget walking around under the great big moon in the snowy mountain fortress of Thorstadt. That was truly something to see, as were the Vikings who leapt to the attack from the roof above!
The modeling and animations are also very well done. Ragnar moves well and looks good, probably a little too good to be real sometimes, as he makes his way through the world. The special effects are equally well done, particularly some of the underwater bits at the beginning of the game. The cut-scenes are positively cinematic, particularly the one of a roller-coaster ride on the back of a huge insect! In short, Rune scores big in the visual department.
I have only two complaints with the visuals. The first is that there is a really annoying bug that renders everything gray when running the game under DirectX without the right fog table emulation settings. This isn't a show-stopper, obviously, because it can be circumvented, but it was extremely frustrating to me until I managed to find the fix. Second, the camera controls can get pretty confused in really tight environments. It only happens some of the time, but when it does, it's usually fatal. I'm not sure what the problem is, but the developers needed to work on that just a bit more.
I have mixed thoughts about the audio in Rune. In the minus column, there just isn't enough variety in the sound effects. How many times can you really listen to that same hissing/spluttering sound when Ragnar lops the head off a zombie? That got so grating after a while that I was almost wincing when it happened.
In the plus column, however, the music is utterly wonderful! Admittedly, I'm the kind of guy who likes Wagner, so the utterly plodding music in Rune is just perfect to me. I've stolen all the tracks in MP3 format and listen to them frequently. At the same time, however, there isn't enough of the music. It only plays at certain points. The game would have been greatly improved, I think, by more music.
Also in the minus column, the positional audio is just funky. I find this particularly odd for a UT-based game, as I usually have positional audio difficulties only with games built with the Quake III Arena engine. With Rune, however, it seemed nearly impossible for me to get the volume settings configured well if I had any of the positional audio features enabled. I don't know why the voices were so bizarrely muted with even the slightest shift of position and orientation, but they were.
Simplicity itself is the best way I can think to describe the interface. Despite the third-person view, the game plays pretty much like most first-person shooters. Weapons are organized by category and are thus easily selected with the number keys, the basic movement can be configured for WASD, and attacking is as simple as clicking the mouse. The in-game portion of the interface is a breeze.
Fortunately, the menu system is pretty cool too. It provides the features that come pretty standard with any UT-engine based game, and does so with style. I rather like the Viking theme to the menus and such. They give a very satisfying "boom" when selections are made. Some of the enemies that appear on the opening bit move so frantically they seem as if they're dancing, but I can forgive that, I guess.
This is where Rune both succeeds and fails. It succeeds because it's so simple to play. Grab a weapon and hack stuff up. Use the rune power with different weapons to trigger various more-or-less useful special abilities. The bloodlust feature is a particularly inspired bit, as almost anybody would go ape, I imagine, after mowing through as many of the same enemies as Ragnar must—more on that later.
Rune's great strength is also its weakness, however, insofar as the mechanics of the game are so shallow. None of the weapons essentially feel any different than any other weapon. Sure, the huge dwarven hammer and sword swing more slowly, but they work in exactly the same fashion. Rune doesn't even feature the most basic sorts of attacks one might expect when attacking while moving. The simplicity comes at a price, namely, that the mechanics get pretty old after a while.
The story is actually quite interesting, I think, but I really enjoyed reading Norse mythology as a boy. Allfather Odin, Loki the Trickster, Thor the thunder god, et al. were all very familiar to me. As such, the potential unleashing of Ragnarok, the end of Midgard, at least as we know it, has great meaning to me. The plot may not be as interesting to others, but I found it pretty compelling.
A point in particular that I must applaud is the developers' decision to force Ragnar to give up that which is most precious to him, namely, his humanity. When he must dive into the pool in order to escape from Loki's chamber that's a bigger commitment than most players probably realize. To be consistent with the overall mythos, Ragnar would be giving up any chance of earning a place in Asgard, as such a thing is reserved only to those human warriors on whom Odin smiles. That the game ends with Ragnar crossing the rainbow bridge is only that more beautiful as a result.
Rune stumbles in one other aspect, I'm afraid, and that's the content. The game packs plenty of levels, but in all honesty they grow kind of old after a while. One can only fight so many crabs, zombies and Vikings. Throughout the entire game, there are only eleven distinct sorts of creatures to engage (twelve if you count the final boss, Conrack), and that's not many for a game of Rune's length. I found myself wishing for something new on more than one occasion, which made some of the game's levels seem more tedious than fun.
Still, Rune has some moments of absolute brilliance. Toward the end of the Helgrind episode, one enters a room into which Hel sends an enormous number of zombies after the player. It was one of the most spectacular experiences I've ever had as a gamer, though I'm not quite sure why. Something about the combination of the seemingly never-ending enemy onslaught, the wonderfully primitive music and other elements all came together in a very special way. I was running and leaping madly around the room, going into bloodlust from severing head after head. I don't really know how long it lasted, but I was literally yelling with the joy of carnage. Maybe I should see a psychiatrist, eh? I don't know. I just know that Rune was worth the price I paid for it for that bit alone.
The game features a large number of levels, none of which are particularly small. Overall, Rune is a pretty good value. My only other real complaint with the content is that the enemy AI isn't all that impressive. I was kind of hoping to face some relatively "smart" enemies, but the bad guys in Rune aren't particularly inspired. The final boss, Conrack, is tough, but he goes down pretty quickly if the player reserves sufficient rune power to activate the special feature of the dwarven sword.
It also bears mentioning that Rune suffers from one terribly annoying bug that still hasn't been swatted with all the patches. I don't know why this happens, but from time to time when entering a new level, one suddenly loses all weapons and equipment. Worse, the only workaround I've been able to find is to reload from the last save and wander around the current level hoping that it won't happen this time around. It seems to be pretty intermittent in that regard; i.e., sometimes I could avoid the problem simply by smashing more objects, killing that last monster, etc. Unfortunately, if you've saved in the wrong place, you're just hosed. It's not much fun facing a bunch of bad guys when you can't fight back. I really wish the developers would fix this.
The multi-player aspect of the game is kind of spotty. Like the single-player game, it has its moments, but it's largely a lag-infested click-fest on many of the servers. It's a pity, really, but there don't seem to be that many servers out there, and I can't get a very good connection to more than a handful. Apparently, the game just never really caught on like one might hope. Still, when you can get into a good game, Rune really delivers in spades for a while. Like the single-player game, its simple game mechanics get kind of old after a while, but it's pretty good fun before boredom comes knocking.
Overall, Rune is a good game. If you're the kind of gamer who longs for a good hack-and-slash sword-fest, you could do worse. I doubt it's going to be a game that lives on your hard drive for years, however, so if you're a gamer on a budget, you might be better served elsewhere. I liked the game, but I got tired of the simple gameplay after a while. I think it's worth a run-through, particularly if you can find it on sale, but not everybody is going to like Rune.
The funny thing is that if only the game mechanics were a little deeper, I could have ended up obsessing over Rune. There is something about the overall execution that really grabbed me at a very primitive level. I loved running through such gorgeous environments hacking up the bad guys. I just can't give it an unqualified recommendation because it's too simplistic to hold that level of interest for a long time.
11/21/2000